What era of games do you get nostalgic for?
 

Personally, I grew up in the EGA and VGA era, so my gaming experience had a lot of 16- and 256-color games in it growing up.

It's actually led me to do most of my games in the default EGA palette. My most "advanced" retro game uses a custom palette which, instead of using 3 levels each of RGB like EGA, uses a 3-level RGBI setup designed to similarly keep compatibility with CGA colors (which produces some doubled values). EGA produces truer pure tones, but the RGBI setup gives me access to more hues and especially more grays, which the particular game relies on pretty heavily.

Basically, my "retro" is PC gaming in the early 90s.


What about you all? NES? Atari? Oscilloscope? Game Boy?

Define "retro"...
 

NES, SNES, PSOne, PSTwo, and Game Cube. Not really N64, though technically that was the era. I only owned the first Zelda, Mario, and Quest 64 for it, and, while those were fun games, they didn't outweigh the awesome of all my other systems (which I still have, save for the NES, which, after my fourth one died, I just kind of gave up).

I also enjoyed my Genesis*, but didn't have as much fun with it as the other things.

I played Atari a bit, and actually saw a NeoGeo once. Gameboy was kind of cool, I guess, until mine was stolen. Same thing with whatever hand-held system Sega came out with. That said, none of those gripped me as the first list did. So the NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, and GC. I'm currently enjoying my Wii, however* (not like that).

It's a little weird thinking of PS2 as "retro", but I guess it really is, now, so it's on the list. Guess I know where I "peaked", eh?

*man, I love pawn shops, and used games! We'd otherwise never have been able to afford all this stuff. Five-dollar game systems! How I miss them! Oh, snap, that means I'm a pirate, now!**
**I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Much.

Atari 2600 games were quite enjoyable. ^_^

SNES, mostly. I go back and play NES games every now and then, but there's no magic there, aside from the a few "Timeless" platformers (Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, mostly). Same goes for the Genesis and Gameboy - The occasional game gets played but my heart goes out to the SNES.

PSOne still gets a lot of love from me, too, but I have a hard time considering it nostalgia; there were a LOT of really good games for the PSOne and I still haven't played a good chunk of them. With the SNES I can play just about anything no matter how terrible it is, but with the PSOne if it's bad I won't touch it >.>

I had my PS1 goin' on but I didn't play a lot of games as a kid. Not like you NERDS. But yeah playing Sqauresoft games on my PS1 was pretty special for me. And I mean, the PlayStation demo discs? Awesome. I was also probably one of the few kids willing to sit through the tedium of MTV Music Generator.

I'm collecting old Nintendo stuff now - the N64 just has a solid library, even the bad games on the SNES are fun. But PS1 was my first system that was really MINE.

Genesis/Mega Drive, to this day I still love Target Earth. And I'll never get bored of Sonic (my one regret is not owning the original Sonic 3 & knuckles Cartridge). I also love the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast to death. I practically hate my self for choosing to buy Power Ranger toys over getting a Sega Saturn for Christmas when I was a kid. Thank god I wised up and got the Dreamcast back in 2001. And it still brings a tear to my eye that it and the Dreamcast died such horrible deaths they never truly deserved in the first place (least they did well in Japan though). And you could never pay me enough to sell my N64 or any of my old consoles. They're all just too special to me.

Mega Drive was my first and only game console. But at the same time a friend had NES an another friend had SNES. Then slightly later, another friend had Playstation. But I'm far less nostalgic for Playstation.

e: Most nostalgic game? Sonic 2.

I just remembered something... I had a computer with Win95 on it... it had a bumper-car capture-the-flag game with it... I remember sinking many hours into it...

The Genesis/SNES era. Not because of the games I played, but because that was when Game Players was at its peak of juvenile humor and editors-be-damned strangeness. Man, that rag shaped my sense of humor. Probably for the worse, but whatever.

Also, I thought I'd take a picture of my Sonic 3 cart inserted into my Sonic and Knuckles cart, but it just seemed too cruel. So this is me bragging with my words, Kyanbu.

Besides, some current games are great, too!
 

My first "real" video games were Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation and Titanic: Mystery Beyond Time. Before then it was all "Fisher Price Pirate Ship" and "My Little Pony Adventures." All of the above were for PC. Until Tomb Raider, I had a computer with a 2gb graphics card. So Tomb Raider graphics were like the most awesome thing ever. I never got to finish the game: My computer crashed a lot and made me lose all my save data. I should replay it maybe.

Several years after that I got a GameBoy Advance, and my first games for that were Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and LoZ: A Link to the Past. I miss those games. I sold my entire GBA library when I got rid of the GameBoy.

My first console was an NES. When I was four. With about 50 games. I fondly remember games like the Super Mario games, Contra, Dragon Warrior, Guardian Legend and even Metal Gear. And yes, I beat Dragon Warrior before I could even read. And I played it in English too, a language I wouldn't learn until much later.

Then I got an SNES together with Zelda and Super Mario World. Later on I also got bitchin' games like Super Probotector, because everything's better with robots. The game I probably played the most was Secret of Mana. But Lufia II is also freaking awesome. Unfortunately Europe got denied the best of jRPGs. Like fuck, man?! What's the matter with not giving us Chrono Trigger, the best Final Fantasy ever, but releasing some niche game like Lufia II over here. I don't get it. And why didn't we get FF6? On the other hand, the team around Claude C. Moyse, which handled the German translations was feared all over the country and the neighboring German speaking ones too. So maybe it was good he couldn't butcher the truly excellent games.
SNES-era fun fact: I taught myself the basics of English with The Empire Strikes Back. The game doesn't have much text. Now you finally know why I sound like a 16-Bit version of a Star Wars movie.

