Retro Games Worth Playing

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A link to the past is still a great little classic.

I suppose it's enough to be considered retro now, but Azure Dreams.
Certainly not the most involved of the RPG's that came out on the PS, but it had an interesting storyline in the fact that it wasn't a wandering the world RPG. Instead you had to do dungeon crawling in a tower that consistently regenerated new levels so the dynamics of it would change every time you entered. It also had a monster capturing and breeding system that was popular during that time period (Pokemon/digimon were still strong market influencers.)

Also the most interesting aspect of it, was the actual dating element of the game, where you could essentially seduce the available girls in the village. (In the Japanese original you could marry them, but since the protag was 16 they nixed it for the English release.) Which padded out the more repetitive elements of going back into the dungeon.
You also could improve the quality of the village with your spoils. (Another rip off of elements of Breath of Fire.)

It's a fun little rpg that isn't overly involved and doesn't take a massive amount of time to play through and beat.
 
Not sure if any of these are up your alley, but I have a fondness for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and The Incredible Machine series and would definitely recommend them for people who want to take a break from fast-paced games at times.

The latter is still available on GOG, but I have yet to find a legal source for Carmen Sandiego. Some abandonware sites probably still host copies of both.
 
Qi Meng Dealer said:
Not sure if any of these are up your alley, but I have a fondness for Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and The Incredible Machine series and would definitely recommend them for people who want to take a break from fast-paced games at times.

The latter is still available on GOG, but I have yet to find a legal source for Carmen Sandiego. Some abandonware sites probably still host copies of both.
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Highly recommend them, played them a lot as a kid.
 
I tried Deus Ex for the first time a while back, and now it's my favorite game of all time. It was a real bitch to set up though; took me a while to setup a renderer that didn't just make the game all black
 
Oddjob OTP said:
I also have a soft spot for Secret of Evermore which a lot of people have mixed feelings on but it's definitely one of the more unique ARPGs on the SNES story wise and the game play is fine but sometimes grindy because spells cost materials.
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Secret of Evermore is a fucking great game that got shit on because Seiken Densetsu 3 never got a Western release. It's Secret of Mana but with Western sensibilities and a great soundtrack. You also get some funny dialog because the protagonist is a movie nerd who relates everything to some B-flick in his world, and the alchemy magic has a great variety. I want to chug a bottle of ritalin and stay up for five days doing nothing but playing Evermore and writing a fucking novel of a review on how great it is.

All three games of its series (Mana, Evermore, SD3) are 100% worth playing, and some of the best RPGs on the SNES. Evermore also has a 2-player hacked ROM where a second player can be the dog, if you want multiplayer.
 
If you like SHUMPS then 2 of my favourites that i never see mentioned are Batsugun and Giga Wing.
If you are a fan of the C&C Red alert RTS series then Krush Kill and Destroy (KKnD) is a fairly similar fun game. I always found the KKnD cutscenes way funnier than the C&C series.
For the SMS i still think the built in 'Alex the Kidd' is fun to play and people are too harsh on it because it's not like SMB (and admittedly the weird janken boss battles), however my favourite SMS game that nobody played is probably 'the ninja'.
 
The original Secret of Mana (fuck that remake with it's godawful VA work - everyone involved with that landfill should be kneecapped). It's still my idea of the greatest action RPG ever made and it's a crying shame more games like it outside of its series haven't been made.
 
Piss said:
Secret of Evermore is a fucking great game that got shit on because Seiken Densetsu 3 never got a Western release. It's Secret of Mana but with Western sensibilities and a great soundtrack. You also get some funny dialog because the protagonist is a movie nerd who relates everything to some B-flick in his world, and the alchemy magic has a great variety. I want to chug a bottle of ritalin and stay up for five days doing nothing but playing Evermore and writing a fucking novel of a review on how great it is.

All three games of its series (Mana, Evermore, SD3) are 100% worth playing, and some of the best RPGs on the SNES. Evermore also has a 2-player hacked ROM where a second player can be the dog, if you want multiplayer.
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Pargon said:
The original Secret of Mana (fuck that remake with it's godawful VA work - everyone involved with that landfill should be kneecapped). It's still my idea of the greatest action RPG ever made and it's a crying shame more games like it outside of its series haven't been made.
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Now that does take me back. I only briefly played Evermore but liked it, SOM I played and beat and I beat Seiken Densetsu 3 on all 3 alternating storylines. All are excellent games which reflect a time when the quality of the RPG on the SNES had come into it's prime. It's a shame more weren't picked up and made.
 
MilkMage said:
I tried Deus Ex for the first time a while back, and now it's my favorite game of all time. It was a real bitch to set up though; took me a while to setup a renderer that didn't just make the game all black
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I tried doing in on ace stealth mode first time playing through, and got so frustrated it was just like, fuck it I'mma shoot yo ass. Gunther was also a laugh!
 
Scorched Earth, a two-player turn-based artillery game that ran on DOS. When I was a kid I stayed 2-3 hours after school every day waiting for my mom to get off work and pick me up and my tiny school had a computer lab with three PCs in it. All we were allowed to use them for was typing tutorials and edutainment games but after they'd been obviously donated someone clearly forgot to reformat them because that game was on two of the three. This other kid and I would just lose our shit launching MIRVs because it made the system slow down to a crawl.
 
