I’ve been hesitant of the mega man games for some reason, I’ll check em out!
I can understand that hesitancy for the NES games. If you never played anything like them, they can feel unfair or too hard. A lot of people love Mega Man 2, but my personal favorite of the NES era is 6, which could be a decent entry point if you ever decide to venture that way. X improves everything and the first is my personal favorite as well (it easily has the best music of the 3, too).
Mega Man X on the SNES is an amazing trilogy and still holds up. Moving on, X4 and X5 are great to play as well, X6 and beyond can be avoided.
Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 (PSX) are interesting games, a mix of action platforming and light RPG elements, but I have deep nostalgia and still enjoy the games, so you may find them very archaic. Playing the first game, the first thing you should do is change controls so turning around is left/right and L1/R1 strafe.
If you haven’t tried them yet, Donkey Kong Country 1, 2 and 3 are well worth playing, but the games can be unforgiving, especially in later levels. While there’s no coyote time, doing a forward attack off a ledge will allow you to jump once anytime during the fall. It’s very clearly a deliberate feature, as some level skips can only be accessed with that trick.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night on the PSX, if you haven’t played yet, you definitely should. This motherfucker stood the test of time with gold marks.
I know you asked to avoid final fantasy-esque titles, but Final Fantasy Tactics (PSX) is worth checking out. If the battle system, or the party management/job system, don’t pique your interest (things that you should get a feel within the first 20-30 minutes), then it’s not for you, no problem.
Tekken 3 on the PSX is probably the best 3D fighting game on the console. Graphically ancient by today’s standards, but it still has its charm. Later games got better with more characters and everything, but that game has the normal arcade mode, a “volley” mode and a beat-em’ up mode.
Bomberman games are their own category. The SNES ones are some of the best, but playing them all in sequence will get really tiresome, as the formula doesn’t change. Bomberman World on PSX can be completely avoided, it sucks.
My first experience was with a demo of the first game, it came with 3 maps, the only one that I remember by name being the Battle of Kadesh, despite the 2nd map being the one that I played to absolute exhaustion (it was the map with base building, but no gold), since it was very easy to beat the first computer enemy.
Once I got a 🏴☠️ copy of AoE2 (2002-ish?), brother, I spent more time on the map editor than anything else for the first couple of weeks. I loved the huge map size but hated the paltry 200 unit limit. My older brother definitely spent more time playing than I did during that period.
As much as I played, I was always kinda bad at it, mostly because I’m more of a turtle player and always got pissed at how medium AI enemies would always build 4 separate town centers with at least one being very close to my starting area. Yet I would still play and, more importantly, I always loved the numbers and graphics at the end of a game.
Frankly, I think AoE2 really stood the test of time. For a game originally released in 2000 to remain not only relevant but also enjoyable without any official updates or patches for over 15 years (the remaster was announced in 2017) is a noteworthy feat.
I just received an email from GOG saying the mod is available for free there (you still need to own the FO4 base game). The “catch” to download from them is that you have to subscribe to their email advertising.
And older game that people seem to like a lot is Sword of the Stars (2008), while despising the 2nd for lacking features and bugs aplenty. You can get it on GOG too, if you prefer, and being old makes it very cheap even out of a sale. I’ve tried it once but got slightly intimidated by the UI, but then again I barely spent 10 minutes in game (I also gave up on X3 the very first time I played, so…)
For a “lite” version of space empire building, Sins of a Solar Empire can probably satisfy you as well. It’s an RTS, you only play skirmishes, but there’s a lot of setting up new colonies, researching new tech, building stuff besides shipyards, propping up your fleet, etc. Combat doesn’t require a lot of micromanagement, usually just using a capital ship’s power every few seconds and defining target priorities.
I don’t know about the details, but I found that out while browsing the menu mods, as the Undelayed Menus, which removes the pointless delay in opening and closing of menus, comes with a bunch of .swf and that was when I thought to myself “You have to be fucking kidding”
Maybe for Bethesda specifically, there’s also a shortage of skilled work? I mean, they often hire modders and Creation Engine STILL uses flash (Starfield’s menus are .swf files),
What really annoys me is that the screws are 3 pronged instead of 4 and they also feel stuck as fuck.
The real irony is that I bought some chinese knockoff that actually lasted longer than the fucking originals. Oh, both originals also stopped registering the tiny L-R buttons. Way to go, Nintendo.
Thank god I managed to get an older version of the switch that could be jailbroken by shorting the right joycon slot. Best thing I did to mine. Too bad the drift happens to every fucking left joycon i have.
For the most enduring single player experiences, you really should give some grand strategy games a try, like older Total War entries, Crusader Kings, Civilization, Swords of the Stars, etc. Stuff like Factorio or Cities Skylines can also become addictive, but none of these games is action oriented.
Also, Age of Empires 2. I haven’t played 4 yet, but I think it speaks volumes that, at least on steam, AoE2 has more players at any given time than 3+4 combined.
Ziggurat might be an interesting pick, as it’s a roguelike FPS with magic weapons, though it might feel super neutered compared to Ultrakill. Risk of Rain 2 is 3rd person and roguelike, so every run you start from scratch and enemies will keep spawning at certain intervals, but it’s a fine shooter
Fallout 4 might have a rather clunky shooting, but if you get into it, you can spend many, many hours blasting a variety of enemies, finding all sorts of places and weapons. Skyrim is a close second, while better played in 1st person, it’s medieval sword and sorcery.