Best Retro Console?

[AJgamer]

Just having a debate with some friends about this, want to get some other opinions on it.

[danny_galaga]

I used to say N64, but now I'm digging Dreamcast a lot more. And in a surprising contrast, the Atari 2600

[bobbyb13]

Depends on how old you are maybe?

Atari 2600-
with NES a very close second for me.

[Gilrock]

I'm old enough to remember when my parents bought Pong when it came out.  They bought me an Atari 2600 when I was in high school and then an Atari 800 before I graduated.  I credit the Atari 800 with its Basic programming cartridge as the kickstart to my software engineering career.  On the Atari 800 I loaded games via cassette deck and then later floppy disks.  After I got out of college Sega Genesis came out so I spent tons of money on those games.  Then I upgraded to a Sega Saturn and eventually got into PC's.  So there were a ton of other brand consoles I never got to try.  I think some of the best games were on the Sega Saturn.  Virtua Fighter, Sega Rally Championship, and one of the most beautiful games of its time Panzer Dragoon Saga.  I'm kicking myself for not holding onto all those games and systems.

[Vigo]

I used to say N64, but now I'm digging Dreamcast a lot more. And in a surprising contrast, the Atari 2600

It is insane how many quality titles came out for the Dreamcast, especially considering how it is often referred to as a failed console. Arcade quality stuff, too. N64 defined party gaming. It's problem was it wasn't versatile for more in-depth games. The library doesn't hold up today. The Playstation was a better bet, it was so unintentionally versatile that is exceeded the N64 in a number of ways, even though it was older. PSX just had to discover how to perform. My understanding is that the PSX code library was used so far outside of the rails by the end of it's life, but developers had to open it up to complete in the 3d realm.

I am going to have to give my best attempt at unbiased credit to the best of the best as the SNES. It succeeded at just about every genre, Sports, racing, RPG, fighters, platformer, etc. It was also a complete market success, and it's controller became the blueprint of gaming. D-pad, four thumb buttons in a diamond and shoulder buttons. Every console controller is more or less a variant of the SNES pad with thumbsticks. Another thing I think was to Nintendo's success is when they started putting enhancement chips in the carts themselves. It gave the SNES a better lifespan in the mid 90's and eliminated the need for sales killing console upgrades like the Sega CD.

[yotsuya]

Yeah, I’m gonna agree with Vigo, the SNES was the best all around. It had it all.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gilrock]

Hmm...never really played SNES.  My impression back then was it was more kid oriented games.  I did buy a couple SNES USB controllers for my bartop so I can checkout some of the games.  Just not sure which games were exclusive to that platform that fit my taste.  Not really into fighting games or anything Mario related.

[yotsuya]

The SNES knocked both sports games and RPGs out of the park. That’s why I loved the console.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[thomas_surles]

Hmm...never really played SNES.  My impression back then was it was more kid oriented games.  I did buy a couple SNES USB controllers for my bartop so I can checkout some of the games.  Just not sure which games were exclusive to that platform that fit my taste.  Not really into fighting games or anything Mario related.

Link to the past, chrono trigger, secret of mana, final fantasy, castlevania IV, Dracula x, f zero, pilot wings, super metroid? I know you said no Mario but super mario rpg is on another level.

[pbj]

There's good games on every system except the Atari Jaguar.  SNES is probably going to give you the experience most similar to what you'd find in modern gaming.  It is very, very hard to go back to the rough graphics and interface clunk of N64 and PS1.  Any older than SNES/Genesis and you're dealing mostly with games that don't save progress and made up for short playtimes by being too difficult to enjoy.

[Gilrock]

Hmm...never really played SNES.  My impression back then was it was more kid oriented games.  I did buy a couple SNES USB controllers for my bartop so I can checkout some of the games.  Just not sure which games were exclusive to that platform that fit my taste.  Not really into fighting games or anything Mario related.

Link to the past, chrono trigger, secret of mana, final fantasy, castlevania IV, Dracula x, f zero, pilot wings, super metroid? I know you said no Mario but super mario rpg is on another level.

Cool...thanks for the list.  I was a big Zelda fan but can't remember exactly which titles I played.  I know I played the original game on NES and Ocarina of Time which I believe I played on N64.

