The Retro games thread of please I'm begging you (yes, you!) to post about Retro games in this thread (10 years old+)

[Kazin]

I think most of us here play retro stuff, but maybe don't post about them all that often here. I would like to read about whatever retro game you're playing, regardless of genre, system, etc. Anything from Atari on up to (as of this post) anything released before November of 2012, so, just about launch Wii U stuff I guess lol. I figure a "general" thread is more likely to be posted in, rather than making a single post about a single game that then languishes.

I'll begin:

I beat the first Adventures of Lolo last week, and really enjoyed myself. It's a very simple game, and there aren't that many puzzle mechanics, but they really do get several fun puzzles out of them. When I realized pushing a box halfway past a medusa head would still block their kill shots, I felt like a genius lol. Ran out and bought the second game which has been at my local retro game shop for a while just before beating it, and it promises more of the same, and I'm enjoying that as well. My only gripe is the lack of different music, but I have a mute button on my remote and headphones so it's no big deal. Bought a copy of the third game on eBay, so I'll get around to that eventually, too.

Also played through the first book of Shining Force CD on the Genesis Mini 2 on normal, and found it ridiculously easy - though I guess that's what I should've expected after playing through Super mode of Shining Force II recently, which was, well, super hard. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed myself, and I'd forgotten about the charmingly flat voice acting for the interstitial ending to the book haha. Now to play through Sword of Hajya on this, finally, which I've not fully done before - I burn out on it usually when the party splits, which is around when I'd always get burned out on the Game Gear game when I was a kid haha. I have no idea what book 3 or 4 are like, so those should be interesting as well.

Please post about retro games! Any one you're playing/played recently!

 

[ArugulaZ]

I remember when the line between retro and modern was cleanly drawn at 1983, the year of the video game crash. It's not so clear now, is it? It's kind of weird thinking that the state of the art Xbox 360 with its lifelike polygonal graphics could be considered "retro." I mean, you HAVE seen what graphics look like in that generation, right? Nothing retro about that!

Anyway. Nearly everything for the PSP and pretty much everything for the Game Boy Advance is firmly in "retro" territory if we're using your metric. Those two systems have some great libraries. I remember playing stuff like Wipeout Pure and thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm playing a game like this on a HANDHELD." No sweat for a Switch in 2022, but in 2005? Holy crap. Bleeding edge.

 

[FelixSH]

The Lolo games are great, maybe my favourite puzzle series on the NES. There is also a Gameboy game, and they are, indeed, more of the same. The structure changes a bit, but essentially, you spend your time in single-room puzzles.

If you still want more, the japanese NES games have different puzzles, despite the same name. Not sure if all of them, or only 2, or something. Also, Eggerland.

If you enjoy these single-room puzzles, you might want to give Deadly Rooms of Death a chance. They are pure, turn-based puzzle games (and fit here, at least some of these games are from way before 2012). Might scratch the same itch. The oldest game (later called Kind Dugans Dungeon) is a bit unrefined, but free and still fun, and should tell you if you enjoy the basic concept. There is a remake of it, with QoL stuff which costs money (like all, except the free, old version, on Steam - the old obe can be downloaded on the old website), but I think non are really expensive.

Also, I'm playing Megaman Legends 2, whuch is 99% pure joy. The last percent are small details like slightly clunky controls, but nothing that can't be pretty easily overlooked.

 

[Kazin]

I remember when the line between retro and modern was cleanly drawn at 1983, the year of the video game crash. It's not so clear now, is it? It's kind of weird thinking that the state of the art Xbox 360 with its lifelike polygonal graphics could be considered "retro." I mean, you HAVE seen what graphics look like in that generation, right? Nothing retro about that!

Anyway. Nearly everything for the PSP and pretty much everything for the Game Boy Advance is firmly in "retro" territory if we're using your metric. Those two systems have some great libraries. I remember playing stuff like Wipeout Pure and thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm playing a game like this on a HANDHELD." No sweat for a Switch in 2022, but in 2005? Holy crap. Bleeding edge.

It's weird because while you're not wrong, 360/PS3 stuff does look dated to me now, even if the graphics are still quite good. I feel the same way about stuff like Gamecube/PS2, even, especially when uprezzing them on modern PCs or whatever!

The Lolo games are great, maybe my favourite puzzle series on the NES. There is also a Gameboy game, and they are, indeed, more of the same. The structure changes a bit, but essentially, you spend your time in single-room puzzles.

If you still want more, the japanese NES games have different puzzles, despite the same name. Not sure if all of them, or only 2, or something. Also, Eggerland.

