What is Retro Gaming?
Introduction
“Retro gaming, also known as classic gaming or old school gaming, is the playing and collecting of computers, consoles and video games from earlier decades.” Thus Wikipedia.
In this blog, I want to explore with you what retro gaming is. What makes something retro or classic? We also take a leap and superficially look at the computers and consoles that can be considered retro.
What do you think is the limit of retro gaming? To my mind, retro is everything up to and including the PlayStation 1 and maybe the GameCube. According to ChatGPT, a console is retro after 25 years, which would mean the original Xbox will be retro next year. Extraordinary for me to imagine. I can so well remember playing Ninja Gaiden out on “Path of the Mentor - Very Hard” only to find out that there is also a punishing difficulty. 😂😂😂
Which brings me to the next part: old games are hard..
Games
If you pick up an old game now and find that you are not as good at it as you once were you might think you have become less good. Many of us will have this feeling. However, this doesn’t always hold true, for instance, I, and I’m sure you too, have become more ‘games literate’ by now. a kind of games literate, that is. By this I mean that I now understand more quickly what a game expects of me: how the controls work, how the difficulty level is built up and why a certain part is made difficult on purpose. Before, I used to just play and hope to pass. I often memorised levels and created muscle memory. Now I’m more likely to see the patterns and intentions behind the design.
I said it briefly, memorising levels… what I notice most of all now, as I play old games with more experience, is that (although logical) there are few Quality of Life (QoL) improvements in them.
QoL are small improvements that make a game more enjoyable to play. Think of improvements to controls. A good example of this is how old games/developers in the early days of 3D did not know how to deal with camera controls. Sometimes they were (non-)inverted, semi-automatic or the Nintendo 64’s infamous c-button camera, all horrible. Since then, much has been improved and an industry standard has emerged. Want to know more about QoL? Check out this blog about QoL!
The cycle time in old games is also sometimes very punishing. Just think of Ghosts ‘n Goblins, a few mistakes and you start all over again. Another joke with this game is that it is designed to make you die multiple times anyway and you have to memorise a lot of pieces. Good to keep in mind is that many of these games were originally designed to take your quarter from you in the arcade. Modern games often don’t do this anymore, you’ve already bought the game so there’s no money to be made. And if there are punishing elements in it, the cycle time is so short that it is no longer frustrating. Think Super Meat Boy or Celeste.
There are certainly still games that honour difficulty and are made precisely to be punishing. Think of the From Software Souls series and relatives. But QoL improvements have been made here too, so that even the player who can’t finish it on their own can seek help. Personally, I always try to finish every FromSoft Souls-like solo at least once because I get a lot of satisfaction from that.
Hardware
Modern hardware
TL;DR: Emulation devices also bring us huge QoL improvements.
Reviving old games on modern hardware is, of course, great. Think beautiful screens with resolutions that are a perfect multiple of the original screens. This allows us to experience old games with a quality that used to be unthinkable.
Modern hardware allows us to play for hours, charging with USB-C cables, whenever we want. No more worrying about batteries. As an 8-year-old, I would have thought that was the best invention ever. I can well remember being bored to death in the back seat of the car heading to winter sports in Austria, when my rechargeable batteries had already died three times after a few hours of gaming. Save states? Ho!
The convenience that modern hardware brings us is amazing. Think of theMiyoo Mini Plus with OnionOS or the more modern TrimUI Brick with NextUI. Drag and resume? Really amazing!
Of course, emulation has its limitations. For instance, it is never exactly the same as playing on an original chip. Sometimes there are strange bugs or a game runs just too fast or too slow. And even though CRT screens are technically inferior, they still give games a certain charm. After all, the games are also designed for them.
Original hardware
Another way to experience old games is on original hardware. Of these, you would expect this to be the ultimate experience. However, you run into all kinds of setup problems pretty quickly. I spent a while building the ultimate SNES experience myself: a One-Chip SNES, a retrobright treatment, a 4K HDMI scaler, Bluetooth 8bitdo controllers, cartridges from Marktplaats, cables and adapters from China. And now, dozens of hours later, I can finally enjoy Yoshi’s Island on a 4K TV with a modern controller. Amazing!
But sometimes it’s a lot of trouble. For example, if you bought an old console, you still have to connect it to your 65-inch TV. You then have to convert an analogue signal to HDMI. Then you end up in the rabbit hole of scalers. I myself use the RetroScaler, a relatively cheap and solid solution. Note: always use good cables.
Modified original hardware
Nothing plays finer than an original Game Boy. For me, that’s the Pocket or the Color. These have a tremendously fine D-pad. No modern device feels as good for Game Boy games. But let’s lift them to 2025 by modding them!
A community of creatives has emerged. Some mod original hardware, others develop the mods, and still others produce them on a larger scale. YouTube is full of legendary modders. Think HDMI mods, custom shells, gold buttons and incredible creations.
