The 6 Best Retro Gaming Genres - Retro Bird

Galaga is a brilliant game 😁. I had the double game on game boy with galaxian. I grew up with galaxian though on the Atari 2600 so it will always hold a special place in my heart ❤️. Ps contra is harder than a constipation turd, f@*k that shit

Metroidvanias!

I would say adventure games are good. I really like Zelda. I've heard of Willow and Crystalis, but I'd love to hear some that are similar around the NES and SNES era.

As you likely know from my previous comments. I love platformers. I treat them as a central genre and slowly move out from there.

Mascot Platformers
--> Action Platformers
--> Beat em Up / Spectacle Fighters

Mascot Platformers
--> Run & Gun
--> Shumps / Twin Sticks

Mascot Platformers
--> Metroidvanias
--> Top-Down Adventure / Rougelikes

Mascot Platformers
--> 3D Platformers / Collect-A-Thons
--> Modern Open World Games

Most genres seem, at least to me, to be on one of the spokes of the wheel with Mascot Platformers at the centre. Which I'm OK with. The only exception I think is RPGs, which I feel is so far removed from platformers that it's it's own genre wheel (though perhaps connected at points).

That's how I see it anyway. Hope that was interesting.

Fun fact, I went to the highschool where they filmed mean girls in Toronto. You can bet that any time we watched a movie in class it was mean girls. Every time

Like everyone else who mentioned it I would include Puzzle Games! My favorite Genre was Action Platformer! As that is the game that got me hooked into gaming as a kid...Castlevania!
Quick Little Story for Ya, my buddy back in the day blind folded me & told me about this new Castlevania like game on SEGA. He untied my blindfold & I was this knight animal fighting Hogs on Wheels! I would find out seconds later it was called, Rocket Knight Adventures & we had a blast playing it, so I would definitely put it in the Action Platformer of Genres! But that's just me.

Any Mario title that has the fire power ability is a run 'n' gun. Change my mind.

Classic MMORPGs. I'd consider the ones that came out in the late 90s & early 00's to be "retro" or more generally referred to last "classic" MMORPGs. Once the mid to late 00's hit, they were becoming filled with lots of QoL features like automatic dungeon/party finders, instanced dungeons, easily accessible fast travel, quick leveling, solo viability, less social interdependence, end game focus. Not to mention microtranscations.

One I'd add to this is the Puzzle Game genre.

The only RPG I ever got into was Harvest Moon.

JR0G, easily. They were hood until 7th gen, at least other genres are still good mostly.

I just like going from left to right. It doesn't matter if I have to overcome platforming obstacles to get from left to right, or if I have to beat up a bunch of enemies that are in my way from getting from left to right, or if I have to shoot a bunch of things that are in my way from getting from left to right, etc... as long as I'm going from left to right, I'm happy. Occasionally, I even like to go from right to left.

RPGs didn't go away. Games like Persona 5 and its Royal Edition are among the best of the last generation. However, one thing that did happen is they stopped having a near monopoly on lengthy, story-based titles. Still, other genres mentioned fell by the wayside until recent revivals because gaming went through a phase where every title had to embrace current trends or it would have been regarded as dated. RPGs at least had no trouble making the jump to 3D.

Man this guy really likes Rocket Knight Adventures. He references that game in nearly every video.

I'm going on a trip and bring a nomad. Bring ghouls and ghost. Street fighter 2 and strider. Also phelios And last the Sega six pack game lol. Columns sonic streets of rage golden axe Shinobi an hang. Ah yeah. Sitting pretty for my vacation

i guess Cuphead is a mascot shoot'em up 🤔

Definitely 3D platformers and third person rail shooters (Star Fox, Panzer Dragoon). Really wish there were more of those types of games.

Platformers both 2D and 3D will always be the king of video game genre for me. 3D platformers have kind of fallen from grace with a few shining apples that aren't Mario coming out of the woodworks, but 2D platformers are still as plentiful as ever thanks to indies and constant retro revivals.
If I could throw out a good genre for retro, I'd say first person shooter. I used to think I hated first person shooters. Turns out I just needed to play some retro ones. Doom64 was my first retro shooter, and I played it in 2018. I fell in love with the series, moved onto Duke Nukem and Quake, and i've got my sights set on more, it seems like there's a huge library of 90's shooters I missed. Though this seems to be more of a PC thing and I wasn't PC gaming until very recently, which explains why I missed so much.. tho I did play Doom64 on real hardware.

I decided today that Banjo-Kazooie is my favourite 3D platformer. It’s so soothing to play and just makes you feel good. What games would you recommend that are similar?

Action Adventure? Commander Keen, Prince of Persia 1 & 2?

2D platformers, 3D platforming, racing, party, fighting, schmups, the list goes on. I like a lot of games from several different genres.

All these genres are great imo. I think some overlooked ones are action/adventure(Zelda A Link to the Past), Puzzle Games, Fighting Games, Arcade Style Games(Centipede, Donkey Kong), & the most interesting type of all games like NBA Jam; it's not quite a sports game, but not quite an arcade game(entirely)I never know where to classify games like this.

Point and click games like monkey Island

I enjoy your videos as always, but I'm not sure why you would attribute side-scrolling games birth to Sonic. From Pitfall, to Mario, and MAINLY Mario, there were several awesome games in that genre years before Sonic hit the scene. While Sonic is a VERY GOOD Side-scroller, there was Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros 3 before there was ever a Sonic, and Super Mario World in my opinion is the BEST side-scroller of all time.

