Welcome to Respawning’s new regular feature, Club Articles! These articles have been created as a way of all us guys getting together every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and generally waffling on about whatever takes our fancy! Today we’re taking ourselves back in time… Back to when we all had Gameboys and PS1’s dominating our bedrooms and front rooms; back when Saturday morning cartoons reigned supreme… Back when we were all wearing diapers…
…Wait… That’s TOO far back…
…Anyway, today we’re discussing some of our favourite cult classic videogames, the consoles we most enjoyed, and what games we’d like to see ports / remasters / remakes of!
Joe
Recently I’ve been delving back into Star Ocean: The Last Hope on my PS4, bringing me back to the older days of action-JRPG titles; on top of this, I’ve been severely craving a deep-dive into the Final Fantasy franchise, especially since I’ve only played Final Fantasy III, IV, XIII, XIII-2 and XV… I’ve been told by many that Final Fantasy VI is one of the best in the franchise, so it may be nigh-time to find an old copy of Final Fantasy VI on SNES / PS1 and give it a whirl!
In terms of reflecting on some of my favourite classic games, I can’t help but revisit older titles like Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3, especially after Sonic Mania released earlier this year – Oddly enough I was only really a fan of the first game, however Sonic Mania’s spurred me to go ahead and collect every Sega Megadrive entry of the franchise; I’ve been bashing my head against a wall in the Labyrinth Zone in Sonic 1 for too many years now… Far too many.
Javier
Retro/nostalgia games for me covers a god damn large area.. I suppose some of my fondest, earliest gaming memories are playing games such as Alex Kidd, Sonic the hedgehog, double dragon and Altered beast on the Sega master system 2. What a console that was for me. I had a gameboy before that but this console was an absolute game changer (lol). I’d spend hours playing the same game, trying to get to the end, because I couldn’t save the game (remember that!). Mostly with sonic chaos, what a gem.
As far as remasters go…i recently played the double dragon neon remaster which i thoroughly enjoyed and thought they did a good job of. A game i’d LOVE to see remastered would be Wonder boy in monster world. It was one of the first RPG style games i had played (except Pokemon) and i loved upgrading my equipment and working out the puzzles. It was also one of the first console i could save the game on by using a code. I mostly would like a remaster because my sega no longer functions which makes me sad 🙁
Salman
I don’t really go back to play as many retro games as I feel I should. I suppose my favorite retro game and in fact my first video game ever is MegaMan & Bass. I remember that the second I got my hands on that I never let go. My brother has always been a huge influence on my taste in game so I’ve played a lot of beat em’ ups and run and gun games like Contra a fair bit.
Speaking of beat em’ ups I’d just like to point out my all time favorite beat em’ up, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. I can still remember the grease on the joystick in the nearby Pizza Hut and me and my brother dumping coins in that machine like it was nobodies business. If you haven’t played that yet seriously find a way to cause if you like rad dudes with some attitude beating up dinosaurs and cadillacs somewhere in there. Then check that shit out.
The only retro game I’ve been playing in recent memory is Samurai Shodown IV which is a whole lot of fun especially on the Nintendo Switch because popping out a controller and beating someones ass is the reason why I even bought the console.
But yeah I guess that’s it for me!
James
My first video games console was the original Playstation, which I would have got around 1998. Prior to this I was used to playing games on the family computer, but the Playstation was the first bit of hardware that I could play games on that I didn’t have to wait for someone else to finish using. It was all mine.
The first game that I got for the console was Tekken 3 which I sunk a lot of hours into, both solo and with friends. My character of choice was always Paul (mainly because of the hair), but if I ever had a friend over we’d always find it hilarious to pit Kuma and Panda against each other (two bears fighting one another, ah to return to a simpler time where that was the height of entertainment). Tekken was always my fighting series of choice, and with Tekken 3 what really worked well was the roster, the creative design and the sound, not only the game soundtrack but the actual sound design itself. I genuinely don’t think Fighting Games got much better after that, and it was definitely a great introduction to the incredible catalogue of games the Playstation had during its lifetime.
Closing
That covers today’s reflection on our cherished childhood games and systems… What’re some of your favourite titles that you used to boot up on your ye’olde CRT TV’s? Let us know!