Could You Only Play Retro Games For A Year?

Yeah I did that for about 4 years. Went traveling for 2 years before settling in a different country and all I played was 8/16 bit stuff. Didn't get back into modern games until 2010. So 2006 - 2010 there was quite the catalog to have a look at because I didn't follow gaming during that time.

Easily. There are plenty of old games that are on my 'backlog' and I generally like good retro games as much as good modern games. The hardest parts would be A) Finding the games through legal means and B) Feeling left out of the 'conversation' around video games.

But in terms of actual enjoyment? It would be easy.

1996 seems like a really weird year to choose, though. It's after the Playstation and Saturn launch but not long after, and I can't think of anything in particular in PC gaming that makes it a logical cut off. I guess it's 20 years ago, so maybe that's why you chose it, but I would go more with a generation of console hardware or a defining year on the PC.

Tekken 2 is retro but Tekken 3 is not?

In terms of "having enough to keep you occupied," yes. There are tons and tons of old shmups that I'd love to get good at, and you could easily pour dozens of hours into each of them.

In terms of just "could you do it for a whole year," I dunno. Older games already consist of the majority of what I play these days, but it's still nice to play something current once in a while.

I did it thoughout my 90s childhood, to be fair. Super Mario? Pffttt... I'm over here playing Chase HQ and New Zealand Story.

Sure. Give me a snes and I would be content.

In theory, I could and I'd enjoy myself a great deal. I love old games.

But the crippling anxiety of falling behind on the new stuff would be too much. I feel like I'd be playing catch-up for the rest of my life.

if i had civ 5 (or maybe civ 6) as a crutch then maybe? have to be 93 (iirc that was when secret of mana was released and i think final fantasy 6 had been out by then)

Easily, even easier if the time frame is pushed up to 1999.

Hell, I've done it before. Even now, DOSBox is one of my most launched programs.

Yes, I've done it for a long time. I think the problem with most people who just get emulator with 500 games for the first time are overwhelm and then stop after 20 games and never touch it again. You need that discipline to sit down and enjoy A game. And it's not exactly like having a weighty RPG, I actually enjoy the nuance to SNK games and those are designed to eat quarters.

I maybe doing this soon, because my 3 year old niece loves seeing me play games and her dad wants me to play retro games in front of her..... SOOOOOO NES classic is going to be her christmas gift this year.

I think the biggest challenge is when frequenting gaming websites (such as GB), watching videos and listening to podcasts about the latest "hotness", it is difficult not to want to be involved in that conversation by playing some of the games.

I certainly could.

Are the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube considered retro at this point? In 2006, we considered 1996's games retro.

90% of what I play every year is old, so sure, not really a big deal for me. It would be bad for my SFV skills though.

Easily. I might not play as many 10+ year-old RPGs as I did when I was in high school, but there's totally enough stuff out there for me to be entertained without ever touching a recent game.

No, I really wouldn't want to. There's too many awesome games out now that I want to play/am currently playing. A lot of those games I'm enjoying with friends, and I these days I value those moments a great deal.

Yeah quite easy for me 90% of what I play is retro, just today I was playing Willie beamish for sega cd yesterday was cannon fodder for Amiga lol. But I still love today's games

I could if I was incentivised to do so but by personal choice? No. I enjoy going back from time to time especially when there's nothing new out that interests me. But it would have to be a really shitty year for that to persist throughout.

I could but then GOTY discussions would be meaningless, as would my life.

Absolutely not. If you made the cutoff, like, 2007/2008 or something, then we can talk.

If PS2/GameCube/Original Xbox counts as retro, sure. Anything during and before N64/PS1/Saturn, probably not.

Since I spent the first 4 months of this year playing retro games and writing about them it wouldn't be that hard to play old games for a year. But I would rather play retro games in between new releases like I do every year.

I really doubt it! I mean, I could, but there'd be a lot of FOMO going on during that year. I can barely keep up with new games as it is without taking a year off.

I could if I had to but I would not do it freely. There are some good SNES games but besides that not much I would like to play. If I had access to the PS1,PS2, DC on the other hand I might but I guess that is not old enough yet to be called retro.

I probably could but it would be tough. There would be so many new games coming out in just one year that I would want to play so I don't think I would do it unless I really had to for some reason. But on the flipside I wouldn't lack new games to play once I'm done with the old games.

Could I? Sure. Would I? Hell no...
Not really into the retro thing, played them when they were modern. Games have gotten better, no reason for me to go back.

I could probably do it considering I entirely missed everything prior to the N64 (didn't have the money to hop in prior to that because I was 5). Would I want to though? Absolutely not, there have been too many big changes and quality of life improvements for me to want to spend a year exclusively in retro land.

oh sure, totally.

There are so many classic games i haven't played at all. I never completed finished any classic zelda, mario or metroid game apart from A Link To the Past. Replaying the early Final Fantasies / Shining Force games is fun too. Add in some Contra, Streets of Rage, Comix Zone, Shinobi, Castlevania and i think the year is pretty filled.

