Traditional Games
- Between Two Cities - Pulls off being simultaneously cooperative and competitive exceptionally well
- Dominion + expansions - Strategic deckbuilding game
- Spaceteam - Incredibly chaotic cooperative game
- Zombicide - Tactical cooperative zombie survival game
- Azul - Competitive puzzle game
- Powergrid - Competitive resource management game
- Ticket to Ride - Competitive train route building game
Video games
- Shadowrun Trilogy
- Magical cyberpunk RPG set in the Shadowrun universe. Play Returns first, but Hong Kong is the best. If you play anything in this list, play this.
- Stellaris
- Space 4X game with excellent story events
- Yakuza 0
- Brawler with excellent characters, side quests, and minigames. You wouldn't expect it from a game where you play as a hardened Japanese gangster, but the main character, Kiryu Kazama, has a heart of gold and the side quests can be pretty touching.
- Shenzhen I/O - If you're a find programming extremely restrictive microcontrollers in assembly might be fun, definitely play this. Throw everything you know about programming out the window though, because magic optimizations and crazy hacks are pretty much required.
- Baldur's Gate 3
- An RPG set in the Forgotten Realms D&D universe. It's a sequel to BG1&2 and based on the D&D 5e ruleset, but it's not necessary to have played any of these.
- Balatro
- Standard card-deck based roguelite game where you acquire joker cards to increase the score of poker hands, while manipulating your deck to increase your chances of playing the hands that you power up. Don't be fooled by its simplicity: its addictive force is no joke.
Arcade games
Some of these games may have non-arcade ports, but this list refers specifically to the arcade versions.
- Maimai - Everyone's favorite rhythm game that's played on a washing machine.
- Ridge Racer - Quintessentially arcade-y racing game. There's a PS2 port I haven't played. Ridge Racer for the PSP (not a port) is also pretty good.
VR games
- Pistol Whip - Shoot the targets... to the beat! It's a rhythm game and FPS game at the same time, and it's a blast!
Visual novels
Visual novels are less "video games" and more choose-your-own-adventure books with talking heads and maybe the occasional minigame, so they get their own section. These may have console ports which will always be all-ages versions, but are otherwise nearly identical in terms of gameplay.
- Little Busters! Converted Edition (PSP)
- Really cute story about a high school boy and his childhood friends who recruit some schoolmates for a baseball team before one of their own graduates and leaves for a job.
(LB! Ecstasy is the only version that is 18+; the original, Steam, and Converted Editions are all-ages).
Music
- Bôa
(Indie Rock, funk in their earlier work) - This is my favorite band by far, and one of the few bands where I actually like most, if not all of their songs. Their unpublished early work, such as The Farm, is more funk, and the band gained a more rock sound over time. They got back together in 2021 thanks to their sudden popularity on TikTok, and released their first album in 19 years with Whiplash in 2024.
- Jasmine Rodgers (Folk) - The lead singer for Bôa is also a folk musician outside of the band, combining acoustic guitar and ukulele with her wonderful voice we all know and love.
- Second Person (Trip hop) - This is the band that introduced me to trip hop as a genre, originally because someone said it was similar to Bôa. I don't think they're that similar, but Second Person's music is wonderful regardless.
- Reol
(J-pop, EDM) - She got her start doing covers of vocaloid songs on the Japanese video site NicoNicoDouga, but over the years has been writing her own songs, been a part of her eponymous band RΞOL, and collaborated with well-known producers like GigaP.
- Pizuya's Cell (Japanese, Touhou electro, metal, etc.) - This is a doujin music circle centered around arranges of the Touhou OSTs. Their metal is really solid, and they do really good metal with bowed strings. For some reason some of their albums are interspersed with classical music with a TTS voiceover, which is kind of jarring.
- The Black Keys (Rock)
- Cepheid (English vocaloid metal)
Movies
- Infernal Affairs 1+2 - Gripping crime drama focusing on a double-crossing detective and a disgraced cop going undercover. It's much better than the American version, The Departed. The third movie is alright, but the constant flashbacks and timeskips make it feel unfocused and not that memorable.
- From Beijing with Love - Hilarious James Bond parody written and directed by Hong Kong comedy movie legend Stephen Chow. I like James Bond movies― I love this.
