As much as we love to dwell on the classic games for our older systems, there are also some fresh games making their way onto the modern gaming scene that appeal to our retro sensibilities.

The Racketboy community submitted their nominations for the best games that have a classic style that were released in 2018. Two-dimensional gameplay is the primary concern and sprite artwork is a plus, but not required. We balanced the ranking on average critic scores (thanks, Metacritic) with the overall retro vibe of the gameplay, art style, and genre.

For each game featured, we run down the platforms it’s available on and also mention if it has a physical game option (especially important to us retro geeks that are skeptical of longevity of online services). We also share a good video link to give an idea of the game, an excerpt and link to one of the most helpful online reviews of the game. At the bottom of the guide, you’ll find some honorable mentions that may have come out earlier than this year, but had some notable ports or releases this year. We hope you find this useful and feel free to mention any of your personal favorites from this year whether they are listed or not.

BTW, we used to do voting for this back in 2010 (and additional links to years before that),  and resumed the tradition last year in 2017, but its nice to build on this habit but with more screens and reviews to share.

Celeste

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? Yes (On Jan 1 2019) (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“Celeste… is a retro-styled 2D platformer about climbing mountain ruins. It’s also more than that: it’s a lush, warm story of a girl challenging herself and winning. It’s one of the best feeling, and best sounding platformers I’ve played in a long time, invigorating and clever. Each screen is a small puzzle of acrobatic routing, offering easy and difficult paths through the environment, allowing the player to challenge herself or just move on.”

Julie Muncy / Wired

“Madeline moves in a sprightly run, and players can easily guide her after a jump thanks to liberal amounts of fall control. She can dash in eight directions with the lightest button press. Everything makes sense, and this makes it easy to tune out distractions while playing Celeste and blaze through rooms as if you’ve been playing the game for years. Celeste breathes meaning back into the word intuitive. Leaping feels as natural as breathing and while the game punishes flawed execution, the controls never betray the player’s intentions. It says a lot that the game’s ultimate power-up simply allows the player to dash twice. Celeste feels good to play and knows it….

Celeste wants to be accessible and allow players to determine the level of challenge they’re comfortable with. This extends to a robust Assist Mode where the player can adjust game speed, turn on infinite stamina, or even activate invulnerability… Some players will conquer Celeste quickly, scaling mountain walls and zipping through hallways in a frenzy… It’s a joyous game brimming with hope and one of the best video game jumps ever.”

Heather Alexandra / Kotaku

Dead Cells

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“Dead Cells is a triumph of shockingly good game design: the ever-changing guts of its beautifully illustrated levels, a staggering array of game-changing weapons and gadgets, and its breakneck motion fuse into an engrossing loop. It’s so engaging that even after dozens of hours clawing through its island fortress, I’m still discovering and devouring new morsels…

Momentum is where Dead Cells really shines. Its slick system of running, jumping, dodging, and pounding through these dungeons feels so good that the desire to move and attack quickly overrides a lot of the caution that comes with a game where death sends you back to the beginning…

Dead Cells’ movement and combat encourages you to put it all on the line to get a little farther. It’s meant to be replayed dozens of times, unlocking another small but significant fragment of the broad skillset with each new artifact you earn. Once you’ve unlocked all of the clever Metroid-style abilities you’re eventually able to move unrestricted through Dead Cells’ darkest recesses.”

Brandin Tyrrel / IGN

Wonder Boy And the Cursed Kingdom

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows (soon)
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“A few years back, Wonder Boy 3 got a truly wonderful remake… And now, Wonder Boy 3 suddenly has a spiritual successor. It still seems odd to type that. It’s made by a French team rather than a Japanese team, but Ryuichi Nishizawa, the creator of Wonder Boy was involved, and while the name has changed – we’re now playing as Monster Boy – and while the pixelly sprites and backdrops have been replaced by wonderfully characterful hand-drawn animation, the sense of continuity is absolutely dazzling…

Brilliantly, Monster Boy doesn’t merely Copy the Wonder Boy 3 template. It advances the design in crucial ways, while still feeling deeply rooted in the original. Once again there’s a simple fairy tale story unfolding – this one kicks off with an uncle who’s behaving strangely and turning everyone into animals – and once again you move from a central village hub to explore the wild ranges of a huge world, each new area accessed by the new abilities you pick up as you’re transformed, every few hours or so, into a new animal.”

