Retro Game Recommendations

[Jason Tandro]

As some of you all know, I run a retro game store with my friends. As such I have access to a sinful glut of video games from every genre. I'm talking we go as far back as the Atari 2600 and Fairchild Channel F. I even had a guy bring me a CIB Magnavox Odyssey (but he didn't want to sell it, alas).

But I am a rapidly approaching middle-aged man with a job, a side hustle, a girlfriend, a child and ADHD, so I can't possibly play the bulk of them.

So, a trade. I recommend some of the golden era games to you all, and you share with me your favorites. Assume I've played most of the essentials - the Zeldas, the Marios, the FFs and of course the Soul Blazer Trilogy.

When I say retro, I'm specifically thinking PS1 era and back, though I know... sadly... that people tend to consider anything from the PS3/XBOX360 era or back to now be "retro".

I'll frontload some recommendations of less appreciated retro titles, some of which I may have suggested before:

NES

Pirates! - I mean, it's the NES rendition of what would be Sid Meier's Pirates. It's got it all. Ship combat, sword fighting, treasure hunting, an alliance system and a surprisingly in-depth world especially for an NES title. Classic. You gotta try this if you haven't.

Air Fortress - If space shooters are more your thing, this one is a gem. Side-scrolling space shooter in the first phase, and jetpack dungeon-crawling shoot em up in phase 2. Repeat for 8 levels of pure sci fi goodness and with a really banger soundtrack.


SNES

Lawnmower Man - This one has a bit of a cult following now, but I don't care if you hated the movie, play this game. Yes it's a side-scrolling shooter but that's not what you're here for. You're here for the "VR segments" which were pretty freaking mind-blowing for the era. They are, essentially, first-person "dodge the shit" simulators, but the presentation alone is worth the price of admission. Also another game with a stellar soundtrack.

PS1

Threads of Fate - I've recommended this title more than I've sneezed. For any newcomers, it's a Squaresoft action RPG with two characters and thus two sides of the story and two wildly different combat systems. Throw in a cute and self-contained world, some vibrant graphics, wonderful characters and (shocking I know) some really good music and you have a percentage of my childhood condensed into a single disc.

[psychokind]

I don't have a game store, but I have an emulator that has all NES, SNES, N64, GameCube and PS1 games that were ever created on it so here are some of my recomendations:

SNES:

ShadowRun - A Action-RPG based on the rules of the same Pen'n'Paper-Game with it's fantastic and vast Cyberpunk lore. The controls are a bit awkward (in combat you have to aim via a curser while your character stands still), but the atmosphere and the soundtrack are great.

GameCube:

Skies of Arcadia - turn-based RPG with a colourful world in which you play a pirate on airships and all the land masses are in the sky instead of the sea. a bit cheesy, but a lovely story and quite a lot of content to explore.

PC:

Gothic 1 & 2 - maybe you already heard of these special german 3rd-Person Action RPGs. fantastic open world, although very dated graphics nowadays. there's a remake coming of the first one in Unreal 5 this year which looks promising.

[inferiare]

Well, technically ps2, but... Shadow Hearts. It has a ps1 prequel called Koudelka (that is ridiculously priced and I'm sadly missing it) and then the continuation is Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts: Covenant. There was a third game that wasn't really connected to the first two besides some NPCs and is uh, for better or worse, definitely a time capsule of a game lol. Shadow Hearts is horror-themed with some body horror and comedy. Def one of my fave series though.

[Jason Tandro]

psychokind wrote:

Skies of Arcadia

I've heard really good things about that one. It commands a pretty penny at the moment, but I'd love to give it a shot sometime. Maybe I'll rent it if it comes in anytime!

Quote:

Gothic 1 & 2

Actually yeah, I have heard of them. Strangely enough I watched a plot synopsis of 1 and 2 before starting Gothic 3 on Steam. I didn't play very long but I enjoyed it for what it was. I may have to revisit it now as a much more patient man, lol.

My friend Jacob told me to try it out, after I finished my first playthrough of Risen. I also started playing the sequel to that (Risen 2) but never got very far. I gotta dig up these old PC chestnuts.

inferiare wrote:

Koudelka

Okay no, funny story. I've had that in my shop and yes it's price is ludicrous, but I'm guessing that means it's got to have a bit of a cult following. I had no idea it was connected to Shadow Hearts, but I'll look into that one too!

[inferiare]

God I'm jealous you've seen it with your own eyes lol. Some day I'll have the funds for it, because god damn do I want that one. Only one I'm missing out of the games. D; Apparently there's voice acting in it (in a ps1 game!!) and they did the actual voices on a sound stage so the actors could actually... you know, act off of each other. Pretty neat stuff.

But do enjoy Shadow Hearts, the second game is honestly a masterpiece. If you play them, you'll want to actually get the bad ending to go into the second game with in the first.

[SoulBlazerFan]

I've got a few.

NES

The Guardian Legend

Zelda 3/4 view overworld with Shmup levels, and you play a lady robot who turns into the ship.

Hard game and it's one failure is it doesn't have a save feature but probably the worst password system next to Swords and Serpents.

Batman The Video Game

The best movie tie in game on the console, possibly the best one ever. To me anyway.

Ninja Gaiden style wall jumping, purple Batman, an amazing soundtrack, a tough son bitch of a game. Highly recommended.

That's all I got for now.

[psychokind]

SoulBlazerFan wrote:

Batman The Video Game The best movie tie in game on the console, possibly the best one ever. To me anyway. Ninja Gaiden style wall jumping, purple Batman, an amazing soundtrack, a tough son bitch of a game. Highly recommended. That's all I got for now.

fuck yeah, the OST is an absolute banger!! my friend had Return of the Joker, and that stage 1 drum intro I later played the other ones, and the soundtracks are all fantastic.

