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a terrible thing is comingit's likely that a games-industry crash is on the way. When the time comes, I foresee myself diving into emulation even more than I do already and I know I'm not the only one, so I wanted to see if we can get some recommendations going before then.No hard-and-fast rules here, other than to make sure to note what system a game is for - though for arcade titles, where there are more custom boards and systems than any sane person can be expected to keep track of, feel free to just label them as "Arcade" in order to keep things simple.
Here are a few games that I'd like to share;
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Biker Mice From Mars (SNES)
An isometric racing game with RC-car-style controls, based on the 1990s Saturday-morning cartoon. Not perfect, as the higher difficulty-levels devolve into bull quite quickly, but the normal and multiplayer modes are pretty great.
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Bomberman '94 (PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16)
The most re-released game in the Bomberman series, and the one that best encapsulates what the franchise is all about, with a fun and inventive single-player game, and fab multiplayer that set the standard for future entries. This was also released in English (with worse music and random slowdown) as Mega Bomberman for the Mega Drive.
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Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! (Nintendo 64)
Basically what you get if you combine Bomberman with Metal Gear Solid or similar - a cinematic 3D Bomberman game with some really great writing (interestingly, the story-mode was directed by Naoki Yoshida/"Yoshi-P", who is now at Square-Enix). It's not perfect due to some unintuitive mechanics here and there (like putting ice in lava to make traversable platforms) and occasional ill-advised puzzles, but it's a criminally-overlooked title that's well worth your time.
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Sonic CD (Mega CD)
One of the best platformers ever made, where Sonic gets to use his speed in order to time-travel, Superman-style. Unlike the rest of the series, the world is not designed around Sonic's abilities, adding a light puzzle element as you need to locate exactly where you can successfully jump through time in order to create a good future. This one has two different soundtracks - one JP/PAL, and one US/Win95 - both are good, so whichever one you prefer, just play this excellent game!
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Star Fox (SNES)
An early 3D rail-shooter that, in spite of its now-primitive-looking visuals (which have nonetheless aged well because of their "alien" look), still plays very well. Don't try to play it at 60fps on an inaccurate emulator, though - it wasn't designed for it and the audio will desync at certain points if you do: Use Snes9x 2010 or better, or Higan/BSNES for this one!
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McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure (Mega Drive)
Short-but-sweet platformer featuring Ronald McDonald as he seeks out the pieces of a treasure-map in an attempt to see where it leads. Not a lengthy or difficult game by any means (though the PAL version was made a bit tougher), but just right if you want something chilled-out to play on a lazy afternoon.
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Waku Waku 7 (Arcade)
A weird Neo Geo fighting-game that parodies various 1980s and 1990s anime/manga franchises and tropes. It's a nice change from Street Fighter and its ilk, because it's a lot more light-hearted and revels in being utterly daft!
Please dive in if you have any recommendations to share - here's hoping that we can get a good list going, here!
Last edited by Pengling on 15 May 2024 at 10:11 am UTC
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Madden NFL 2003 (2002 EA Sports) - Nintendo Gamecube - Sports (Football)
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NHL 06 (2005 EA Sports) – Nintendo GameCube – Sports (Hockey)
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Triple Play Baseball (2001 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Baseball)
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NHL '94 (1993 EA Sports) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Hockey)
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ESPN NFL 2k5 (2004 Sega) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
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ESPN NHL 2k5 (2004 Sega) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Hockey)
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MVP Baseball 2005 (2005 EA Sports) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Baseball)
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International Superstar Soccer 2000 (2000 Konami) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Soccer)
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NFL Blitz (1998 Midway) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Football)
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NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Basketball)
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Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (2006 Konami) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Soccer)
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Shane Warne Cricket '99 (1998 Codemasters) - Sony PlayStaion - Sports (Cricket)
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Cricket 07 (2006 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Cricket)
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NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona (2002 Infogrames) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Racing)
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Despite being a miserable failure of a system, I figured out that it had quite a few pretty good titles in its (very miniscule) library.
Some games I'd recommend checking out are Jack Bros, Panic Bomber, Virtual Boy Wario Land, and Mario Clash.
I might recommend some other games as I think of them later, but I wanted to shout out Red Viper.
