Retro games always had some charm. They evoke nostalgia and make us believe that old times did not matter as much as they did at present graphics. Don’t let simple graphics fool you. Some retro games, such as Baldur’s Gate, are among the toughest of each genre, and Minecraft is the most prevalent one in the world. We have the best retro games available on Android. If you’re trying to get your hands dirty with a little nostalgic gambling, then here is the list of best Retro Games.
We live in a golden age with every taste of the interactive experience. Nevertheless, it’s difficult not to pine for the simpler days of the arcade era occasionally, when the best retro games – the fantastic 8-bit and 16-bit titles – have made us healthy sleep-shirking people.
So, let’s discuss the Top 20 Best Retro Games of all Time!
20. Chuckie Egg
Chuckie Egg, originally published for the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, and Dragon 32/64 by A&F Software in 1983. The player must collect 12 eggs placed on each level, like Hen-House Harry, before the countdown is nil. Furthermore, seed stacks can be collected to increase points and stop the countdown timer, but hens that control the level and cause them to pause. If the player touches a hen or falls across a lower level gap, he loses a life.
| Platform: | ZX Spectrum |
| Year: | 1983 |
| Developer: | A&F Software |
| Publisher: | A&F Software, Pick & Choose |
19. Manic Miner
The video game originally produced by Matthew Smith in 1983 for the ZX Spectrum platform is Manic Miner. It included sound and in-game music, high replay value, and colorful graphics. The Video Display of the Spectrum allows for the automatic interchange of background and foreground colors without software attention. In the Hall of the Mountain King, the in-game music is from Edvard Grieg’s music to Henrik Ibsen’s activity Peer Gynt. The tune that rings during the title screen are an adaptation of The Blue Danube.
| Platform: | ZX Spectrum |
| Year: | 1985 |
| Developer: | Matthew Smith |
| Publisher: | Bug-Byte (1983) Software Projects (1983) Amsoft (1985) |
18. Day Of The Tentacle
Day of the Tentacle is a 1993 graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucas Arts. It follows the Maniac Mansion game of 1987. The plot follows Bernard Bernoulli, his friends Hoagie and Laverne as they try, by taking over the world, to stop the evil Purple Tentacle – a sensitive, disembodied tentacle. The player takes control of the trio and solves puzzles while exploring different historical periods using the time journey. Tentacle Day follows the two-dimensional adventure game formula, first set by Maniac Mansion, point-and-click. Players direct the characters by controlling keys in this game.
| Platform: | MS-DOS |
| Year: | 1993 |
| Developer: | Lucas Arts |
| Publisher: | Lucas Arts |
17. Sensible Soccer
Sensible soccer is a football association that was very popular during the early 1990s and still retains cultivation. Sensible football is often called “sense.” It features a zoomed-out birds-eye view, with a simple, user-friendly control scheme for most games until then, such as KickOff and Matchday, which were editable national clubs. The “aftertouch” feature, which allowed for effective but unreality, was one of the definition elements in the gameplay. The game was dominated by charts like “All-Time Top 100” by Amiga Power.