[danny_galaga]

There's good games on every system except the Atari Jaguar.  SNES is probably going to give you the experience most similar to what you'd find in modern gaming.  It is very, very hard to go back to the rough graphics and interface clunk of N64 and PS1.  Any older than SNES/Genesis and you're dealing mostly with games that don't save progress and made up for short playtimes by being too difficult to enjoy.

Admittedly there aren't MANY, but there are a few good games on the Jaguar. Tempest 2000 and Super Burnout for original games. And Raiden and Doom are great ports.

[fablog]

I had a Neo Geo, after a master system, genesis, SNES. By far it was the best console. Very expensive, but you had an arcade at home.

Envoyé de mon LEX722 en utilisant Tapatalk

[pbj]

Neo Geo has been 100% emulated since the late 90s and the controllers aren’t great.

Jaguar was complete garbage. 

[danny_galaga]

Neo Geo has been 100% emulated since the late 90s and the controllers aren’t great.

Jaguar was complete garbage.

You are not a very happy person, are you?

[pbj]

I owned a Jaguar and many, many games for it.  Call it a circa 2000 “let’s buy what I didn’t have as a kid” experience.  Junk.

I’ve been fortunate enough to touch a couple AES consoles in the last 5 years.  It had been since the early 90s.  Games were nice, obviously, but the controllers felt just as cheap as any other console arcade stick.  The system also needs multiple mods to produce decent image and sound. 

 

[danny_galaga]

I owned a Jaguar and many, many games for it.  Call it a circa 2000 “let’s buy what I didn’t have as a kid” experience.  Junk.

I’ve been fortunate enough to touch a couple AES consoles in the last 5 years.  It had been since the early 90s.  Games were nice, obviously, but the controllers felt just as cheap as any other console arcade stick.  The system also needs multiple mods to produce decent image and sound. 

 

Imma call you the 'but' man.

[Howard_Casto]

He's not wrong.   That's why most neogeo fans get a MVS and just consolize that.   Why pay hundreds for a console that's a cheap piece of junk when you can run the same games on actual arcade hardware for next to nothing?  The only reason the AES is expensive is because it's somewhat rare, not because it's a well built, future proof console.

I would also point out that while state of the art then, it's 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??

Whenever you start making arbitrary statements like "the best console is" and that console isn't a Nintendo console you are just embarrassing yourself.   Everybody knows it's all about the games and most of the highest rated games of all time are on the NES, SNES or N64.   If you want an objective-ish answer we can only go by measurable metrics.

[Gilrock]

I've actually never touched an original Neo-Geo.  I have played it a lot on Mame.  Never played any KOF games but lots of Metal Slug, Baseball Stars, Magician Lord, and Spinmaster are usually my gotos.

[Vigo]

The Neo Geo's library didn't pick up steam until the 94-96, and by then you had much richer, deeper games people wanted to play on console. "arcade only" couldn't exactly scratch it. Resident Evil came out before the first Metal Slug was released.

[pbj]

I liked the idea of Neo Geo better than the reality of owning one when I had the MVS board.

I still want an AES, though.

 

[gamepimp]

There's good games on every system except the Atari Jaguar. 

This is very true. I can find games on almost every console that I enjoy playing. Sadly I don't own a Jaguar, so can't really speak to that one in particular. I'm sure there are a few on there that are decent.

SNES is probably going to give you the experience most similar to what you'd find in modern gaming.  It is very, very hard to go back to the rough graphics and interface clunk of N64 and PS1.  Any older than SNES/Genesis and you're dealing mostly with games that don't save progress and made up for short playtimes by being too difficult to enjoy.

I think a lot of what defines a console as being the "best" to someone depends on nostalgia. I consider the NES to be the one of the top systems because a) it had groundbreaking graphics compared to other consoles I had played before it like Atari 2600 and Intellivision, b) there were so many amazing franchises like Zelda, Metroid, and Super Mario Bros. that had distinctly original gameplay and are still being milked to this day, and c) it's the first one that I owned as a kid. As PBJ mentioned many of the games were unbearably tough and I gave up on them rather easily at that time. I have an Everdrive now with save states which makes those hard games so much easier to contend with and thus much more enjoyable to play. I'm not sure why developers back then were such masochists. LOL!

