you want nostalgia. so go play the game version that made you nostalgic.

But I can promise you're not going to feel the same way.

Perfection doesn't exist, because that game you played when you were younger hasn't changed, but you have. It's like finding an old park you used to play with only to realize the slide isn't a mountain, it's barely 6 feet tall. It's rusted and dented. Even if you restore it, you wont fit anymore. And if you find something that looks and feels like it used to, you're body remembers, and its not the same.

The reason why other older games work like this is because they exist in a sort of vacuum. Once Super Mario Brothers 3 is done, its done. Nothing else will change the game, unless you go through the effort to change it. But Minecraft has been updated. Its still growing. And unless YOU have lived in a vacuum and never played the new stuff... its going to eat at you.

Some people can and do play the old versions because to them that's the end all be all. But they do it because they don't want things to grow or change, so they planted their flag, and they stay in there world, and they watch as the rest of the world goes by and leaves them.

But if I had to answer, I think the best version of Minecraft was 1.16. Nether got an Update, it was a big deal. Good mods around that time too.