Classic Games I Wish I'd Played

This may seem a bit late to the party, but...

Last year was the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda!

Pretend that the "mershed perderders" are Zelda games,
since I'm the farthest thing from a Photoshop pro.

I remember my babysitter's teen son playing his Gold Cartridge, making notes, and generally getting flabbergasted searching for the next dungeon. This is, in fact, one of my earliest gaming memories. Legend of Zelda was there at the beginning, and remains as one of the finest franchises in the history of video games.

Just in case you didn't know.
(Fun fact, if you know where to look, you can get this on a  T-shirt!)

With this in mind, and having met a number of old-school gamers over the past year or so, I have recently rekindled my love of classic games. And, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I missed out on a lot of great games. While, my first taste of games were on the trusty NES, my first console was actually an Atari 2600. This was an admirable place to begin. My next console, though, was a Sega Genesis. So, I really missed the vast majority of the NES era. I got to dabble with those games here and there while visiting family or friends, but I never got much quality time with most of the games in that generation.

With the current wonders of the Intertubez and things like Nintendo's Virtual Console, I can relive a lot of these past masterpieces. It also gives me an opportunity to finally take a crack at some great titles I missed the first time around. As I said, there were plenty of these. And now, I present to you, the classic games that I have never played (with much depth) in no particular order:

Chrono Trigger
I dabbled with this game a bit on an SNES emulator back in middle or high school. I never got very far, though. What little I did play made an impression. The art style was cool, and the non-random encounters were a welcome change after having recently played FF VII. It also never hurts to throw in Akira Toriyama's art style. That dude must have serious piles of money between this, Dragon Ball, and Dragon Quest.

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
Another NES game I witnessed but never participated in. Perhaps I'm daunted by the legendary difficulty of the game, but I still have not even attempted to visit this one. That or I'm scared Mike will reach out of the screen and bite me.







Castlevania
As much as I love Metroid, I have not touched any Castlevania game with the intent of really playing it through. That goes for the whole franchise. I've played demos for Lords of Shadow and SotN on XBLA, but have never picked up the full games. It's a shame, since SotN seems right up my alley.




Final Fantasy I-VI
Don't know what else to say. I came into the franchise along with most of North America with FF VII, so I never played the earlier games. I know they're good and classics, and with recent remastered versions I might be able to give them a shot sometime. Hopefully there aren't any villains as terrible as Seymour in these. Gawd....Seymour.

DuckTales
Often considered a model platformer, I have yet to try this one. I hear so many great things about it, though. The music for the Moon level has recently hooked me in, and now I have to play it. As long as I can be Gizmoduck, I'm happy.



River City Ranson
Here's one that is set to make a comeback. I used to love brawlers (hell, I still do!) like Double Dragon and Battletoads. I'm still surprised I never played this one. Who doesn't love sweaty 80's dudes beating up on other sweaty 80's dudes?










Day Of The Tentacle
I love quirky games. Sometimes, I'll take a quirky game over a technically well-built game. Hell, I do that quite a lot, really.  Day Of The Tentacle, from what I've read and heard, was one of those rare games that was both. Hopefully, I can get around to giving this one a fair shake some day.







Grim Fandango
Like I said above, quirky games are great. Grim Fandango had a really cool concept I think I could really get behind when playing it. Anything involving an the supernatural world in a day-to-day way, like Beetlejuice or The Addams Family, intrigues me. I'm sure Grim Fandango would not disappoint if I gave it a shot today.







Cool Spot
I hear this was one of the most underrated platformers on Genesis. Sure, it was just 7Up propaganda, but who could resist Cool Spot? Not this guy.










Uniracers

This concept has always interested me, but I never got around to trying it. This was the era of game rentals down at your local video store, so a quick test would have been easy. But, I never had an SNES. So, it never happened. I did, however, watch the GameInformer staff revisit this one. And I have to say...it looks terrible.



Ninja Gaiden
Another classic action platformer that I never got to play. The only taste of Ninja Gaiden I ever got was of the rebooted version on XBox. If the NES games were anywhere as hectic and difficult as that one, I think I'd be for a world of hurt.






StarTropics
During the Playstation era, I knew a friend with an old NES and a copy of StarTropics. Just looking at the cartridge, I had a feeling it would be a game I'd enjoy. We never popped it in because the save game battery wasn't working. Well...at least there was a good reason.