Christian Donlan / Eurogamer

Into the Breach

Switch, Windows, MacOS
Physical Copy? No (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“A lot of tactical depth can happen on a simple eight-by-eight grid. Into The Breach, the follow-up to the legendary FTL: Faster Than Light from Subset Games, creates a fantastic variety of turn-based tactical battles between your team of three mechs and giant, city-destroying kaiju monsters. On a regular basis, Into The Breach makes me scratch my head and wonder how I’m going to get out of this mess alive. And on a few of those occasions, it’s a thrill when I actually do.

Aside from the subtly detailed animations, the colorful and easily readable pixel-art graphics style does risk Into The Breach being mistaken for a typical simplistic mobile game… On the most surface of levels, it’s about moving your units into position to shoot, punch, bombard, push, or otherwise affect the waves of monsters that erupt from the ground, and uses an XCOM-like one move, one attack per turn system that’s become common since 2012. But the way its countless smart rules interact with each other makes learning the nuances of its battle system one of the most rewarding tactical experiences I’ve played in years…

The wide variety of mech and pilot abilities make Into The Breach’s tactical combat deep, satisfying, and replayable. Every turn creates a new complex puzzle, and though sometimes there’s no perfect solution, finding the best way to minimize damage creates frequent eureka moments as you learn to make the most of the abilities you’re given to work with. It’s a small-looking tactics game that’s kept me playing more intently than most big ones.”

Dan Stapleton / IGN

Iconoclasts

PS4, Vita, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? N
Video Sample

“Iconoclasts is the result of one man’s dream project for an action platformer, borne out over a lengthy eight-year period of development. Fortunately, the final product reflects the time invested into it, as it expertly mixes an engaging and surprisingly heavy story with Metroidvania elements and a peerlessly gorgeous 16-bit visual style that favors immaculate detail and eye-popping color palettes. It’s a treat on several fronts, and isn’t a game you’ll want to pass on without giving it some consideration…

Puzzles are often straightforward and simple to figure out, but there are many that will demand a little more thought and planning; some puzzles can span multiple screens and a few different tools just to get to a little blue chest. Some may see this as going a bit overboard, but it’s nice to see some puzzle design in a Metroidvania that goes for a little more than just using a single tool on an obvious obstacle. Oddly enough, some of the best puzzles are actually dressed up as boss battles….

On the whole, Iconoclasts is a memorable, thought-provoking, and enjoyable take on the Metroidvania genre which manages to stick out from the crowd with its chipper presentation and deeper storytelling style.”

Mitch Vogel / NintendoLife

Tetris Effect

PS4
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“What if Tetris could make you … feel blissful? Tetris Effect… takes the game’s original concepts and adds joy, connection and audiovisual euphoria. It’s Tetris, but beautiful… Tetris Effect’s emotional trek weaves through a campaign known as the Journey. Co-developers Monstars and Resonair set rounds of Tetris against a variety of gorgeous backdrops, songs and sound effects…

It’s an expertly crafted trick, honed over the course of producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s other games: Rez, Lumines and Child of Eden. Each release — sometimes with later remixes or sequels, or ports to virtual reality — explored the challenge of connecting with the player by merging play with music, the rumbling of the controller and visual effects. Other games might show you something amazing, but Enhance Games wants to make experiences where “something amazing” consists of a visual aesthetic that’s perfectly in tune with each game’s mechanics, sound effects, music and haptics.”

Michael McWhertor / Polygon

The Messenger

Switch, Windows
Physical Copy? No (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“The Messenger opens as a straightforward Ninja Gaiden tribute, drawn in 2D NES-style pixels. Our nameless blue ninja flips off platforms and walls, slicing hundreds of demons between point A and point B. An otherwise familiar dish, The Messenger is spiced with meta dialogue that’s just the right amount of twee, along with some challenging but hardly impossible boss fights. Our hero visits all the classic biomes — the swamp, the ice kingdom, the volcanic caverns — and eventually finds himself on the footsteps of the big-bad. This chunk of The Messenger would work on its own as the latest entry in the rapidly expanding retro demake catalogue, a sibling of games like Shovel Knight…

But taken holistically, The Messenger works as a Video Games 101 master class. The topic of the seminar: how video games changed between the NES and the SNES, and why trying to recreate or revisit that period is inherently precarious.