The N64 is the last console I have any nostalgic feelings for. After that I lost my child-like fascination with video games. Mostly because I wasn't a child anymore.
There were some great games here, and as far as I know Herr Moyse wasn't involved anymore. Super Mario 64 was freaking fantastic, so was Ocarina of Time. I also played the shit out of Lylat Wars, which the NTSC crowd knows as StarFox 64, I think. The game that wasted most of my time was Perfect Dark, though. Perfect Dark. PERFECT DARK. I know it's just the nostalgia, but I like to claim it's the best console FPS ever. TimeSplitters wasn't half as good, and Halo is only for the Halo crowd, not for the crowd that appreciates a cool console FPS, which was the crowd that liked Perfect Dark. Because it was so great. Why do people even mention GoldenEye when there's Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark Perfect Dark. Perfect Dark.

I kinda get nostalgic for the hey day of arcade games. When TMNT, Simpsons, and that X-Men game was out. Along with NARC. APB was also a somewhat decent title. Of course, you can't forget gems like Mortal Kombat & Street Fighter 2.

Basically, that short stint were all the really good games could only be found in the 'cades. There was just something about the experience of ducking into the semi-darken alcove that was endearing.

Or at least it was for me.

SWB

I'm right there with synk on this one. I get nostalgic over a few games:

Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
Dragon Warrior (NES)
Super Mario World (SNES)
Final Fantasy III (SNES, a.k.a. Final Fantasy VI)
U.N. Squadron (SNES)
Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3 (Sega Genesis)
Sonic & Knuckles (Sega Genesis)
Pokemon Red (Game Boy)

It was less a particular system and more a great time for gaming. It was my childhood. It seems like more and more nowadays that graphics have filled the gap that character development and game mechanics once snagged. I blame this perspective on my age.

Also agreeing with Synk.

I have hardcore nostalgia for Donkey Kong Country. Distinctly remember my mom beating the final boss for my brother and I the first time. I think it was the same way with Super Mario World and Bowser's terrifying clown copter thing.

I'm going with saying the SNES has the best hardcore nostalgia out there:

Earthbound
Illusion of Gaia
Donkey Kong Country 1-3
Secret of Evermore
Secret of Mana
Chrono Trigger
FF6
Super Mario RPG
Zelda: LttP
BrainLord
Equinox

Yeah, I practically lived on SNES RPGs...

I've been a fairly active gamer since the days of the NES (albeit moreso since the early days of the Genesis and SNES) but I have to be honest, the PS1 era was definitely my all-time favorite. My fondest memories involve pulling all-nighters (or close to them) playing games like Xenogears, Suikoden 2, Front Mission 3, FF9 and (yes) FF7. The PS1 era was also when I first played Metal Gear Solid and that was a special gaming experience, as well as probably the only videogame I've replayed start-to-finish more than five times.

I was also a hardcore PC gamer as a young'un so some of my most nostalgic experiences come with replaying old PC games, particularly the Heroes of Might and Magic series, TIE Fighter, Red Alert, and Fallout.

While there are pictures of me gaming at the age of about 2 I think. The games that really come to mind for me in terms of nostalgia are the games I played on floppy disks on our family's first computer. We're talking Ultima Underworld and that crappy crappy megaman game that they made for computers.

Sure I'm more of a consul guy now, but the whole SNES/Genesis generation of gaming passed me by cause I was too young to do anything about getting myself and my parents said no. So those computer games really bridged the gap for me in ways I'd never actually thought about till now.

I remember when my aunt and uncle got the Nintendo Track and Field pad. Everyone in the family was blown naway. Nintendo's been prepping us for the Wii for a LONG time.

I remember having Windows 3.1 on my comp. There was this submarine game that I remember, but that's pretty much it about PCs for me until this century.

My Cousin's had that! We always loved running in place then stepping off the pad for the long jump. Man, good times.

Was it Riptide? I know for a fact it runs beautifully in DOSBox, as I own it.

Or possibly Discoveries of the Deep? I also own that one, but the disks are shot because they're only good for three installs as an anti-piracy measure and my mom used them all up trying to put it on our computer when we were kids. It was a terrible, terrible "game," though. It featured, I shit you not, real-time, real-life navigation and minigames to tide you over for the literal days of nonstop time it would take you to reach your destinations.

I still hit up those games when I can find them. While I enjoyed my Vectrex and NES, the best home gaming was SNES and PS1 for me.

Nothing will ever replace a hole in the wall arcade though. If I had the money I'd open one next to the local college.

I really miss the Win95 era, playing Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbut and Extreme Pinball in my dad's Pentium PC ^_^ That one too :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hover!

Also

Enjoy ^_^

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/deskapps/gam.../AAS/Hover.EXE


At least I can run these through DOS box (except Hover!, it works fine), and I got Tyrian in my phone ^_^

Heh, my first experience was with the Sega Genesis and Road Rash. Best game ever for the time. After that I got my first console, an N64 and spent years with Zelda and Jet Force Gemini. I dunno. Something about the 64's graphics just really gets me. Surprisingly clean despite the tech at the time. Never really seen an overly pixel-y n64 game.