If you enjoy these single-room puzzles, you might want to give Deadly Rooms of Death a chance. They are pure, turn-based puzzle games (and fit here, at least some of these games are from way before 2012). Might scratch the same itch. The oldest game (later called Kind Dugans Dungeon) is a bit unrefined, but free and still fun, and should tell you if you enjoy the basic concept. There is a remake of it, with QoL stuff which costs money (like all, except the free, old version, on Steam - the old obe can be downloaded on the old website), but I think non are really expensive.

Also, I'm playing Megaman Legends 2, whuch is 99% pure joy. The last percent are small details like slightly clunky controls, but nothing that can't be pretty easily overlooked.

Someone elsewhere also recommended Kickle Cubicle on NES, which I'm also looking into, having never played that before, either. Seems fun, from what I played of it on an emulator!

Someday, I will play through the Megaman Legends games. I don't know why I keep bouncing off the first game, but I do. I don't think it's the controls, but maybe it is. A shame they are never going to be remade or something (or get a final sequel for those who have played through them, dammit Capcom).

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I was going over my list of completed games this year and about half of them were replays, mostly of games that would be considered retro. So I play a lot of old stuff! And if you include the various Super Mario World hacks (which are technically from the last few years, but SMW itself is over 30 now), that percentage goes up to like 75% of what I play. It helps that retro games tend to be a lot shorter, for the most part - I played 15 Mega Man games this summer in less time than it's taken me to get to the end of Elden Ring.

I've invested pretty heavily in getting the best retro experiences, with a pair of MiSTers to my name along with a Super Nt. Not every game requires that level of emulation accuracy, but a few really benefit from it. Kaizo SMW, obviously, but also stuff like Mega Man or Super Metroid, with its particular controls and precision speed tricks. But though I'm an FPGA evangelist, I don't actually care how other people play this stuff. Just have fun!

Anyway, my most recent retro discovery is Mega Man Zero 3. I had only ever tried the first game in the Zero series, which I found extremely punishing, but Zero 3 is generally pretty fair and gives you a lot of options to mitigate the difficulty. Well, assuming you don't mind murdering a bunch of helpless Cyber Elves. It suffers a little from the small field of view that you get on the GBA, but aside from that gripe, it's a very solid Mega Man game. I'll probably give Zero 4 a try next time I want something new along those lines.

I remember when the line between retro and modern was cleanly drawn at 1983, the year of the video game crash. It's not so clear now, is it? It's kind of weird thinking that the state of the art Xbox 360 with its lifelike polygonal graphics could be considered "retro." I mean, you HAVE seen what graphics look like in that generation, right? Nothing retro about that!

I think I consider anything pre-HD to be retro at this point. I know that Xbox 360 and PS3 games are over 10 years old, but I just can't bring myself to see them as coming from another era the way earlier systems do. When you play those games on a PC at high resolution with a smooth framerate, a lot of them end up feeling totally modern, at least to me.

 

[Vaeran]

I recently hacked a PlayStation Classic and added ALL THE GAMES to it, and first on the list to revisit was Parasite Eve. It's still good! The music and atmosphere are lovely, and the combat is fun and engaging. If I have one complaint, it's that when it comes to certain objects such as drawers, Aya needs to be standing on the absolutely precise correct molecule in order to interact with them. This leads to me doing the Tallahassee Shuffle in front of anything that looks even vaguely suspicious and mashing X for 5 to 10 seconds just to make sure I don't miss something. That's just thorough police work, I guess.

Anyway, I got distracted from my battle against The Powerhouse of the Cell by other things, but I'll try to get back to it after I finish Fire Emblem.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Man, I frickin' love Parasite Eve. Gotta replay that one over the holidays this year.

 

[Kazin]

I'm so behind on PS1 stuff. I've basically only played the Final Fantasies, Symphony of the Night, and Dragon Warrior VII on it, not much else. A little Klonoa, which I like, but I haven't beaten it. Maybe about half the first Arc the Lad (which is apparently very short, so not much there, either lol). So many RPGs, at the very least, to play.

 

[Phantoon]

I've found if something with a computer chip on it is sat still for long enough in front of me it mysteriously becomes able to play Super Metroid

Recently it happened to my Fire Stick

Strange, that

 

[gogglebob]

I'm so behind on PS1 stuff. I've basically only played the Final Fantasies, Symphony of the Night, and Dragon Warrior VII on it, not much else

Legitimately, playing through Dragon Warrior VII takes about as much time as playing through the entire rest of the Playstation 1 library, so I wouldn't feel bad about that.

