What pre-90's game would you consider a masterpiece?

@uninspiredcup: The Legend of Zelda or Dragon Warrior.

Playing through that right now in it's entirety for the first time.

Gotta say some stuff that def pisses me off.

Enemies that come at awkward angles with secondary weapons suppose to help deal with that, right? Like the axe, the obv one.

But half the time you're being rushed through a level with a timer and unlimited enemy spam, with completely random drops, with the drops themselves using a different amount of hearts.

You have a choice to A) Stand still and wait for it to disappear B) avoid it, but the forward momentum of the game means in all likelihood you'll be accidentally picking shit up constantly the player doesn't want.

Some items like the stop-watch are pretty fucking useless as stuff like the Grim Reaper while holy water can basically act as "auto cheese" on a many boss.

Some spawn points are completely unpredicable as well. Few times just walked up a ladder to immediately get hit, while glued to the ladder, or some cases like Reaper, as soon as the encounter started jumped only for a projectile to magically appear over head with no warning.

Still enjoying it for the most part, but def prefer Rondo and the later entries. Even the Gameboy ones, haven't played much but was generally enjoying Castlevania Legends abit more.

Anyway, don't let my rambling effect your choice, just sounding off.

Mario 3, easily. If you do any retro gaming in any capacity, and play the NES at all you would see the turning point in the mindset of developers from this quarter eating arcade and simple single screen games to more expansive, larger worlds, home console experience that really allowed gaming to take off was Mario 3.

@uninspiredcup: I agree completely on IK+. And IK+ was nearly as good on C64 as on Amiga. The music alone was a masterpiece. And three-player multiplayer back then was unheard of.

Super Mario 2

Battletoads Arcade I felt at the time was ahead of its time in the early 90s. Hell, it was such a great game, it almost rivals TMNT Arcade itself. I only got addicted to that game only because the Dark Queen was a cool badass villain.

I really hate how MS just straight up massacring my boys...even the Dark Queen looks she's from Kim Impossible😓

In no particular order:

• Tempest
• Robotron
• Warlords (arcade)
• Galaga
• Ms. Pac-Man
• Gauntlet
• Joust

None, nothing has aged well that was made in the 80's.

@Mozelleple112: 🤣 I just saw this post, you doubled down on your dumb comment, impressive.

I would have to say that Mega Man 2 was the best. Super Mario Bros 3 was also excellent, but Mega Man 2 was so damned cool.

OT - After playing Castlevania and Shinobi back to back, MS Shinobi holds up better. It's the better game overall.

• Tetris
• Space Invaders
• Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Megaman 2
• Castlevania
• The Legend of Zelda
• Contra
• Punch-Out
• Double Dragon

Double Dragon Arcade ruled the world. I also spent a lot of quarters on it. Even today, it is still entertaining if you can tolerate the choppy framerate. And yeah, the home versions sucked. I was so disappointed.

Phantasy Star is a masterpiece

Id also include, Zelda, Metal Gear, Shinobi

@enzyme36: Shinobi is interesting. The Master System is arguably the best version even though the arcade hardware is technically superior.

Being an arcade game, designed around bullshit. 1 touch, dead. Spamming the shit out of enemies where the difficulty becomes seemingly insurmountable.

The Master System version has an upgradable life bar, and weapon upgrades that rewards players who take the time to detour.

Less enemies on screen, typically 3 tops. Becomes about common sense and largely reasonable reaction than dealing with a barrage of rush-downs. A much slower more methodical game.

Subjective as well, but kinda prefer the look of the Master System version. Quite colourful.

Basically templates over all the good and removes the bad. Rather than mimicking coin chomping bullshit. Feels like something doable as well without spamming save-scum. Might take a couple of goes but nowhere near as brutal as other games at the time.

@uninspiredcup: This explains a lot, why all the Sega bundles and the Sega Ages versions of the game just dont feel right. They must be using the arcade game, when I grew up with the master system version. This explains why I would never get the kick/ nun-chucks / sword variations of the melee kills that I loved from the master system.

Also shuriken to gun upgrades you mentioned was a game changer for the ms version ... also was a good challenge with only getting 1 crack at the gun run. Agree that this version feels superior to the ports we been getting.

EDIT: The runs on the videos above are real impressive... even flawless on the bonus stages