Best Retro Console?

[javeryh]

I’m partial to Hot Shots Golf 3 for the PS2

[nitrogen_widget]

Mario gold on gamecube is fun also.
wii sports resort golf is fun with the kids.
especially after few beers.

[bobbyb13]

Not sure what would happen in my household if I let the kids drink beer
 

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I would also point out that while state of the art then, [the Neo Geo] is just another 16 bit console now.   Yeah let's play those all time classic neogeo titles like.... ummm.... and don't forget..... uhhh....   Oh but there's King of Fighters and Metal Slug so I guess two franchises make it the best??

Come on man, it can't hold a candle to the SNES obviously, but it had one really nice (Last Resort) and one awesome shooter (Pulstar), both of which were made by Irem folks (who also did Neo Turf Masters, which got very high ratings on release) and which more than hold up today. (While I don't share that opinion, many people also hold Blazing Star in high regard.) The Samurai Shodown games were excellent and are still being played competitively today, just like many of the King of Fighters games. The Metal Slug games aren't the only good run'n gun games on the system, there's also Shock Troopers I and II, Puzzle Bobble is a great puzzler, and there are still so many Windjammers-fans around that a sequel was produced for it, which was released last month. It's library wasn't that big and the games were after all arcade games, but it's still a solid console.

[MrThunderwing]

Sega Megadrive is probably the greatest retro console for me I reckon. I had a Sega Master System before that and a ZX Spectrum 128k before that. The Speccy had a very limited, near monochrome colour pallet and very basic sound (although some clever people managed to get some incredible music out of it back in the day) and most (not all though) of the game ran super slowly. Most of the arcade ports were about as stripped back from the originals as you could get (although, again, there were some clever coders who managed absolute miracles with decent ports of stuff like R-Type, Chase HQ and Bubble Bobble).

I had to save up my pocket money to put towards half the cost of the Master System for one of my birthdays and it was a massive step up from the Spectrum with it's full colour games and considerably faster looking graphics, but still nowhere close to the arcade games they were based on.

Then I got a Megadrive for Christmas when they first launched here in the UK. I once again had to save up my pocket money to put towards half of it and sell the Master System to one of my mates (although in the end, my Dad very kindly paid for well over half, so I could spend the money on some games). One of the very first games I got on the Megadrive was Revenge of Shinobi, and holy shitballs if that game didn't just absolutely blow my teenage mind away when that awesome animated intro kicked in for the first time along with the equally awesome Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack. In game, it looked incredible too, with all it's layers of parallax scrolling and huge (compared to the SMS and Spectrum at any rate) game sprites. It finally felt like I was playing something of the same graphical and audio quality from the arcade at home. I was similarly blown away by other early MD stuff like Super Hang-On, Golden Axe and Truxton. Later stuff like Streets of Rage 2, Streetfighter 2: Special Championship Edition and Thunderforce 3 and 4 just added further to the sense of wonderment. Plus the console itself looked sexy.  It was an ergonomic delight with a bonus 3.5mm headphone jack, so you could plug the console intro your Hi-Fi if you had a stereo Y cable and really drive your parents mental. Ahhh, good times. For these reasons, that sense of finally capturing something that felt so close to the arcade in my bedroom, I think the Megadrive will always be my favourite retro system.

[tony.silveira]

Vectrex

the glow of those vectors in a dark room bring back fond memories

[pbj]

I think the Megadrive will always be my favourite retro system.

Your post gave me a quarter chub. 

[BadMouth]

I was a Sega fanboy until I dropped $300 of my hard earned money on a Sega CD at launch.  Popped in Sewer Shark....sucked.  Popped in Night Trap....sucked.  Money wasted. I kept thinking "it has to be better than this".  I felt further ripped off by each game purchased with two exceptions: Road Rash and Sol-Feace.  The soundtracks added value to those games, but not enough to justify a $300 upgrade.

[pbj]

Wasn’t $300 by the time Sewer Shark dropped, iirc.

I paid $90 for my model 2, and $18 for any two games I wanted from Sam Goody.

I owned almost the entire library by the end of it… But I passed on Snatcher.

Oh well.

 

[MrThunderwing]

I think the Megadrive will always be my favourite retro system.

Your post gave me a quarter chub.

Only a quarter?

I was a Sega fanboy until I dropped $300 of my hard earned money on a Sega CD at launch.  Popped in Sewer Shark....sucked.  Popped in Night Trap....sucked.  Money wasted. I kept thinking "it has to be better than this".  I felt further ripped off by each game purchased with two exceptions: Road Rash and Sol-Feace.  The soundtracks added value to those games, but not enough to justify a $300 upgrade.

I feel your pain. I never actually got one back in the day, but I can remember thinking that majority of titles released for it seemed like such a disappointing bunch. Such a shame Sega seemed more interested in releasing crappy FMV titles on the Sega CD, rather than releasing some arcade ports that could really take advantage of the system's scaling and rotation abilities. Would've been great to have seen some fully Sega CD optomised ports of stuff like Outrun, After Burner and Galaxy Force (let's just not talk about the terrible Afterburner 3 game that came out on it...). A proper Sega CD optomised version of Golden Axe would've been cool too, rather than the weird single player only, more-or-less straight MD port the system got.

[dmckean]

My brother bought the Sega CD and loved it, but he was almost exclusively into JRPGs. I also don't think he got it until it was $200.

[Malenko]

My brother bought the Sega CD and loved it.

I loved it too, and I liked Sewer Shark. Never could manage to beat "Ground Zero:Texas" . I got close, the trick was the leave the shields up and still pick off the aliens but I still never saw the end. Only other FMV game I thought was neat was Tomcat Alley.  I thought the LaserDisc ports were pretty good considering and Road Avenger/Blaster was the best one.

Night Trap and Double Switch weren't fun to me.  Final Fight CD was the best home port short of emulation, the Lunar games and Vay were great RPGs, everyone is going to tell you about Snatcher but it really is the best version of the game along with the tg16 one. Sonic CD was the first Sonic game I really got into. Everyone here knows I have a boner for  Eternal Champions CD but I remember buying Fatal Fury Special for Sega CD and being blown away.
Other great titles include:  Popful Mail, lords of thunder, Mickey Mania, Soulstar, Terminator, Shining Force, Keio, Silpheed, Shining Force, Batman Returns (the driving game) , Earthworm Jim, etc

Dark Wizard is probably the best Sega CD you've never played or heard of. Its a slow paced tactical RPG (ie Ogre Battle) but its pretty great.

The real stinkers are the FMV games, and the games that are genny ports with FMVs added (and nothing else), and games that get completely crippled by load times(Willy Beamish, Mortal Kombat CD).