Those three are correct

#23: Gauntlet?

#22: Dragon Quest Builders!

#20: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D

I played Majora's Mask on the Gamecube through the Zelda Collectors Edition just like Ocarina of Time. I was never able to get through it and just couldn't get into it in general. Then along came the 3D version with some great quality of life features and I played through it three times over the years.

Majora's Mask is a different kind of Zelda game. It features less dungeons but instead more and more intricate side quests through which you get masks. The structure is rather different from most Zelda games too. There is no tutorial dungeon for example.

The three day cycle is a brilliant concept that works perfectly in creating a sense of urgency and a feeling of impending doom, which is actually the case. The cutscene where the moon actually drops onto Clocktown is a great payoff for waiting until midnight. That is, if you want to see the world burn.

During these three days you see the people on town change their behaviour. At first most of them behave like it's no big deal, then slowly they get more and more scared and some of them like the postman descend into panic and despair. They just give up on life. It's tragic and sad in some cases. Majora's Mask deals with surprisingly deep subject matter like coping with loss and death (sometimes your own death) and the meaning of true friendship. In most Zelda games there are side quests that just feel like filler, fetch quests for example. None of the side quests in Majora's Mask really feel like that. The reward or payoff isn't just rupees or whatever, it's a mask with unique traits.

Three of the masks stick out of the crowd. The Dekumask, the Zoramask and the Goronmask. With these masks you can transform yourself in each of these three races. The way you get them is again very sad and tragic. Both the Zoramaskand Goronmask come from individuals that died a horrible death. The Dekumask you obtain by freeing youself from the curse the skull kid cast upon you at the start of the game. In the end it is revealed that this mask also came from a deceased Deku who got murdered by the skull kid. In the end credits one of the dekus from the deku palace is shown mourning him. Even though you saved Termina from complete extinction some people will stay dead and in some cases their loved ones won't even be aware of it at first because Link impersonated them after their death with the masks.

Majora's Mask is a grim and sad game, but it still has a often moments with light atmosphere with uplifting themes in the fields and the four areas after you defeat the dungeon bosses.

Ultimately no matter what you do, whom you help, it always ends up getting undone when you have to return to the first day. With every cycle you make some progress until the final fight against evil incarnate: Majora.

This mask is pure evil. As soon as the skull kid put it on he started controlling it and made it make terrible atrocities while laughing. All just for fun while the moon slowly decends. It's almost like Majora feeds off of people's pain and suffering. Definitely the most evil villain in any Zelda game.

The four dungeons are all great, the weakest being to nobody's surprise the water dungeon, the Great Bay Temple. It offers the most complicated and through that tedious level design. Sometimes you just go to far with being intricate and complex (same goes for the water dungeons in OoT and TP). That doesn't mean it's bad, it just means I always spent an unnecessarily long time there getting lost while the time ran out. If there wasn't a song to make time go slower it would have been seriously frustrating. Ad to that the janky camera in some places.

The best dungeon is easily the Stone Tower which resides in Ikana, which is also imo the most memorable and unique area of the game. Everyone died a long time ago, so Majora desturbed their century long sleep to torture them. The dungeon itself features a brilliant concept where after the first half you obtain the light arrows wirh which you can activate switches to turn the entire dungeon upside down. The other unique concept that gets especially heave use when scalling the tower itself are the copies that you create of yourself through playing a certain song on the Ocarina to stand on switches. My only gripe with the dungeon is that you constantly need to replay that song over and over again. Interestingly the Stone Tower's boss is the worst in the game. He could have been better if the fight didn't go on forever like that. At least it does in the 3D version, I never got to that point in the original.

All four regions go from grim and depressing before, to happy go lucky after you beat the dungeon boss.

In the end you get to the moon and there is a green field with a tree and children dancing atound it. Very weird. The fight against Majora himself is a lot of fun with three very different stages. When you have the Fierce Diety mask the originally tough fight turns into a cakewalk. What the Fierce Diety is gets never explained. The mask salesman is insanely scared of Majora's power, but the Fierce Diety seems to be even more powerfull. What is it? What are these kids on the moon and why are they there?

The game leaves us with quite a few unanswered questions.

Majora's Mask is the most unique and different Zelda game, way darker in subject matter than any other Nintendo game I know of.

The Legend of Zelda: Death and Suffering is the fifth Zelda game on my list so far.

Last one to catch up.

#21 - Metroid Dread - Nintendo Switch

#20 - Metroid: Zero Mission - GameBoy Advance

#19 - Super Metroid - Super Nintendo

2D Metroids, they are cool.

Never thought I would actually get to play the game called Metroid Dread, but here it is, I played it, then played it again, and then another 2 times, and I plan to replay this as much as I can in the future, is truly a great game. Samus feels amazing to control, there is a lot of little tweaks here and there that gives it that edge of movement, the slide cut some morph ball time, the moving counter also keeps a good sense of momentum, the speed boost is fucking insane in this game, a proper "mock ball", you can keep the boost going out of a jump, space jump, and a wall jump, get in and out of morph ball, and the puzzles tied to them are so satisfying too. ZDR is a cool planet, a lot of the areas in the game have a lot of nice backgrounds that stick with you, something that is brought over from Samus Returns' depiction of SR388, has the standard Metroid area troupes fare, tho the addition of having a Chozo area that wasn't just ruins was pretty good. The EMMI were a great addition, they are so stressful and the ambiance sound that accompanies them is fantastic, that beeping will forever stay in my head. The collection of bosses might be my favorites across the 2D games, like besides the issue that a couple of them have forced QTE segments to progress the fight, everything else is pretty good and a good challenge. And it was a good closure to these 5 games worth of story, and honestly to finally talk to a Chozo, something that I have always wondered and thought about since my first experience with Metroid in Prime, it hit very hard not gonna lie, is just quite something you know, finally playing through Metroid 5, a new 2D Metroid after so many years, and is a pretty great game, not flawless, but still, is a good feeling.

