Retro Games Worth Playing

[Billy_Sama]

Mr. Gimmick, Ufouria, Blaster Master and Batman: The Video Game for the NES.
You know what, forget it. Just every Sunsoft NES game.

I really like Super Spy Hunter. Good take of the original arcade into a shmup. I like the touch how they simulated curved roads in the game

Shame they relied on outside studios for the later systems, they never came close like they did on the NES.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Hmmm. It was without any input from Eric Chahi. It feels more like a reskin than a proper sequel, what with Buddy's whip suddenly developing the ability to fire laser bullets and only occasionally used for the rope swinging and certainly never for lashing enemies to electrified death with. I think they should have made Buddy's abilities different to Lester's.

I love that game. I think I have a copy on every console I have it's available on actually. If anyone likes Another World and you haven't checked out Flashback, also by Delphine, that's great as well.

I made an effort post in the obscure games about Heart of Darkness, that's the sequel to Another World in many ways(it was Chahi's next game). If you haven't played it, you should. It's really good.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

There's one I forgot to include for the Atari ST. It was originally on there but there are also ports for PC and Amiga. It is, of course, Llamatron.

Designed by a legendary weirdo called Jeff Minter and released as freeware, Llamatron starts with the arcade twin stick shooter Robotron, turns the player into a llama firing bullets from its eyes, turns the enemies into random objects like Coke cans, packets of Rizlas, cow heads, smiley faces, potplants, and so forth, and includes a number of "beasties" such as goats, camels, yaks, and other ruminants that are to be rescued for bonus points, includes ridiculous sound effects, seizure-inducing inter-level graphics, and adds a variety of other special monsters such as giant 16 ton weights that drop on you from the top of the screen, indestructible laser beams, toilets that spew bog rolls with every flush, blue brains that turn beasties into evil "zombeasts," and a glowing mandelbrot set called Screaming Mandy that chases you and makes ear-rape noises when shot.

It has to be seen to be believed.

Oh, and there's apparently been an Android port as well. Ohhh yeahhh!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=y4i0y2NMq40

Went looking for it, turns out you can grab it from MyAbadonware (DOS & ST it seems). I'm dying to load this up in retroarch later.

 

[Billy_Sama]

There's one I forgot to include for the Atari ST. It was originally on there but there are also ports for PC and Amiga. It is, of course, Llamatron.

Designed by a legendary weirdo called Jeff Minter and released as freeware, Llamatron starts with the arcade twin stick shooter Robotron, turns the player into a llama firing bullets from its eyes, turns the enemies into random objects like Coke cans, packets of Rizlas, cow heads, smiley faces, potplants, and so forth, and includes a number of "beasties" such as goats, camels, yaks, and other ruminants that are to be rescued for bonus points, includes ridiculous sound effects, seizure-inducing inter-level graphics, and adds a variety of other special monsters such as giant 16 ton weights that drop on you from the top of the screen, indestructible laser beams, toilets that spew bog rolls with every flush, blue brains that turn beasties into evil "zombeasts," and a glowing mandelbrot set called Screaming Mandy that chases you and makes ear-rape noises when shot.

Jeff Minter made Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, the only game I would play on that system.

 

[ForgedBlades]

Jeff Minter made Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, the only game I would play on that system.

Brutal Sports Football is one of my favorite retro games. Not a Jag exclusive, but it's one of a handful of retro games I get the urge to fire up on a regular basis.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

Anyone else played Commander Keen?

That was classic.

 

[Nick Gars]

Phantom Dust, just about anything on Dreamcast, Rez, Shillouette Mirage, Mischief Makers, Gun Star Heros, Dynamite Headdy, Intelligent Qube....

Drawing blanks after that. I haven't had access to my collection in a long time.

 

[Nash Vortex]

Anyone else played Commander Keen?

I have recently played Commander Keen in the browser. There's more from id on archive.org's software library, too. Including Wolf3D, which I originally played off a floppy.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

Anyone else played Commander Keen?

That was classic.

I have many happy memories of playing Commander Keen I - 4. We never had consoles except for the old nintendo as a kid, so it was PC master race from a very early period. And my brother was friends with a kid who's parents literally would buy him anything and everything so we we're always trading games.

A great gem of a classic from Sierra is Conquest for The Longbow, it was part of the unofficial conquest series, Conquest of Camelot being the previous entry in the series. Both are excellent and stand out much better in terms of game play than the Kings Quest series did, but where it really took off was with Conquest of The Longbow, set around the story of Robin Hood the game is a great adventure puzzle game that conveys a really excellent and touching story with elements of action and puzzle gameplay as well as an excellently thought out and conveyed story, it is one of my favorites of the point and click genre from Sierra for that time period and if you are an aficionado of the genre then its one you won't want to miss.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

I have many happy memories of playing Commander Keen I - 4. We never had consoles except for the old nintendo as a kid, so it was PC master race from a very early period. And my brother was friends with a kid who's parents literally would buy him anything and everything so we we're always trading games.