The Messenger’s 8-bit first half is burdened by many of the limitations of games from the late 1980s. Designers at that time had relied on difficulty and easy-to-learn gameplay to milk quarters from arcade patrons… The Messenger’s creators find their footing in the second half, where the Metroidvania structure allows for greater creative wiggle room. Again, what’s happening inside the game echoes the medium’s history. Many of the 16-bit era’s best games delivered on the promise set by their 8-bit siblings, particularly entries in Metroid and Castlevania, where the additional graphical fidelity and system memory allowed for richer, more complex open environments.

Chris Plante / Polygon

Dragon Ball FighterZ

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“Dragon Ball FighterZ, from developer Arc System Works, successfully adapts the fast and thrilling pace of a Dragon Ball fight into a three-on-three 2D fighting game built around a beginner-friendly combo system and some of the most gorgeous and true to the source cel-shaded art styles around.

Despite the visual chaos, Dragon Ball FighterZ’s mechanics are actually deceptively simple and easy to learn. There are just four attack buttons: light, medium, heavy, and a special attack button typically mapped to a projectile. There are no complicated special move input commands, like dragon punch, charge, or 360 motions. If you can throw a fireball in Street Fighter you can perform just about every single move and technique in FighterZ. That’s great, especially since you’re required to handle three characters at once…

Between the accessible auto combos, homing attacks, and simplified command inputs, Dragon Ball FighterZ is an inviting gateway into the world of fighting games for newcomers — whether you’re a Dragon Ball fan or not. Those easy controls can open the door to some spammy behavior, but just as often it’s satisfying in a way that does right by the Dragon Ball name. Dragon Ball FighterZ has enough depth and complexity to glow as brilliantly as a Super Saiyan.”

Mitchell Saltzman / IGN

CrossCode

Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? No
Video Sample

“Trying to mix puzzles with classic RPG elements could have easily swayed this project into one camp or the other, but it seems the developer have found a way to blend these genres in a fun-filled sci-fi adventure. Drawing inspiration from games like Zelda, CrossCode is a uniquely futuristic journey of their own…

While this is a single-player RPG, you get a definite feel of something much bigger, as you explore this open-world game set in a MMO theme. The grind of leveling becomes all too real as you fight your way through different beasts to gain those coveted items to complete quests. Progression can be a little off putting if you’re someone who does not enjoy the grind, but those who persevere will feel a sense of accomplishment as you gain rewards and help Lea gain back her words. It’s funny how learning a new word feels just as important as gaining a new ability, or leveling up, as you really want to start to see Lea form sentences and be able to communicate with the players she meets.

Will Lea ever get to hold a full conversation?

It’s obvious to see that Radical Fish Games have taken the time to create the effect of a mini-universe in CrossCode, adding little details such as wandering players that are actually NPCs, which makes you feel as if you are playing online…

The game is very cleverly put together, from fluid combat to story progression. If you’re someone who loves exploring worlds, fast-paced energy-ball action, challenging puzzles and a compelling narratives that will keep you captivated for hours, then this could be your next RPG. Be prepared to reserve a chuck of time for this game, as once you start it’s very hard to put down.”

Yuria / FExtraLife

Octopath Traveler

Switch
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“New games in the old style” is the deceptively pat label Square Enix has adopted for smaller JRPG projects like Octopath Traveler, and one that invites an obvious question: which parts are old, and which parts are new? Far from a reprise of conventions from Final Fantasy 6 and before, Octopath is a curious medley of tradition and risk-taking… It’s a game that puts a familiar emphasis on timing, built around a turn-based battle system in which the ability to strike first often trumps how hard you hit. But like its spiritual predecessors, the Bravely Default series, Octopath also lets you bend time a little, banking action points in order to perform several attacks in a single turn…

Octopath Traveler is the kind of game that gets hand-waved aside as being for “the old school”, but that’s to overlook its charismatic innovations in battle and the strange, detached, even austere construction of its narrative. For good and a little for ill, it’s a lot more eccentric than it seems. JRPG detractors will bounce off the hoarier elements – changeless villages, that well-thumbed handbook of classes and abilities, those sparsely animated sprites – and so, miss the peculiarities those devices hide. Genre aficionados may take umbrage at being forced by the levelling curve to alternate characters, and never quite seeing those stories entwine as fully as in, say, the Mass Effect games. Give the game time to bed in, however, and you’ll find it a bold contribution to a genre that has always been a little too in love with its past and the past in general. There’s much here to inspire nostalgia for the classics, but Octopath Traveler is at its best when following its own nose through a history of its own creation.”