[dmckean]

There's good games on every system except the Atari Jaguar. 

This is very true. I can find games on almost every console that I enjoy playing. Sadly I don't own a Jaguar, so can't really speak to that one in particular. I'm sure there are a few on there that are decent.

The Jaguar library is pretty sad. Same thing with the CDi.

Everything other console I can think of has at least 10 good games.

[Titchgamer]

Its a bit subjective really.

If I go for nostalgia and Love I would say Mega Drive.
For pure quality I would say PS2.

My Neo Geo stuff is the pride and joy of my collection but I could never afford one back in the day so dont have the nostalgia for it that I do the others.
I opted for a CMVS but I also have a MVS board in my mini neo geo cab and a NGCD.

I would love a AES to add to my collection though!
But yeah they AES sticks aint great but the Bean sticks are pretty decent and the NGCD controllers are friggin amazing.

[opt2not]

I chose SNES. 

It's my desert island console. In every genre it has something to offer me in multiple great titles. Top RPG's, both japanese style and non. Shmups a plenty. Fighting game ports , and exclusives.  Great platformers, great beat-em-ups...there are just so many games in every category that rank high on the quality bar.

Couple other great things about the SNES:  natively outputs RGB, S-video and Composite without modifications.  Controller is probably the most comfortable and best d-pad of all-time.  Great peripherals,  The Super Gameboy, SNES Mouse, Multi-tap...

If I were stranded with one console to choose, it is definitely the SNES. 

[Ond]

Interesting topic.  I don't have a nostalgic angle on consoles, I mostly ignored them after Atari died and up until Sony PlayStation when I was ordered by my boss to learn everything about PlayStation in order to sell them in our computer shop.  Boss "take one home and any games you want, this is our new business". 

Recently I built myself a little unit that's a dedicated (Nintendo only) console player matched with a couple of wireless Nintendo style game-pads.  It does just one thing - allows me to play NES, SNES or N64. Of the three platforms I'd have to say SNES is my favorite for the same reasons mentioned. 

[KenToad]

The SNES is the best. I debated this one for a while because I've been playing so much Genesis lately, but really the SNES was the first retro console I picked up in the early 2000's and the only one I wanted for several years. Regarding games, it does have the best of all worlds, especially as a stock console, as opt2not mentioned. When I play Genesis, I use an 6-button pad that I never had back in the day. And I often play Sega CD, which also was beyond my means back then. MSU-1 games are the closest thing to a Super Nintendo CD and they are cool, but I actually prefer the stock sound in most cases. Nintendo never fell for the FMV trap and it really says something about their game design priorities and hardware understanding, even if they did use draconian tactics and it ended up backfiring on them in the next two generations.

Back in the day, I got the Sonic bundled Genesis for my birthday, but later traded that for an SNES right before SFII came out. I never regretted it.

[pbj]

Well, I ended up in some rich kid house and he had hundreds of NES games and a Genesis at launch with every game I could think of.  Maybe we all laugh at it now but I don’t think there was ever a leap like there was from NES to Genesis.  Music, voice, number of sprites, parallax scrolling.  I feel like everything since has been an incremental update.

[KenToad]

Well, I ended up in some rich kid house and he had hundreds of NES games and a Genesis at launch with every game I could think of.  Maybe we all laugh at it now but I don’t think there was ever a leap like there was from NES to Genesis.  Music, voice, number of sprites, parallax scrolling.  I feel like everything since has been an incremental update.

For me, the biggest leap is from the Atari and other US consoles to the NES. No more keypad style controllers or mushy arcade sticks, the NES had crisp graphics, smooth scrolling, and responsive controls, not to mention actual good music, which was virtually nonexistent in home consoles before then.

My friends got an NES before Super Mario was released and we played so much that we got bruised thumbs. Even then, Kung Fu and Duck Hunt blew our minds. From that point onward, I considered Atari and the other older consoles worthless.

[dmckean]

For me, the biggest leap is from the Atari and other US consoles to the NES. No more keypad style controllers or mushy arcade sticks, the NES had crisp graphics, smooth scrolling, and responsive controls, not to mention actual good music, which was virtually nonexistent in home consoles before then.

