Bubble Bobble - NES (1987)
0So this is a certified classic, but it's not some legendary game...so what makes it so memorable? To me, it's just the whole vibe of the whole thing. It's hard to explain, but imagine that you're a literal child. You pop this in during the evening on the CRT. Everything looks colorful and cheery, right? I mean, look at those cute dragons!
But it's a very weird, eerie "playing in the void" experience. You've got chompy ghosts chasing you, you're trapped and in a frantic shuffle to keep going, and even the title screen is like twinkling stars. It's a couple of steps away from being a cosmic horror story in some ways. It's not that the game is scary or even spooky, but there's just some feeling about the whole thing that stuck in my head. It makes it very unique and I absolutely love it. I spent many an evenings in the basement playing this one, but I never got good.