I have 2 picks:
PES (yeah it was big in Latin America and Asia but never truly beat FIFA popularity worldwide except in the early 2000s), if I had to pick a specific version, is either PES 2010 or 2013, 2016 was also great.
FIFA street 1: Almost 2 decades later and still think it’s the best FIFA game ever, not even the street sequels were able to surpass it. FIFA 11 and 13 were good too but those aren’t underrated in any way.
Edit: wow y’all old lol
On the NES, I always enjoyed Base Wars. It was baseball, except not boring. Instead of a player being “out” when you got the ball to the base ahead of him, you fought for the base.
There’s so much I love about this game. I’m not a baseball game fan in general but I keep coming back to Base Wars. The fights triggered by a runner sliding into a base as the ball is arriving was always fun. The velocity of the ball when you hit a homerun was awesome. Great pick.