Shinobi III - Cause ninjas, that’s why. Also, the best Genesis game by far.
MvC2 - Grew up playing this in arcades. One of my all time favourites. One of the few games that allowed you to make your own team and show that it was truly YOUR team.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - Emerald Hill Zone will always remain one of the most iconic stages to me. Plus, this was Sonic’s best game imo.
Metal Gear Solid 3 - MGS1 was timeless to me until MGS3 came out. It totally blew everything else away at the time and is probably the only time I ever got super excited and entrenched in a single player experience. I didn’t enjoy MGS2 that much, so when Snake Eater came out, it was a huge relief that it turned out amazing.
Mortal Kombat 3 - For anyone that wasn’t an SF fan or SNK fan, MK3 was a great game to jump into with friends and just have a blast with. It was easy to pick up, super flashy and had tons of iconic characters and moves to keep people interested. Not to mention all the blood.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - This is a list of iconic games and which game doesn’t symbolize the controversy of the 2000s era better than San Andreas? It had a great story, tons of vehicles and weapons and was liberating compared to everything else that was coming out at the time.
Super Mario World - A little cliche for this list, but I would argue SMW is the best Mario game. Not to complex and filled with weird stuff like the others, but deep enough to make you want to go through every single stage and find every secret.
Goldeneye 007 - The defining console shooter in my opinion. Helped pave the way for future shooters and still stands up to other FPS’ today (Except maybe Counter-Strike. That stuff is intense.)
A lot of this is just my personal opinion and playing favourites, but I’m sure many could agree with these games being iconic.
Yoshi’s Island- Still one of the best platformers ever, with a totally catchy soundtrack and unique art style that has yet to be matched.
Mega Man X- The pinnacle of Mega Man games. Period. The standard bearer.
Super Smash Bros. Melee- The best Smash game, and one of Nintendo’s best games ever. Timeless.
Contra III- That real gangsta shit right here. Konami was on all cylinders with this bad boy.
Tenchu- The quintessential Ninja game. If you wanna feel like a real ninja(and not those Naruto kind), play this shit.
Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon- Other than the original Tetris, no other puzzle game has captured my soul for hours like this one.
Guardian Heroes- One of the baddest beat em’ ups ever produced.
Viewtiful Joe- What happens when Mega Man meets Devil May Cry? You get one of the most unique titles ever produced by Capcom. Long live the Clover Studios/Platinum Games guys.
Super Mario RPG- One of the last great Super NES games. Nintendo and Square made real magic with this game. Still hasn’t been topped.
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Pokemon**- Say what you will, but the simple fun of collecting, raising, and battling these critters never gets old.
Bayonetta- What Devil May Cry started, Bayonetta took to 11, shot it into space, then juggled it on the way down. Non-stop Infinite Climax all day, 'erry day.
Final Fantasy games in general. All of the old ones are still fun.
Double mention for Final Fantasy Tactics… which may be the greatest single player game of all time (multiplayer if you have the psp lion wars edition.)
Perhaps we should define what “timeless” is, a game that despite in changes of generation and hardware technology retains its quintessential qualities that make it fun.
I’d say, Pokemon has been “timeless”, I mean the franchise is still going very very strong! Many games that I grew up playing in the 16-bit era were truly timeless for me, but a lot of these whippersnappers don’t know these games! Many of these games are called “Retro” now. OTL
Golden Sun 1
Maximum Carnage
Contra 3
Turtles in time (Snes and arcade)
Marvel vs series
Batman (nes)
DBZ Budokai 3
NBA Jam
Unreal Tournament
Breath of Fire 3
Doom
Chrono Trigger
Mike Tyson Punch-out
Sonic 1-3k
Def Jam Fight for NY
Death and Return of Superman (Genesis)
Silent Hill 2, game is an absolute masterpiece. Everything in the game has some meaning or purpose behind it, the gameplay is simple but fun, and the story is incredibly deep.
original DMC trio - there’s no better slasher game, don’t lie;
M&M7 - 'cause showering hydras with meteors while pew-pewing 'em with lazors rox;
NES TMNT beat’em’ups, especially 3rd one;
Jedi Knights series (except Academy) - one of the badassest MC ever made;
Star Wars KOTOR - everything else Bioware makes since then are clones;
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide + Hordes of Underdark - screw D’n’D we’ve got a story to tell ya;
Gothic 1 - just the best RPG of that time. TES never were nearly close to this game;
PoP: Sands of Time - “Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard”;
Guilty Gear XX: Reload - still alive on PC.
Street fighter third strike ( still really good, every character is viable if you have the skill)
Jump!ultimate stars( this is a game i hear no oine speak about…i mean its not balanced in any sense but boy the amount of time i spent on this game made some memories.)
wwe no mercy
zelda orcarina of time ( comepleted it 3 times and i still have fun starting it over and over again)
all the pokemon games
power stone
all resident evil games except 5 ad 6
mario kart
that bleach game for the ds
-Breath of Fire III
-Tales of Symphonia
-Journey
-The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
-Ratchet & Clank
-Sly Raccoon
-LittleBigPlanet
-Team Fortress 2
-Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
-The Secret of Monkey Island
I’m interpreting ‘timeless’ as ‘I would have absolutely no complaints about playing these games X years from now’. Pretty much all JRPG’s fit this description unless their graphics aged horribly or their gameplay was never good to begin with.
