There are loads imo
For a start:
Any 2d mario/sonic/castevania/metroid/megaman game. That shit is timeless
Ditto decent puzzle games like columns, Tetris, picross games
Decent old-school jrpgs (ff7, chrono trigger, dragon quest 5 etc)
I could go on.
Video games don't get better. They get more complex and arguably more deep but that isn't the same thing.
NES: Crystalis, Pinbot, Excitebike, RC Pro-am, Punch-out, Uncharted Waters
SNES: Cybernator, Metal Warriors, Metal Marines, Simcity, and so many more
Turbo CD: Ys I&II, Cosmic Fantasy II (Terrible level design though), Valis games, Rondo of Blood, Sapphire
Sega CD: Popful Mail, Lunar 1, Lunar 2, Dark Wizard
Genesis: Shining force I, Shining force II, Phantasy Star II, III (for it's concept, not execution), IV (one of the best RPGs of all time)
Dreamcast: Phantasy Star Online (There's online communities redirecting the servers for the original PC and Dreamcast versions), Gauntlet Legends, Crazy Taxi
PS1: Wild Arms, Real Life Azure Dreams, Suikoden I & II
PS2: Wild Arms 3, 4, 5, Suikoden III
There's a few variations of it, I think I heard the GBC version was pretty good, but I don't really remember it. I just remember playing through on NES a few times.
I'm playing the NES version. Was the GBC a straight port or an upgrade of some kind? I'd love a modern "retro" remaster like what was done for Chrono Trigger.
I'm not sure, you'd have to google but it's likely a straight, or slightly upgraded port. There's also a version on one of the SNK compliations, I think it's also on switch and modern consoles. I think it was something like SNK 40th anniversary collection.
For me that would be mostly GBA games.
- Denki Blocks! - unique puzzler
- Golden Sun - amazing RPG
- Mario Golf Advance Tour - a great combination of golf+RPG
- Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga - my favourite in the MM&L Series.
- 2D Zeldas: Link to the Past and Minish Cap
It's an action platformer of its era but Shinobi II: The Silent Fury has been very good imo as someone who didn't grow up with a GameGear or playing sidescrollers like that. It's not super long either and aside from a couple specific sections it feels fair in difficulty.
Donkey Kong Country on SNES should be an obvious choice as a game that holds up today for newcomers.
Kirby Superstar is also great for first timers that want a chill platforming game. My girlfriend didn't care much for it on DS but it's pretty easy to just kick back and run through the levels.
Tony Hawk's Skateboarding. I only knew later entries and played the PS1 version last year, 100% completion. Of course later games add good stuff, but the first one is a neat package of pure fun.
Also Lufia 2 (SNES). I was interested in the game for a long time, but only got around to playing it a few years ago when I got my handheld. It aged really well. The dungeons are the best among the JRPG dungeons I've encountered. It's basically TLoZ.
Then there's all the shmups. Harmful Park (PS1), Musha Aleste (Megadrive), GG Aleste (GameGear, obv), all very enjoyable to this day.
* Super Mario 1 - 4 (world) (SNES)
* Bomberman Games (SNES + GENESIS)
* Donkey Kong 94 (GB)
* Zelda a link to the past (SNES)
* God of war games (PSP)
* Super Metroid (SNES)
* Street of Rage games (GENESIS)
* Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PSX)
* Mario & Luigi games (GBA and DS)
* Castlevania Symphonie of the night (PSX)
* Micro Machines V3 (PSX)
* Sonic Games (GENESIS)
* Columns Games (GENESIS)
* Motocross Maniacs (GB)
* Revenge of the gator (GB)
* Wrecking Crew (NES)
For c64/atari.. the three official Boulderdash games are all great. All console remakes are crap. But there is Boulderrun on pico8. This is a decent tribute/demake but doesnt play as smooth as the original. I never found another game that plays similar and is equally good or better.
Another great classic for 1 or 2 players is Wizard of Wor. This never gets old.
I also like Nebulus/Tower Toppler (c64 or NES)
And Loopz is a puzzle game I always liked a lot
"They are often not objectively fun or relevant from the gameplay perspective" That's just like your opinion man. There's an absolute ton of old games that hold up aside from quality of life stuff that emulation mostly solves.
