Inscryption. One of my favorite games to come out in years, but the secondary playthroughs don't have anywhere near the appeal without the mystery/intrigue sadly. The first time for me was magical though.

Wow OP it's like we had the same childhood. That opening sequence and the early parts of LTTP are seared into my memory. +1

Factorio

That Zelda is on my list for sure. I'd add super Mario world as well, just like Zelda did, it introduced so many new mechanics and the maps were so HUGE you could spend absolute weeks trying to unlock all of certain areas.

NBA Jam on SNES.

Wolfenstein or Doom first time really seeing a 3d game. Being absolutely terrified of the ambient noises in Doom.

Half-Life for sure. Relatively intelligent soldier opponent tactics, puzzling real puzzles in 3d for the first time not just point and shoot.

Goldeneye 007. Trying to figure out how to aim, so slowly and ineptly. Then one of your friends says let's try multiplayer and 4 years later...

Warcraft 2 on dial-up with your friend across town.

GTA 2. Discovered almost by accident and the top down view was so great. Never cared much for the rest of the series.

Super Bomberman.

There are many games that I loved and would enjoy playing for the first time, but I'm going to pick Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. My reason being that I spent the vast majority of the game waiting for it to morph into a spiritual successor of Super Mario RPG back when I first played it, rather than giving it a chance to stand on its own as a unique and hilarious game. My preconceived idea of what I hoped the game would be really hurt my initial enjoyment of it.

For a runner up, I'll mention Kirby's Dream Land 3. In the days of Blockbuster rentals, I'd rented Kirby Super Star first, so it took me a while to get used to the more traditional Kirby powerup system where copied abilities only do one type of action each.

Stardew Valley or Terraria.

Shadow of the Colossus and some Silent Hill stuff

Halo reach. Such a masterpiece.

Neverwinter Nights

Easily Metal Gear Solid 3 for me.

Picking one is quite hard, but since it's retro only, my vote goes to Super Metroid. That game is a rare gem.

Oh man.... I would love to experience Zork again for the first time. 😊

"West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here."

Portal or Arkham Asylum, something that surprised me in unexpected ways.

Portal because I thought I was getting a neat puzzle game (I was), but GLADoS blew me out of the water.

Arkham Asylum because of how effectively some of the Scarecrow sequences messed with me specifically (making me think my game had glitched, etc.)

Definitely Dragon Age Origins. Loved it all, from the weird combat mechanic to the relationship scores. I only wish Varric had been available to romance.

I actually bought LTTP before I bought a SNES.. The game itself wasn't easy to get in my area and I happened to be out of town and ran across a copy, so it was an easy decision

Portal 2 and Undertale the true pacifist run

Final fantasy tactics, or 7.

Hollow Knight

Wing Commander 3 and Black & White.

Played both of them when i was a kid and it'll be nice to be able to play them again as an adult.

I loved Bioshock, so probably that.

Homeworld

Half-Life 2 and Shining in the Darkness.

Monkey Island or Little Big Adventure

Are you aware of the Zelda: ALLTTP randomizer? https://alttpr.com/en

Grandia on ps1. I refuse to replay it out of a morbid certainty that it's basic as all hell. But it was my first jrpg and it blew my mind.

I swear it took me weeks to make it to the wall, but searching my memory it's the first scene after your hometown.

My nostalgic answer is Super Smash Bros Brawl (Subspace Emissary was wild to me), but my more modern answer is Elden Ring.

That game was like cocaine the first time I played through it.

Learning Team Fortress 2 for the first time as a teenager was such a crazy fun experience.

its not exact but LTTP rando gives that sense of new game feel each and every time. The races are great.

Then I double teamed it with https://samus.link/ which is SMZ3 crossover. Races are even better again.

Course all the wonderful hacks for both games. Parallel Worlds for LTTP is wickedly hard but a lot of fun.

Getting in to SM arcade mode recently too.

Both Super Metroid and Zelda are phenomenal.

Space Invaders

Asteroids

Pitfall

I've got two candidates for that:

• Uncharted 4
• GTA 5

Ubcharted is visually stunning and I really like the story it tells.

GTA 5 STILL is a game where I find new things.

94 NHL Hockey on Sega. That game blew my mind then after years of playing pretty bad ports of hockey games like Ice Hockey and Wayne Gretzky's hockey on NES. I was hooked from the very first moment and played the franchise for years until they got into 14 buttons and FPV. The older overhead version was peak for me.