RetroArch
At last, the ultimate emulator front-end has arrived on Steam. As someone who loves playing retro games, RetroArch has been my personal preference for emulation for the past 3 or so years. While it takes a little getting used to, the features it provides and the emulation cores (the actual emulators) it has are superb.
On top of simple emulation and your standard emulator quality of life (like save states, fast forward, rewind, etc.), RetroArch provides netplay (allowing users to connect each other online for a simulated couch play) though Steam itself also provides this; shaders to enhance how a game looks or to recreate the original console’s appearance with CRT filters; a built-in video record function, achievement support via RetroAchievements; per-game controller bindings and configs; and a bunch more.
– Real player with 50.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Software Games.
Despite there being plenty of problems to complain about - long-standing issues with control mapping being one of the major ones - RetroArch is still easily the best emulation software I’ve ever used, and my experience goes all the way back to Nesticle in the late ’90s.
The major benefit of RetroArch is being emulate pretty much every console or computer system prior to the PS2/GameCube/XBox generation, plus a few more modern ones like the PSP. Not only that, but the available cores also tend to be more accurate when compared to standalone emulators. This is particularly notable for systems like Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, and Sega Saturn, all of which were difficult to emulate for many years, but today have high-accuracy cores available in RetroArch.
– Real player with 47.7 hrs in game
The Adventures of Eggbert
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– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Singleplayer Games.
Take control of Eggbert and save the eggs that appear in his forest, by holding on to an egg long enough for it to hatch. Easier said than done! Because with each egg you save, the next one takes longer to hatch, while the forest’s monsters spawn in ever larger numbers. A charming and addictive little platformer with uplifting music, that will leave you nostalgic for the early era of gaming. Great stuff! :)
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
encrypt.
fun game cool idea
– Real player with 45.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Singleplayer Games.
Hidden Gem
– Real player with 18.8 hrs in game
Golden Hornet
I have to say, I’ve got mixed feelings on this one. On the positive side it’s really fun at first and it’s free! It’s a dual stick shooter, but your shooting is locked to 8 directions, so the chellenge comes from shooting enemies while your enemies can shoot anywhere tehy want. Your shots also have momentum, so if you move and shoot, your shots will follow your momentum. It’s a pretty fun concept and it shines a bit in the first few levels.
On the other hand, I dunno how long this game is, but later levels become extremely frustrating with constantly respawning enemies that can shoot like you can’t and destroy all the people you need to rescue in a second, so you have to tank damage, spam all your ammo and you’ll probably still fail the mission from casualties, because you accidentally shot the bunker you’re trying to free the hostages from. That and there’s the annoying thing that the chopper does that makes it stick to the ground, which is a problem when you need to go into underground areas… or GOD FORBID have to slide under hazards.
– Real player with 5.9 hrs in game
Endless swarms of agressive enemies make most of the levels feel exhausting to play.
Tight, repsonsive controls and fast movement mean you should be able to handle almost anything the game throws at you if your reflexes are good enough.
Later in the game, the enemy sets lots of cheap traps, making it so you instantly lose the mission if you can’t figure out how to avoid having too many of your allies killed by deviously positioned enemies and traps.
! There is even a mission later on where you start without your co-pilot, which temporarily disables your right joystick, making you unable to shoot machine gun or use bombs.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Jump Jumpz
This was a whole lot of fun and a great unique way to play a game! That was entertaining, thank you!
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
its pretty boring cuz there is no hidden minigame
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
The Crimson Diamond: Chapter 1
A faithful-take on the Sierra-style adventure games of the 1980s, The Crimson Diamond takes the player on a Laura Bow-esque mystery adventure providing a text-parser and 4-bit graphics to guide you through the tale.