A great gem of a classic from Sierra is Conquest for The Longbow, it was part of the unofficial conquest series, Conquest of Camelot being the previous entry in the series. Both are excellent and stand out much better in terms of game play than the Kings Quest series did, but where it really took off was with Conquest of The Longbow, set around the story of Robin Hood the game is a great adventure puzzle game that conveys a really excellent and touching story with elements of action and puzzle gameplay as well as an excellently thought out and conveyed story, it is one of my favorites of the point and click genre from Sierra for that time period and if you are an aficionado of the genre then its one you won't want to miss.

I loved Longbow. Although remembering the hand codes and the trees' secret names was annoying even by copy protection standards.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

I loved Longbow. Although remembering the hand codes and the trees' secret names was annoying even by copy protection standards.

It got to the point where I memorized that shit. For instance Gort is the saxon name for Ivy. Drilled into my head.

 

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Any of the Wario Land series.
Super Mario RPG, DuckTales NES.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

Classic NES series Dragon Warrior.
All of them have fairly good plotlines, but the one that I think was the stand out of the original series is the 4th one, it combined all of the best aspects of the previous games with a well developed chapters style storyline that made you feel for all of the characters before the fifth and penultimate chapter when you finally take control of the hero of the story.

 

[dysentery]

Classic NES series Dragon Warrior.
All of them have fairly good plotlines, but the one that I think was the stand out of the original series is the 4th one, it combined all of the best aspects of the previous games with a well developed chapters style storyline that made you feel for all of the characters before the fifth and penultimate chapter when you finally take control of the hero of the story.

Dragon Warrior IV is phenomenal. I heard it uses an insane amount of ROM too. Probably the largest official non-multicart game on the system.

 

[Belmont]

Anyone else played Commander Keen?

That was classic.

Did anyone else ever have that Apogee collection? It had Commander Keen 1 and Goodbye Galaxy as well as the first two Duke Nukem games..but it also had some little gems in it.
I remember really liking Bio Menace which was a side scrolling/platform/shooter starring Snake Logan with his moustache, mullet and trusty shotgun. Basically your plane crashes and you gotta fight your way out of a mutant infested city and kill the doctor who started this whole mess.
Secret Agent was another good one from Apogee. It's a basic platformer, you find color-coded keys to open doors, destroy the satellite every level, get the TNT and blow the door. It's Spy/Bond themed. No music, just sound for jumping and shooting and dying..which you do a lot of.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

Did anyone else ever have that Apogee collection? It had Commander Keen 1 and Goodbye Galaxy as well as the first two Duke Nukem games..but it also had some little gems in it.
I remember really liking Bio Menace which was a side scrolling/platform/shooter starring Snake Logan with his moustache, mullet and trusty shotgun. Basically your plane crashes and you gotta fight your way out of a mutant infested city and kill the doctor who started this whole mess.
Secret Agent was another good one from Apogee. It's a basic platformer, you find color-coded keys to open doors, destroy the satellite every level, get the TNT and blow the door. It's Spy/Bond themed. No music, just sound for jumping and shooting and dying..which you do a lot of.

There were so many funny apogee platformers back in the day. We had Duke Nukem 2 which I beat, still fairly proud of that accomplishment, the game was unforgiving as fuck.

Dragon Warrior IV is phenomenal. I heard it uses an insane amount of ROM too. Probably the largest official non-multicart game on the system.

I don't know, all I know is that it was the first in the series that really set the bar for the great SNES era of RPG's from Square and Enix. The two had always been copying and adapting off each other throughout the life of the NES.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

On the subject of NES one cart everyone must own if they have the system without a doubt is the original Bionic Commando.

This is a great platforming game which combined a swing arm alongside challenging maps, difficult boss battles and a fairly interesting cast of vague Nazi-esque npc. You play as the Bionic Commando, a soldier who has has been given an extendable arm and hook, put into combat to search for the captured soldier Super Joe with his amazing (not.) machine gun. In the end you must prevent Master D (Cloned Hitler.) from beginning his quest for world domination.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

There were so many funny apogee platformers back in the day. We had Duke Nukem 2 which I beat, still fairly proud of that accomplishment, the game was unforgiving as fuck.

And lifted assets from Turrican, as did the first one.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Bio Menace was great if you like old 2D platformers.
Marathon was pretty decent for a 90s FPS. So was Strife.
The Descent games are always worth a play, if your stomach can handle the combination of early 3D graphics and full axis control in 0 gravity.
Day of the Tentacle is one of my all time top recommended games if you like zany humor and P&C adventure titles.
Age of Empires 2 was probably my favorite medieval themed RTS game. It was either that or Stronghold.
If you've never played Dungeon Keeper or Dungeon Keeper 2, then what the hell is wrong with you?
Total Annihilation is a damn fine RTS game, even today.
Planescape: Torment is a definite must play, as well. That and the Baldur's Gate series.
If you like frustratingly difficult puzzle based adventure games, God of Thunder might be right up your alley.
The Command & Conquer titles are always worth a play, especially Red Alert 2 and it's expansion Yuri's Revenge. (If you're gonna play RA2 I suggest tracking down the old "Balance of Power" mod that Cannis Rabidus made long ago.)

 

[Cubanodun]

Well now you can enjoy the best shooter in the Mega Drive system in your privileged Nintendo Switch for 8 bucks apparently

But you really have to buy it for the OST