I am interested in what people think are "musthave" games, and their reasoning for their picks for such games.

Which games do you think everyone or basically everyone should have played, and why do you think so ?

Games only available on GOG or any game from any generation generally?

Any games.

Most of the (in one way or another) pioneering games mentioned in the cRPG Book, like Gothic and Gothic 2, for instance.

Whatever they feel like.

I'm sorry, I know that's not the answer you're looking for, but that's my honest answer, I'm not trying to be a troll here. You can ask about our favorite games and that's one thing, or about what we consider the most important games and that's another, but the way you phrased it I just reject the basic premise of the question. I just don't think anyone should play anything for any reason other than they find the game appealing or are curious about it and... well, just want to play it.

Any time I tried playing something I had no real interest myself but did so because of it's supposed "must play legendary classic" status (oh hi, Gothic) I just wasted a few hours. Life's too short for that.

Or maybe it's too long for that? Either way fits, in it's own way.

I'd argue that's too hard to list.
We've some historicaly praised games like "Chrono Trigger", "A Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time", "Symphony of the Night", "Final Fantasy XII", "Shadow of the Colossus"... but albeit they are indeed awesome, they're not unique as we also have some really good hidden gems from each game generations.

My advice on this would be to search for lists of most praised games of each generation.
To me, post-2000 GameCube/PS2/Xbox pre-2010 is the most creative gaming generation simply because of the sheer amount of games that were produced during this time so its a good start.

There are so many though...

I'm not looking for anything, I had an idea for an interesting thread and started it.

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Mirror's Edge.

One of the best looking games i have played. It has a very nice Frutiger Aero aesthetic to it.

I know, all I meant was to be apologetic for being a wet blanket with my answer.

Fun question - like producing a recommended reading list or film list, there will be certain entries that stand far above others, in the beauty or excellence of their construction, or how they still stand up to scrutiny when compared to their peers or modern counterparts; still excellent despite the passage of time, improvements in technology, etc. Games which were highly praised within their respective generation may be insufficient, and some sort of shortlist capable of being produced - to a certain extent, anyway. So what games would be worthy of such an accolade; a game that anyone interested in the medium would be better off for having experienced it... I'd have to think about it. But one I would posit is "F-Zero GX". and Mother 3.

Two games I really think are the best games ever are also free. Which is funny, because one just assumes, because I also buy games, that bought games would be better. Not always true.

1-Stalker Anomaly
2-Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead

Catdda, does have the problem of not knowing what to do....then die 100 times lol
But after learning the controls. The game is about surviving as long as possible.

Project Zomboid is similar, but a rip off in crap form. So dont buy zomboid.

Pretty much this. Putting the words "should have" into the question kind of invalidates the entire question for me as well.

There are games that people have raved about so much that I would finally give in and buy that game, even though it is in a genre I normally have no interest in.

So I try the game, and I'm sorry but I have no interest in this very popular and excellent game, primarily because the genre just has never appealed to me in the slightest.

tl;dr I think this thread is fine, but it's basically: "What are your favorite games and why?"

EDIT: So trying to keep in the spirit of the thread, I'll recommend "Thief: The Dark Project". It's my favorite and best game of all time in my book. It's the GOAT of stealth games.

But that's the thing: I've seen so many discussions of that game where people were buying the game based purely on the hype by fans, and they either ended up loving it, or hating it because it lacked the action and immediacy they were looking for. For those people, I don't think they "should have" played that game.

I don't know who praised XII. For us quadragenarians, that's like the tenth or eleventh best Final Fantasy game of the main series.

I know, I know, times change. Yesterday I stumbled on a youtube review of Eternal Strands in which some idiot twen told me that the game was really bad and boring because it told its story "like in a Super NES game".

If somebody tells me some PC game is "like a Super NES" game, the first thing I ask is whether it's on GOG and can I buy it.

Oh wops!
Although I personally enjoyed FFXII a lot back then on my PS2 (Yazmat was a really cool and memorable fight for me.), I gotta admit I misspelled that.
I actually meant Final Fantasy VII*.

Can't say if its because time's changed, but I've played Chrono Trigger before FFXII and even before FFVII and to me FFXII story seems more mature and realistic than FFVII while Chrono Trigger is even more mature with a more satisfying way of telling the 'world ending' plot. Maybe because of the time which I played it.
Even though SNES graphics are really simple, Chrono Trigger is a masterpiece of writing and that matters a lot.

I can still remember entering that tribunal room with Chrono being judged unfairly and being sent to prison to then have a escape plan. That 'simple' 'moonlighted' prison bridge boss fight against that big robot dragon impacted me way more than many realistic games simply because of the stakes of the story.

Chrono Trigger - All Bosses ingame in HD Quality
(Timestamp 2:11 - Dragon Tank)
https://youtu.be/pO2K5QS2ims?t=131

On a more serious note about the age though:
It's common for people to be nostalgic for what they experienced when they were at an young age because at that time that was psychologically their best time, depending on other factors of life, of course.
What I mean with this is that the current generation will always think what they have right now is better than "what we had back then", while technically this might not be true, either way.

Many kids are having a lot of fun nowadays with Fortnite. When they grow up, although their memories of Fortnite would be as it being the best TPS multiplayer game, they have not experienced other TPS games before Fortnite that could be considered technically better.

To summarize, what I mean is that we are fooled by our pleasures and memories of our own experiences on our fun times. So these kids thinking 'old game = bad game' are not really faulty for their ignorance. They simply don't know better. One proof of this is how indie gaming is thriving with 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit stylized graphics, or even the copy-pasted unity like 'Roblox like' graphics, when the games do have good mechanics and stories, which shows us that no, old style doesn't necessarily mean it will be bad.

As we know, many SNES era games are MUCH better than games being launched on 2025, by far.
Anyway, that's why I think 2000~2010 is the most creative time of gaming development. Its peak. We haven't reached this peak industry-wise. After 2012 its downhill with DLCs, microtransactions, live services and... DRM.