| Platform: | Amiga and MS-DOS |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Sensible Software |
| Publisher: | Virgin Games |
16. Pong
Pong is a video table tennis arcade with simple two-dimensional graphics produced by Atari, published in 1972. Pong was the first commercially thriving video game, and together with Magnavox Odyssey, helped establish the video game industry. Shortly after it was released, several companies started to produce games that close to their gameplay. The game simulates table tennis. This is a two-dimensional game. By move the player vertically across the left and right side of the screen, the player controls an in-game paddle. They can fight a second paddle on the opposite side against another player.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1972 |
| Developer: | Atari |
| Publisher: | NA/EU: Atari | JP: Atari Japan (Namco) |
15. Gauntlet
Gauntlet is the 1985 Atari Games and Midway hack and slashes Arcade game. This game is a bit of a series of top-down, third-person labyrinths where the object is to find the desired exits on all levels. Each level enhances the player’s health by opening doors, gaining more points, and providing magic potions that can destroy all his enemies on the screen. One of four reproducible fantasy-based characters is played by each player: Thor, a warrior; Merlin, a wizard; Thyra, a valkyrie; or Questor, an Elf. The characters are given on the artwork of the cabinet, but only the title in the game.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1985 |
| Developer: | Atari Games (Arcade) Tengen (NES) |
| Publisher: | Atari Games Tengen U.S. Gold |
14. Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 General Computer Corporation-developed and published game of maze arcade. It is Pac-first Man’s sequence (1980) and Namco’s first entry in the series. The player controls the main character, who eats all pellets in a closed labyrinth while avoiding four colorful ghosts. In the biggest ‘power pellets,’ the player can eat the blue and fleeing ghosts. The gameplay is much like Pac-Man. When a power pellet is used, it turns blue and allows them to eat extra points. The monsters eat the energy pellet. Bonus fruits can be consumed twice around for high points. As the rounds grow, the speed increases, and energy generators usually decrease the vulnerability of monsters and eventually stop.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1982 |
| Developer: | General Computer Corporation Midway |
| Publisher: | Midway |
13. Super Metroid
Super Metroid was developed and published for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by Nintendo in 1994. It is a 2D, side-scrolling action-adventure game, primarily in the original game on the fictitious Zebes planet, a wide-open world with door and elevator areas. Samus Aran is controlled by the player while looking around the planet for a Metroid stolen by the Space Pirates, Ridley. In eight directions, Samus can run, jump, hook and fire a gun. He can perform jumping from wall to wall—spring quickly from wall to wall to reach higher areas.
| Platform: | SNES |
| Year: | 1994 |
| Developer: | Nintendo R&D1 Intelligent Systems |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
12. Paperboy
Paperboy is a game that Atari Games and the Midway Games have developed and released. The player acts as a paperboy who plays on a suburban street on his bicycle with his fictional newspaper called “The Daily Sun.” The version of the Arcade of the game was equipped with cycle controls. On a bicycle, the player controls a boy who provides journals on a suburban road seen from the cabinet. The player tries to vandalize households for non-subscribers and must avoid street hazards. Subscribers are lost by the lack of damage to the house of a subscriber.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1985 |
| Developer: | Arcade ,NA: Atari Games |
| Publisher: | Midway |
11. Duck Hunt
Duck Hunt is a shooter game aimed at shooting moving targets in the mid-range on the TV screen. The game is played from a first-person panorama, requiring a light weapons NES Zapper that the player aims at and fires. Also, the Zapper gun doesn’t work with LCD or HDTVs and requires a CRT television screen. A total of 10 targets to shoot are included in each round. Depending on the player mode before playing the game, one objective will be displayed on the screen at any time, and the player will try three times before they vanish. The player must shoot a minimum number of goals successfully.
| Platform: | NES |
| Year: | 1984 |
| Developer: | Nintendo R&D1, Intelligent Systems |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
10. Space Invaders
Space Invaders is a fixed shooter that controls a laser cannon through the screen horizontally and fires at the descending aliens. The player controls the laser cannon. The aim is to derail five rows of eleven aliens, even though there are different numbers in some versions moving across the screen horizontally as they move to the bottom. Several stationary defense bunkers protect the player’s laser cannon. The scores vary according to a version and are destroyed by blasts from the alien or the player from top to bottom. By shooting it with laser scans, the player defeats an alien and earns points.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1978 |
| Developer: | Taito |
| Publisher: | JP/AS/EU: Taito | NA/EU: Midway |
9. Streets Of Rage 2
Streets of Rage II, which Sega published in 1992, is a side-scrolling video game. Streets of Rage 2 is a slippery beat-up in which one or two players fight waves of enemies while collecting arms and articles. Together with the returning characters Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding, the game presents two new characters: Max Thunder, a slow-moving but powerful wrestler, and Eddie “Skate” Hunter, Adam Hunter’s brother the past game who can quickly move around with his blades. In addition to standard attacks, each character can carry out a single Blitz attack by double-tapping the direction before an attack.
| Platform: | Sega Mega Drive |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Sega, Ancient |
| Publisher: | Sega |
8. Outrun
OutRun is a Sega-released arcade driving video game, released in September 1986. It is known for its pioneering graphic, selectable soundtrack with Hiroshi Kawaguchi’s music and its deluxe Arcade. The objective is to prevent traffic and reach destinations. OutRun is a 3D drive video game in which the player controls a third Ferrari Testarossa Spider. The camera is located close to the floor, simulating the position of the Ferrari driver and limiting the player’s view from afar. The road curves, crests, and dips increase the challenge by obscuring the obstacles coming into the game.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1986 |
| Developer: | Sega |
| Publisher: | WW: Sega (arcade), EU: U.S. Gold (computers) |
7. Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong is a video game with the ape Donkey Kong adventures that Shigeru Miyamoto made in 1981. There are mainly two genres in the franchise, but there are also different spin-off titles in different genres. The first-genre games are mainly single-screen/action puzzle type, with Donkey Kong in an industrial setting as its opponent. Donkey Kong first appeared in 1981 in front of Jumpman (Mario).
