It’s even better than that: there is a little over four decades’ worth of games, in fact. :) There were plenty of bangers in the period 1981-1996.

Just as long as I can still keep downloading standalone installers for both existing and future titles.

I’m playing through it now, on and off, for the first time. I love the lore, the plot, and the environments. I also like the slow but continuous progression and variation of enemies and powers. But the combat feels like a bag full of chocolate: it looks wonderful at first, but after a while I’ve started to get sick of it. I could use fewer (or even no) random encounters, if only they weren’t necessary to allow for grinding.

One thing that takes some of the shine off the whole thing for me is the way that lore pickups are handled. When other “timely” things occur, one of your menu buttons is temporarily repurposed as a “do exactly that right now” button, so why not lore pickups? Especially because the lore is often best consumed in the time and place where you find it. But because actually reviewing it requires me to go through mutiple levels of menus every time, I usually put it off until I have several waiting for me.

Almost as annoying is the fact that for things you can experience within the game world (movies, videos, and tapes), the item will still be marked as “unread” in the lore menu system until you review it there, even if you stood still in the game and waited for the whole thing to finish. Since they’re already in a separate lore category, I think it’s safe to risk using a simple algorithm (for example, the player stayed within X distance for 95% of the total runtime, without an enemy encounter) to mark an item as “read” in the lore list.

Landstalker is usually at the top of my list for these things, but I took OP’s list as already being definite plays, so I skipped it. 75% of OP’s list would be near the top of my list.

This is the first “What should I play on early Sega?” thread that already has almost all my favourites. In fact, many of them are in OP’s list. But to reiterate some added by other commenters:

• The “Strike” games (Jungle, Desert, and Urban)
• Flashback (I agree that the MegaCD version is the best single version, but the fan community has been building a Frankenstein’s monster from the best parts of every version; I forgot the name of the project)
• Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (SMS)
• Wonderboy in Monster World (MD)
• Quackshot (MD)
• Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing (MD)
• Sunset Riders (MD)

I don’t think anyone’s yet mentioned:

• The Immortal (MD)
• Golden Axe Warrior (SMS)
• Arcus Odyssey (MD)
• The Lost Vikings (MD, although I played the PC version back in the day)
• Micro Machines (MD)
• Crack Down (MD)
• Gain Ground (MD)
• Alien 3 (MD)
• Addams Family Values (MD)
• Monster World IV (MD, although I haven’t actually played it yet)

And a few more that I’m fond of, but I either can’t remember them clearly (other than that I enjoyed them at the time), or I’m aware that I can’t separate fact from nostalgia, so YMMV:

• Sword of Vermilion (MD)
• Light Crusader (MD)
• Robocop vs Terminator (MD)
• Predator 2 (MD)
• Cosmic Spacehead (MD)
• D&D Warriors of the Eternal Sun (MD)
• Atomic Runner (MD)
• Techno Cop (MD)

An honourable mention to Cadash (MD), which is a solid attempt at a port but sadly can’t really hold a candle to the arcade original.

This is only anecdotal, but I generally find that what I’ll call the “raw” information density difference between written Japanese and English is pretty small. There’s maybe a small advantage in Japanese.

In theory, Japanese should have a big advantage due to kanji, but once you account for having to display them at a larger size to keep them readable, plus all the other kana writing that’s still necessary, you lose almost all of it.

So why does there still seem to be so much more English text, and what do I mean by “raw” information density? Well, I’m talking about directly equivalent, often overly literal translations. To say virtually the exact same thing in both languages takes approximately the same amount of text. But Japanese in actual usage is highly contextual. You can leave out a substantial fraction of words that would be necessary in English for a grammatically correct sentence, and not only remain understandable in Japanese, but correct enough to pass muster on a written language test.

It’s entirely normal and common to omit not just subjects, but even verbs and entire clauses which the speaker assumes can be understood from context. Unfortunately a lot of this context is cultural rather than situational, and it was a real stumbling block for me for a few years. It still trips me up fairly frequently.

When someone translates this text from Japanese, it’s usually necessary to reintroduce multiple things that were left out, in order to write sentences that flow naturally in English.

Laughs in external USB 3.5" floppy drive

Yes, when I first realized that being published in Japan by D3 Publisher was a common denominator between these weird and wonderful budget games that I found, I became very interested in them. My friends actually went to TGS one year and got everything they could from the D3 booth for me.

However, since I’ve moved to Japan, I’ve continued researching and collecting vintage games, and I’ve found that while the majority of Simple Series games were published by D3 Publisher, especially the PS2 games, there are also some titles that were officially published by other companies. I guess it all leads back to D3 somehow, though. Also, D3 Publisher was still independent in the years these games came out.