Regardless, there were a ton of side-scrolling games before the Blue Blur's existence, so I'd love to hear why you mainly mentioned that particular franchise?

People dislike Sonic Heroes????

Man, I love me some old RPGs. The clunkier, the better. And old-school computer RPGs had maximum clunk. They don't get mentioned very often because one typically needed a pricey computer to play them when they were fresh, but oh man. The Gold Box TSR/SSI games were crowning achievements there. Also going to throw in Mechwarrior-style games. It's been a long time since I've been able to grab a flight stick and go first person in a hulking war machine bristling with death-dealing cannons and missiles.

JRPGS are just TOO costly the ebay sellers some of those want MORE then the cost of the PS5 FOR those so hell no those costly games just could use a PS4/PS5/Switch ports for less then $50 for any.

Strategy war games. They dominated the home computing hobby in the 80s and 90s.

I think nobody has mentioned it but vehicular combat is seriously lacking nowadays

JRPGs are games I always dabbled in, but never beat. Legend of Dragoon and Chrono Cross are my favorites and I intend to actually beat one, if not both, this year.

Loved fighting games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter 2 (I'm including all of it's iterations), Killer Instinct, and Clay Fighters. I feel like Clay Fighters is a hidden gem. Not a lot of people talk about it, but I highly recommend it.

Watching this vid makes me want to play TMNT 4.

Easy for me Point and click PC games form the late 80's early 90's. Sim games those don't have the attention as they use to sadly, probably due to the same reason most don't like to pick up RPG's today. For me another would be old educational games, where you learned to read or write or type or even math and geography. I mean who here reading this didn't have the Carmen Sandiago theme song go through there heads just now?

However, do you or others feel that the quality of new versions of these types if any are just lacking in quality? Or is it that as a young person playing these types we experienced something new?

Personally I feel a bit of both, take a look at SimCity 2013. It was not the same as before almost a kiddy version of what we played as kids. It's true CitySkylines is a great game and love playing it but its not SimCity.

So ya I feel certain genres of games may go the way of the dodo or at the least less prevalent but they stay alive through us.

P.S. Maybe I started rambling but ya i'm tired. Still love your discussions and videos keep it up.

Really enjoy your videos.

Thanks for the great video, your content is always unique, and your humour isnspot on, without being obnoxious haha.
Although I'm not big into sports, I love the earlier ea nhl titles, nhl 94 on snes in particular. Especially if you can play with a friend. Racing games have always been a staple in my household as well, burnout paradise party mode and test drive eve of destruction have provided my family with so many good times.

One genri suffers and that is the beatem up. Sipsoms. Predator. Spider man the arcade never golden death adder never got the home version. ;'(

Mascot platformers, action platformers, RPG's of various types, beat em up's, shoot em up's and 2d fighters, specifically Street Fighter's and Mortal Kombat's with an honorable mention to sports games like NBA Jam Tournament Edition, Madden NFL '94 and NHL '94.

The only other big genre I'd include, though it's more of a retro PC thing than a retro console thing, are first person shooters. DOOM, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, Shadow Warrior, System Shock, Turok, Golden Eye 64, Wolfenstein 3D, and a ton of other amazing FPS games came out at the time for PC and some consoles back in the 90's, so those are ones I'd probably include, as well. Just about all of my favorite FPS games were from that time or early 2000's.

I know it’s on the border of retro, but the 5th and 6th gen had the BEST extreme sports games. Later on these games focuses more on realism, but in the 5th and 6th gen it was a perfect mid of arcade and sim.

Shoot'em'Ups and pinball games to me define the 90's about as much as platformers and all of them are great.
Granted, pinball was more of a PC thing but even so it had some seriously good games like Pinball Dreams, Pro-Tilt and a personal classic, Extreme.
And sure, I also love lots of modern games but these three genres give me good nostalgia vibes and make me feel young again.

Overhead Racing was very unique to retro games. RC-Pro Am, Super Sprint, Rock n' Roll Racing were a lot of fun.

This guy will have at least 500 k subs by the end of this year

Puzzzzzzzzzzzles!!!!

Hmmm speaking just of video games that bring me back to the feeling of playing videogames of my childhood I'd say, in no particular order the top 6 for me would be:
1. 2D platformers
2. 2D&3D Arcade Style Fighting games (Street Fighter II and Soul Edge in particular)
3. Shootemups
4. Beatemups
5. Turn based rpgs
6. Pinball
If I could put a #7 it would be arcade racing games like Cruis'n USA and Daytona

Mario rpg was so weak compared to the others

Dungeon crawlers. Atlus and obsidian are the only ones making good ones nowadays

My favorite video game gens are the platformers, jrpgs, and sometimes fighting and racing. those was the type of games I played and still do, Oh I forgot my other favs are puzzles games like Tetris or columns

RPG’s are funny for me. I don’t really care for them most of the time. But I loved final fantasy 7, chrono trigger and the gem of all gems… wait for it… wait…. Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. Epic games. Now days if I play games I typically go for.. I don’t know honestly? I need to play more games!

The two genres that I miss most are Textadventures (you know, where you have to "tell" the gane what to do) and the point n' click adventures (Maniac Mansion forever!!)

you forgot to mention the fighting genre. games like mortal kombat and street fighter 2 defined my teenage years. especially at the arcade. lol.