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Developer: | Nintendo R&D1, Ikegami Tsushinki |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
6. Sonic The Hedgehog 2
The 1992 platform game “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” was developed and released by Sega Genesis. It is a consequence of Sonic when he tries to prevent Dr. Robotnik from robbing the Chao Emeralds and powering his death egg. Like the first Hedgehog Sonic (1991), players cross high-speed scrolling levels as they pick up rings and defeat enemies. Sonic 2 introduces Tails, the second player to Sonic’s sidekick. In addition to the new multiplayer game mode and special stages with pseudo-3D graphics have faster gameplay and a greater level than the first game. A team of Japanese and American personnel at Sega Tec developed the game.
| Platform: | Sega Mega Drive |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Sega Technical Institute |
| Publisher: | Sega |
5. Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Kart has been developed and published by Nintendo for the 1992 kart races video game console of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This game was the fourth best-selling SNES game of all time and sold 8.76 million installments worldwide. The Wii’s Virtual Console (2009) and the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013 released Super Mario Kart again. As part of the company’s Super NES Classic Edition, Nintendo released Super Mario Kart in September 2017 in the U.S. The player in Super Mario Kart takes control of one of eight characters of the Mario series, each of which has a different function. Players can compete against a controlled character in single-player mode.
| Platform: | SNES |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Nintendo EAD |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
4. Tetris
Tetris is a video game that matches tiles created 1984 for a computer for Electronika 60 by the Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov. Several companies were published, most notably in a dispute over rights appropriations in the late 1980s. It consists primarily of a playfield where pieces of geometrical shapes, referred to as “tetrominoes,” come down from the top of the field. The player can move the pieces laterally during this descent, rotating them until they touch the bottom of the field and land on a piece before it. The player cannot slow down or stop the down pieces, but most versions can speed them up.
| Platform: | Nintendo Gameboy |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Developer: | Alexey Pajitnov |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
3. Street Fighter II Turbo
Street Fighter II: Turbo is a competitive combat game published by Capcom in 1992 for the Arcade. The third game is in a sub-series of Street Fighter II’s Street Fighter games, following the Champion Edition, Street Fighter II. Less than a year after the previous section, Turbo introduced a faster playing speed and new special movements in the character balance. Turbo is faster than the Champion Edition, with faster play speed. More rapid playback also allowed players to fight faster and react faster. All the fighters were given at least one new special move, except for Guile and the four Shadaloo bosses.
| Platform: | Arcade |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Capcom |
| Publisher: | Capcom |
2. The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past
Zelda: A Link to the Past is an action-adventure game that Nintendo has developed and released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s the third game in the Zelda Legend series and was launched in North America and Europe in 1991 and 1992. A link to the past lapses to an overhead panorama similar to the original Zelda’s The Legend instead of taking the side scroll introduced by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. While A Link to the past still exerts mechanics and concepts from the original game, new elements and innovations are also introduced.
| Platform: | SNES |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Developer: | Nintendo EAD |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
1. Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3 is the Nintendo Entertainment System platform game developed and published by Nintendo (NES). It’s a side-scrolling platform game in which the player controls either Mario or Luigi. The game shares similar mechanics with earlier games in the series – Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 2 internationally – with a few new elements introduced. The player can skate downhills, collect and cast special blocks and climb wines freely. In this game, the world is divided into eight kingdoms.
| Platform: | NES |
| Year: | 1993 |
| Developer: | Nintendo EAD |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
Conclusion:
Many of the retro games in this list are extremely popular today and are often still being played by enthusiastic fans through emulator software on consoles or computers. Some of these games are components of ongoing franchises like classic “Mario Bros.,” “Legend of Zelda” titles, and fighting games like “Mortal Kombat.”
