Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger are the first two I think of personally. Just historically great games with legacies that are still felt today.
+1 for Chrono Trigger. It's really good.
For Metroid, I would add that Metroid: Zero Mission (remake of the 1st game) and Metroid: Fusion are excellent titles. Both are GBA titles.
This comment proves there is such a thing as the perfect answer.
Are there still wars being fought over which version of Chrono Trigger is best to play? I've always heard mixed opinions about the steam release but that one seems easiest to setup and play.
Are there still wars being fought over which version of Chrono Trigger is best to play?
Those kinda died out as Square kept patching the PC port (last one I heard of was last year!) to get it to an acceptable state.
Personally, I always try to go for the closest possible version to the original as much as I can. While the PC port is probably the most feature-rich and has extra content, if emulators are in the equation then I go that route.
MYST, and if you enjoyed that, Riven and Myst 3
Illusion of Gaia (SNES) - Lots of people play Soul Blazer or Terranigma but forget about the great game in between them.
The early Harvest Moons - If you're a HM or Stardew Valley or whatever-other-farming-sim fan: Don't neglect the earlier games. They had a lot of charm without packing in 20 million things to do.
Zelda: The Minish Cap - We all have a top 5 Zelda games list in our heads, and any of us who doesn't have Minish Cap in it that list is incorrect.
The first Harvest Moon I ever played, was the game boy one. I was getting into emulating, and downloaded it on a whim. There wasn't even a town you could explore, only a map with various stores and the like to select. I literally stayed up all night playing it.
I'm still waiting for a Retroid community on the fediverse. I'd do it myself, but I don't want to be responsible for it.
Half Life (PS2) played really well on my RP3+, now I'm on Link to the Past (SNES).
Here is a guide on how to set up more modern, dual-analog style controls specifically for Perfect Dark and GoldenEye 007 for N64 on your RP3+. I posted it from a Lemmy account before I settled into KBin.
Just out of curiosity, why'd you go with emulating the PS2 over the PC version? I've also played around in that version and I wouldn't necessarily say it's the best way to experience it.
Half-Life is a unique case where there's not really a best way to play tbh. There's the pre-Steam version with 90s-era features like view roll, there's the modern Steam version that loses those and introduces the exploding crowbar corpse bug but has more modern stuff like proper widescreen and support for the HD models from the PS2 version, the PS2 version has all of the HD models as well but also includes bonuses like animated health dispensers and Decay, Half-Life: Source has a way better flashlight, ragdoll physics, and Garry's Mod content support, but also ruins the anti-tiling texture system, makes the tentacle boss do no damage, and softlocks at the Gonarch, Black Mesa isn't perfectly faithful and makes a good many changes but is a fantastic recreation nonetheless and improves on Xen by far, Sven Co-Op officially includes the Half-Life campaign for free so one can play it with friends if they choose, and there are multiple VR versions depending on if you're playing on Quest or Steam.
It's all very subjective, I'd say the only definitive thing we can say is that Half-Life Source is the worst.
Chrono Trigger is a classic that makes it into a lot of "top 10 video games of all time" lists, and for good reason. I personally prefer the original SNES version.
This may be too obvious, but Super Mario 3 for NES is an absolutely amazing game that everyone should play. It's my personal favorite Mario game, which is a pretty high bar.
On PC, Star Control 2 (now downloadable for free as the Ur-Quan Masters) is a really amazing and somewhat less known game. I wouldn't bother with any of the sequels, which weren't developed by the same people. The original devs are currently working on a true sequel.
I would say at least one Final Fantasy (probably 6) is a must. A Link to the Past is up there. Illusion of Gaia is great. One of the first 3 Sonics definitely.
GOG makes it super easy to find retro games (e.g. pre-2000: https://www.gog.com/en/games?releaseDateRange=1980,2000), some very good games like Deus Ex and Sam & Max are all available on there.
I'm not sure what a Retroid Pocket 3+ is, but you should play Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion
I am playing PokeMMO on my RP3+ right now. Definitely recommend this one.
Megaman, megaman2, streetfighter 2, streetfighter 2 chapionship eddition, metroid 1. zelda 1, zelda: a link to the past.
It's important to spend time on the classics of course, but don't underestimate just dumping 100s of ROMs in a folder and playing around with random games. I ended up finding some non-mainstream games that I enjoyed that way.
Some arcade experiences worth trying:
How familiar are you with retro gaming generally? If you're not familiar at all, there are some of the real classics that are extremely playable today:
I'd say, beside the classics that everyone already listed,
But there's so many to choose from, it's enough for more than a life time :D
+1 to Earthbound. Pretty much my favorite RPG of all time. It's so wonderfully quirky.
+1 for Earthbound. I've heard Mother 3 is even better!
The gameboy Kirby games are nice. Played them on my retroleap device
Half Life 1 is very difficult but fun
I just finished HL1 like a week ago. Felt good.
I would throw Gunstar Heros on the Mega Drive/Genesis into the mix, especially if you are going to play two player. If you have any spare time after that give The Revenge of Shinobi a go too.
Chrono Trigger for the SNES. Highly-regarded and (if you ask me) the GOAT JRPG.
I've been playing Dragon Quest Monsters for the GBC, the game came out at the peak of Pokémon and the remakes never came west so you don't hear about it much here which is a shame. It's a pretty ideal handheld game, lots of content that you can play in short bursts or long sessions.
A good start would be all any SNES game from Nintendo, Capcom, Konami and Square-Enix. It’s difficult to find bad games from them during this era.
I'd start with those games;
The most important part about playing, is to have fun! I hope you enjoy the games you play!