For me, this is the best of both worlds: original chip, but with modern luxuries. Think backlit screens, rechargeable batteries via USB-C and transparent shells that showcase the craftsmanship of the original hardware.
That craftsmanship is impressive. Opening a Game Boy that was painstakingly built 30 years ago is magical. You see clever design choices, trywing screws, buttons that only fit one way and even pencil scribbles on the motherboard. Who ever wrote that? What is the person doing now? Unanswerable questions that carry a special charm.
Should you not feel like picking up the soldering iron yourself, you can also check this page, where you will find all my mods for sale.
Generations
A Redditor named Iamn0mancame up with a brilliant theory: dividing consoles into geological eras.
Precambrian (age of first life)
- First generation (Pong): Electronic games on your TV are a thing!
Paleozoic (ancient life)
- Second generation (Atari 2600): GENERATIONAL SPRONG: tens to hundreds of games on one device!
- Third generation (NES): 8-bit, sprites!
- Fourth generation (MegaDrive): 16-bit power!
Mesozoic (middle life)
- Fifth generation (PS1): 3D gaming!
- Sixth generation (Xbox): Better 3D!
Kenozoic (now)
- Seventh generation (PS3): Always online, microtransactions.
- Eighth-generation (PS4): Nicer picture and sound.
- Ninth generation (PS5): Remasters, VR as a serious option.
Retro PC Gaming
Whereas consoles went through a relatively uncluttered development, PC gaming always felt like the Wild West to me - full of brilliant innovations as well as frustrating configurations.
Software
Shareware & classics
Installing was an adventure in itself. I remember well how, as a child, I used to walk around the flea market looking for floppy disks. Often I would come across things like Jazz jack rabbit, jill of the jungle or Doom II. Once, I even saw someone there with an impressive set-up who was copying hundreds of games live. You could literally pick a stack of floppy disks there and take them fresh off the press. As a 10-year-old, I had no idea what copyright was, and this felt like the most normal thing in the world.
Back home, the real work then began: installing. Then you were at floppy disk three of four, and just that one turned out to be corrupt. You had to start all over again. But I found the whole experience - searching, unpacking, hoping it worked - magical. Back then, I often didn’t know where to get new games at all. I was one of the first with a PC nearby, and got my games mostly from those markets or from magazines.
LAN parties & multiplay magic
Even before online gaming was normal, we had LAN parties. You collected your PC case, lifted a leaden CRT monitor into the car (often a friend’s mother would still bring you), and then you’d build the whole set-up together at someone’s house. Hours spent pulling cables, setting up IP addresses, installing games and then finally letting loose in Quake III, Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike 1.6. Sometimes you slept there, sometimes you didn’t. But what memories. This was gaming at its rawest and most enjoyable.
Mods and user-generated content
PC gaming wasn’t just about playing, it was also about creating. I loved discovering that you could mod games. Sometimes it was simple like updating a config file of GTA: San Andreas so that it did play with a reasonable frame rate. But others also made complete makeovers - like Half-Life which became Counter-Strike, or Warcraft III which was the birthplace of DOTA - there was so much creativity in the community. Many PC gamers were often creators too, and I really loved that.
Emulation and DOSBox
Of course, you can try to buy a nice 486 PC on the marketplace. Go for it, t is awesome! But for those who want to make things a bit easier: search for tools like DOSBox, PCem or ScummVM. These will let you run classics on modern hardware, without the hassle of corrupted floppies. Pretty nice.
Revive some classics right away? Also check out playdosgames.com
What people think of retro gaming
Retro gaming is a catch-all term, that much has become clear to me. In this Reddit thread I started, dozens of responses came in. Some philosophical, others practical, and some just down-to-earth: “old games are just old games”.
An important topic: when is something retro? Opinions differ widely on that. For some, everything up to and including the 4th generation is retro, others include the PS2 and original Xbox.
Iamn0man’s theory was brilliant. From the Precambrian to the Kenozoic, with each generation being a technological leap.
Retro gaming is not just about nostalgia. Some are only now discovering old games and still feel magic. Someone said he only recently discovered Dragon Quest and Doom, and fell in love with them.
Another said it perfectly:
“I miss a time when games were games, not movies. Where skill and reflexes mattered.”
Some swear by original hardware, others by modern comforts like USB-C, sleep/resume and bright screens.
“I’m making my past self (and let’s say, inner child) pretty happy.”
Afterword
Thanks for reading along until here. It was great to write this blog and get to know the retro community in a new way.
Of course there are a thousand things I haven’t described, there were arcades of course, there are dozens of consoles I don’t know exist. Feel free to add to this blog in the comments!
Should you like this blog, feel free to quote, share or print out and go through it nice and retro again.
- Xxx -
Jorne
info@retrogear.nl