Flashback
I had heard great things about this game at the time. It was one of those enigmas that no one seemed to be able to crack. So, I rented it once. (Pause for dramatic effect.) My eight year-old brain could not process what I was seeing. I must have played for a couple of hours, but got so lost I ragequit and never touched it again. #nerdrage







Final Fight
Another classic brawler I never touched. I played the HELL out of Streets of Rage 2, though. I sure hope playing as Mike Haggar was just as badass as he looks. Jesse Ventura would be proud.

Shadowrun (SNES)
Based on a pen-and-paper RPG which mixed high fantasy with cyberpunk culture, Shadowrun added a bit of a noir twist to the console RPG. This was a popular series when I was into Magic: The Gathering. I often saw features about it in InQuest, and it always piqued my interest. Since I had tried D&D, but it was hard to grasp at 10 or 12 years-old. That negative experience shied me away from trying the tabletop Shadowrun, but the SNES game would have been a fantastic fit for me.


Earthbound
The quirky games return! Probably one of the most unique turn-based RPGs I've heard of, I've always wanted to pick this up. Perhaps it was just how the Starman enemies reminded me of Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still. Maybe it was the fact that it didn't look like your typical JRPG. Either way, this one still intrigues me. Too bad I suck with Ness in Super Smash Bros.




Psychonauts
Ask any game reviewer and they will tell you Psychonauts was an under-appreciated and creative platformer. This has always drawn me to it, and I did once take a crack at it. But, I was in college and didn't really have the time to devote to playing through it. I never got far enough to see any of the true craziness that I know exists later in the game, but what little I did experience was enough to warrant further playtime.






X-Com
This series is getting a couple of reboots in the next year or two. I'll be honest, despite it would be enough to revoke my nerd card, I hardly knew this game existed until about six months ago. Again, it's a shame I never learned about it sooner; it seems like a game I would absolutely fall in love with. The reboots that are incoming seem impressive as well. Perhaps they'll serve as a good introduction into the franchise.





Ristar
I first encountered Ristar on a trip to Epcot. There was an expansive "Innovation" exhibit, what included the upcoming advances in gaming. Ristar was here, among other games I would come to love (like, Sonic Spinball and Vectorman). Since then, the game has crossed my path from time to time, but I've never been able to commit to playing through it. Which is a shame, as it is expertly crafted and one of the most fun and created platformers I've ever seen.






DOOM
That's right. I have never played DOOM. So what?! You wanna fight about it?! I've seen and been around people playing it, but I've never actually taken the helm. Now, I'm an admittedly casual FPS player, so I'm not too concerned about this one. But, I feel I owe my gamer reputation a trip down this nightmarish rabbit hole.




Civilization II
I've recently taken stabs at this franchise with Civ4 and Civilization Revolution. It's definitely a great franchise, and I love how diverse and open-ended the gameplay is. Sure, it's just a shade less spreadsheet-based than EVE Online, but it's still a classic that I missed out on. Unfortunately, the graphics look little better than Bea Arthur (RIP) at this point.






Command & Conquer
From turn-based strategy to real time. To be fair, my first introduction to RTS games was Warcraft 2, followed quickly by Starcraft. Command and Conquer was completely off my radar. My buddy has the anniversary collection with nearly all of the C&C games besides C&C4, and I tried to play the first one. The graphics are so dated...it was a true slog (please refer to Civ II entry for graphical comparison). I don't know if I'll ever be able to really pick this one up again.




Baldur's Gate 1 and 2
I'm a terrible nerd. Two of the most pivotal RPGs of the PC era, and I have not played them. I once tried to play BG2 at a friend's house in middle school, and got BG1 from my college library. Unfortunately, neither attempt really went very far. I got slaughtered in BG2, and just got lost in BG1.






EverQuest
My family/household was late to the PC party, and even later to the Internet. EverQuest had already been out for some time when we got our first PC, and it just didn't strike me as something I wanted to play at the time. By the time I had any inkling of giving it a shot, it was already being challenged by Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot. It's a shame I had not gotten up to speed sooner. I could have totally given my weekends life to this while in middle and high school. Perhaps it's for the best, though.





Ultima Online
Another early MMO that I was too late for. I think this one would be nigh impossible to get into now.










Zork
Again, this was a game that I was just not in the right place or the right time for. It was essentially a pre-made, solo D&D campaign with a CPU as a DM.  I honestly don't know how much of a true effort I could give this one nowadays, but I think even an attempt would allow me to truly appreciate it's value in gaming history. Or one of the biggest migraines in history.



I'm sure I could keep listing them. Hell, I already have a huge backlog of current generation games I haven't completed, so getting around to these is not likely unless current developers just stop. Seriously, guys? You're making so many good games. What are you doing? Developers...stahp.

Do you have any classics you missed out on you wish you could revisit?