I could do only fifth generation games and older for a year pretty easily I think. The NES, SNES, N64, PS1 and MD all have plenty of games I like, enough to last me more than a year probably.

Nope not really.

I love modern games a little too much. Retro games are a novelty for me that I can pick up and dick around in for 15 min or so, but to play them exclusively for an extended period of time? Only if my other choice was to not play any games at all I suppose. I mean Contra changed my life as a kid in the sense that the first time I saw it played I was overwhelmed with how amazing it looked and sounded. Up until that point I had only known Atari games - big blocks of faded color bumping into one another in various ways. Contra was like someone was beaming the future down into my TV. That said I don't really have a lot of nostalgia for it nor do I ever feel like I need to remind myself what that was like.

Unlike Jeff and many others it seems I find it incredibly difficult to go back to anything older in the world of gaming. I absolutely loved 1997's Fallout. Beat that game dozens of times with various builds. Doodled logos and characters and weapons in countless notebooks while in class. I was obsessed with that entire post-apocalyptic setting which was so incredibly novel back then. When the game became free on GoG a few years ago I loaded it up, made a character, got out the cave and ehh, you know ..I got my fill. I'd rather be playing Dishonored or Deus Ex or even Inquisition. Games that evolved from that beloved classic. New games. New graphics, new systems, new possibilities. There are so many exciting new things happening in gaming today that I feel like with my limited free time it's a huge waste to wallow in days past when I could be experiencing amazing new titles coming here and now.

Yea, easily. Still many I haven't yet played.

NES Games probably, SNES Games I could just play for all eternity without too many issues. Ditto PS1 and PS2.

Depends on how far back, but most likely nope. I don't have any reverence for a lot of older games, and while I will watch the GB crew play 'em, the games themselves usually don't interest me (though the last VinnyVania was amazing mostly because of the terrible/best boss designs). Or if they do, it's almost never enough to make me want to actually play them.

Even certain games like, say, Pokemon, are kind of tough to go back to, even though the standard loop of gameplay is largely the same. After Red/Blue/Yellow came out on the 3DS, I had a way higher opinion of the newer games simply for the massive amounts of quality-of-life improvements.

Though I did enjoy playing Chrono Trigger a few years back.

No, I wouldn't. I play a lot of older games and a lot of retro games, but I think my playing experience this year has been vastly improved by Hitman, and I wouldn't want to miss out on No Man's Sky or Final Fantasy XV.

It would probably take me a year to play all the RPGs that came out in 2000.

NES games? Nah. It was a great system when it was modern, but it quickly got passed by each generation. The things we would tolerate then we wouldn't even tolerate with the SNES. Like the difficulty of Battle Toads, Ninja Gaiden, or the basically impossible TNMT game.

It's possible and I have done it two or three times while living abroad and being absorbed by work. The thing is that after that year you are going to hell where all the missed releases are waiting for you. I remember that playing new stuff and games from last year was difficult since it consumes a lot of time.

I could probably spend the rest of my life just playing games released before 2004.

Hell, I could do a year on the Neo Geo catalog alone.

'96 and prior? Hell ya! I play games from that era still all the time already. I have for the last 34 years.

Hell no

as much as I love older games, there is no question in my mind that games do a lot of things better today, especially in terms of Quality of Life stuff.

I've always primarily gamed in the present (or near present) and if I ever stop doing that, I'll probably stop period.

Naw. The number of games that are truly timeless is fairly small and games in general are so much better in terms of quality of life and diversity. There's only so much side-scrolling I can handle.

Yes defenetly PS1 maybe Gameboy.

If I'd have a digital library similiar to Steam at a hand's reach with just about every possible retro console game (Snes, Genesis, PS1&2 for me at least) available, I'd consider it.

Absolutely, catch up on all the rpgs i missed and replay my favorites. Year would be over before i know it lol.

Absolutely, though I'd preface that with limiting it to mostly computer games. I don't have a lot of reverence for 8-bit console games for example (though the Colecovision had some rad looking things I'd love to try). I've already spent several years essentially only playing DOS titles, I could certainly imagine a couple of years digging through the C64, Amiga and Atari ST libraries if I had better access to the hardware.

At this point just about anything from before 2000 tends to be considered retro, which means I have the whole late 90's wave of RTS games and space sims to deal with too.

A year may be a bit on the short end, but with long uninterrupted access to some classic computers I'd probably be interested in learning to program my own stuff on them as well.

Absolutely not, with 15 years maybe, but not now 31 years could.

As someone who didn't grow up with consoles, sure. Plenty of stuff to go through! Although I would miss online multiplayer.

Yes, I could play retro games for a year. I'd go with the games that I already like from the NES, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD days of my past, though.

I could probably pull that off in a shitty year for new releases, like say 2014, but it would drive me crazy if I tried to do it this year.