Action Adventure & ARPG Forerunners
The pre-Legend of Zelda era (ca 1972-1986) of AA & ARPG games was a time when basic concepts of RPGs, Action Adventure games and Action RPGs themselves hadn't been established yet and as such, you tend to see a handful of what we now see as defining traits represented while others are missing, or traits associated with other genres such as Rogue-likes, Dungeon Crawlers, Space Flight Sims, Adventures or Cinematic Platformers being combined with these traits and resulting in games that don't fit neatly into one category. For the most part these games are severely limited by the technology of the time as well.
Games on this and the category pages are sorted by year, from oldest to youngest. If you're mainly interested in what to play next, I've sorted the games on each year's page roughly in order of how well I think they've held up, how good of a fit they are and what they did for the genres.
Youtube playlists
Action Adventure & ARPG Forerunners (TD & Isometric, 1975-1986) WIP
Action Adventure & ARPG Forerunners (FP & TP, 1975-1991) WIP
Top Down & Isometric View Games
1972-1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
List Format
First Person & Third Person View Games
1974-1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
List Format
Side View Games
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
List Format
Games on this and the category pages are sorted by year, from oldest to youngest. If you're mainly interested in what to play next, I've sorted the games on each year's page roughly in order of how well I think they've held up, how good of a fit they are and what they did for the genres.
Youtube playlists
Action Adventure & ARPG Forerunners (TD & Isometric, 1975-1986) WIP
Action Adventure & ARPG Forerunners (FP & TP, 1975-1991) WIP
Top Down & Isometric View Games
1972-1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
List Format
First Person & Third Person View Games
1974-1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
List Format
Side View Games
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
List Format