No guesses yet, so here's another hint.

#37

-The souls of the dead seeking closure

-Not the most conventional ship in your use

-Almost every important character except you is an animal of some kind

-Can be played in co-op where the other player takes control of your animal companion

Correct on 38, wrong on 39.

Oh, I was thinking so much in the wrong direction, but now I got it: this is Spiritfarer!

Edit: Always such a nice trailer. And it shows all your hints.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZfqGU6Y5uU&ab_channel=ThunderLotus

Well, as Ubisoft had gotten recently the rights to Might and Magic with buying the burning ruins of 3DO, they wanted to use their IP. And when Arkane looked for a publisher for their game, Ubisoft asked them to put it into Might and Magic. I don't think it has much to do with it besides the name, but I could be wrong.

And towards the timeline: I know Doom was software rendered. I think around the time of Quake came accelerators, but I could be wrong. Still a lot of 3D games in that timeframe. But I can't remember anything that matches your description with the spells...

Yeah, that's the one.

Nope, not Splatoon

39:

Samus Returns

Spoiler!

37:

Was going to guess Cyberpunk 2077 for #38, but I see I got beaten to that one.

Whatever #39 is that's a nice track - think I'll listen to the OST (assuming it's representative) when you reveal the answer.

Here:

Guessed by Veknoid_Outcast

What kind of genre is Blast Corps anyway? I have no idea. It features cars and vehicles, but it's not a racing game. Is it a puzzle game? There's puzzles, but is that a defining factor? There's a lot of games from all over that contain puzzle elements. Maybe an action game. It has explosions, in any case, but you don't need to shoot and you don't have enemies. Wikipedia calls it both an action game and a puzzle game, and doesn't really sound confident in doing so. But sure, let's call it the mash-up of these things, an 'action puzzle' game. It's a bit of a strange combination maybe, but that is what this game is. 'Strange' is memorable though, and because this is one of the most unique games I have ever played, it is also one of the most memorable ones. Luckily that's not the only thing it has going for it, it is also a lot of fun to play. It has humour and it is challenging. It also controls great and it feels good to destroy things. Well, except the dump truck. Blast that thing.

Guessed by UnderwaterFunktown

Every year I contemplate about whether or not this game is still worthy of being on this list. I haven't played it for probably two decades now and even then the time I played it at all was relatively short. Also, it's old now and was it that good to begin with? Maybe, maybe not. So then I move it a couple places left or right as a compromise. In any case, it is revolutionary, and had a huge effect on me as a child. This is easily the biggest addiction I have ever had. Not that I have been addicted to many things in general, but still. For a while, I lived and breathed Pokémon. I religiously watched the anime, before I even knew that was a word that exists, and I collected the trading cards, had the strategy guide, went to see the first movie in the theater and I even had a Pokémon bed cover. I had the spin-off game Pokémon Stadium on Nintendo 64 as well, but my interest waned as quickly as it came and when I was two years older and by extent a billion times wiser of course, I was done by the arrival of the second generation. Dragonball Z was so much awesomer.

Guessed by Darashiva

Back in the 90s when we had our first home computer, a Performa Macintosh, I was introduced to my first video games outside of consoles. Then, some games were small enough to come on a few floppy discs. While SimCity 2000 was not one of those games, it came on a CD, it's earlier cousin SimTower was. The copy protection of such games obviously was very poor; just flip the switch on the side of the floppy and copy the files to your desktop. Sinister as we were, that is exactly what we did, and we returned SimTower to the store telling them it wasn't to our liking. This was a lie, and because we traded it for another 'Sim' game the store clerk should've realised this, or maybe he didn't care. Anyway what we got back for a box with three floppies was the SimCity 2000 disc, in its cradle inside a nice hardcover booklet, two jewel cases tall, with the nicely illustrated pages with the instructions neatly integrated in the whole and nice art on the cover. Probably still the prettiest package in my collection. They don't make them like they used to.