Super Mario World 2 is a really amazing game in both the mechanics and graphics. The game did some awesome stuff with both. It really set the way for Yoshi being a main character instead of a side character as well. Don’t sleep on it because the baby crying is annoying.
I don’t know what these would really be alternatives to, but I impatiently await every new game from Daniel Mullins Games. Inscryption was a fantastic deck builder and I more than got my monies worth out of it. I also follow Stranga Games pretty closely. Very small developer makes story focused retro style adventure games. No combat at all generally. So if you like a casual experience and that style of game, it might be something to look into.
I have a couple kinda unique things to suggest. There is a small indie game called Eversion that you can find on Steam. The core mechanic is about shifting to these different planes of existence to finish levels. You can only shift at certain places and shifting opens up pathways that weren’t there before. Its retro style graphics and otherwise very simple controls. The Turing Test is a puzzle game like Portal, but instead of portals, you have a gun that can be used to move energy orbs from around the rooms to unlock doors. The game feels like it encourages creative problem solving a lot more than most puzzle games. Catherine. Catherine is a game in a few styles. You spend part of the time at a diner/bar interacting with people. Then you go to sleep and in the dream world you ascend towers using moveable blocks that you must climb. Sometimes you are chased up the tower by a boss enemy. There is no combat in the game. It’s about ascending the tower as fast as possible at night and progressing the story by day.
Currently playing Nier: Automata. It’s incredibly hard to talk to people about this game without spoilers. It’s all about the story, but the gameplay is pretty good too.