While the game is decidedly dated, it does a great job emulating the style and mechanics of games from this period and of this genre. It lasts about 4-8 hours and is more fun to solve than it is a chore, but it does require some puzzle-solving. The creator of the game is an illustrator and very much wants you to see their quality work of the pixel art variety and does a good job not to gatekeep content behind unnecessarily difficult challenges. The text-parser is also great and generally does not get in the way of figuring things out. It gives useful feedback if words or actions you are attempting are flatly not possible or going in the wrong direction. If you’ve not played a game using a text-parser, this certainly is a great way of seeing how they were typically implemented in games back in the day.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Want to go back in time and replay an old Sierra Classic? Well now you won’t need to “use hammer on head” to achieve that result!
In seriousness, The Crimson Diamond has all the hallmarks of the Sierra adventure games of old, and even some helpful extras! The look of the game is spot on as is the feel. With an interesting cast of characters and a plotline sure to devolve into chaos, this demo promises great things for the full version.
If you’ve never played any classic Sierra adventure, this game is a smooth and fun glide into that style of game featuring helpful and unintrusive tutorials into the gameplay.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Thibalryn
loving this game it is tough but not impossible fun to exploere however i am missing though a minimap that would be a great QOL update(but not a must)
– Real player with 25.2 hrs in game
A fantastic tribute to the classics, filled with as much flying bacon and evil red frogs as you can handle.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Vectrix
Well, I certainly wouldn’t pay money for this game. Luckily I picked it up for free. The enemy spaceships that just spawn in null space without warning make it unplayable.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
I’ve always wanted to get into the “Shoot ‘em up” genre, and this is the game to play. Can be very challenging, but I’m sure I’ll get to a very high score with a few hours of gameplay. It gets harder the longer you go, but I would want more difficult gameplay.
This game does not have unnecessary graphics and sparkles, very good! 2D Unity particle system :(
8/10
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Wizard Prison
From what I have experienced so far, Wizard Prison is a solid indie Shoot ‘Em Up where the player steps into the shoes of a Maleficent look-alike wearing verdant robes who embarks on a journey in the attempt to escape a dreadful prison teeming with grimacing ghosts, indestructible gargoyles, and acid spewing pelican shark hybrids amidst other grotesque supernatural entities; all the while accompanied only by their magical prowess and the weapons they are wielding: a spell parrying steel sword and a wooden sulphur staff witch fires an unlimited number of mana bullets. On top of that, playing this simple but substantial game, smoothly controlled via the WASD keys for movement and mouse for casting and targeting, is free of monetary charge. What is not to like about these facts? Kudos to the openhearted students who have realized this pet project, even though I am a bit saddened to learn that its completion will most likely never see the light of day. Nevertheless, the fruits of its partly achieved full potential have still, fortunately, managed to manifest itself into this temporal world. Good enough for me…
– Real player with 58.8 hrs in game
Fun game. Too bad it was never finished. Good way to kill a lazy day.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
You Have to Win the Game
What really defines a “retro game?”
Sure, there are quite a few two-dimensional one-afternoon’s-scope games out there with chunky, obvious pixels and “chiptune” soundtracks – how I hate that appellation, much as I dig the genre itself – and surely you’ve encountered buckets of ‘em in your travels. They’re clearly trying to appeal to a certain nostalgic market, but I find that many of these so-called “retro” games don’t really understand what it is to which they’re alleging to pay homage.
You Have To Win The Game has no such difficulty. It understands its audience quite intimately.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
FANTASTIC LITTLE FREE GAME
“You Have to Win the Game” is a simple, well done old-school hardcore platformer offered for the low, low price of FREE. I’ve gotten about 8+ hours of enjoyment out of this game so far, so it’s emphatically been an incredible value. If you like games like Super Meat Boy, hell even if you don’t, download this game. It’s free, so what have you got to lose?!
[GOOD]
- Plenty of presentation options. Play in the old school looking default settings, or if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, set it up the way you want with the multitude of display options available. 8-bit color, 16-bit color, fullscreen, monitor border, there’s a lot there.
– Real player with 15.8 hrs in game