Last edited by pilk on 15 May 2024 at 12:19 am UTC
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NES:
SNES:
N64:
Gamecube:
Wii:
GBC:
GBA:
Romhacks:
Last edited by missingno on 16 May 2024 at 5:55 pm UTC
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NHL Hitz 2003 (2002 Midway) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Hockey)
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NFL GameDay 99 (1998 989 Sports) - Sony PlayStation - Sports (Football)
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All-Star Baseball 2001 (2000 Acclaim) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Baseball)
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NBA Live 98 (1997 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation - Sports (Basketball)
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WWF Wrestlefest (1991 Technos) - Sports (wrestling)
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ISS Pro Evolution 2 (2001 Konami) - Sony PlayStation - Sports (Soccer)
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Tecmo Super Bowl (1991 Tecmo) - Nintendo Entertainment System - Sports (Football)
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Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (2003 Tecmo) - Microsoft Xbox - Sports (Beach Volleyball)
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NBA Give 'n Go (1995 Konami) - Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Sports (Basketball)
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Mutant League Football (1993 Electronic Arts) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Football)
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Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey (1996 Midway) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Hockey)
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WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 (2006 THQ) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Wrestling)
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NBA Courtside 2 Featuring Kobe Bryant (1999 Nintendo) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Basketball)
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WWF No Mercy (2000 THQ) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Wrestling)
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Rugby 08 (2007 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
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Bomberman Hero (N64)
A 3D platformer that puts you down on Bomberman's level, as if you're tagging along on one of his missions, as he sets off to rescue Princess Millian from the Garaden Empire in a somewhat Star Wars-inspired adventure. Graphics, controls, atmosphere, and especially music are all on-point. There's no other game in the series like this one - even I loved it, and I usually don't enjoy 3D platformers at all.
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Bubble Symphony (Arcade)
A well-balanced and creative sequel to Bubble Bobble, that's thankfully not as arduous as the iconic original. It offers multiple paths through the game, which adds replay-value, and contains loads of fun references to other Taito titles. The gameplay and presentation are top-notch, and if you're a fan of platformers, especially the single-screen arcade kind, you're sure to love it.
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Bust-A-Groove (PSX)
A rhythm-game that apples a fighting-game-style GUI and structure to a series of dance-battles! Every character has their own theme-song ("I Luv Hamburgers", where Hamm sings about his love of burgers, is pretty funny) and stage where various things happen in the background throughout the course of the song, and there are several unlockable dancers and a two-player mode as well. You'll need good rhythm for this one!
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Chippoke Ralph no Daibouken: The Adventure of Little Ralph (PSX)
More like a lost arcade title than a 1999 Japan-only PlayStation game, The Adventure of Little Ralph follows its title character as he's transformed from a brave hero into a helpless child by a demon, and has to go on a quest to restore his true form and rescue his girlfriend. It's a beautifully-presented, smoothly-animated linear platformer that's mostly in the Wonder Boy/Adventure Island sort of vein (with a couple of big bosses who get fought Street Fighter-style, which is a weird choice since it completely breaks up the flow of the game by shifting to an entirely different genre and control-style), with a focus on high-scores and speedrunning.
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Cosmic Ark (Atari 2600)
An unusual little game where the objective is to rescue alien creatures from the planets of a dying solar-system. It's split into two phases - one where the directional controls are used to shoot at meteors coming at the titular Cosmic Ark from the four cardinal directions, and another where you manoeuvre a small Shuttleship out of the mothership and down to ground-level in order to beam up the creatures using the fire-button before the next meteor-shower begins, and without getting hit by the planetside security-systems. One of the earliest games where the idea was to rescue instead of destroy!
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Darkwing Duck (NES)
A Capcom platformer based on the Disney TV-cartoon about the caped crime-crusher of St. Canard, this one plays like a "lost" Mega Man game, as it's based on the same engine with some new additions. Perhaps a bit too tough for a cartoon-licensed game, but still great fun, and the graphics, music, controls, and atmosphere are all spot-on, making it feel like a true extension of the TV-show.
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DoReMi Fantasy: Milon no DokiDoki Daibouken (SNES)
An easygoing and incredibly charming late 16-bit era platformer where you must rescue a kidnapped fairy and retrieve a set of magical musical instruments that have been cursed by a demon. Lovely animations and music accompany fun stage-themes and level-designs, and the game is filled to the brim with personality - it's astonishing that it was never released outside of Japan, but luckily it doesn't really require any knowledge of Japanese. (A fan-translation does exist, but it adds a new ending that was made up by the team behind it, which doesn't fit the game at all, so I really can't recommend that.)