My friends got an NES before Super Mario was released and we played so much that we got bruised thumbs. Even then, Kung Fu and Duck Hunt blew our minds. From that point onward, I considered Atari and the other older consoles worthless.

The US game companies just pumped out ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- too. The ColecoVision and Sega SG-1000 hardware is nearly identical but the SG-1000 games look SO much more advanced.  NES and Sega taking over and totally dominating the US market for a decade is the best thing that every happened for gaming in general.

[vertexguy]

Of your list I went SNES for many reasons already stated.  Would be harder to decide between SNES and NES though.  No other consoles had the range of quality games. Sure there are great games on every console, but Nintendo really had a consistent spread of options done really well.  Sadly I think they've lost their touch with more recent consoles where they seem to be lost more in hardware then games.  They've seemingly abandoned so many hit titles and IPs it just blows my mind.

[pbj]

For me, the biggest leap is from the Atari and other US consoles to the NES. No more keypad style controllers or mushy arcade sticks, the NES had crisp graphics, smooth scrolling, and responsive controls, not to mention actual good music, which was virtually nonexistent in home consoles before then.

This is a very, very good point.  The 2600 was already old news when I was a kid.

It's been interesting the peruse the NES library with my Everdrive lately.  There was some very good stuff early on with that system

[Howard_Casto]

The NES is without a doubt the most important console.   You no longer needed an instruction manual to know wtf the pink block on the screen is supposed to be or what you are supposed to be doing.... graphics had lept forward enough to where goals were self-evident.  Saved the industry.   They didn't lose their way though... Super Mario Odyssey and botw are probably the two best games of the last 10 years.   They just stick to the main IPs because they are a relatively small company and can only do so many games a year.  When they do try to farm out their old IPs half the time it becomes a disaster like Metroid Prime 4, which they had to scrap and give to another studio it was so bad.

[Vigo]

The NES was great, but I disagree with comments that it was the graphics that made the difference. The Atari 2600 was already almost 10 years old by the time the NES was globally released at the end of '86. What was current was home gaming computers that had  saturated the market. Depending on the computer, they had more or less comparable graphics and sound to what an NES offered, and because everything was open development, there were big libraries of games, peripherals and a lot of stuff at cheap prices.

My feeling is NES was so insanely successful because they bided their time to create a package deal, not just a build a console and throw out games as they finished them. They did that in Japan in '83 with poor results, but kept going and locally until it could drop a juggernaut of games and peripherals in America and Europe, and department stores had a clear swatch of compatible games to shelve. Even if half the titles at the time were crap, there were options. I have a hard time thinking Nintendo would have turned around the industry if it needed to survive 2 years on the shelves before Super Mario Bros even came out.

[KenToad]

The NES was great, but I disagree with comments that it was the graphics that made the difference. The Atari 2600 was already almost 10 years old by the time the NES was globally released at the end of '86. What was current was home gaming computers that had  saturated the market. Depending on the computer, they had more or less comparable graphics and sound to what an NES offered, and because everything was open development, there were big libraries of games, peripherals and a lot of stuff at cheap prices.

My feeling is NES was so insanely successful because they bided their time to create a package deal, not just a build a console and throw out games as they finished them. They did that in Japan in '83 with poor results, but kept going and locally until it could drop a juggernaut of games and peripherals in America and Europe, and department stores had a clear swatch of compatible games to shelve. Even if half the titles at the time were crap, there were options. I have a hard time thinking Nintendo would have turned around the industry if it needed to survive 2 years on the shelves before Super Mario Bros even came out.

Computer games at the time of the NES's release from 85-87 were awful, bad arcade ports, grating sound and music, choppy scrolling, really poor controller possibilities. Remember the pencil-thin analog stick PC controller that didn't even re-center? (There was that one red top-fire that wasn't complete garbage.) All the PC games were bad ports or even unlicensed clones of arcade games with virtually none of the original gameplay intact. Let's not even discuss the lack of quality control, with a virtual flood of shovelware being pirated and shared by PC enthusiasts. I can't think of even one PC game from that era that's playable today, especially with era-appropriate controls?

The NES outshone the computers of the day because it was designed to do exactly what it did. I saw a documentary talking about how it took John Carmack a ton of work to get smooth scrolling on a top of the line PC of the same era and no one could figure out how he did it. He had challenged himself to do it because he was so impressed by the smooth scrolling on the NES.

