The Best Classic Games, According to 193 r/oldgames Players
"What's your favorite classic old game?"
That's the question a Redditor dropped into r/oldgames, and it pulled in 193 replies. No consoles specified, no decade limits — just "old," whatever that means to you. The answers piled up from every era: text adventures on the Commodore 64, DOS-era PC strategy games, and 16-bit console RPGs.
We read every top-voted reply and tallied how often the same games kept coming back. What follows is the community's consensus, ranked by upvotes and mentions — with the games you can actually play in your browser today called out along the way.
The Heavy Hitters
Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
The single most-upvoted answer. Players keep returning to Pirates! because it never really got replaced: you sail the Caribbean, trade, hunt pirates, court governors' daughters, and retire with a reputation — all in one open-ended loop that predates the open-world genre by a decade.
The original is a DOS and Amiga game, but there's a faithful NES port of Sid Meier's Pirates! you can fire up right now without hunting down old hardware.
Ultima Series (1981–1999)
"Ultima series. Good old Lord British." That was the whole comment, and it got double-digit upvotes — because Ultima fans need no explanation. Richard Garriott's series took the RPG from primitive dungeon crawls to living worlds with day/night cycles, NPC schedules, and moral choices decades before that was normal.
X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)
One of the most-nominated games in the thread, known as UFO: Enemy Unknown to European players. It's the strategy game that still ruins productivity: you run a global anti-alien task force, manage a base, and send squads into turn-based battles where one bad move gets a veteran soldier killed permanently.
Wing Commander (1990)
The space-combat series that made cinematic dogfighting matter. Chris Roberts' original turned simple space combat into a branching war story, complete with a cast of wingmen who could live or die based on your flying.
The RPGs and Dungeon Crawlers
Wizardry (1981)
"The original Wizardry. I remember staying up well into the morning playing it... back in the early 80s." The first Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord set the template for the party-based dungeon crawl that Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest would later borrow from. If you want a taste on console, Wizardry V on SNES is a solid entry point.
Diablo (1996)
Blizzard's original action RPG got plenty of votes, usually with a mention of the Hellfire expansion. It distilled dungeon crawling into something faster — click, kill, loot, repeat — and its influence still echoes through every modern ARPG.
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy came up again and again, though rarely the same entry twice — a sign the series as a whole is the real favorite. FF VI (released as "Final Fantasy III" in North America) gets the most love for its ensemble cast and Kefka, but you'll find partisans for nearly every numbered game. Browse the Final Fantasy series and pick your own.
Chrono Trigger (1995)
Nominated alongside Brave Fencer Musashi by one commenter, Chrono Trigger keeps a seat at every "best RPG" table. Time travel, a dream-team staff (Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama), and a dozen endings. It still holds up, and it's playable in your browser.
Dragon Warrior (1986)
The NES original that taught a generation of Western kids what a JRPG was. "OG Dragon Warrior depending on the day," as one player put it. Grindy by modern standards, but its DNA is in every turn-based RPG that followed.
Strategy and Simulation
This is where r/oldgames parts ways with most "best retro games" lists, which tend to lean console. A huge share of the votes went to PC strategy games.
Age of Empires II (1999)
"How old is 'old'? My favorite game is Age of Empires II, which came out in 1999." More than one player flagged it as a game they still play regularly — rare for a 25-year-old RTS, and a testament to its campaign design and the community that keeps it alive.
Civilization / Civilization II
"Civ," one commenter wrote. Another expanded on Civilization II's moddability, recalling how easy it was to add new techs and units through XML files. The "one more turn" loop predates smartphones, yet it's lost none of its pull.
Command & Conquer (1995) and Red Alert (1996)
Westwood's duo came up repeatedly, often tied to childhood memories of a family IBM. Red Alert in particular got named by several players as the game that defined 90s PC strategy for them.
Master of Orion 2 (1996)
Mentioned by multiple commenters with an emoji of pure approval. Still considered the high-water mark for 4X space strategy — no modern successor has fully dethroned it in the eyes of its fans.
The Console Classics That Kept Coming Back
Not every vote was a PC game. The thread had a steady undercurrent of console picks, and several of them are playable on OldGame.io right now.
Super Metroid (1994)
One commenter listed it as their answer outright. The game that gave a genre its name remains a high point for atmosphere and exploration, and it's aged far better than most of its 16-bit peers.
The Legend of Zelda
From the NES original to A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, Zelda showed up across the whole thread. "The original Zelda," one player answered; another pointed to A Link to the Past.
Super Mario
Mario 3, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 all earned mentions — often as the childhood favorite that still feels good to replay. The Super Mario series on OldGame.io spans the NES, SNES, GBA, N64, and DS.
Mega Man 2 (1988)
"The Mega Man games on NES" got an upvote, and Mega Man 2 is the one fans usually call the best of the bunch — airtight level design, a famously fair difficulty curve, and one of the great chiptune soundtracks.
Contra (1988)
Contra showed up in lists of NES favorites more than once. The Konami code may be the most famous cheat in gaming, and the run-and-gun action still lands.
Doom (1993)
The original Doom got several votes, with one fan honestly admitting they only ever replay the shareware levels. That kind of specific, personal answer is what makes a community thread worth mining — real players, real preferences, not a marketing blurb.
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
"Goldeneye holds a spot," one commenter wrote, and few N64 owners would argue. The split-screen multiplayer alone earned it a permanent place in 90s console history.
The 8-Bit Microcomputer Corner
The oldest crowd in the thread reached back past consoles entirely, to machines like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Atari 2600.
Creatures 2 (1992, Commodore 64)
"Still an amazing game even today. Really showed what could be accomplished with clever programming." The C64's Creatures 2: Torture Trouble is a platformer known for pushing the machine hard and staying genuinely fun.
Lode Runner (1983)
Named by several people as the oldest game they'd still play. The dig-and-trap puzzle platformer is as elegant now as it was on the Apple II.
Bubble Bobble (1986)
Another repeat mention. Taito's two-player co-op about bubble-blowing dragons is still one of the most charming arcade games of its era.
Joust, Elite, and the rest
Joust (1982) got an all-caps "JOUST!!" of enthusiasm. Elite (1984) earned a nod as an early open world. Text adventures like Zork and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy showed up too — a reminder that "old" covers a lot of ground.
What Still Holds Up (and What Doesn't)
The honest read from the thread: the games people keep replaying aren't the ones with the best graphics — they're the ones with systems that still feel good. Pirates!, X-COM, Doom, and Super Metroid all run on loops that modern games still copy.
What aged worse? The thread's fans are honest about it — early RPGs are grindy, some C64 classics are hard to go back to cold, and a few picks survive on pure nostalgia. Nobody was claiming everything is flawless.
If you want to jump into the console half of this list right now, browse the SNES library on OldGame.io — Play Classic Games. No Downloads. Just Play.
