Retro Gaming Blogging Challenge: My Top 3 Best Retro Video Games

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This post is my 2nd casual entry for the Retro Gaming Blogging Challenge for the Hive Gaming Community initiated by @marcoquin.

There are so many great retro games released in the past that it would be hard to choose with just only top three if I had to ultimately choose. But thinking hard if I can only have three retro games to play in my entire life, these would be the games I would rather have. And I am presenting them in no particular order:

1. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP, Android, iOS)

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I prefer the strategy RPGs over the action RPGs, or the more common party-quest types of RPGs.

This Final Fantasy Tactics game was the modified remake of the classic Playstation 1 original. This is where the developers finally included the awesome dark knight job class originally intended for the hero character to achieve but was left out on the Playstation 1 original.

Cool art and character designs, very deep job skills customization, many secrets to unlock, and timeless gameplay makes this strategy RPG very often imitated but never equalled. The game has so much gameplay goodness that fans with development skills have made very good rom hacks and mods that I am still trying to play to this day.

Gameplay sample of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

2. Streets of Rage Remake (PC)

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The Streets of Rage Remake project, released in 2011 on the PC, mashes all three Streets of Rage game beat-'em ups on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive into one huge hybrid fan-game developed by Spanish fan developer group Bomber Games. This final project contains over 100 stages, 19 playable characters, 64 kinds of enemies, and a full 76-song soundtrack remixed by 5 different artists.

I am a big fan of the Streets of Rage beat'em up series and I think this is the definitive version to get. Playing alone or with a friend doing combos on enemies, going multiple paths, and having secrets to unlock means the gameplay will never be boring for long.

Gameplay using Streets of Rage 1 version characters

3. Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Arcade, Dreamcast, iOS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360)

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I had to put one 20 year old fighting game out here to keep my casual fighting game skills from getting rusty.

With a 56 playable characters roster, fun gameplay and a still healthy following in competitive gaming communities, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 turned out to be one of the most popular fighting games ever. Its incredible roster beats even some of the modern fighting games, and leaves so many combinations for your chosen teams, crazy assists and powerful combos.

It will maybe take so many months to master every character in this game. Forming and mastering your own three character hero (or villain) tag team and playing against another player, is the meat sauce of this awesome game.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes gameplay

I think that is it. So what are your top three retro games if you only have to choose them to play for life? Let me read that in the comments below.