Hobbies What is your favorite retro console/game?

[SSj_Ness]

It's a topic done to death in general but I felt like talking about them. I consider retro to be everything pre-Xbox 360, but I guess you can include it in discussion if you really want, it's getting (disturbingly) close to retro anyway.

My favorite crusty old system would be N64. It's just got "cozy" games, massaging the ol' nostalgia since it was my primary console as a kid, I only really got into PlayStation later.

Runner up: SNES, it has lots of great, replayable games.

My favorite retro game fluctuates, but right now I wanna say Pokemon Stadium. I had endless fun for years in single player campaigns and using GB Tower, and lots of multiplayer battles with my siblings and friends. It's a little slow and limited, but still fun today.

Runner up: Super Mario RPG, it was funny and cool, great combat system.

Note: I ran out of space and left the original Xbox off the poll, which is the most notable exclusion. RIP Xbros (worst 6th gen console anyway).

 

[Firegirl26]

I have to say genesis because it is what got into the video games a little bit before I met my boyfriend. One of my favorite games was about ponies in saving them.

 

[FatFuck]

I have to say genesis because it is what got into the video games a little bit before I met my boyfriend. One of my favorite games was about ponies in saving them.

This one?

 

[Firegirl26]

I have to say genesis because it is what got into the video games a little bit before I met my boyfriend. One of my favorite games was about ponies in saving them.

This one?View attachment 35217

yes that one

 

[Slaughter]

N64 was the pinnacle of childhood for me. I've got so many favorites but Mario Kart 64 was the first game I got. I also have a promo VHS for Majora's Mask and Banjo Kazooie from Toys R Us somewhere. Wasnt super fond of MM, but Banjo scared me as a kid lmaoooo

I consider anything "retro" if you can remember being able to rent games for the system from Blockbuster. That's just my personal opinion though.

 

[Rez]

paper mario always go back to play it

 

[SSj_Ness]

paper mario always go back to play it

I love that game, TTYD too. The sequels after that are so bad though, it's like the worst case of a series falling straight off a cliff.

I was replaying Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga recently, it holds up pretty well too.

 

[Cavalier Cipolla]

The PC Engine. Whoever did this poll is an ignorant bugman doing a retro gamer equivalent of "How do you do fellow kids?". The PC Engine or TG16 in Hamburgerland was really successful in Japan and really deserves more appreciation. Its successor, SupeGrafx, also deserves appreciation.

Remember, it was released in 1987 in Japan! This thing could do 512 pixels of horizontal resolution without sacrificing the color palette! The palette was a 9 bit RGB palette, but you could have 482 colors on screen at a time, using two pairs, one for sprites and the other for BG tiles, of 16 color palettes of 15 colors+BG/transparency each. It could even output RGB, unlike the NES (unless you put in the Playchoice RGB PPU) but like the Master System. The Amiga was the only relatively affordable platform that could compete with the graphics capabilites! It was also powered by a 65C02 on crack, as it ran at 7.16 MHz (making it FASTER in simpler operations than the 68k! So much for blast processing!) instead of the puny 1.79 MHz, though both speeds were possible. I suppose that if you were cheaping out on the ROM by using a slower one, you would use the slower speed when reading from ROM and switch back to the fast speed when reading from RAM.

Now, the sound...it was less impressive. It didn't have FM synth or proper PCM sample playback. Instead, it had 5 PSG channels, though they were more flexible than the NES and Master System PSG. Basically, you had a 32 sample 5 bit waveform instead of preset waveforms. You could also turn on a direct D/A mode, but it wasn't like the Amiga's PCM mode where it was DMA based and automated sample timing. You had to blast sample data with the CPU with the proper timing.

Fortunately, that wasn't too big of an issue if you were to compromise sound quality (which would've been reasonable at launch anyways because...memory wasn't dirt cheap) as you did have a timer interrupt that could hit up to 7 KHz. Or you could just rely on the 15.7 KHz horizontal interrupts if you wanted to.

TL;DR, it was a console that was quite ahead of its time and future proof too. Unlike the Sega CD, the PC Engine CD add on was everything but a flop! In fact, it is what enabled the console to last until the PS1 era! It was to the point that most later games were on CD instead of cartidge! It's a shame the marketing in the west was so dogshit. In 1987 or 1988 this thing could've challenged the Amiga with its graphics capabilites, though perhaps its own version of the FDS would've been desirable to compete better.

 

[Jazz never died!]

To many for me to say is my fav. But right now i'm playing a lot of GTA 4 on the 360. Not retro but the system came out about 18 years ago and the game 15 years. To a lot of young gamers its retro.

 

[youthful_ shannel]

I loved the Mastersystem, the games were all rubbish, but they were the games I had and there's something about the way she kicks out blues, purples and pastel colours... It never looked muddy and brown like the NES. Now sit back and let me explain why Golvellius is better than Zelda.

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's not.

 

[fag0t]

for me probably final fantasy 4

 

[Cavalier Cipolla]

I loved the Mastersystem, the games were all rubbish, but they were the games I had and there's something about the way she kicks out blues, purples and pastel colours... It never looked muddy and brown like the NES. Now sit back and let me explain why Golvellius is better than Zelda.

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's not.

Master System had Phantasy Star games, tho. Even in Europe! Final Fantasy only reached Europe in the PS1 era. Interestingly enough, the Master System performed much better in Europe, except Scandinavia, than the NES did. I believe a major selling point compared to home computers like the C64 and the Amiga, gaming wise, was the instant loading as well as plenty of arcade ports.

Sure, they were often sub par, but note that the home computer versions were often handled by incompetent or time constrained devs. The worst offenders, ZX Spectrum ports, legit played less like a computer game and more like a Tiger LCD handheld game. Then you had the hell of ZX Spectrum conversions on the CPC and Atari ST conversions on the Amiga, neither taking advantage of extra capabilities.

