Play Lord of the Rings Online

If you ever wanted to hack through orcs as Aragorn on your Sega Genesis, this was pretty much your only shot back in '94. The Lord of the Rings game is this weird mix of clunky and charming—you’ve got these chunky sprites lumbering through pixel-perfect renditions of Moria and Weathertop, swinging swords or slinging spells depending on who you pick. (Gandalf’s magic feels absurdly powerful when it works, which is about 60% of the time.)

It’s got that classic "die and retry" difficulty where you’ll memorize enemy patterns after the fifth Game Over, and the inventory system is just punishing enough to make you hoard every last health potion. The soundtrack? Surprisingly epic for 16-bit—those Minas Tirith tracks still pop into my head sometimes. Not the smoothest action-RPG out there, but for Tolkien nerds with a Genesis, it was basically magic.