My favorites include (Almost all PS2):

• The Zombie vs Ambulance (aka Zombie Virus). Drive an ambulance around a zombie-infested city, rescuing survivors and upgrading your vehicle.
• The OneeChanbara series. Slay blood-gushing zombies as an inexplicably bikini-clad, cowboy-hat-wearing swordswoman with light adventure/Metroidvania elements. The earlier ones are better IMO; as time went on they focused more and more creepily on the sexy female characters which were initially mostly a gag, especially after the movie (Yes, a movie!) came out.
• RC de Go! (PS1) Race in a remote-control car league.
• The Sniper 2 (direct sequel to a PS1 game I own but haven’t played). Play a sniper blackmailed into doing missions for a crime syndicate while you try to find a way out.
• The Ninkyo (aka Yakuza Fury). It’s pretty fair to call this a very barebones Yakuza (Ryu ga Gotoku) knock-off, but it has its charms.
• The Nihon Tokushubutai (aka Special Forces). A strange hybrid of FPS and realtime strategy in which you control a SWAT team in various scenarios.
• The Helicopter (aka Radio Helicopter). Fly a radio helicopter around your neighborhood while completing arbitrary but fun challenges. There’s another game that was marketed as “Radio Helicopter 2” in PAL territories, but it seems to be completely unrelated and not even a Simple Series game. I have it and didn’t find it nearly as fun as the original.

There are more that look very interesting but I haven’t played them yet, so I don’t feel I can recommend them. And there are also some real dogs, naturally, although I should say that even the ones I’ve listed can be something of an acquired taste. The Earth Defence Force series started as Simple Series games too, although I haven’t played any of them

While I was writing this I remembered a few more of my favorite budget games that weren’t Simple Series games:

• Sanvein (aka Starfighter Sanvein) on PS1. I’m not normally one for overhead shooters but I was really taken with this one. There’s an interesting light strategy element to it.
• TheDog Island on PS2 and Wii. Inspired by a line of stationery and decorative items, it’s a collect-'em-up with light Metroidvania elements aimed at younger players, but quite fun and addictive.
• The Puppy/Kitty and the Magic Hat (aka Petz Dogz/Catz 2) on PS2 and Wii. A spiritual sequel to TheDog Island, they’re actually two games which appear to be identical except that one is populated by dogs and the other by cats (I have the cat version).
• Choro-Q High Grade 2 (aka Road Trip Adventure). Choro-Q is a line of kids’ toy cars that older Westerners may remember as Penny Racers. Naturally there is a whole slew of tie-in kids’ games in Japan, from the Famicom onward, but for me this particular game is a standout. There’s racing, sure, and it kind of sucks, yes, but the meat of the game is exploring a massive open world, solving mysteries, and figuring out how to get to various places and which special vehicle parts you’ll need. It includes a “soccer” minigame which feels like a possible inspiration for Rocket League, but in a game that came out many years earlier.

The original book of “Ready Player One” had a secret ARG, not unlike the one the main characters in the book take on. But as far as anyone can tell, no-one found it or even thought to look for it. Ten months after publication, the author Ernest Cline finally made an announcement about it.

The “trailhead” (starting clue/puzzle) was hidden in an almost identical way to the one in the story, and there was an empty leaderboard on his website just the same, too, but somehow no-one picked up on any of it. It must have been driving him and the publishers mad.

Quite a few of the various Simple series’ games on PS1 and PS2. Some of them were translated and released in Europe and the USA, but many more weren’t. Not too many lost gems there, though. Most of the games that stayed in Japan aren’t anything special.

The series started out as basic implementations of card and board games to be sold for a low price, then moved into fairly generic video games in established genres, but eventually the various developers started making somewhat original, low-budget games, and some of them are pretty good, especially considering their budgets.

I’m not sure how the games are connected as a series, although they definitely are, because they’re numbered in order of release on the original covers. But they’re made by many different developers, and even in Japan there seems to have been at least two publishers releasing them.

TIL that cheap fanny packs can apparently now be called “cross-body packs” in a vain effort to make us forget how uncool they are.

Honestly, I think it would’ve been better if they’d leaned into it as a retro 80s/90s thing and just called it a fanny pack. It’s already hideous, anyway.

Edit for clarification: There are things that I would happily and unironically call a “cross-body pack”. But IMO the picture on that website is of a fanny pack.

