Oh, I probably should have swapped something out in my list for Kirby’s Dreamland 3. Either would be a good choice.
Maybe a good second list would be the top 64 games that were not nominated even once for the first list. Then some deserving gems that simply got crowded out might rise to the surface.
Going to limit my votes to 6 and try to explain as best I can what I love about these games and maybe what I love about games in general
Gimmick!
Your star is a platform and a basketball. The star summon is better than almost all the abilities from the Super Mario games imo. It’s sadly too short, but there are plenty of lovable secret interactions.
Fallout 1
The perfect length for an RPG, I wish there was more like it with as much of it as this had. I’m glad I played it without spoilers or knowledge of the combat glitch
Brogue
The first thread I remember reading on selectbutton was about this one. The early game is a chore, inventory management is a pain, and the visuals are garish, but the vignettes it produce make up for all of that. The forced improvisation in Brogue is more interesting than levels or class builds imo. Everything is balanced qualitatively around situations so as to be as distinct as possible(which does make it a little too puzzle like sometimes, especially early on). I think the best thing about Brogue is how spaces interlock, the terrain form miniature Rube Goldberg machines which can be triggered by gases and/or flames.
Getting Over It
Secretly the best Umihara Kawase game? The swinging feels almost as cathartically freeing. Scaling directly upward is definitely less interesting in Umihara Kawase. When she’s up against a surface that prevents her pendulum motion, it forces her to rely solely on the tension of her fishing line’s spring. The friction in Getting Over It simply make swinging more enjoyable.
Baba Is You
Extraloveable interactions.
Slay the Spire
Deck building game in which you also collect passive abilities. You have to balance synergies and find ways to scale your damage output to solve problems posed by enemies. Enemies follow different rules and feel more like obstacles testing your engine and how well you pilot it.
Edits:
Very fine choice but may I recommend you 
If only Snood had been ubiquitous in arcades and pizza parlors and bowling alleys and Fuddrockers during an indeterminate amount of time in my past. Make it happen, HOBO!
so i was trawling mobygames to look for more games to maybe add to my list and apparently there’s a list of the most popular games across the entire site, and it’s positively wild:
i’m not nominating any of these games right now, but i think it would be cool to do something with them someday
I’ve been streaming this recently and this is the single funniest and most breathtaking game with cars in it. Recent achievements:
I would easily put this in my top 10 list of favorite games.
the absolute best shit is to set up the AI so its like a semi chasing down and smashing into cop cars and shit, then just watching it play out
This would make a great podcast
ive played this game all the way through with three different people it is such a joyous co op experience SO SECONDING
kirby’s epic yarn
OK here’s my full list
Gunner 's creed
elemental super monaco
poison of darkness: road to rome
tyrian the great
tunguska super puzzle pack
castle of alphabet harbor
phase & magic
badland ii: seiki no tatsujin
ricky the elder vi: protector staff valley
ritual dragon spirit
unhinged star universe
inherit the eye: guardians of middle space
robin 's starfleet crown
kanojo world: ball breaker racing
molecule of fortune
borf 's pro cycling manager
guinness and butt miami
women in search of the skunk eagle
gunman the last action biker
ford core
curry of doom
moon 's greatest hits
world world ghost
brotherhood of duty
my 54th nomination is
excitebike nes - but SPECIFICALLY THIS
also im just really good at making it through multiple loops of it i love games im good at
55th nomination is SPACEPLAN for being the best idle game that ends
Game Boy Camera better win this whole thing
1-bit DooM This was made almost three decades ago and is still going strong, what more do you need?
2-bit Quake “The Most Important PC Game Ever Made”
3-bit GunForce II I’ll take rust apocalypse bodypunk over Metal Slug’s nonetheless unimpeachably iconic aesthetic
4-bit Sonic CD Like an artefact from another timeline
5-bit Prince of Persia Your computer dreams of killing you
6-bit Strider Cinematic platformer goes operatic, the original Genesis killer app
7-bit Marble Madness Everything you know is wrong
8-bit Disco Elysium Everyday I expose myself to traumas and failures in the hopes it moulds my brain into a semblance of personhood (and in the game)
Gonna push this one because don’t think it was on anyoneelse’s list. MISSILE COMMAND. It is one of the most perfect pieces of art there is. It is one of those games you can only lose. It is political commentary and fun video game. Playing it on an actual cab reveals it is terrifying. The trackball controls are beautiful. God damn MISSILE COMMAND.
Anyways @anonymous am I right that whatever games in this thread get the most nominations move on to the second round (definitely any game that gets 3 and probably any game that gets 2 at this point).
OH IM SECONDING MISSLE COMMAND because its literally the stuff of nightmares and without it we wouldnt have MR AWESOME
missle command
Missile command with a trackball is a hoot, can’t forget centipede or millipede either though.
American arcade games pre-crash are all treasures.
Celeste – A really good platformer with a really tough but not impossible difficulty. A story about overcoming a mountain both literally and figuratively.