Pargon said:
Scorched Earth, a two-player turn-based artillery game that ran on DOS. When I was a kid I stayed 2-3 hours after school every day waiting for my mom to get off work and pick me up and my tiny school had a computer lab with three PCs in it. All we were allowed to use them for was typing tutorials and edutainment games but after they'd been obviously donated someone clearly forgot to reformat them because that game was on two of the three. This other kid and I would just lose our shit launching MIRVs because it made the system slow down to a crawl.
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HA. Yes. It's been so long I forgot that existed, but that was a great old game. Really simple set up but it was so much fun. Good choice.
 
Piss said:
Secret of Evermore is a fucking great game that got shit on because Seiken Densetsu 3 never got a Western release. It's Secret of Mana but with Western sensibilities and a great soundtrack. You also get some funny dialog because the protagonist is a movie nerd who relates everything to some B-flick in his world, and the alchemy magic has a great variety. I want to chug a bottle of ritalin and stay up for five days doing nothing but playing Evermore and writing a fucking novel of a review on how great it is.

All three games of its series (Mana, Evermore, SD3) are 100% worth playing, and some of the best RPGs on the SNES. Evermore also has a 2-player hacked ROM where a second player can be the dog, if you want multiplayer.
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Fukken-A right on SoE. Soule was so young when he composed the soundtrack that I'm pretty sure he was still wet from afterbirth but goddamn if it doesn't still hold up.
 
Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost said:
Now that does take me back. I only briefly played Evermore but liked it, SOM I played and beat and I beat Seiken Densetsu 3 on all 3 alternating storylines. All are excellent games which reflect a time when the quality of the RPG on the SNES had come into it's prime. It's a shame more weren't picked up and made.
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Evermore's worth going back to. I'm gonna guess you either fell out of it at the volcano or the pyramid, since those two areas are slogs, with the pyramid being the worst part of the game. Shortly after Antiqua (the desert/Roman region) you'll make it to Gothica, a medieval region, and the best part of the game. The entire latter half of the game is solid all the way to the end, and tbh the only part I don't enjoy is the labyrinthian pyramid.
 
Piss said:
Evermore's worth going back to. I'm gonna guess you either fell out of it at the volcano or the pyramid, since those two areas are slogs, with the pyramid being the worst part of the game. Shortly after Antiqua (the desert/Roman region) you'll make it to Gothica, a medieval region, and the best part of the game. The entire latter half of the game is solid all the way to the end, and tbh the only part I don't enjoy is the labyrinthian pyramid.
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Nah, I started it then was told secret of mana was the first game, I like to try to do things in chronological order, so I stopped playing intending to pick it back up, never did.
 
Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost said:
Nah, I started it then was told secret of mana was the first game, I like to try to do things in chronological order, so I stopped playing intending to pick it back up, never did.
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It's story is completely unrelated to the SoE series, basically they hired a bunch of round eyes to make it at their American office and only tacked on the "Secret of" moniker later.
 
Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost said:
Nah, I started it then was told secret of mana was the first game, I like to try to do things in chronological order, so I stopped playing intending to pick it back up, never did.
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Have you played the original Seiken Densetsu/Final Fantasy Adventure/Final Fantasy Mystic Quest(the title in Europe) on the Gameboy? It's much more of a Final Fantasy converted into a clunky Zelda but some things originated in that game and carried over, like certain enemy designs, items and those weird dancing shopkeepers. I can't imagine that it holds up, even back then it wasn't great, but it was alright.
 
Dick Justice said:
How retro is retro? Are we following the /vr/ guide to topicality? Assuming so I'm surprised no one's mentioned Clock Tower and its prequel The First Fear. Unless you count Sweet Home these are the definitive survival horror games. Review of Clock Tower attached (direct link) and JonTron did an equally excellent one on The First Fear which isn't included because spoilers.
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Seconding this - particularly the First Fear because it's probably my favourite pixellated survival horror game and holy hell does it still hold up. If you want a horror game that's pretty to look at and is more horrifying on a more subtle layer then the first Clock Tower game is definitely something you should check out. The second game is also pretty good at being scary despite clearly trying to be Resident Evil and the voice acting is really funny - seriously if you want a good laugh then play Helen's campaign and choose to visit the old guy at the library - you won't be disappointed!
 
687319

Army Men RTS

It's Command and Conquer but with an aesthetic of being toys waging battle in residential locations like a bathroom, a backyard or a basement. It also plays a lot simpler than most other RTS games so it is a lot easier to get into compared to Command and Conquer

but on-top of that it natively works in widescreen (shocked me) and I couldn't find any modern Windows hiccups. The only thing I disliked about it was it lacks a skirmish mode but there's actually a mod for the game that simply allows you to play the multiplayer with AI opponents without a human opponent being present. And fully incorporates it into the UI. Why this wasn't in the game at launch is puzzling since it's standard in the genre.
 
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