Let’s see if I can offer one suggestion for each of these platforms. 😀

• Batman for the NES was the best Batman game until Arkham Asylum came out something around 20 years later. Sunsoft was pretty amazing in that era.
• Earthbound is my favorite JRPG ever. It was pure wish fulfillment for a tween boy, but even though I’m no longer that, it still holds up because it’s weird and charming as hell.
• I didn’t care much for the N64 — it always looked like a bunch of blobs with blurry textures to me, and the release cadence was abysmal — but I do fondly remember Blast Corps. It was great fun, and I never hear anyone talk about it.
• OK, four in, and I’ve already failed. 😅 I never owned a Master System.
• I’m not sure if Panic for Sega CD was actually any good, but it was cute and silly and that was enough for me. The correct recommendation here is probably Sonic CD, but that’s a boring recommendation.
• Uh oh. I never owned a 32X either. 😞
• I hardly remember anything on the Saturn. Someone has already recommended Nights, so maybe give Christmas Nights a shot. Games with a Christmas theme are relatively rare. 🤷‍♂️
• I can’t recommend my favorite Dreamcast game Samba de Amigo because you won’t be able to play it properly without the maraca peripherals, but the Dreamcast lineup was absolutely loaded so it’s not a problem. I feel like Shenmue embodies the promise of the Dreamcast: unbridled ambition but without the pieces necessary to quite meet that ambition. It might be rough today, but it’s one of very few games where you’ll be able to spend hours driving a forklift around. That’s gotta count for something. 😅
• I’m pretty sure Windjammers is the best Neo-Geo game.
• We’re spoiled for choice again on PS1. I have to go with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It’s a classic that holds up better than just about anything else on the console.
• I always thought most of the Game Boy’s library was garbage. Qix was neat, albeit simple. Oh, wait. You like JRPGs, right? You should try Pokemon!
• I’ll go with the 800 pound Gorilla for my GBC pick: Link’s Awakening
• GBA was another one of those killer platforms with tons of great games… but the best one is WarioWare.
• DS just had a near endless library of hits. Rhythm Heaven is one of my favorites. Bonus JRPG pick: Bowser’s Inside Story
• The only PSP game I played much of was Lumines, but it is actually really good.
• When I was a kid, arcade games were incredible because the tech was years ahead of what I had at home. Now, I see how predatory they were and have trouble feeling good about many of them. Here are a few I like that fly under the radar sometimes. Tapper is a really good game that’s fun for 5-10 minutes. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is one of those 90s beat-em-ups, but with an interesting theme. If you like those, you might also like the D&D beat-em-ups. They have some really light RPG mechanics. Shadow over Mystara and Tower of Doom. Was there another one? I’m not sure. Then, I know there’s near zero chance you haven’t played NBA Jam, but it’s just my all-time favorite.

Hope that helps!

Alright, so for PSP the only two RPGs I remember playing are Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy Tactics, both fantastic and FF4 on PSP being considered the definitive version of FF4 (upcoming pixel remaster non-withstanding)

Personal PSP list:

• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
• Wipeout Pure
• GTA Chinatown

On GBA play the castlevania games if you end up liking Symphony of the Night, though maybe take a break :)

if that thing plays Saturn at a solid framerate, i’d be very curious to hear what you think of NiGHTS. the Saturn 3D pad had an analog stick specifically meant for NiGHTS because you spin it over and over, and playing it with modern controllers is kind of awful, but those 3DS analog pads might be perfect. i tried ro play it on PC once with my 3DS as a controller but there was way too much lag lol

Other games you should check out: it’s hard to go wrong with the Genesis and Master System/Game Gear Sonic games aside from Sonic Blast. For the Genesis also check out Ristar, Beyond Oasis, Burning Force, and Panorama Cotton. On the Saturn you definitely wanna check out the racers like SEGA Rally, Hang-On GP and the Power Drift port. if you care about the Master System i recommend getting into it’s fun cousins the ColecoVision and the MSX- basically anything by Konami (i highly recommend Pengiun Adventure, it’s bonkers) or Compile on the MSX will blow your mind and the ColecoVision has some great arcade conversions- my favorites are Gyruss and Mr. Do. On the SMS itself Megami Rescue is a very interesting take on Breakout and the Bubble Bobble conversion is great.

Have fun!

You mentioned liking RPGs and I’m sure you can find “top ten” whatever for any system with a quick search, so I want to recommend something off the beaten path: Cave Noire for Game Boy. It has a translation patch, but it is perfectly playable without one (which is actually the only way I’ve played it).