Dog Days – An intentionally ugly game in every sense of the word. Starring two awful people doing awful things. Designed to look like it was shot on a cheap digital camera. The brilliant decision on the developer’s part to censor the most violent parts of the game, like shooting someone in the face, with a mosaic blur makes the game feel borderline pornographic.
Bio Menace – Apogee/3D Realms PC platformer from the DOS era. Sandy Peterson of id/Quake fame reviewed Bio Menace in a DnD magazine in 1994. He gave it 2 out of 5 stars. Peterson may not have been impressed but I love the look of the game and the main character’s name, Snake Logan. The game plays a lot like the first two Duke Nukem games and features the same kind of beautiful CGA graphics color palette.
Ski-Free – This may have been a joke entry once upon a time but Ski-Free is a fun game. Don’t let the Yeti catch you!
Tomb Raider (1996) – Core Design’s classic PC action adventure. The optional tutorial stage selectable from the main menu (vidcon should really go back to these if you ask me) took place in Lara’s mansion complete with obstacle courses and a pool. After practicing your moves and learning how to swan dive and pull yourself up on ledges gracefully (seriously there was a swan dive and a specific “graceful” animation for performing the right button combo when climbing up ledges) you were ready to hit the tombs and fight bats, bears, dinosaurs (?!), and one or two humans at one point. Later levels include the pyramids and Atlantis complete with big underwater areas. It was all downhill from here unfortunately with later games overemphasizing human enemies and the marketing laser focusing on the six polygons that made up Lara’s boobs. It’s not all bad these days. The mobile game Lara Croft Go is pretty good, as are the isometric co-op games Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris.
Hover! - This was a game that came with the cd-rom version of Windows 95 as a way of showcasing the multimedia features of the OS. It’s a capture the flag game where you drive around in a hover car playing against other computer-controlled cars across three stages. Because you’re hovering if you bump into something it knocks you back a bit and some of the flags are in tricky locations. There were power pads on the floors that could launch you, slow you down, speed you up and harm you. There were three types of powerups you could collect: springs for launching yourself, brick walls you can put up to block other cars and a cloak that makes you temporarily invisible.
Math Blaster – This was a 2D educational game that taught remedial mathematics. You controlled a little space explorer guy with a jetpack and had to solve math problems in order ascend platforms or dodge hazards.
Blaster Master – This is a cool NES game where you pilot a little tank in sidescrolling levels and get out of the tank and explore bases and stuff in top-down levels. It’s nonlinear in that you have to return to earlier levels to advance in later levels.
Styx: Master of Shadows – A current gen game with 90s era PC game level design. “90s era PC game level design” means each level has an exit you’re trying to get to but it’s guarded by various enemies and traps and stuff. You play as a goblin named Styx who has to sneak his way through all three dimensions (meaning there’s a lot of verticality to the game’s spaces) to reach the exits. To do this you have to make note of guard patrols and seek out alternate routes from one part of the level to the next. You can kill guards but it’s more fun to ghost them and sneak by completely unawares. There’s even a difficulty level where the game ends if you get spotted and really this is the ideal way to play because the combat isn’t really developed much at all and isn’t very good. They should have just made that the default difficulty.
Master of Orion – I’m striking this from my list because I haven’t actually played a Master of Orion game I just included it because I was on a roll with games that had the word “master” in their title. I’m sure it’s a good game though. It’s a 4X turn based PC strategy game from the 90s. Those are usually pretty cool.
Deus Ex – “Oh my God! J.C.! It’s a bomb!” So many quotable lines from the granddaddy of the so-called “immersive sim” genre. Okay maybe just the one and a couple others and they’re only quotable because the voice over was funny. Regardless this game was instrumental in expanding the notion of what a game could be and what kinds of stories could be told with the medium.
Dishonored – Contemporary successor to the Deus Ex lineage designed in part by one of Deus Ex’s original designers. A game with a cool Victorian-inspired aesthetic with stealth and action flavors that are equally developed and equally engaging.
Prey (2017) – And another immersive sim from the people behind Dishonored. The notion of “for every choice, a consequence” came to define the immersive sim but I think that’s an unfair characterization. These games aren’t so much about seeing the consequences of your choices unfold via different story paths despite often having those things. Instead I think the immersive sim is supposed to be about the various gameplay systems being simulated to a degree that when a player interacts with them and plays them against and off each other there is a possibility of real or simulated emergence or rather unpredictability of outcome. Deus Ex had this quality. Dishonored and Prey and most other games in that mold do not really have it. So in that sense “immersive sim” is a false genre. It’s a term trying to describe an ideal that was only achieved once by accident. Instead Prey (2017) is a dungeon crawler set in a space station taken over by a hostile alien life force that can mimic humans and inanimate objects. The environment feels fully simulated with all the locations making sense spatially in relation to each other. The story has different endings based on decisions you make throughout the game. You can take on alien super powers for yourself and go through the game completely human. It’s a good time overall.