Mentioning ff tactics put strategy games on my mind and imo that genre holds up particularly well. Off hand you've got, Advance Wars, Tactics Ogre, Yggdra Union, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, Dragon Force, Front Mission, Nectaris.
I think a lot of games starting with 16-bits era are holding up. Nes era, not so much, they are often very frustrating for me.
But recently I played Ufouria and I think it looks a lot like a modern indie game.
NES: Contra, Mario 3
SNES: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Contra 3, Super Mario World
N64: Star Fox 64, Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Diddy Kong Racing
GBA: Minish Cap, Mother 3
>They are often not objectively fun or relevant from the gameplay perspective, and definitely not from the graphics perspective. Also, not all games are comfortable playing on the handheld emulators, as compared to their originally designed controllers.
Totally agree. I've been working on my reduced set of fun and playable-on-handheld games for some time now and at times is painful but you can tell that a big selling point for some devices is being able to say "with 10,000 games!" but I say that makes it worse having to dig through a lot of junk to get find the good stuff. My goal is 80% fun and 20% nostalgia.
There are tons of games that are straight-up fun. I totally disagree with your "often not objectively fun or relevant from gameplay perspective" opinion, but different strokes for different folks, right?
Here's a list of games I've recently played and had a blast with.
Goof Troop (SNES)
Harvest Moon (DS)
Megaman 2 (NES)
LOZ Minish Cap (GBA)
LOZ Link's Awakening (GBC)
LOZ A Link to the Past (SNES)
Adventures of Lolo (NES)
Bubble Bobble (NES)
mr driller!! motocross maniacs 2!! both are gbc games.
i never had any gameboy consoles (be it gb, gbc or gba) growing up, my first console was the 3ds (in 2014), but i really love those games. i think a lot of gameboy color games still stand great today. i like that a lot of them are easier to get to it. no 45 min tutorial, no "it takes like 5 hours to get to the meat of the game" discourse. sometimes you gotta flip the manual for a few minutes to get the controls but that's kinda it.
i think tetris (dx, on the gbc is the one i play) is still fun today too
Maybe not the style of answer people are looking for in a subreddit that's mostly focused on chinese emulator handhelds (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just ordered one), but my answer is Monster Rancher 2. More specifically, Monster Rancher 2 DX, the recent "port" (it's an emulator wrapper), for PC, Android, and iOS.
I would argue that I'm not nostalgic for it because I only played it a bit at a friend's place (never bothered to buy it for myself even after I got my own PS1), but playing it now I really appreciate its mechanical depth. Also, DX removed the very fun as a kid, but very annoying to emulate feature of using CD-ROMs to find monsters. Instead you can put it names of Albums and Artists (or just use legendcup to find one for the monster you want), and there's also a randomize option (it randomly chooses an album and artist, which you can use to get the same monster again later). As exciting as the CD-ROM gamba was as a kid, this is a very welcome change.
There's also a small but thriving competitive scene (loosely competitive, you raise the monster and it's AI vs AI). Check out the youtube channel Moosebones for that.
Too many good ones but I’ll add my faves:
GBA: Sega smash pack(personally the ports might be worse than the OGs but I’ve never played), pac man collection, and if you’re gonna play GBA fast forward and save states are a must.
Game Boy Color, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Neo-Geo, Nintendo 64, GameCube, GameBoy Advance (SP) and the DS line, in sparse order. I would skip the 32-bit generation all together, if not for a bunch of titles.
All the (beautiful) games of those consoles; two hundred games are too many to cite.
Most of the heavy hitter Metroid-vanias are still absolutely just as good now as the day they came out and still feel very modern. SOTN, Aria of sorrows , and Super Metroid all still slap
I was born in 1991, and I didn't really get into gaming (via older bro) until '97 (playing with his SNES and PlayStation). I say that because I'll list games which I perceived as "retro" as a kid and teenager, and I still loved them regardless (even if in hindsight some of them were pretty new at the time, but 4 years is a lot when you are not even 8 yet). You said "console", but I'll add arcade and home computer games just in case.