Not advice on what to do exactly, but why do you say “long box”? I know many PAL and NTSC-U Saturn games came in special, long boxes, but I can’t recall ever seeing a Japanese Saturn game in anything other than quite standard CD jewel cases (special edition carboard outer boxes aside). Particularly Kaze no Regret, which is a fairly common game here (a regular jewel case copy still usually goes for under 1,000 yen, even with obi and other ephemera).

If you want to, it should be possible to pop the broken cover out of the hinge piece and replace it with the cover from almost any standard double-width CD jewel case. There are several videos on YouTube showing how to do this. Once you put in the paper insert, no-one would ever be able to tell.

That’s a fairly eclectic selection of games for a collection that size, but I see that each has a personal meaning for you. Thanks for sharing!

I don’t see Nanatsu Kaze mentioned much in English. I bought a copy years ago because it looked so curious, but I still haven’t really played it.

As soon as I saw the title I thought “They must be talking about the critically panned 1990 U.S. Gold game for home computers, not the 1999 Capcom arcade sequel.”

Yep.

It’s almost completely subjective, of course, like all “Top N Media” lists. I doubt anyone’s going to put, say, Action 52 on their best games list, but past a certain threshold of quality you can’t really make a sound objective argument for any particular game to be included or excluded.

To echo Edges’ comment, I also think that how highly different people rank different titles can be greatly affected by when they played them. I completely slept on the N64 when it was current, but I played Wind Waker at launch and enjoyed it thoroughly. I got the special edition, so when I finished WW I put in OoT but stopped almost immediately because it felt like a weak demake of the game I’d just spent weeks playing. I’ve tried it again in later years but I just can’t stick with it. I understand why it’s an Important Game, historically, and I can imagine how it would’ve made a deep impression on many people who played it when it came out (I’d probably be one of them), but all I see now is how rough it is around the edges.

And then there are variations in personal tastes. I don’t think I’ll ever play Stardew Valley. That’s not the developer’s fault, nor is it mine, any more than anyone’s at fault if someone who doesn’t like bananas doesn’t want to eat a chef’s award-winning banana cake.

The real meat of a “Top N” list, if any, is in what the author says about the games and why they chose them, not in the list of games itself. Unfortunately, this article doesn’t say much beyond very nicely constructed review summaries that have been written dozens of times already.

It might be more interesting to identify a particular gaming “itch”, and list a few popular games that scratch it, as well as some perhaps lesser-known games that do, games that seem like they should but don’t, and games that seem like they wouldn’t but do. And most importantly, for each game, why.

At $250 for 10 games, that works out to $25 per game, which is already less than the usual going rate for physical releases of Atari 2600 homebrew games and licensed repros. That is, games for the system are already selling for more than this at a rate high enough to make it a viable business for some people.

On top of that, those current releases are typically a cartridge, box, and manual, and nothing more. This series of re-releases also come with fabric badges and enamel pins like the ones you could send away for back in the day.

Atari isn’t trying to create a new market for these products. They’re catering to an existing market, but it’s a market of which mainstream gaming circles are mostly unaware.

I had one of these in the late 90s, although mine was smaller, and folded up like an old clamshell flip-phone. It was surprisingly good for what it was. I used to fantasize about just how complex of a game one could make with it, especially if the centers and outlines of the individual blocks could be controlled independently.

All of this just dilutes the real issue. Ask the majority of people who are complaining about a lack of physical media why they want physical media, and they’ll tell you that it’s so corporations can’t take it away from them after a year or two.

This can still happen with physical media. Physical media on consoles these days is already closer to a download key than a complete, ready-to-play game. At the same time, it’s been proven possible to run a profitable business with DRM-free downloads. I’d suggest that AAA publishers use DRM for 12-24 months, then switch to DRM-free, because they’re concerned about the critical initial sales period. This sort of thing has happened in the past on PC.

Physical media are no guarantee against corporations stealing their goods back after sale. Offline DRM or no DRM are.

“To ensure the best possible player experience, this game will not run until the latest updates have been installed… Downloading… Error: Resource not found. Please try again later.”

I prefer to buy from GOG, itch, or anywhere else that offers explicitly DRM-free downloads. That being said, a surprising number of games on Steam are actually DRM-free (or as near as makes no difference). They don’t make it easy; you need to dig through your Steam folders to copy the files out, and sometimes you need to jump through a well-documented hoop or two, but it’s doable.

More info here: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

There are also orders of magnitude of difference in their staff levels and budgets. Both sides of the equation are relative. I don’t know of any techniques for creating good content quickly and inexpensively that only work for small indies and not for large AAA studios.