@jason: just emulate it, I can send you the .img from skies of arcadia if you need it.

[Manibrandr System]

Why don't we go with genre recommendations? Two of each, limiting myself to an initial release date mostly on or before 2000!

FPS
Blood - One Unit Whole/Fresh Supply
If I were to name a few FPS games that defined the retro era, Doom would be at the top of my list. But this is a very close contender. A balls-hard shooter that is a love-letter to contemporary horror movies, with unconventional weaponry, a cast of colourful horrors to blow up and believable labyrinthine level design, this is one of the few shooters that aged very well.

Doom (Every single iD Tech 1 Doom game)
Yes, lumping Ultimate DooM, DooM II: Hell on Earth, DooM 64, Final DOOM, and every Official Add-On here, because the zeitgeist of DooM is not limited to or segregated to any single game, but an amalgamation, a terroir of everything classic Doom that had ever existed.

What I really love about classic DooM is that it sets the trend of the standard loadout of weapons in an FPS game, a trend set for a good reason. With every weapon serving a specific purpose, doing well for specific situations, and a roster of enemies that deliver a good challenge, this is a gameplay style that will never get old. Moreover, with the massive library of add-ons, mods and source ports available, you'll be enjoying Doom classic for a very long time.

Action Adventure
Burning Rangers
This one calls back to fond childhood memories of mine. Back when we were given the opportunity to pick a new gaming console, we went with team Sonic, and we did not regret it. While the PS1 carried with it far more gems in the RPG department, the Saturn excels in arcade ports and fighting games.

And it is games like this that captured our, specifically Sophia's, imagination at an early age.

Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening DX
Picking the N64 Zelda games would probably be more relevant, as a lot of folks have had fond memories of this game, but it would not be honest. For us, our best experiences with classic Zelda was sitting in front of my PC, with a GBC emulator, and doing everything there is to do in Link's Awakening DX. It is for this reason that I would recommend LoZ:LADX.

Platformer
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Given that I picked team Sonic back then, I ended up spending my early teenage days firing up Sonic Jam, and playing through every included Sonic game repeatedly. Over time, we realized how poorly Sonic 1 aged, and while Sonic 2 was a great improvement, the lack of content means that eventually, I'd be able to run through the entire game in a couple of hours at most, and get bored of it, even with the option of playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2. This left Sonic 3 and Knuckles as the clear winner out of the classic Sonic games for me.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
When I started to get into PS1 emulation, I ended up listing a lot of games that I had wanted to catch up on, and this was one of them. I did not regret playing through this game, as the non-linear/exploration aspect of it really did a lot to elevate this game above its predecessors in a way that only Aria of Sorrow for the GBA could top.

Strategy
Super Robot Taisen Alpha Gaiden
One of the gems that came out of the ROMhacking and fan translation community. This Strategy RPG is an unabashed fan service to all mecha anime fans, and leans into the premise of the story being a massive crossover, while creating a story that is compelling in its own way.

Final Fantasy Tactics - War of the Lions
With a name like FFT, you wouldn't think that this game would have such mature writing to it. A solid entry to the world of Strategy RPGs, this game really aged well, especially with the choice of its art style.

RPG
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
My first experience of this game was when I was visiting a friend for a weekend of gaming. We were teens, and while he spent the day jacking off on the couch to female tennis players on TV, my ace ass was captivated by the...everything that was Valkyrie Profile. The music, the art style, the gameplay, and the story premise was nothing like I have ever seen before. This might have been the moment when Motoi Sakuraba became my life long inspiration as a composer.

Grandia II
Our first experience with this game was during a particularly dark era of our late teens. This game is surprisingly mature, touching on issues like childhood trauma, religious trauma, personal tragedies, and plurality, making it a seminal piece of work that not just captured our imagination, but also informed a lot of personal philosophies and spiritualities that stuck by us to this day. The gameplay is also really good, and features one of the best implementations of the ATB system I have seen to this day.

Racing
Wipeout 2097
Let's be honest here. I am not a fan of racers, at least the more realistic ones, I feel like it is a genre of game that I'd enjoy watching more than playing myself. However, when I first played Wipeout 2097, it blew me away, in more ways than one. Not only do you have the acing aspect, but you also have the combat aspect, with parts of the vehicles that can get damaged or even totaled by collisions and weapons, adding a more dynamic, tense and exciting to this game, especially with the different kind of physics. All of this, while trance and breakcore music pounds in the background, made this racing game a cut above the rest.

Re-Volt
In a similar vein, this is an RC racing sim with complex physics that gives it a unique feeling. But what sets this game apart from most other racing games is that it also has combat aspects, with a set of powerups that not only give a wide variety of effects, but with a couple of them even leaning into the psychological warfare aspect. (Bomb and Decoy powerups) With these traits, it was a toss-up between this game and Star Wars Episode 1: Podacer, but with Re-Volt, giving you the ability to create and race on custom tracks, I am nominating Re-Volt here.

Fighting
Street Fighter Alpha 2
This game was the reason I chose the Sega Saturn over the PS1, the 6 face button configuration o the controller made controlling the characters in this game quite a dream. I have spent so many sleepless nights repeatedly playing through the arcade mode with various characters and experimenting with various combos. It was probably a big influence on, funnily enough, leading us to obsess over the Tales of series, when we started to get into RPGs. I still think that this game is worth revisiting if you're looking for a retro fighting game.

Fighters Megamix
A cross over of the roster from Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter, this game features, at the time, a fairly unique and new way to control fighting game characters in a 3D environment, which makes it a fun and evergreen experience to just set up custom battles with various characters and arenas. The music, and clothes/arena damage mechanic is also pretty cool.