Yup, there's a reason why Nintendo put those pixels on the black box covers. The NES was state of the art.

[Vigo]

Are you talking about games on like an IBM PC, or games on actual gaming computers? Yeah, the best stuff on those PCs were monochromatic text adventures, rpgs and cerebral games with terrible bibs and boops, getting something like a c64 was completely different. You could get a nice wico made joystick and play games that looked far better than many of the NES launch titles, just look at most of what Epyx and other decent companies were putting down 2-3 years before the NES was available -







And then by the time the NES was really available in 1986, games on gaming computers were beginning to look like this:



The early NES games were not that beautiful, a graphical leap isn't what sold it. They packaged together their quality stuff and filtered out what was bad for the US/EU markets. Contrast that with computer games, you have one game that looks amazing on the shelf next to a game with stick people. Shovelware was a plague. You also had to read gaming magazines to know what was good, and often order from catalogs. You would need to check every game to make sure it was compatible with your particular computer, and nothing about an experience was consistent. Not approachable by kids and many parents.

With the NES, they put everything in toy store shelves and marketed like crazy. You could go to the store and just know it works with your console, and knew what was good from word of mouth and commercials.

[KenToad]

The NES was only heavily marketed after it was a proven seller. Retailers wouldn't touch it. It was released in a few test markets and proved itself because it had mind-blowing graphics and gameplay.

None of those games that you're showcasing demonstrate smooth side to side scrolling that was needed for the top selling genre of platformers (although that split screen is impressive if that's from 1985). The graphics on the top two games look pretty drab, even compared to early NES release games. The bottom two games look okay. I had one or maybe two friends who owned a computer powerful enough to play Summer Games in 1988. It was a single screen affair with no original in-game music. The Amiga version of IK+ came out in 1988, had no scrolling and looked like a tech demo for Prince of Persia.

Most people I knew who owned PC's just had Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail or Ultima, something with rudimentary graphics and a lot of text. If you wanted movement and action-oriented gameplay in 1985-87, you had to get an NES.

Also, the PC hardware was insanely expensive (C64 was $600, nearly quadruple the price of the $180 NES Deluxe set in 1985), meaning that the market was very limited. Even so, the graphics, sound, and especially play control of the NES were a huge leap above the C64 and other home computers of the day.

Also, those Wico red topfire sticks were just okay, nothing that I would want to use today. The NES controllers are still great to this day.

[pbj]

This is an interesting and weird argument.  I remember being told for years that Commander Keen was “just as good as a console game” and it was freaking terrible.

My mind was blown by Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, though.

 

[Vigo]

Ken, I am not arguing against the significance of the NES, and never said the graphics of the NES were inferior, When I say the NES is comparable to computers, though, I am acknowledging that the NES did do certain things better, and computers at the time did certain things better. It all depends on the spec. I was responding to comments stating that before the NES, video game characters looked like indecipherable dots, which isn’t true at all.

I knew tons of people with c64s and other gaming computers, I’m a little young, but my brothers were trading games all the time. I have no clue where you got $600 from, but a C64 retailed for $150 in 1985, and the scrolling was usually fine. Games were far cheaper, too. Price point wasn’t the difference.

With an example of scrolling, Commando comes to mind. It came out in late 85, and the NES version a year later. Generally, the C64 version was considered superior in just about every way.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cdGaZ8Fakok

honestly the best weapon Nintendo had in Hardware was instant booting. No cassette or floppy disks and loading sequences to get you to the game. Blasted the demographics wide open.

FYI - that racing game is Pitstop II, released in 1984. Cool game, as you make pit stops and can control the entire pit crew.There were plenty like it. Commando comes to mind as it was

[dmckean]

It was Metroid that sold me on the NES, and about 18 of my classmates at a going away party. Passing the controller around and taking turns on that game was like nothing we'd previously experienced. My age group in 1988 (5th grader) was all about the arcade and thought of home consoles and computer as being sort of lame in comparison. The NES and games like Metroid and Zelda changed all that. Those games were about just getting lost in the world and atmosphere for hours and having no idea what to do next, it was so different from any previous gaming experience.