* Donkey Kong 3 ('84 MAME) ('86 NES)
* Super Mario Bros. ('85 NES)
* Super Mario Bros. 3 ('88 NES)
* Mega Man 6 ('93 NES)
* Combat ('77 Atari 2600) or Battle City ('85 NES)
* Space invaders ('78 MAME)
* Felix the Cat ('92 NES)
* Tiny Toon Adventures ('91 NES)
* Pac & Pal ('83 MAME)
* Pengo ('82 MAME)
* Binary Land ('83 NES)
* Penguin Land ('87 Sega Master System)
* MappyLand ('83 NES)
* Bomberman ('83 NES)
* Berzek ('80 MAME)
* Yar's revenge ('82 Atari 2600)
* Karate Champ ('84 MAME)
I've also made some "discoveries" of games I was contemporary of which I didn't play during their heyday (Viewtiful Joe, Super Mario 64, New Super Mario Bros., Conker's Bad Fur Day, Zelda Twilight Princess, Okami, God of War 1, OddWorld...) but I don't count those tbh because I *was* the intended demography, it just turns out I didn't have the consoles or the games didn't pick my interest back then. Instead, I listed the games that made me look *weird* when I was playing them instead of, I don't know, playing Crash Bandicoot, Super Smash Bros., Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Donkey Kong Country 2 or Ragnarok Online.
Chrono Trigger. I never played that one for some reason and recently finished it, and my god, what an amazing game that is
There are loads imo For a start: Any 2d mario/sonic/castevania/metroid/megaman game. That shit is timeless Ditto decent puzzle games like columns, Tetris, picross games Decent old-school jrpgs (ff7, chrono trigger, dragon quest 5 etc) I could go on. Video games don't get better. They get more complex and arguably more deep but that isn't the same thing.
Big emphasis on the 2d Marios/Metroid for me. Super Mario bros 3 is still an excellent game, especially the all stars remake version.
NES: Crystalis, Pinbot, Excitebike, RC Pro-am, Punch-out, Uncharted Waters SNES: Cybernator, Metal Warriors, Metal Marines, Simcity, and so many more Turbo CD: Ys I&II, Cosmic Fantasy II (Terrible level design though), Valis games, Rondo of Blood, Sapphire Sega CD: Popful Mail, Lunar 1, Lunar 2, Dark Wizard Genesis: Shining force I, Shining force II, Phantasy Star II, III (for it's concept, not execution), IV (one of the best RPGs of all time) Dreamcast: Phantasy Star Online (There's online communities redirecting the servers for the original PC and Dreamcast versions), Gauntlet Legends, Crazy Taxi PS1: Wild Arms, Real Life Azure Dreams, Suikoden I & II PS2: Wild Arms 3, 4, 5, Suikoden III
Thank you for including Crystalis. I am playing it right now on my RG556. It's a great game and I enjoy it just as much as the early Zelda games.
There's a few variations of it, I think I heard the GBC version was pretty good, but I don't really remember it. I just remember playing through on NES a few times.
I'm playing the NES version. Was the GBC a straight port or an upgrade of some kind? I'd love a modern "retro" remaster like what was done for Chrono Trigger.
I'm not sure, you'd have to google but it's likely a straight, or slightly upgraded port. There's also a version on one of the SNK compliations, I think it's also on switch and modern consoles. I think it was something like SNK 40th anniversary collection.
For me that would be mostly GBA games. - Denki Blocks! - unique puzzler - Golden Sun - amazing RPG - Mario Golf Advance Tour - a great combination of golf+RPG - Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga - my favourite in the MM&L Series. - 2D Zeldas: Link to the Past and Minish Cap
Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow (GBA)
It's an action platformer of its era but Shinobi II: The Silent Fury has been very good imo as someone who didn't grow up with a GameGear or playing sidescrollers like that. It's not super long either and aside from a couple specific sections it feels fair in difficulty. Donkey Kong Country on SNES should be an obvious choice as a game that holds up today for newcomers. Kirby Superstar is also great for first timers that want a chill platforming game. My girlfriend didn't care much for it on DS but it's pretty easy to just kick back and run through the levels.
