I’m taking this to mean games that stand out in or define their genre, are widely considered to be excellent, are timeless, and there’s very little if any fat to trim.
Super Mario Brothers - NES
Super Mario 64
Dark Souls - maybe Elden Ring takes over?
Return of the Obra Dinn
Half Life 2 - honorable mention: Left 4 Dead 2
Diablo 2
Doom
Tetris
Chrono Trigger
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Portal 2
Little Nightmares - honorable mention: INSIDE
GTA SA
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
These aren’t necessarily my favorite games, but games I think are well respected. I probably missed a bunch.
I’d still buy two, unless I don’t need a laptop (i.e. phone is sufficient). The ergonomics of a decent laptop are just too good, and I really don’t want to haul around a decent keyboard just to get that on a handheld PC. That said, if I’ll bring both always, then I’d get a portable monitor and make the Steam Deck work, but that’s a really niche case.
Perhaps. But if a boss is too hard, I also see a lot of people starting over to redo the earlier bosses with a different build. I’ve done that a fair amount on other games.
I’ve played around 1k hours of Europa Universalis IV and I’ve never completed a campaign (gotten to the last year in the game), because I find I’ve completed my goals about halfway or two thirds of the way through the time line. The same goes for most Civ games, I just quit and restart once I know I’ve won.
I imagine Elden Ring is similar for many people, they play a character for a couple dozen hours and restart with a new character.
That’s quite a lot for a SP game. Most games I’ll get 10-30 hours, 40-50 if I really like it. There are some outliers where I get hundreds of hours, but must games will be in that range.
You can tune those, though the tighter you make it, the more likely you’ll run into drift issues. Replacing with hall-effect sticks is absolutely reasonable if you’re playing a lot of racing and similar games that benefit from slight adjustments near the neutral point. I mostly play action games, so I slam my sticks against the edges most of the time.
I totally understand size issues though. The Deck works a lot better with larger hands, so if yours aren’t large enough, it could be uncomfortable.
highend gaming product
I don’t consider the Steam Deck “high end” at all. There are handhelds with hall effect sticks and higher end graphics.