Best Retro Throwback Nintendo Switch Games - Modern Games With Old-School Style

I might give Yooka-Laylee a chance!

Shovel Knight is just pure joy!

MegaMan was inspired by Super Mario Bros

I adore having many of these games on the Switch, they are just perfect for the console

Solid list, I have many of these and can attest to their awesomeness. Still need to get BMZ2, but haven’t finished BMZ1 yet even lol. And Pocket Rumble I’m sure is under rated / under sold... such a fun fighter, especially if you were a fan of Neo Geo fighters from yesteryear. Reminds me of Match of the Millennium on NG Pocket.

Granted, when it first released, arcade was a bit unwieldy and super hard. Hopefully they’ve patched that / added diff lvls, since then. I’m not sure, haven’t checked in awhile.

I'll vouch for BMZ, Curse of the Moon and Shovel Knight; but Undertale/Deltrarune both seemed to be too enamored with their own idiosyncrasy to be enjoyable for me.

The Messenger has been on my "To Purchase" list, but that list just keeps growing lately.

Curse Of The Moon is much, much better than Ritual Of The Night! Highly recommended if you don't have it yet.

Sonic Mania, Megaman 11, and Shovel Knight are some of the finest 2D platformers money can buy

I haven't played a good few of these games yet, the most glaring of which being Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, I need to get around to that one

Monster Boy isn't a spiritual successor, it's a full-on sequel. They just combined the Japanese and American names for the series (Monster World and Wonder Boy, respectively) since Sega apparently owns the rights to them, but the original creator of the series worked on it and there are callbacks, such as with the soundtrack.

These games really deserve the spotlight, they're absolutely fantastic.

I like these lists; definitely helps me see what gems I might have missed amount the sea of eshop releases.

When I saw Horizon Chase Turbo and heard the Outrun comparisons, I was interested. When you said it plays like Top Gear though, instabuy.

This list is missing the best game of 2019, Valfaris. Sorry, can't take list seriously, just basically plopped down 20 games without much thought. Lost interest when I realize no thought was put into this.

No Doom? That’s as classic as you can get!

Great list and fun read. I own most of these titles so I guess I'm in that "specific audience." Well done Gavin

@DockEllisD I'm a bit salty the game has gotten little recognition of excellence when games like Dead Cells and Blasphemous are heralded. Valfaris is in-your-face, non-stop, heavy metal mayhem with colours to blow your mind and brutality to crush your dreams. I listen to the soundtrack walking back and forth to work and feel about a foot taller. Lol

Forget "best nostalgic games." These are fantastic games, period.

@cptspaulding Yikes, that escalated. Valfaris is great, though.

Shovel knight is definitely the best one here. Yooka Laylee is just a disappointment. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not just be yourself that’s what’s really cool.

Outside the subject of this list, but the online NES and SNES games are really great. I wish they would make improvements (instruction manuals, button mapping, ways to organize the games) along with adding GB, GBC, and GBA titles.

@Olliemar28 LOL my saltiness came through a bit strong. Still love this site and the comment section, even though they have no love for Valfaris.

This isn't nostalgia, though I appreciate the sentiment.

When I want nostalgia, I'll just fire up Namco Museum or the myriad titles that I have from Arcade Archives (like Time Pilot, Donkey Kong and Frogger). The only thing that's missing at that point is the arcade cabinets and atmosphere of that time.

@Tandy255 I really would love having the manuals for the NES/SNES apps. Some of the games are a mystery until you start futzing with things. (Thank God for save states and rewind.) xD

Fast RMX for the list? Inspired by WipEout

(Joking) I know it was inspired by the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 3D Special Stages

At nostalgia just isn't what it used to be...
Would love to see games inspired by Syndicate and Settlers. Bully felt inspired by Skooldaze and so was awesome.

I've been itching to play some Cannon Fodder recently, haven't seen a game like that in a long time.
I remember the SNES version being quite good.

How could you forget Alwa’s Awakening?!

I can certainly vouch for XenoCrisis. It's brill!

This was a nice list

For anyone interested. Strickly limited games are currently taking preorders for a physical release of xenocrisis on switch.

Stardew Valley and Wargroove are both awesome titles! I am closing on 300 hours in the former.

But generally speaking, I would much prefer re-releases of classic titles to "retro-inspired" new titles.

Does nostalgia mean rip off of something from 25 or 30 years ago? I thought that's what retro is. Switch online games are pure nostalgia... If I didn't play them for the past 30 years so that wipes all the old memories.

That's a nice list to have noted down. So many games I have to remember to play

I've added River City Girls and Octopath Traveler So many brilliant updates of classic genres.

The Messenger is the game I've been absolutely engrossed in the way many were with Shovel Knight, Undertale or Stardew Valley.

The flowing gameplay is top-notch, the humor pitch-perfect and not overdone, challenging but never unfair, one of my favorites of the decade.

As a non-Nintendo owner back in the day (I was firmly locked away in the Commodore Amiga camp), Horizon Chase Turbo actually more reminds me of the Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge series (the name of the game also seems to hint more to that, than to Top Gear), which was simply THE best arcade racer on any platform, consoles included. Top Gear 2 came later, also on the Amiga, but wasn't as good.

No Wild Guns Reloaded?

