It has been quite a while since I did an update on the blog, including this Retro Gaming Club column. I have been very busy this summer with family, home projects, and picking up or organizing our home. There’s always a lot to do when your on vacation, but I’m glad for the downtime. Below I wanted to highlight another set of retro games I played on Nintendo Switch and Steam. Give them a try and let me know what retro games you have been playing, or if you’ve played the ones below.
Double Dragon II: The Revenge – 1988, NES 🎮🎮🎮 out of 🎮🎮🎮🎮🎮
Jumping back into my Nintendo Switch, I was wondering which retro game to play for this column. I hadn’t played anything from the Double Dragon series in a long time, so I wanted to try my hand at that one. The graphics and controls have not aged well, as my moves wouldn’t connect many times. It’s hard to fight because depending on which way you are facing you kick in the opposite direction, so it’s just confusing at times to hit enemies.
The game can get difficult as you can fall down and lose a life or miss a jump easily, but the battles are fun and challenging. I can see why this game was such a classic for the NES, as it was one of the first action games that moves the screen as you progress. I am around the end of the game, so I hope to beat it next time I play. Definitely pick this one up if you like beat’em ups like Final Fight or Streets Of Rage. I am sure both of those series picked up some cues from this one.
The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match – 2008, PS2 🎮🎮🎮 out of 🎮🎮🎮🎮🎮
The King Of Fighters used to be a huge franchise of various fighting games back in the day when SNK created many titles in this genre. It combined all the characters from their various other series into one big tournament. There used to be at least one new game every year, but they eventually slowed down and barely release a new one. I decided to go back and try a few of them, since there were many SNK games for free some months back on Amazon Prime and it had been years since I played one. I had never played The King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match so I chose this one and went a few rounds with the CPU.
There is a huge roster of characters to chose from, and my go-to team has always been Kyo Kusanagi, Terry Bogard and Yuri Sakazaki. I tested out a few other characters I have never used before and I won a few rounds, but the CPU got more difficult per match. The graphics and gameplay were pretty good for such an older game, and I have to say I enjoyed this game. The older King Of Fighters titles are pretty outdated and can be boring compared to what we have today in the fighting genre, yet this one seemed to have polished the controls and details. Give this one a try wherever you can get it, on Steam or Amazon Prime Gaming.
Earth Defense Force (E.D.F.) – 1991, SNES 🎮🎮🎮 out of 🎮🎮🎮🎮🎮
This one comes from the Nintendo Switch SNES library, and is one I have never heard of. I enjoy these old school shoot’em ups but they can sometimes be very challenging. Earth Defense Force offers a feature which I have not seen in another game, which is being able to chose what kind of shooting weapon to use before the stage.
In just about every other game, you are stuck with the same weapon unless you find an upgrade floating around, but you aren’t able to change it. E.D.F. let’s me chose between a homing shot, explosive, grenade, atomic and others. It wasn’t so difficult but it does have some tough parts. I have not completed the game yet and am on stage 4 so far. I did enjoy my short playthrough and I recommend it to those who have Nintendo Switch SNES access.