Zero Mission is the kind of game I can sit down for an hour, do a quick run of it, and leave pretty satisfied, is fast paced, has a lot of cool moments, filled with great remixes of the NES game, you get one of the best power moments in the entire saga in Chozodia,
and I like watching all the sequence break stuff that I'm not good enough to pull off, I guess I could call it a very arcade-y Metroid game, and that is how I like playing it, not going for completion, but just having a great, fun, quick run of it. Is a great Metroid game with zero fat, Metroid: Zero Fat.

In contrast Super Metroid is the scavenger hunt game of the 2D ones, and one I would say it feels worse to play through the intended path than the other games, but with pretty much just walljumping, and some speed boost here and there, it becomes a lot more fun as a semi aimless exploration across Zebes just hunting down any power up that looks doable to get without the intended arsenal, and most of the time, yea you can get there, treating the game like that cuts down heavily on backtracking across some of the major areas, like not needing to go back and forth as much between Kraid and Norfair, and since this is Metroid, it also means you'll always get something useful for doing all of that, it works too in the end because, the Ridley fight acts more like a power up check rather than a more interesting boss fight, since you'll have an easier time if you collected enough Super Missiles and Missiles to just blast him with, this is the 2D Metroid I like to go for 100% everytime I play it, in contrast to Zero Mission and Dread, and that is cool too.

Gonna do a quick repost with a few hints added since I got no guesses before.

23) The titular character that just can't stay dead is back for the 3rd time.

Hint 2: The titular character is the villain.

Hint 3: The series is most at home on PC, but this was the first game in series to also get console ports.

Hint 4: You know this series, trust me.

21) On my "CD shelve" this game takes up nearly an entire row.

Hint 2: Not because the box is quite that large, but because there are several of them.

Hint 3: Most of the boxes are expansions.

20) If the protagonist of this game had been playable in Smash Bros. they could have up to 4 different move sets.

Hint 2: 1 "base" and 3 transformations.

Hint 3: There are already character(s) in Smash Bros. that share a name with the particular protag.

19) While this game is in some ways a return to the basics for this series, the additions it makes to your arsenal are some of the more original.

18) Brings a new meaning to twin-stick controls.

Hint 2: It's not Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but control-wise there is a similarity.

17) 2019 2020 2021 2022

Hint 2: Obviously the game has been previously released or it wouldn't be on my list, but these dates can be found on the game's website currently.

23 is Gauntlet 2.  You are close enough, because the two games are quite similar.

22 is incorrect.

Incorrect.

You are right that the blade is a Lightsaber, and this is thus a Star Wars game, however none of the hints would fit Knights of the Old Republic II. Plus, I already had that game at 50.

See other post, I'll add another final hint.

22: Mmmm. Super Mario Odyssey then? I'm thinking, mashup of SMB and Mario 64.

20: Uhh, I don't know what Devo is lol but I'm going to guess Super Castlevania IV.

23: I've been thinking long and hard about his one. I'll guess Diablo III, but I'm not sure if the first two didn't actually have a PS1 release.

21: The Sims?

20: Was thinking Pokemon Let's Go Eevee but with that last hint I'm not sure.

---

As you see, I'm not really confident in my guesses for all your hints.

#23: Diablo 3

Uhh, The force unleashed 2?

I don't know the Star wars games to be truthful, just the names.

Extra final definitive last hint for #19. Farsala guessed Star Wars KotOR II and The Force Unleashed II, but these are incorrect, while Star Wars is correct.

#19: Out of sight out of mind says us.

Hint 2: Is what the barkeep said about the abundance of garbage this planet creates. He knows the real reason why you asked though, so time to show your weapon.

Hint 3: And that weapon commands respect. You got it from your father in the previous game, but it's a bit strange though because now the blade is blue while in the previous game it was green.

Hint 4: You get it where you left it between this and the previous game; with the great Master in his new academy. Immediately after, you'll relearn your basic powers through a couple of puzzling trials.

Hint 5: This is because you need them to rescue your trusted pilot and sidekick from the clutches of a former student who's gone to the Dark variety, but it turns out he just used you to find what he needed.

#18: This game features a building named "Kong Tower", which is fitting because it kind of looks like the real 'Kong' tower.

Hint 2: It's $$$ commercial and 3x3 large.

Hint 3: The funny thing is, even though this is a big and tall building, it'll be gone again in no time if you don't check the box to make it a monument.

#17: The Mac OS version of this game (at least) featured an interesting anti-piracy measure where you had to look up letters in the manual.

Hint 2: Once you find the correct letter, you can drink the correct bottle and the door to the next level opens. Drink the wrong one, and die.

#16: Breaking a mirror brings bad luck. Maybe the bad guy in this game shouldn't have broken the mirror.