Bomberman 64: The Second Attack (Nintendo 64)

This is the game that inspired this website, and my all-time favourite! Sequel to the popular Bomberman 64, this game released late into the N64's lifetime. This game boasts large, puzzle filled worlds to explore and a handful of unique enemies to conquer, as well as a standard JRPG style storyline, and a robust multiplayer battle mode.

For those who have played the prequel, the gameplay style has changed a bit to more closely resemble the classic Bomberman games, but with new bomb types to make things interesting. The Elemental Knights pose as your main opponents throughout the game, and make for challenging boss fights with interesting designs!

A shorter printing period, combined with N64 collecting's growing popularity has made this game a bit more expensive lately, (watch out for repro carts,) and it can be tricky to emulate accurately, so playing this game can be a challenge these days. But I think it's worth it!

Satisfactory (Steam)

This game is still in early access, but it already has several hours of entertainment hidden within! The story is being held back until the full release, but the concept is, you are an engineer sent to an alien planet to harvest resources, construct factories to build parts out of those resources, and send them back into space for mysterious reasons.

The core of the gameplay revolves around exploring a huge and gorgeous planet, locating and mining resources, creating large, automated factories, and unlocking more buildings and options by researching the parts you make.

This game also supports multiplayer, though a bit buggy at the moment, so you can join up with your friends and optimize motor construction together!

Tales of Arise + Multiplayer Mod (Steam)

In a series that has boasted intense local-coop for a large section of it's lifetime, this game chose to forego that feature. Naturally, I didn't start playing it until this mod released and I could enjoy it with my roommates. The picture here links to the mod page.

As a modern JRPG, this game does alright. It's not as pretty as some of the competitors, nor as rich in story, but it stands on it's own. The combat is pretty solid, at least if you're playing as the main character, and with plenty of difficulty options, you'll be able to settle in the right area for you. In my experience (on hard mode,) some of the boss fights had a move they would charge midway into the fight that covered a large portion of the screen. In the early game, these moves would oneshot your whole party unless you equipped the accessories that reduced the appropriate elemental damage by 50%. After that, the fights were pretty simple.

As an introduction to new players, this game has a lot going for it. For longtime fans of the "Tales Of" series, however, this entry might be a bit of a letdown, as it seems a few steps backwards from even the last entry, Tales of Berseria.

Also the CP mechanic kinda sucks, being a full-party mana pool that can only be restored by going back to heal, or buying the rather expensive Orange Gel items. And then you'll come across road blocks that impede your progess unless you spend a large chunk of that CP, forcing you to backtrack often.