It’s one of the first console rogue-likes, but it has some things that make it really stand out. It has multiple dungeons with different difficulties, so a play session only needs to be 5-10 minutes or most of the time (harder difficulties will take longer) so it’s not a significant time investment if you die. It also inverts move-attack order, making the puzzle of moving around enemies work better on a small screen. It doesn’t have a lot of moving parts, so what it does have feels very well thought out.

F-Zero is an awesome racer for SNES and GBA.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is one of the best GBA games out there (RPG). If I recall, the sequel, Partners in Time on the DS does not use touch controls, but Bowser’s Inside Story does use them a little bit. Both are also excellent.

Donkey Kong Country is a classic platformer on the SNES, though I personally haven’t played it.

The Legend of Zelda Oracle games (Seasons and Ages) are great GBC games; Link’s Awakening DX is also fantastic (GBC).

If you like Pokémon, I’d recommend Pokemon Unbound, its a ROM hack of Firered and has so much more content than any other Pokemon game I’ve ever played

For the PS1, Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet and Clank would be my top picks

For NDS, I loved the Professor Layton games.

Other than that, I haven’t really played much on the other consoles so I’d love to see others recs for them

this is a tough one, as there’s so many great games across these consoles/platforms and it will largely depend on what genres you’re into?

Ill give you the most obscure, best rpg on the GBA. Medabots Rokusho version. If Mechs and Pokemon had a love baby this would be the game. The story isnt anything special (altho kinda funny), but the rpg elements are very satisfying. Its a shame we never got any more proper Medabot rpgs. Give it a shot, the first 4 enemies are really hard and a gamble for winning (And I dont know why they did that) but after that you are in for a lot of fun. It throws up some more challenges along the way but those are more fair.

For gba - Advance Wars 2 and Zelda Minish Cap are both excellent.

@mint Some non-Sonic games on Sega systems:

Genesis:
- Vectorman, a 2D platformer. Amazing pre-rendered graphics for the time.
- Phantasy Star IV, a JRPG. I haven’t played many JRPGs, but I did kind of like this one.

Saturn:
- Nights into Dreams, a platformer-ish.
- Rayman, a 2D platformer.

Dreamcast:
- Rayman 2, a 3D platformer.
- Power Stone 2, kind of like Super Smash but in 3D.
- Skies of Arcadia, a JRPG. Again, one of the few JRPGs I’ve played, so I’m no expert, but the world was cool.

I recently finished Magic Knight Rayearth on the Sega Saturn and it was a lot of fun. Plays like Zelda with a hint of The Lost Vikings. Panzer Dragoon Saga is another good Saturn game. The sky battles feel like an early version of Skies of Arcadia’s ship battles.

These are my personal favorites. Note that many of these I enjoyed as a kid so I can’t 100% be certain adults will like all of them lol. Some of these are also pretty popular so you may have heard of them already.

• NES: Lone Ranger, Super Mario Bros 2, Spy vs Spy
• SNES: Earthbound, Pilotwings, Blackthorne, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Kirby Superstar
• N64: Super Smash Bros, Star Fox 64, Paper Mario
• SMS: Didn’t play this one much.
• Sega CD: Lunar: Silver Star
• Sega 32X: Knuckles’ Chaotix, but I’m fairly certain it would not be great as an adult.
• Sega Saturn: Didn’t play this one much either. I remember thinking Nights into Dreams looked really pretty but it felt pretty unrefined, and didn’t get into it.
• Sega Dreamcast: Only every played Crazy Taxi on this one.
• Neo-Geo: Never played it.
• PS1: I liked a game called Dragonseeds. FF7 and FF9, and FFT too. Harvest Moon: BTN.
• Game Boy / Game Boy Color: Zelda Link’s Awakening (DX), Pokemon Games, TMNT: Fall of Foot Clan
• GBA: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Moto Racer, Mario Kart Super Circuit
• DS: Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Mario Kart DS, Professor Layton Series, Phoenix Wright Series
• PSP: I didn’t ever have one, or emulate one. But if the Sid Meier’s Pirates port is any good, it may be worth a shot!

If possible, update us on how the Retroid Flip is!