 

[Kazin]

I'm gonna say it - Urban Champion is alright. It's okay! It's very simple, but it's a gussied up Game & Watch game, give it a break. They released simpler (and worse in some cases) Game & Watches after Urban Champion came out!

 

[ArugulaZ]

Funny you should say that. Urban Champion is very similar to the Popeye Game and Watch from back in the early 1980s. Instead of a city street, you fight on a pier, but aside from that and the spinach power up, well...

 

[Kazin]

Popeye is even simpler than Urban Champion - there are no high or low punches, you just have to time your attacks based on Bluto's. The spinach just makes you invincible, basically. Urban Champion is much closer to Game & Watch Boxing (oddly called "Punch Out!!" in America, which it very much does NOT resemble lol), with it's high and low attacks. Basically, Boxing has no cops or people throwing potted plants at you, it's otherwise nearly identical gameplaywise to Urban Champion (and I like it, too). It even is one of those two player Game & Watches, so you can go head to head with someone.

 

[Phantoon]

I'm gonna say it - Urban Champion is alright. It's okay! It's very simple, but it's a gussied up Game & Watch game, give it a break. They released simpler (and worse in some cases) Game & Watches after Urban Champion came out!

But Urban Champion cost 40 bloody quid, back in 1987. Game and Watches weren't that expensive!

 

[Kazin]

I saw a UK Game & Watch ad for the Donkey Kong G&W for 24 pounds, so Urban Champion wasn't that much more

 

[Phantoon]

From personal experience, you'd get an NES game for your birthday, and the next would be Christmas. If I'd got Urban Champion for one of them I'd have been bloody livid

 

[ArugulaZ]

I was really cautious about what I bought for my NES. Honestly, I'd get a little hot under the collar just renting a piece of crap, because that's two dollars and a day of unhappy gaming that I wouldn't get back.

Renting an okay game could be kind of fun, though. Culture Brain served up games that were rarely high in quality, but still weirdly compelling in spite of their faults. You play a game like Flying Dragon and think to yourself, "They're going somewhere with this. And they didn't quite get there, but I appreciate the attempt."

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I beat the first Adventures of Lolo last week, and really enjoyed myself. It's a very simple game, and there aren't that many puzzle mechanics, but they really do get several fun puzzles out of them. When I realized pushing a box halfway past a medusa head would still block their kill shots, I felt like a genius lol. Ran out and bought the second game which has been at my local retro game shop for a while just before beating it, and it promises more of the same, and I'm enjoying that as well. My only gripe is the lack of different music, but I have a mute button on my remote and headphones so it's no big deal. Bought a copy of the third game on eBay, so I'll get around to that eventually, too.

This was a fun game. I played it not long after Solomon's Key and I enjoyed both but I think Lolo had fewer BS puzzles. Like, both are fine mostly in this regard but when I did give up (not as often as I assumed I would) and look up the answer online, Solomon's Key had 2 or 3 that was designed to fuck you up without fairness and Lolo had... maybe one? And that was more, if I remember correctly, not being clear about a mechanic so it's an edgecase.

That said, it's kind of an anticlimax when you get to the end of the game.

 

[JBear]

I mean, because I have too many games on my backlog and typically take forever to play them, most of what I play qualifies as retro. My two most recent plays have been the episodic Telltale Monkey Island game from 13 years ago and Phantasy Star IV. The earlier has been breezy and fun, but the latter was a goddamned revelation. That game is a GOAT, and I wish I'd been able to play it as a kid when I wanted to.

 

[Sprite]

I remember when the line between retro and modern was cleanly drawn at 1983, the year of the video game crash. It's not so clear now, is it? It's kind of weird thinking that the state of the art Xbox 360 with its lifelike polygonal graphics could be considered "retro." I mean, you HAVE seen what graphics look like in that generation, right? Nothing retro about that!

Anyway. Nearly everything for the PSP and pretty much everything for the Game Boy Advance is firmly in "retro" territory if we're using your metric. Those two systems have some great libraries. I remember playing stuff like Wipeout Pure and thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm playing a game like this on a HANDHELD." No sweat for a Switch in 2022, but in 2005? Holy crap. Bleeding edge.

I like the ten year rule because it’s clean and simple. I know it doesn’t seem very old to us olds, but there are plenty of 18-20 year olds making nostalgia videos about those “old gems.”