By the 90s the Master System became the budget gaming option in western Europe, keyword WESTERN. In former Warsaw Pact countries Famiclones of all kinds, from NOAC trash to legit decent hardware clones, were dominating the budget console market. The Master System just didn't make sense, the Megadrive was a far better option since you paid a lot more money for a lot better graphics and sound. And unlike the SNES, it lacked any lockout mechanism, meaning that pirated cartridges were far easier to make.

 

[youthful_ shannel]

Master System had Phantasy Star games, tho. Even in Europe! Final Fantasy only reached Europe in the PS1 era. Interestingly enough, the Master System performed much better in Europe, except Scandinavia, than the NES did. I believe a major selling point compared to home computers like the C64 and the Amiga, gaming wise, was the instant loading as well as plenty of arcade ports.

Sure, they were often sub par, but note that the home computer versions were often handled by incompetent or time constrained devs. The worst offenders, ZX Spectrum ports, legit played less like a computer game and more like a Tiger LCD handheld game. Then you had the hell of ZX Spectrum conversions on the CPC and Atari ST conversions on the Amiga, neither taking advantage of extra capabilities.

By the 90s the Master System became the budget gaming option in western Europe, keyword WESTERN. In former Warsaw Pact countries Famiclones of all kinds, from NOAC trash to legit decent hardware clones, were dominating the budget console market. The Master System just didn't make sense, the Megadrive was a far better option since you paid a lot more money for a lot better graphics and sound. And unlike the SNES, it lacked any lockout mechanism, meaning that pirated cartridges were far easier to make.

I never actually played Phantasy Star during the reign of the mastersystem, I remember the game shop near my house had a copy of it and it cost £80! People shouldn't sleep on the mastersystem port of Ys, the TG16 version renders it completely obsolete, but in the day it was pretty good with Bitchin tunes.

While football is now the most popular genre in Europe, developers didn't really get the hang of it until the 16 bit era. We never had a TecmoBowl. In the days before football, it was racing and nothing on NES compares to Outrun or Hang-On, the colour, the speed, Shit makes Rad Racer look like one of those Tiger Electronics toys.

 

[youthful_ shannel]

By the 90s the Master System became the budget gaming option in western Europe, keyword WESTERN. In former Warsaw Pact countries Famiclones of all kinds, from NOAC trash to legit decent hardware clones, were dominating the budget console market.

The first time I played Ice Climbers was on Pegasus.

 

[Cavalier Cipolla]

I never actually played Phantasy Star during the reign of the mastersystem, I remember the game shop near my house had a copy of it and it cost £80! People shouldn't sleep on the mastersystem port of Ys, the TG16 version renders it completely obsolete, but in the day it was pretty good with Bitchin tunes.

While football is now the most popular genre in Europe, developers didn't really get the hang of it until the 16 bit era. We never had a TecmoBowl. In the days before football, it was racing and nothing on NES compares to Outrun or Hang-On, the colour, the speed, Shit makes Rad Racer look like one of those Tiger Electronics toys.

Your local game shop was probably ripping people off. According to Segaretro's sauce it was £40. Still, back in Japan it was quite a bit cheaper, 6000 yen, which was about 47$ in 1988. Something I noticed on there is that for some reason Phantasy Star games in the west were price gouged compared to back in Japan. The prices were some 50-70% higher!

 

[Crimson Fucker]

This is pretty tough for me because i loved ps1 and 2 as well as the n64 and gc and xbox. They all had great titles. Imo the game cube had the best controller when it came to Nintendo controllers. I still prefered the ps2 controller over all though. Original x box was great too because halo 1 and 2. That was a unique experience that you really can't get anymore since the new halo games suck and online for those are dead. You could probably beat a home invader to death with the x box controller too, hypothetically speaking. The games on 64 were classics for me with nostalgia value and you can even emulate them on your phone. But the controller looks like a 3 armed alien that didn't know what species it was marketing to designed it for their own by default. The ps2 library was huge but the ngc still has some of my favorites. Hard to pick honestly.

 

[fag0t]

cheating on halo 2 was based as fuck people would just give you trial cards to boost them and people would rage about it hard

 

[Kunikazu Okumura]

NES. I got one for Christmas in the 80s. It was the bomb. Mario 1-3, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Rad Racer, and OG Zelda.

 

[notgivingmynametoamachine]

Grandia (PS1)
or
LUNAR 2: EBC (PS1)
or
Xenogears (PS1)

That's off the top of my head.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

The PC Engine. Whoever did this poll is an ignorant bugman doing a retro gamer equivalent of "How do you do fellow kids?". The PC Engine or TG16 in Hamburgerland was really successful in Japan and really deserves more appreciation. Its successor, SupeGrafx, also deserves appreciation.

The "successor" that only had five or so games and was quickly discontinued, while the console it was "succeeding" continued to get made?

TL;DR, it was a console that was quite ahead of its time and future proof too. Unlike the Sega CD, the PC Engine CD add on was everything but a flop! In fact, it is what enabled the console to last until the PS1 era! It was to the point that most later games were on CD instead of cartidge!

.... or, well, little card things actually. Not cartridges. The funny thing is that the US marketing tried to call them "Turbochips" but even on US games the term "HuCard" was still plainly visible so everyone I've ever known called them that.

I loved those cards.

As for this topic, its hard for me to pick a favorite. I didn't grow up with just one sixteen bit console but actually got to experience the three main ones (SNES, Gen, and TG16) in my youth, with the last being one I didn't own but played at a friends' house once but its games nevertheless stuck with me.