How Can You Play Retro Video Games in 2019?

Don’t you just miss the good old days when playing video games was all about…you know, GAMING? I’m talking about pure gameplay, hours of exploring, unlocking secret characters by doing specific tasks, and most of all, NO MICROTRANSACTIONS . Sure, lots of games didn’t age well but the devs and publishers back then put lots of love and compassion into their games.

When you’re sick and tired of unfinished games, triple-A publishers ripping you off and certain groups of people forcing their political agendas in games and shove them down your throat, you just want to go back in time when times were simpler. 

But, the biggest problem here is that you don’t have the console to play the games of yesteryear. However, just because your console is out of commission doesn’t mean you can’t relive your favorite retro games. When it comes to PC gaming you should also know what to look for in a monitor as well.

In this article, we’ll proceed with numerous ways on how to play classic games on various platforms. Man, I really miss the times when Blizzard was still cool and Maxis wasn’t within EA’s hands.

1. With a PC, You Can Play Almost Any Retro Game You Want

One word, friend: emulators. According to the wiki, “Video game console emulators are programs that allow a personal computer or video game console to emulate another video game console. They are most often used to play older 1980s-era video games on 2010s-era personal computers and more contemporary video game consoles.” 

In short, if you got a PC, you can play old-school games with an emulator. All you need is a decent rig PC. You don’t need those 2080Ti graphics cards or those high-profile coolants to get you to play games from the 80s to the early 2000s. If you’re thrown off by games on Steam and the entirety of the Epic Store, you can always resort to emulators.

Missing the original Crash Bandicoot? Want to see Solid Snake and Squall’s pasty faces again? Use the PCSX emulator to play PS1 games. Feeling like reliving the glorious fighting game arcade days? There are lots of arcade emulators such as M.A.M.E. to let you do so. Want to experience the glory days of Sonic the Hedgehog? Try out the SEGA emulators. Need to go back and play Smash Bros Melee and Super Mario Sunshine? Nothing like the Dolphin emulator can do the trick.

Other emulators include PSP, Gameboy, Dreamcast, and more recently, Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360.

And the best part? They’re all free. 

Although, the main catch here is that they’re all buggy at some point. The programmers for these emulators really don’t have the big budget to make these digital platforms 100%. Another factor here is the more recent PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii emulators not being fully-optimized for PC. Don’t expect a 100% smooth gameplay even if you have a big-rig PC to do so.

2. Fightcade: The King of Online Old-School Fighting Games

We had to make Fightcade an exception here despite being an emulator in general. However, what it does is different: Fightcade lets you play all the classic fighting games you want and even compete with over thousands of players online! And hey, it even has an arcade stick support too. Street Fighter II, The King of Fighters 1998, Samurai Shodown V, Marvel vs Capcom 2, these are just some that you can play with another competitor! But hey, if you just want to go against an AI opponent, you can always make a solo session. Remember the days when arcade stores had AI fighters cranked up to the hardest level to eat up coins from players? Yeah, good times. A bit scummy, but good old times. At least it’s better than Activision forcing us to pay for lootboxes.

3. Developers Release Old Games on Current Platforms

Oh you know, remastered editions and all that. You got to give credit to the devs who put time and effort to re-release very old games. 

Most of the time, there are added tweaks and fixes to make the game feel more comfortable to play. A great example of this is the System Shock Remastered edition on Steam. If you have never played the original in the ‘90s, it had a very janky control scheme. But thanks to the re-release, the controls feel much better and more tolerable now.

Frequently, re-releases are also optimized for platforms. For example, Capcom released an HD version of the Devil May Cry original trilogy so you can play the games at1080p resolution on your high-budget screen.

Another best example is the Metal Gear Solid complete edition for the Playstation 3. It includes digital copies of the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 as well as Metal Gear Solid, one disc that includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and another for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It also includes an interactive digital graphic novel and a handbook of everything MGS for the past 25 years. Mind you, this edition was released in 2012, in preparation for MGSV that time.

Fighting games are no exception. Even if Fightcade exists, the publishers release official copies of their existing games. Capcom released Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Edition, SNK put The King of Fighters 1997, 1998 and 2002 on Steam, and ARC System Works brought the original Guilty Gear XX back in full HD.

Bonus: Backwards Compatibility and Console “Remakes”

Backwards compatibility is a blessing. Thankfully, the Microsoft Xbox One exactly does that. However, Sony thought it would be a good idea to re-sell every pre-existing title onto the Playstation Store. But wait, what’s this? The PS community demand that they get to run their own Playstation discs? Well, in 2018, Sony created a PS1 “remake” called the Playstation Classic Yes, the quotation marks were intentional because it felt like a betrayal to the community. First off, all PS1 games can only be played via digital downloads. And second, you can’t use old discs for it since the design is all just for show. Sure, the 20 free games in it were cool but you the “disc tray” is just for aesthetic purposes; a PS1 disc is too large for it. Also, the analog controllers didn’t feel as authentic as the first one. As a result, it flopped and was never heard from again.

Forget Modern Gaming, Just Go Back in Time

Remember when “unlockables” were a thing for collecting stuff, discovering secrets and beating the game multiple times? Yeah, I miss that term too. Or remember when cheat codes were a thing and didn’t penalize you by disabling achievements? Okay, cheat codes still exist but in forms of hacking tools online which aren’t legal at all. But if you follow the steps above, you might just get childhood gaming flashbacks just as how Anton Ego from Ratatouille experienced nostalgia after tasting the classic vegetable dish.