my niece thinks Morrowind is retro

I think the last game I bought for my 386 was Nomad. ISTR having to make space since it required like 9Mb of the 40Mb drive.

30-polygon-per-ship level 3-D space RPG with limited combat sequences. I think I played it wrong because I seemed to walk largely linearly through the story and defeat the Big Bad without seeing more than 1/10 of the galaxy

I don’t know how obscure this is. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong. illusion of gaia/illusion of time was one of my favourites growing up. It had a cool story, kind of a dystopia fantasy. I don’t think I ever actually finished it. Come to think of it, that might be a good idea to put on my list for this year.

Castle of the Winds, a roguelike for Windows 3.1. Initially played the demo at a youth center’s tucked-in-the-corner Compaq when Mario Kart 64 was too popular to get any time on, eventually found the full version online for our home machine, wound up celebrating WineVDM long after Windows dropped 16-bit support.

It was popular enough that WineVDM’s demos included it, specifically… but it enjoys little cultural relevance today. It has an adorably straightforward mouse-and-windows interface, and barely works if you don’t have a ten-key pad. The plot is just barely present. Some monsters will forkbomb you by summoning more of themselves. But it encaspulates a bygone era better than even modern efforts like Hypnospace Outlaw.

I don’t know how obscure it actually is, but I played the hell out of Threads of Fate when I was a kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_of_Fate?wprov=sfla1

One of my favorites was definitely Kororinpa (Wii) Yes, the Wii is now considered retro. It is now older than the NES was when the Wii first was released.

Soldam immediately comes to mind as the deepest cut I can think of. You might not be too impressed the first time you put a quarter in, the singleplayer modes are nothing too special. But if you can get a second player, it has one of the most interesting versus modes I’ve seen in a puzzle game. Sadly, you do need a second player, there is no versus CPU.

This game got a modernized remake on Switch a while back, they added online play… but they still didn’t add CPUs.

Some ancient PC role playing games.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul I like this one because I think your party is restricted to having a character of each class: Fighter, Paladin, Cleric and Wizard. I learned what a Paladin was from this game and fell in love with the class. Lots of exploration and tactical battles that are on a map that is the same as where you are in the dungeon were all pretty awesome features of this game. Has permadeath but you can recruit a new person to replace the old one. Always hated doing that though.

Disciples of Steel Team of 8 characters going on an adventure to save the world. The endgame actually has you setting up armies in different parts of the world to help you when the final battle comes. Pretty neat game.

Whiplash!

I really like the old PSP Patapon games. They’re catchy. After playing, I find myself humming the beat. The original creators are making a spiritual successor called Ratatan. Still not out yet, but I’m looking forward to playing it.

NFS Porsche Unleashed aka Porsche 2000 for PC. It had great physics and tons of realistic modifications you could purchase for every car. So many details in the game that made it truly great.