I Played Dozens Of Retro Games This Year, And These Are The Ones I...

Dust off your DOS, reinstall those ROMs, and party like it's 1999.

One of my favourite things about PCs is that "old" is relative, really. Generations don't exist in any meaningful capacity. Steam and GOG sell everything from shiny new blockbusters to ancient relics, meaning the same hardware I use to power realistic puddle physics can be easily used to resurrect childhood favourites and discover painfully pink DOS experiences I missed out on the first time around. Most of the time the only difference is the name I click in whatever software library I have open in front of me.

For every older game I clear, another two I discover that I'd like to play somehow seem to pop up in its place. Whether some big publisher's carefully polishing up a beloved classic or a boutique label's unearthing long forgotten… maybe not treasure, but something weird and a little broken in all the ways that make me sit up and pay attention, there's always so much to catch up on.

I do try my best, though. Here are some prime picks from my 2025 adventures, encompassing everything from cursed markings in Dungeons & Dragons to cute puzzle games and certified arcade classics.

OK so yes, I know it looks so old it might need to literally be dug out of the earth to play, but there's a remarkably forward-thinking RPG hiding underneath those grey battlefields and slightly awkward interfaces.

The relatively uncommon use of morale in combat, my foes sometimes so frightened they might feel compelled to surrender or run away, makes my party—effortlessly transferred across from an earlier Pool of Radiance save and ready to fireball anything that stands in their way—feel powerful and dangerous in ways that go beyond mere stats. And the story itself is a tightly written adventure that's happy to throw some fun character or new and convincingly organic twist my way as often as possible.

This impressively thorough take on D&D3.5 has been fixed up and made ready to play, finally allowing role players everywhere to spend more time wading knee-deep in its tactical potential than wondering if they were killed by a Giant Bug (Hit dice: 4d8+8, Initiative -1) or a, well, giant bug.

If any RPG deserves a second chance to shine, it's this one.

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Lo-poly models and deliberately disjointed environments make a session with Taito's old arcade shmup feel like something out of a wonderful techno-dream. One mi

Source: PC Gamer