What does bork the metric up is live service stuff like Minecraft which is quite old at this point but still alive and well. Though I imagine many folks would consider early builds of that game to be a nostalgic throwback.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I dunno, man. A game from 2010 can be retro in the sense that "no-one under 25 has played it", and that's a legitimate demarcation. But a lot of the best games from the 360/PS3 era play, feel and even look (on a decent PC) like modern games. In the case of something like Dead Space 2, Batman Arkham Asylum or Uncharted 2, what about them - aside from their release year - doesn't feel current? Modern AAAs will look better, but plenty of lower-budget games coming out today don't even beat them on pure graphics. And in terms of gameplay, they're pretty much fully-modern feeling, aside from not being beholden to the trends of the last couple of years.

Contrast that with games from the 80s and 90s, when both design and technology were much less mature. In the space of 5 years, you'd go from late-era NES to early PlayStation, which is a massive technological leap. Control schemes and gameplay elements and HUDs were all evolving in fits and starts, whereas those things have been fairly stable for the last decade IMO. I just think that the medium has matured a lot, and going back 10 years doesn't change things the way it did when, say, this forum's first iteration started.

 

[madhair60]

couldn't even make it to page 2 lol

 

[Sprite]

I dunno, man. A game from 2010 can be retro in the sense that "no-one under 25 has played it", and that's a legitimate demarcation. But a lot of the best games from the 360/PS3 era play, feel and even look (on a decent PC) like modern games. In the case of something like Dead Space 2, Batman Arkham Asylum or Uncharted 2, what about them - aside from their release year - doesn't feel current? Modern AAAs will look better, but plenty of lower-budget games coming out today don't even beat them on pure graphics. And in terms of gameplay, they're pretty much fully-modern feeling, aside from not being beholden to the trends of the last couple of years.

That’s more or less the demarcation I’m using. Graphical quality isn’t really a useful metric at this point. Aesthetic trends and gameplay trends are a better metric, though I’ll admit they change more slowly nowadays.

 

[Phantoon]

I don't think the gaming medium has matured at all. More "ossified"

 

[MCBanjoMike]

couldn't even make it to page 2 lol

Sorry for having an opinion about a thing

 

[Kazin]

I mean, because I have too many games on my backlog and typically take forever to play them, most of what I play qualifies as retro. My two most recent plays have been the episodic Telltale Monkey Island game from 13 years ago and Phantasy Star IV. The earlier has been breezy and fun, but the latter was a goddamned revelation. That game is a GOAT, and I wish I'd been able to play it as a kid when I wanted to.

Yeah, I plan on replaying Phantasy Star IV pretty soon - RIP Rieko Kodama, and all that. Game really is fantastic. Gonna play it on actual cart on a CRT too, since I've only ever played it the once on, iirc, 360 in the Genesis collection. Were you ever able to play through II or III? II gets really hard for me and I've never really played much of III...

 

[FelixSH]

I played through PS II once, using a guide and maps. It has its charm, and it creates a great atmosphere. One of the grimmest games I have ever played, at least in my memory. One day, I want to revisit it, and map out these dungeons myself. Except for that aweful mountain with the thousand exits.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

I'm gonna say it - Urban Champion is alright. It's okay! It's very simple, but it's a gussied up Game & Watch game, give it a break. They released simpler (and worse in some cases) Game & Watches after Urban Champion came out!

Always glad to see more Urban Champion love around here. That's an old favorite of mine.

 

[Mr. Sensible]

I recently got a copy of Resident Evil: Director's Cut on PS1 so I could experience the original game in a series I've enjoyed for over two decades. RE3 was my first and is probably still my #1 survival horror GOAT; however, having finally played through RE1, I can see now why it made such a huge impact on the gaming world in 1996, and how it laid the groundwork for a successful franchise that's still going strong today.

The original Resident Evil also has several live-action cutscenes, making it something of a bridge between the FMV adventure game and third-person action genres. Listening to the famously awkward voice acting made me realize that Chris' VA in this game is the same as Richter's from the North American release of Symphony of the Night, which was a fun bit of trivia.

Oh, and I played the non-Greatest Hits version for the original soundtrack, since the GH edition is pretty infamous for its redone (and outrageously bad) music.

 

[Kazin]

Always glad to see more Urban Champion love around here. That's an old favorite of mine.

Sad that my rather muted appreciation of it is considered "love," but I guess us Urban Champion fans will take what we can get, eh? lol

Oh, and I played the non-Greatest Hits version for the original soundtrack, since the GH edition is pretty infamous for its redone (and outrageously bad) music.

Wait, what? They changed the music for the Greatest Hits rerelease? Was making changes for those common? I know the Director's Cut is different from the original version, but that at least has a different title. Are there other examples of the GH editions of games being different? Was this just a PS1 thing, or did it continue on to PS2, PS3, etc? I don't recall Nintendo's various GH lines making changes...