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Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (Arcade)
Bright and breezy boss-rush game set in Capcom's Mega Man universe, and the properly-fleshed-out follow-up to Mega Man: The Power Battle. Pick a character and a set of bosses, and chase after high-scores and best times. There are several different characters and stories to choose from, and lots of great music and animations on offer - along with some hidden moves that pay homage to other Capcom games!
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New Adventure Island (TG16)
A continuation of the Adventure Island platform-game series, which itself was originally a rebranded version of Wonder Boy, with all of the excellent gameplay and catchy music that you would expect. It's better-balanced than the earlier installments, which improves the overall experience considerably!
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Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo (C64)
A short-but-tough console-style platformer, which sees Scrappy-Doo setting out to rescue his Uncle Scooby and Shaggy, who have been kidnapped. The game has a really cool original tune on the title-screen, and the in-game atmosphere captures the feel of the cartoon perfectly; Unlike the Amiga/Atari ST platformer of the same name, which was reworked from a cancelled game called "Stig the Rat", this version was clearly designed from the ground up to be based on the TV-show. This was the most popular of the Hanna-Barbera licensed home-microcomputer games released in the UK in the early 1990s. It's also my favourite Commodore 64 game of all time.
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SegaSonic The Hedgehog (Arcade)
An action game where you must help a protagonist of your choice - Sonic The Hedgehog, Ray the Flying Squirrel, or Mighty the Armadillo - to escape from the trap-filled Eggman Island. Originally trackball-controlled, but maps fine onto a d-pad under emulation (my efforts to use an analogue stick kept causing the game to crash, so I gave up on that). Very charming and fun for a quick playthrough.
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Spanky's Quest (SNES)
This one was released in Japan as an officially-licensed tie-in game for a famous performing monkey named Jiro, and then reframed as an original title for its worldwide release. It's an arcade-style platformer in the same sort of vein as Bubble Bobble and Liquid Kids, featuring a little monkey who uses magic bubbles to attack; Heading a bubble like a football causes it to grow and change colour - then when you press the attack button again, the bubble will burst into various kinds of sports-balls depending on how big it was. There are hat power-ups that can be worn to gain various effects, and a bunch of big bosses to fight, too!
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Star Parodier (PCE CD)
A parody cute-'em-up in the Star Soldier series, with fun theming and plenty of great references for Hudson Soft fans. You get to choose from three different ships (a large anthropomorphic PC Engine console, a giant Bomberman-shaped mech, and the Paro-Caesar which is based on the Caesar ship from Star Soldier) and take on either the standard game which offers multiple difficulty settings, or the 2 and 5 minute "Caravan" high-score-chasing modes. Very charming and fun throughout, and a must if you like unusually-themed shoot-'em-ups!
Thanks for these! I'm not a sports-game person myself, but I know that sports games have suffered quite a lot from microtransactions, complacency-induced bugs, and the like in more recent times, so these will definitely be useful to people.
My 3DS is no longer in service, so I can't try it out with Red Viper, but thanks so much for the reminder that I need to give Virtual Boy Wario Land a go!
It's a pity that the Virtual Boy only got Panic Bomber, and that the proposed mainline game, Virtual Bomberman, was cancelled, though...
Yay! Another Tesse fan! Waku Waku 7 is so damn fun.
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I recommend NINTV-DS as an emulator if you can play DS homebrew. It uses the bottom screen for the overlays! Overlays are a separate file that you put in with the ROM. Pretty cool use of the hardware. 🕹️
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Triple Play 2002 (2002 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Baseball)
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NCAA GameBreaker 2004 (2002 989 Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
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NHL 2002 (2001 EA Sports) – Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Hockey)
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NBA Live 2003 (2002 EA Sports) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Basketball)
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Shane Warne Cricket (1996 Codemasters) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Cricket)
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PES 2014: Pro Evolution Soccer (2013 Konami) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Soccer)
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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 (2003 EA Sports) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Golf)
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NCAA Football 06 (2005 EA Sports) - Sony PlayStation 2 - Sports (Football)
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Mutant League Hockey (1994 Electronic Arts) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Hockey)
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Virtual Pool 64 (1998 UFO Interactive) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Pool)
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Knockout Kings 2003 (2002 EA Sports) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Boxing)
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Virtua Tennis (2000 Sega) - Sega Dreamcast - Sports (Tennis)
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Mario Superstar Baseball (2005 Nintendo) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Baseball)
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Mario Power Tennis (2004 Nintendo) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Tennis)
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Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (2003 Nintendo) - Nintendo GameCube - Sports (Golf)
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