Poll January's Retro Game of the Month

But if you ask me most of the truly great games are RPGs (ARPG etc), so yeah

Legend of the Mystical Ninja won't win, but it's easily my favorite game from this list. Gorgeous game that perfectly combines a lot of interesting elements from different genres with a boatload of awesome mini-games mixed in. Hell, they have Gradius as a mini-game. That blew my mind back in '95 on the SNES.

I'll check in a bit, but I think in the original game, the game was not Gradius but another shoot'em up that was popular in Japan and obscure in the West. That being said, Ganbare Goemon aka Legend of the Mystical Ninja was really a loved game in my local import scene back at the time of its release and so was its sequel, even if it did not have the town exploration phases. I recently played two other games in the serie and one was ok but a bit meh while the other flew across the room thanks to incredibly bullshit level design. It makes me wonder how well the first two games held up... the music certainly did, the visuals and silly humor probably did too, but the gameplay? I am not so sure.


EDIT: Apparently I was thinking of Xexex, an arcade only game that was partially ported in a mini game in Ganbare Goemon 2. There is some localization changes to Legend of the Mystical Ninja though: rice balls became pizza slices... and two attraction in the amusment park got changed: one is Ebisumaru (the blue guy) making a show that ends with him dropping his pants and farting and the other is a girl in kimono doing a strip-tease (she ends up naked but she covers herself with her arms and legs).

Never understood the love for metroid, likely because I never owned a SNES or nintendo for that matter. I had a sega master system and would beat this game once a month or so.

everyone hates the SaGa series but me..

Hatorade said:

Never understood the love for metroid, likely because I never owned a SNES or nintendo for that matter. I had a sega master system and would beat this game once a month or so.

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Metroid one is meh to me but super Metroid is one of the greatest games ever made. Not having a master race system is no reason to hate it

Noodleface said:

Metroid one is meh to me but super Metroid is one of the greatest games ever made. Not having a master race system is no reason to hate it

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Never said I hated it, just no nostalgia love it.

I feel sorry for people who never had SNES as kids. My friend grew up in a Genesis only household. The other night we were drinking and playing some retro games, and he was like "Let's play a great old racing game" and he opened up this awful shit on Genesis called Combat Cars. So bad. He never knew the joys of Mario Kart, F-zero, and Uniracers.

Super Metroid did a ton of things right - even if not first or best nowdays.

the atmosphere is top notch, and something where the game itself could technology start giving a feeling... not just via story text etc. SNES Era was where also music was able to start being integral part of the conveyance of story and feel.

Again super Metroid advanced all of this, and there are parts in the game where you just "feel" the isolation. The music is not "epic" but it is - great at doing what it should do, same with the visuals.

Metroid Prime 1 did all of these things again imo, and prime along with super are some of the best examples of a very well done and we'll made game of each type.

McCheese said:

I feel sorry for people who never had SNES as kids. My friend grew up in a Genesis only household. The other night we were drinking and playing some retro games, and he was like "Let's play a great old racing game" and he opened up this awful shit on Genesis called Combat Cars. So bad. He never knew the joys of Mario Kart, F-zero, and Uniracers.

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Basically child abuse. We had both and I think Genesis had great strengths - particularly during the great censorship of the early 90s - but hands down SNES was superior.

Noodleface said:

Basically child abuse. We had both and I think Genesis had great strengths - particularly during the great censorship of the early 90s - but hands down SNES was superior.

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SEGA MORTALKOMBAT HAD BLOOD! puny SNES had "sweat" that you could game geni into "red" lolz.

What is funny, is the sweat turned red looked more realistic blood than the insane over the top blood that was orig there

With fewer and fewer platform exclusives, I feel like nobody really gives a shit what console you have now. But goddamn, remember the arguments that used to take place over which console was superior? That shit would bordeline come to blows.

I grew up with an SNES but my neighbor had a Genesis so we'd trade consoles for a few weeks. He swore by his Genesis and I'd take a bullet for my SNES, but we both agreed each console had some exclusives that really made them worthwhile. For me, I was always jealous of Sonic and Road Rash on the Genesis, and of course my neighbor coveted Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart. But at the end of the day, I always felt like SNES versions of cross-platform titles were crisper graphically and had cleaner sound. Genesis always felt a little washed-out on all fronts, and the audio always seemed overly-digitized.

Arguments like that don't happen anymore though. I feel like the console wars finally died with the last generation.

Oh, arguments like that still happen- look at just our console v console thread.

Almost each game now days gets a side by side - pixie by pixie review and opinion of what one is better - what one processes the texture buffer the best and all that etc. Etc.. Its crazy lol

Genesis Mortal Kombat had blood and fatalities but the controls and graphics were complete ass.

Fighting games were always shit on Genesis because the basic controller only had 3 buttons + start. It wasn't enough.

No Decap Attack or Cool Spot? Shitty list.

The new thread is not up yet and I am already done with Metroid I was familiar with the game though. Not super familiar, but familiar enough. Super Metroid should take a little bit longer.

McCheese said:

Fighting games were always shit on Genesis because the basic controller only had 3 buttons + start. It wasn't enough.

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I guess I was fortunate to have 2 of

and also had a six button fight stick.

Fighting games were a regular growing up, though we had a focus on things like super street fighter, art of fighting, samurai showdown and fatal fury. Something like mortal kombat sat with eternal champions, shaq-fu, and world heroes until 3, that was just popular for some reason?