Video games I enjoy(ed) and why

This is a reference for me and will be updated over time but if you find it useful, great. The criteria here is "yeah, if I had time, i'd like to play that again". In no particular order

• FTL (Faster Than Light)
• Concise and unencumbered. 
• None of the controls feel bad.  
• There aren't any extra things to do that aren't useful
• Simple with depth
• Skills and tactics that you learn over time but aren't frustrating (the pausing helps)
• wish - variable bosses and/or mini bosses
• XCOM (played most of them) - 
• Tactical combat is fun (hiding behind walls etc)
• Theme is wonderful
• Random encounters are great
• Controls are well done
• Unit/Base growth scaling feels good
• wish - more soldier deaths / game adjustments for players to cope with losses
• Diablo series
• Hack and slash goodness
• Item and build discovery period
• Optimization
• That wow factor (not warcraft). I remember being more scared and thrilled with the Diablo world.
• wish - more customized battles / mini-game instances rather than just packs of monsters standing around
• MVC3/UMVC3 (marvel vs capcom)
• Build variety - sacrificing x to get y (unless your picks had everything then shrug)
• Character flavor
• wish - adjusted assists, less one touch combos, more resets to neutral
• Master of Orion (1,2 - only played this single player)
• Funny end game space combat system
• Ground combat was fun even though it was just sounds and units disappearing.  Very Risk-like and I enjoy that
• Research scaling was all nutty
• wish - better world management system in the end game
• wish - a new take on AI for these types of games.  I don't think the computer should be doing the same things a player does.  They need some kind of different mechanism.
• Frostpunk
• Simulation games with goals appeal to me better because without goals it's difficult to make meaningful challenges to the player
• Amazing thematic elements.  The execution is just really nice here
• wish - everything is a bit too mathy when you start to learn the game
• This War of Mine
• Amazing thematic elements from the same people that brought frostpunk so that makes sense
• Too scared to play it again because my people died a long slow death and that took an emotional toll
• wish - i get that resources are supposed to be limited but having more stuff to craft and scaling the difficulty a bit to match would make staring at the house more fun
• Thea: The Awakening
• Not even sure what to call a game like this.
• Really enjoyed the card combat and setting up resources gathering so that I could customize things. Simple but effective scaling that is very intuitive
• wish - bigger research tree and/or more options and/or game breaking things
• Slay the Spire
• Really clean deck building with nice variable player powers/starting randomization
• Plays like a board game
• wish - the starting boon/buff should be unlocked permanently after clearing the first stage
• The Curious Expedition
• So fun.  It's just a joy to play this one.  Light hearted and full of fun decisions and some nail-biting adventure
• The theme and "secrets" are really well done so that you feel like it's fun to find but not necessary
• Learning to take risks is fun and scales with how comfortable you are with the game.
• wish - I kind of wish the dice combat showed you all possible combinations in a help menu.  Just a quality of life thing.
• Renowned Explorers: International Society
• Plays like a board game
• Very quick play throughs
• Fun and entertaining quest lines
• Exploration period is really great
• Learning to customize and optimize your team's build and travel path is pretty cool
• wish - more flexibility with teams.  I had a few favorites that just didn't play nice together
• Dungeon of the Endless
• Really fun and flexible with interesting build choices
• Characters are very cool
• Simple control scheme
• Exciting to open that next door when things start to get a little hairy
• wish - procedural generation is fine and all but having some ways to mitigate this would be nice (items, research)
• Planescape Torment
• The theme is so good.
• In terms of cool modern fantasy, it's just the best. 
• Build variety is really fun and being able to be anything and solving the puzzles your own way is refreshing
• Story. Detective work piecing it all together.
• wish - it's a very "loose" game because there's all these things to do but i'm not sure this is fixable while maintaining the fun factor.  
• Chrono Trigger
• The character development.
• The stories
• Time travel?!
• Just everything
• I'm too much of an amateur to come up with a wish list for this game
• Rock Band
• The cooperative and fun nature of this game is just great
• wish - more gradients in difficulty so people don't have to practice to keep up with other people playing
• Final Fantasy 1/2/3 (American release numbers)
• I grew up with these and they blew my mind as a kid.  I'm just leaving this here.
• GranBlue Fantasy Versus
• I'm really digging this new fighter. It's got strong offense, risky defensive maneuvers and a solid neutral game. 
• And my inputs are terrible, so it being easy to do some things is nice.
• It's also interesting seeing what players will sacrifice to gain momentum, since the damage is so high in this game