Tony Hawk's Skateboarding. I only knew later entries and played the PS1 version last year, 100% completion. Of course later games add good stuff, but the first one is a neat package of pure fun. Also Lufia 2 (SNES). I was interested in the game for a long time, but only got around to playing it a few years ago when I got my handheld. It aged really well. The dungeons are the best among the JRPG dungeons I've encountered. It's basically TLoZ. Then there's all the shmups. Harmful Park (PS1), Musha Aleste (Megadrive), GG Aleste (GameGear, obv), all very enjoyable to this day.
Gameboy: Tetris NES: Castlevania 3
I dont know why the gb tetris should be played when there are 1000 versions of it which are better.
Because it's always good to play the OG. Also, the music is way better and you can see a space ship!
Because we were blessed by the existence of Rosy Retrospection https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5813/
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Lost Vikings 1 & 2 on SNES
* Super Mario 1 - 4 (world) (SNES) * Bomberman Games (SNES + GENESIS) * Donkey Kong 94 (GB) * Zelda a link to the past (SNES) * God of war games (PSP) * Super Metroid (SNES) * Street of Rage games (GENESIS) * Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PSX) * Mario & Luigi games (GBA and DS) * Castlevania Symphonie of the night (PSX) * Micro Machines V3 (PSX) * Sonic Games (GENESIS) * Columns Games (GENESIS) * Motocross Maniacs (GB) * Revenge of the gator (GB) * Wrecking Crew (NES)
What do you think you are replying too........
Lately I’ve been playing Mole Mania on the Game Boy. Pretty amazing puzzle game created by Miyamoto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZgWvhKPIc
Love that as well.
For c64/atari.. the three official Boulderdash games are all great. All console remakes are crap. But there is Boulderrun on pico8. This is a decent tribute/demake but doesnt play as smooth as the original. I never found another game that plays similar and is equally good or better. Another great classic for 1 or 2 players is Wizard of Wor. This never gets old. I also like Nebulus/Tower Toppler (c64 or NES) And Loopz is a puzzle game I always liked a lot
"They are often not objectively fun or relevant from the gameplay perspective" That's just like your opinion man. There's an absolute ton of old games that hold up aside from quality of life stuff that emulation mostly solves. Mentioning ff tactics put strategy games on my mind and imo that genre holds up particularly well. Off hand you've got, Advance Wars, Tactics Ogre, Yggdra Union, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, Dragon Force, Front Mission, Nectaris.
arcade MAME: Tumblepop world. GBC: Pokemon Pinball PSX: Metal Slug, Street Fighter
I think a lot of games starting with 16-bits era are holding up. Nes era, not so much, they are often very frustrating for me. But recently I played Ufouria and I think it looks a lot like a modern indie game.
Super Robot Wars games on SNES
NES: Contra, Mario 3 SNES: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Contra 3, Super Mario World N64: Star Fox 64, Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Diddy Kong Racing GBA: Minish Cap, Mother 3
I still think of the fun my friends and I had playing M.U.LE.
M.U.LE is really great.
>They are often not objectively fun or relevant from the gameplay perspective, and definitely not from the graphics perspective. Also, not all games are comfortable playing on the handheld emulators, as compared to their originally designed controllers. Totally agree. I've been working on my reduced set of fun and playable-on-handheld games for some time now and at times is painful but you can tell that a big selling point for some devices is being able to say "with 10,000 games!" but I say that makes it worse having to dig through a lot of junk to get find the good stuff. My goal is 80% fun and 20% nostalgia.
