Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

A game with far-reaching influence. (Why, just look at the menus in any JRPG from the ensuing decades). Playing it without cheating is a fool's errand, though.

The Wizardry franchise had a huge impact on the global development of the RPG genre. Its core gameplay formula remains compelling to this day (see the Elminage series and various other DRPGs), which is a great achivement for a 38 year old game. Wiz 1 has two specific downsides: the level design is relatively basic, and the punishing RNG based difficulty can lead to a lot of frustration. Consider using save states. [played on emulated PS1]