@applejack @xyfdi yeah baldur's gate is 100% the outlier there.

also hot take, but i don't think some of these games are even as good as the ones that came before them. tears of the kingdom had a lot of shit in it and some cool gameplay mechanics but botw was better imo and that seems to be the general consensus among zelda nerds. doom eternal has less shooting and more platforming that i would have liked, 2016 had a way better balance. i'm sure a lot of people would argue that ff16 isn't as good as a lot of the previous entries because it's not really a JRPG anymore (although i think ff16 is still the best final fantasy in a very long time and i personally like the combat style).

it's hard to say that, for a lot of these games, people will be looking back on them super fondly like we do with the games of old. i don't think people playing ff16 for the first time are going to have nearly as magical of an experience as ff7, or potentially even 6/8/9/10. tears of the kingdom has already soured but i still look back on botw more fondly, and then wind waker and ocarina of time are stacks upon stacks more memorable comparatively.

i haven't played a lot of these, at least enough to really know how they stack up, but i'd wager to guess that elden ring and mario wonder would probably be the two that really stick with people. some games these days might be super polished, full of content, etc. but they really lack that MAGIC and i don't think it's just because of us getting older, because there are still some new games that come out that give me that feeling of "man, this game has SOUL."

also because i have to plug this every single time good games are brought up, RATCHET AND CLANK RIFT APART!!! so many people sleep on that game, it's so good. one of the few games i've played that actually gave me that same feeling of playing games as a kid and it'll stick with me just like those games did back then. also, kirby and the forgotten land was an amazing game, definitely gave me that feeling too.