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell / Eurogamer

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

XB1, PS4, Switch, Vita, 3D3, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? No (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“Curse of the Moon taps into project’s attempt to continue Castlevania’s metroidvania legacy by setting its sights on that series’ older, 8-bit entries. Not only does it succeed at paying the NES Castlevania games tribute, it almost does it a little too accurately for its own good.

If this game amounts to an act of plagiarism, though, at least it’s self-plagiarism. After all, Bloodstained creative lead Koji Igarashi is best known for directing numerous Castlevania games during his time at Konami. He served more as a supervisor here than director, but you can definitely see his fingerprints on Curse of the Moon.

The prospect of playing such a lovingly crafted tribute to the vintage heyday of Konami’s seemingly abandoned Castlevania series more than makes up for a few out-of-place boss fights and a slightly too punitive death penalty. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon delivers a brief but effective burst of nostalgia, and thanks to its many creative modifiers it contains enough replay value to engage (and challenge) anyone who pines for gaming’s bygone days. And this isn’t even the “real” Bloodstained! As appetizers go, it’s substantial — nearly satisfying enough to be its own main course.”

Jeremy Parish / IGN

Mega Man 11

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“With Mega Man 11, Capcom seems to have finally figured out how to bring the Blue Bomber into the modern age. Its new game is faithful to the series’ classic gameplay, while adding a few tweaks that make Mega Man feel just fresh enough to revisit, 10 proper sequels in…

Where Mega Man 11 deviates in its gameplay is with a new system called the Double Gear… In practice, the Double Gear system is one of many ways in which Capcom has made the devilishly hard Mega Man series slightly easier — or, for more skilled players, a new mechanic with which to optimize and perfect speedruns. The Double Gear mechanic comprises the Speed Gear, which lets players briefly slow down time, and the Power Gear, which momentarily boosts our hero’s Mega Buster arm cannon (and other weapons) to deal more damage…

There’s a cleverness and care that seems infused throughout Mega Man 11, and numerous creative touches surprised me as I played. Bounce Man’s rubbery body is flecked with bits of metallic confetti, like a bouncy ball from a toy vending machine. Block Man’s level is inspired by Mayan art and architecture, supporting the robot’s backstory in which he fantasizes about building his own temple…

Mega Man 11 isn’t a surprising sequel, but it is a respectful one. Capcom has stuck to its well-worn formula, giving a once-great series deserved care and attention, while wisely shying away from retro kitsch this time.”

Michael McWhertor / Polygon

Minit

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Physical Copy? No / Coming Soon (eBay / Amazon)
Video Sample

“Minit… puts emphasis on the need to hurry. Its strict 60-second time limit is an ever-present threat as you dig up the world’s secrets around you, dispel a cruel curse, and attempt to bring peace to the land.

Minit begins with your unnamed hero happening upon a cursed sword, plunging you into a cycle of infinite minute-long sessions that always end with your death. Each time you respawn, the counter restarts, and you’re transported back to your last resting place. New resting places can be unlocked by walking into them throughout the map, but simply finding them in time is a task. You’ll need to uncover routes with your sword, chopping down shrubs to find new pathways to new areas on the edges of your 4:3 screen. Building a mental map of the world around you is paramount next to your ability to both avoid threats and find the shortest path to an objective, and it can feel like a punishing exercise at first.

But it doesn’t take long for Minit to find a rhythm that’s intoxicating. Each new character you meet bears a personality that can be equally inviting or aggressive, some wanting to help you along your journey and others just wanting to be left alone…

Its throwback to classic visuals aren’t done for aesthetic alone, as none of its gameplay systems scream antiquity. It’s a slickly presented adventure that continually manages to surprise you with every new area you uncover or item you procure, pushing you to pick away at its seams to uncover every drop of what it has to offer. With a delightful ending and more promised after its first run of credits, Minit is far more than just a collection of seconds.”

Alessandro Barbosa / GameSpot

Rival Megagun

XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
Physical Copy? No
Video Sample

“Across the exclusively competitive Rival Megagun’s various modes, the gameplay is anchored to a vertical split-screen set-up. Rival players occupy their side of the screen, where the same waves of enemies spawn in duplicate. Fundamentally things here are the same as found in a conventional shmup. There is a scrolling background, high difficulty, adversaries to blast from existence and swarms of gaudy bullets that do all they can to etch a mark on your retina.