Alright, I’m gonna fire off a bunch of games for a variety of systems:

NES

• Mother 1,l: the version on the gba is preferable as it has less censorship than the semi official translation and has some QOL fixes like being able to run and an easy mode inclusion. The latter I didn’t use on my playthrough and enjoyed it but it can be rough and I would not blame you for using it especially if you are unused to jrpgs. Overall mu favorite on the console.
• Megami Tensei 1 and Megami Tensei 2: I group these together as they were bundled in the snes remake which generally a better experience but the originals have some charm. They are very hard old school dungeon crawling rpgs. The stand out mechanic is the ability to recruit demons to your party in a similar way to pokemon or Dragon Quest V but with a fusion mechanic to level them. If you chose to play these over the remake use save states as you will have to use a password system otherwise. Additionally get some graph paper to map stuff out.
• Mario 3: Arguably one of the most polished games on the platform. Basically an improvement over its predecessors in every way.
• Castlevania: Pretty hard action platformer with a Gothic monster movie atmosphere. Lacking the distinct style of later entries but still solid fun.
• 1943: WW2 shoot em up. Simple but has good controls and decent music. Castlevania 3: bigger, badder cousin of Castlevania 1. Features a cast of different playable characters with distinct abilities. Very difficult even by the standards of the already difficult Castlevania 1. -The Legend of Zelda: I doubt I need to say much about this one but I can’t stress how ambitious this game is by comparison to many other NES Era games. While simple and a bit jank by modern standards it is very much a whole ass adventure for you to overcome.

SNES

• Earthbound/Mother 2: I’m gonna be controversial here and say the official translation for Earthbound doesn’t do it for me. Censorship of things judged “not kid friendly” and the addition of random humor ruined the slightly dark, and slightly more grounded tone I enjoyed in Mother 1. With this in mind I will recommend you play Mother 2: Perfect Edition which is a romhack that reworks the translation and overall greatly improves the tone IMO.
• The Secret of Mana: Utterly classic action rpg with one of the best soundtracks on the platform. Seriously, go listen to the legend of mana soundtrack rn, I’ll be here when you get back.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Spin off to Megami Tensei on the Famicom. Much easier post apocalyptic jrpg. Demon recruitment and negotiation is greatly improved, demon fusion is expanded and the roster of demons is much bigger. Nothing quite compares to firing a rail gun at the Archangel Michael. While I’m here I will also recommend SMT 2, SMT if, and Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei which is a remake of Megami Tensei. All are good, some are quite hard though.
• Front Mission: Gun Hazard: Mech game set in the near future where there is endless small proxey wars fueling the economies of large coalitions of wealthy nations. I love escapist fiction… Darkly relevant themes aside this is a fun side scrolling mech shooter with a cool aesthetic and a bumping soundtrack.
• Demon Crest: Somewhat unknown action platformer that has started to get some recognition in recent years because it’s just damn good fun. G.O.D.: little known snes rpg that never left Japan. Fan translated it is like a much darker and more adult Earthbound. Has some interesting mechanics.
• Final Fantasy V: Now you might be wondering why I picked this over VI since it’s the one that’s everyone’s darling. Final Fantasy V has the job system where you can change anyone’s class on the fly and mix and match perks from different classes. It’s excellent fun.
• Chrono Trigger: one of the best rpgs of all time. Just a really well made, well produced, well balanced rpgs out there. There’s a reason it’s on so many best game of all time lists.

N64 Imma be real with u fam. I don’t care for the N64. Don’t get me wrong it had some great titles, but most have aged like room temperature chicken. Mario 64, banjo Kazooie and the Zelda games are probably the best aged

Playstation 1

• Grandia: Super charming and cozy rpg. Good music and an interesting battle system.
• Wipeout 2049: the sequel to the anti grav racer Wipeout. Think F-Zero meets the trainspotting soundtrack.
• Front Mission 3: Tactical Mech game where you have a high degree of Mech customization. Also features a cool fake internet with side content and a great soundtrack.
• Ridge Racer 4: Arcade Racer with an amazing soundtrack and great controls.
• Tales of Phantasia: First game in the tales series. Technically debuted on the SNES but that one has some crunchy audio unlike the gloriously uncompressed CD audio of the Playstation. Has a strong character driven story and some surprisingly dark moments.
• Xenogears: Epic multi disc RPG with a unique setting. Imagine feudal fiefdoms with archeologically uncovered Mech suits.
• Castlevania Symphony of the Night: Now there are a couple options. If you want a mor3 serious version with some more features and more challenging difficulty you want the fan translation of the Japanese version. If you want some classic 90’s hammy voice acting then you gotta go with the North American release. Honestly the English VA is so iconic I almost prefer it.
• Resident Evil 1-3: Classic survival horror at its arcadey finest.
• Silent Hill: Resident Evil’s more serious, scarier brother.
• Koudelka: Gothic horror rpg with full voice acting that is actually quite good if theatrical. Good music too.
• King’s field 1-3 and Shadow Tower: First person dungeon crawling from the makers of dark souls. Get ready to get trolled by the developers pretty often.
• Ace combat 1-3: Arcade air combat at its finest. Solid soundtracks and plenty of replay value. Electrosphere is basically the blueprint for the modern ace combat game.