- No Exit (Huis Clos) (1954) - Sartre's imagining of hell as a somewhat mundane hotel where the guests torture each other though little more than conversation has always interested me. After reading the screenplay I wanted to find a live action adaptation, and out of all of them, this is the good one. It's in French, and subtitles might be a little hard to source. An interlibrary loan program is a good way to do so, if it's available to you.
- What We Do in the Shadows - A slice-of-life mockumentary about some vampires who are flatmates in Wellington, New Zealand. I love these fantasy meets modern reality kind of stories, and this movie is just great fun.
Television
- Star Trek (Sci-fi) - There are many Star Trek series that have come out over the years, starting with the original 1966 series (that I have admittedly not seen very much of). The best series is Deep Space Nine, but you should start with The Next Generation. Voyager is also worth watching.
- The Next Generation - TNG is Star Trek in its purest form. It is brimming with optimism, explorations of the human condition and the very essence of humanity, and led by Cpt. Jean-Luc Picard, the most diplomatic captain in all of Starfleet.
- Deep Space Nine - Since DS9 takes place on a stationary space station instead of visiting a new alien every week, it's able to develop the main cast of characters with amazing chemistry. Later seasons focus on the Dominion War, which have a darker tone without sacrificing the core of Star Trek.
- Voyager - Stranded millions of light years away from Earth, USS Voyager and her crew must make their way home by trading with aliens, avoiding hostiles, and still studying the occasional deep space anomaly. Voyager has some of the best episodes of Star Trek (and also some of the worst), but definitely worth watching.
- Lower Decks - LDS is an animated comedy focusing on low-ranking officers on board the USS Cerritos. Don't let the fact that it's nuTrek turn you away― it blends the classic Star Trek formula and comedy wonderfully. The first season relies on previous Star Trek references too much for my liking, but it gains its own voice by season 2.
- Signal (시그널) (Drama, police) - The best police procedural I've ever watched, centering around a junior detective who solves cold cases with the help of a detective from the past who talks to him over a walkie talkie during limited time windows.
- Scrubs (Sitcom, medical) - The first long-running TV show I've watched to completion, centering around a slightly awkward and spacy J.D., a new medical intern at Sacred Heart Hospital with his best friend Turk, and being mentored by the cantankerous and sarcastic Dr. Cox. Despite being a comedy, Scrubs really knows how to tug at your heartstrings at times.
- Wednesday's Downtown (Variety, Japanese) - Variety show hosted by the Japanese comedy duo Downtown that primarily focuses on investigating trivial theories like "If you sneak change into the hood of someone's hoodie, they won't notice until there is 10000 yen or so" and performing pranks on comedians.
- Taskmaster (Game show) - A game show where British comedians compete to complete silly tasks set out by the host, Greg Davies, and his assistant, little Alex Horne.
Anime
- Ghost in the Shell - GitS: Stand Alone Complex is my #1 favorite, but I'd watch the classic 1995 movie first. These are defining pieces of the Japanese cyberpunk genre, and a huge reason for my love of cyberpunk as a whole.
- The Tatami Galaxy - A dark comedy that explores the life of a somewhat misanthropic university student across alternate timelines where he makes different life choices. Has a very unique art style, and an excellent soundtrack.
- Seitokai no Ichizon - A hilarious deconstruction of the anime harem genre with frequent 4th wall breaks.
- Gamers! - A romantic comedy you watch to see how the trainwreck mess of love triangles plays out. The gaming is mostly a secondary plot device. It's funny and really deserves a second season, which we'll never get.
Manga
- Yuugai Muzai Gangu (Avant garde, supernatural, sci-fi) - A collection of short stories by Ura Shino. My favorite is the eponymous first story Harmful Innocent Toys (Japanese: Yuugai Muzai Gangu), which tours a museum of innocent SCP Anomalous Items-esque toys that have been recalled for being unintentionally harmful.
- Pokémon Adventures (aka Pokespe) (Pokémon) - I've read up to and excluding the Black 2/White 2 chapters, and excluding Emerald chapter. Each generations' story arcs (e.g. RBGY, GSC, RS) are mostly independent, but I would start at the first chapter anyway. It's not as dark as some on the internet would lead you to believe, despite the infamous cut-up Arbok panel, because it's still ultimately a kid's manga where it is the exception, not the rule. The fandom also introduced me to shipping.
- Mousou Telepathy (4koma, slice of life) - A manga about a slightly anxious girl who can read minds, and a boy who is into her but doesn't vocalize it.