Equally, the quick kill chaining system present in so many 2D shooters exists at the heart of Rival Megagun. Essentially, as you down enemies back-to-back, a combo multiplier climbs. Chain multiple kills together, and that combo meter soars higher and higher. If a few seconds pass without you shooting enemies from the sky – or, if you take a bullet – your combo multiplier drops back to zero. Meanwhile, concentrating fire on more persistent enemies serves to maintain the chain at its current level….

On the whole, Rival Megagun is a brilliantly fun shmup. Play is fast and tight, and there’s a bounty of brilliant risk/reward gameplay moments to explore, as well as a good few ways to maximize score in arcade mode. Filling your rival’s screen estate with drones, for example, will bother them plenty, but also give them lots of things to attack and therefore build up their chain, putting them in the perfect position to throw more stuff back at you.”

Will Freeman / NintendoLife

Other Noteworthy 2018 Additions

Octahedron

• Synopsis: A precision vertical action platofrmer about creating your own platforms.
• XB1, PS4, Windows
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Horizon Chase Turbo

• Synopsis: Technically a 3D game, but has arcade style racing that feels like a modern Outrun. The game originated on iOS and Android before getting an expanded version on the consoles and PC platforms.
• XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Slipstream

• Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Synopsis: A fresh, sprite-based take on the classic Outrun formula
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

ZeroRanger

• Synopsis: Indie shmup with a minimalistic (only shades of orange and green) but appealing visual style.
• Windows
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Pawarumi

• Synopsis: Shmup with more modern stylings. Has a color-switching mechanic inspired by Ikaruga.
• Windows, MacOS, Linux, XB1 (soon)
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Moonlighter

• Synopsis: An Action RPG with rogue-lite elements that demonstrates both exploring ancient dungeons and running an equipment shop.
• XB1, PS4, Windows, MacOS, Linux
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle

• Synopsis: New 2D fighter entry in the Arc System Works’ series that features 2v2 battles and tag-ins similar to Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
• XB1, PS4, Switch
• Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
• Video Sample

Battle Princess Madelyn

• Synopsis: A fresh take on the Ghosts ‘n Goblins’ framework with both a story and arcade mode.
• XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
• Physical Copy? No
• Video Sample

Dusk

• Synopsis: a 90s-style FPS is both a tribute for Quake and its peers and a logical next step in gameplay and level design.  So it’s obviously not a 2D game, but it’s hard to not mention this gem.
• Windows, Switch
• Physical Copy: No
• Video Sample

New Physical Releases & Compilations

Ketsui Deathtiny: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi

• 2018 Notes: New PS4 version of Cave’s arcade shooter
• Also on: XB360, PS3, DS
• Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
• Video Sample

Capcom Beatem Up Collection

• 2018 Notes: A fine compilation of many of Capcom’s arcade brawlers. First way to play a couple of these games on console/PC
• XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
• Physical Copy? NoVideo Sample

SNK 40th Anniversary

• 2018 Notes: A fine compilation of SNK’s pre-Neo Geo work with a remarkable historical presentation — many of which haven’t been released on consoles.
• Switch
• Physical Copy? Yes (eBay / Amazon)
• Video Sample

Sonic Mania Plus

• 2018 Notes: A much-deserved physical release of last-year’s blockbuster. Also includes some extra playable characters to sweeten the deal.
• XB1, PS4, Switch
• Physical Copy? Yes
• Video Sample

Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1+2

• 2018 Notes: This mega compilation includes all the mainline Mega Man and Mega Man X games in one package
• XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows
• Physical Copy? Yes
• Video Sample

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

• 2018 Notes: There’s been a handful of Street Fighter compilations over the years, but this one is one of the most well-rounded featuring the original Street Fighter, 5 versions of Street Fighter II, and the three variations each of Street Fighter Alpha and SF III. Also includes online brawling capability.
• XB1, PS4, Switch
• Physical Copy? Yes
• Video Sample

Sega Genesis Classics

• 2018 Notes: Another Sega Genesis compilation that extends the reach of many before it (but still missing many greats).
• XB1, PS4, Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
• Physical Copy? Yes
• Video Sample

Owlboy

• 2018 Notes: New PS4 and Switch physical releases of this great 2D indie title
• Also on: XB1, Windows, MacOS, Linux
• Physical Copy? Yes
• Video Sample

The post The Best Retro Games of 2018 appeared first on RetroGaming with Racketboy.