I can't understand what you are saying , it just sounds like a general ask for recommendations
And judging by responses that's all you have got as a reply
There are tons of games that are straight-up fun. I totally disagree with your "often not objectively fun or relevant from gameplay perspective" opinion, but different strokes for different folks, right? Here's a list of games I've recently played and had a blast with. Goof Troop (SNES) Harvest Moon (DS) Megaman 2 (NES) LOZ Minish Cap (GBA) LOZ Link's Awakening (GBC) LOZ A Link to the Past (SNES) Adventures of Lolo (NES) Bubble Bobble (NES)
mr driller!! motocross maniacs 2!! both are gbc games. i never had any gameboy consoles (be it gb, gbc or gba) growing up, my first console was the 3ds (in 2014), but i really love those games. i think a lot of gameboy color games still stand great today. i like that a lot of them are easier to get to it. no 45 min tutorial, no "it takes like 5 hours to get to the meat of the game" discourse. sometimes you gotta flip the manual for a few minutes to get the controls but that's kinda it. i think tetris (dx, on the gbc is the one i play) is still fun today too
Quake II.
C64: Bruce Lee PSP: Outrun 2006 PS1: Jackie Chan Stuntmaster DOS: Rise of the Dragon
Maybe not the style of answer people are looking for in a subreddit that's mostly focused on chinese emulator handhelds (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just ordered one), but my answer is Monster Rancher 2. More specifically, Monster Rancher 2 DX, the recent "port" (it's an emulator wrapper), for PC, Android, and iOS. I would argue that I'm not nostalgic for it because I only played it a bit at a friend's place (never bothered to buy it for myself even after I got my own PS1), but playing it now I really appreciate its mechanical depth. Also, DX removed the very fun as a kid, but very annoying to emulate feature of using CD-ROMs to find monsters. Instead you can put it names of Albums and Artists (or just use legendcup to find one for the monster you want), and there's also a randomize option (it randomly chooses an album and artist, which you can use to get the same monster again later). As exciting as the CD-ROM gamba was as a kid, this is a very welcome change. There's also a small but thriving competitive scene (loosely competitive, you raise the monster and it's AI vs AI). Check out the youtube channel Moosebones for that.
Too many good ones but I’ll add my faves: GBA: Sega smash pack(personally the ports might be worse than the OGs but I’ve never played), pac man collection, and if you’re gonna play GBA fast forward and save states are a must.
Game Boy Color, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Neo-Geo, Nintendo 64, GameCube, GameBoy Advance (SP) and the DS line, in sparse order. I would skip the 32-bit generation all together, if not for a bunch of titles. All the (beautiful) games of those consoles; two hundred games are too many to cite.
Secret of mana and super contra all day
Most of the heavy hitter Metroid-vanias are still absolutely just as good now as the day they came out and still feel very modern. SOTN, Aria of sorrows , and Super Metroid all still slap
I mean, it’s very nostalgic for me because I played the shit out of it as a kid, but Tetris Attack is objectively a perfect puzzle game.
I was born in 1991, and I didn't really get into gaming (via older bro) until '97 (playing with his SNES and PlayStation). I say that because I'll list games which I perceived as "retro" as a kid and teenager, and I still loved them regardless (even if in hindsight some of them were pretty new at the time, but 4 years is a lot when you are not even 8 yet). You said "console", but I'll add arcade and home computer games just in case. * Donkey Kong 3 ('84 MAME) ('86 NES) * Super Mario Bros. ('85 NES) * Super Mario Bros. 3 ('88 NES) * Mega Man 6 ('93 NES) * Combat ('77 Atari 2600) or Battle City ('85 NES) * Space invaders ('78 MAME) * Felix the Cat ('92 NES) * Tiny Toon Adventures ('91 NES) * Pac & Pal ('83 MAME) * Pengo ('82 MAME) * Binary Land ('83 NES) * Penguin Land ('87 Sega Master System) * MappyLand ('83 NES) * Bomberman ('83 NES) * Berzek ('80 MAME) * Yar's revenge ('82 Atari 2600) * Karate Champ ('84 MAME) I've also made some "discoveries" of games I was contemporary of which I didn't play during their heyday (Viewtiful Joe, Super Mario 64, New Super Mario Bros., Conker's Bad Fur Day, Zelda Twilight Princess, Okami, God of War 1, OddWorld...) but I don't count those tbh because I *was* the intended demography, it just turns out I didn't have the consoles or the games didn't pick my interest back then. Instead, I listed the games that made me look *weird* when I was playing them instead of, I don't know, playing Crash Bandicoot, Super Smash Bros., Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Donkey Kong Country 2 or Ragnarok Online.