@Quarth You should definitely give Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair a shot. It’s great and way better than the first one.

@eaglesfly76 Thanks! Will look into it.

@DockEllisD I am glad you got a chance to try it out. It's a great joy whenever I fire it up. Its cousin, Slain: Back from Hell, is not bad either, but Valfaris much better (imo).

This list should include The Mummy Demastered.

I'm surprised the A Hat in Time is not on this list. It's great game inspired by early 3D collectathons.

Another great one is Oniken, a Ninja Gaiden clone that's better than the original. It's often bundled with Odallus, a great Castlevania clone.

Another list where the authors obviously haven't even played very far into some of the games. They created an article based on the general consensus and you all eat it up. Some of these games are trash, a whole lot of must inckudes are missing, and also genres aren't properly reoresented and explored. I feel like gaming articles are such a scam. They teach people about games In small increments doling out information, and are so incomplete. I respect ninte do life for their reviews, but these articles are click bait.

Added The Eternal Castle [Remastered]

Would not recommend 198X to anyone. Way too short to hand money over for it, sadly.

That is a mighty collection there and I am lucky enough to own the majority of them. Quality gaming there with some stiff challenge here and there in the list . Octopath is the personal favourite there

Whip! Whip! for kill ‘em up (single screen platformer) action. They don’t make enough of them anymore.

No Actraiser Renaissance?

@NintendoLife:

I'm kind of surprised there wasn't an honorable mention for Super Mario: Odyssey as it has classic gameplay segments.

It should be pointed out that Horizon Chase Turbo isn't merely "like" Top Gear, it also SOUNDS like Top Gear because it literally has the same music composer and several of Top Gear's music tracks in it.

If you've played all of these and want more try Super Hiking League DX!

Hotline Miami on Switch is bad port - too much zoom in. Also game is best played by mouse so it dont belong on this awesome list

Shovel Knight Sonic Mania and Yooka Laylee are great games for killing boredom. Mega man 11 I have on PC and that is another great boredom killer too.

Haven't played many of these.. Sonic Mania bore me to tears.. but Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair was fantastic.

Yooka Laylee: Impossible Lair is my penultimate favorite 2D platformer on the system, right behind Tropical Freeze. I'd put the original Shovel Knight just a hair behind it to round out the top 3.

If you're a fan of 90's DOS retro platformers I'd heavily recommend to play JUICED! . It's a hidden gem, fantastic game

My personal notes on the games on this list I've played:

Shovel Knight: I was on board with this from day one, and bought it on 3DS first, then sprung for a double-dip for Switch later. Amazing game, and now, a franchise, with the spinoff of Pocket Dungeon and the upcoming Dig.

198X: One fine July afternoon, around sunset, I played this game start to finish just before the sun went down for about 2 hours. I was riveted. The gameplay was mostly solid (except the Shadowplay auto-run ninja game, I wasn't a huge fan of that one), and it hit me like a Pink Floyd album you can play on a video game console. Full of not only wonderful 80s nostalgia, but the brooding melancholy of being a misunderstood youth in those days. It hit me on a personal as well as gameplay level and I loved it.

Bloodstained COTM: Hits all the right notes for a perfect recreation of Castlevania 3 plus more. Well worth collecting and playing!

Megaman 11: Excellent game in the franchise, even if I find the realistic Foley sound effects novel but also weak. The music is excellent and the rogue's gallery is spot-on for the classic franchise. I even appreciate the story ( which is never the point of a Megaman game, but still), in how it finally embellishes (retcons) the roots of the Light / Wily rift.

Sonic Mania: Excellent game, even though I usually never play past Studiopolis, because I'm just so bad at fighting the boss of Flying Battery afterwards. I know someday I'll beat it though!

Blaster Master Zero Series: I feel the whole series, front to back, is worth playing in order, to watch a charming and unlikely but surprisingly touching story unfold in this perfect love letter to a fantastic classic. The first game is one of the best remakes of any game, and the sequels expand into a surprisingly personal story I will not spoil here, but I genuinely cared about it's hero and heroine far more than I ever expected to!

Axiom Verge: Thrilling non-linear platforming adventure, well worth the comparison to the lauded Metroid franchise, but replacing the outer space setting with a bizarre Mesopotamia-inspired one. Story is wild, and the sequel is even wilder, and I need to do some more digging into that one.

Wargroove: Great game, lots of personality of it's own, even as it carries the spirit of the Advance Wars series with it everywhere it goes. Also, not content to have a simple level editor, it carries a very robust CAMPAIGN EDITOR, with which you can make your own side stories!

Undertale: I am a BIG fan, but not the kind of toxic "play this way or you'll ruin it" kind of fan. Well worth experiencing on any format you can!

Huntdown: Growing up as I did on Terminator, Big Trouble in Little China and Aliens, the movie references in this fun, darkly humorous action game are almost a minigame in how many you can spot as you blow away street scum Robocop-style!

part one of two

Octopath Traveler: I loved this game, every bit of it, and I love how the game looks like how it FELT the 16-bit games looked. The game's art style is perfect for recapturing not how the generation looked, but how it looked in our eyes at the time. It's also just plain excellent in it's story and subject matter, especially Alfyn and Primrose's stories (even if Prim's main antagonist disappointed me in the end).

Cyber Shadow: Reminds me not only of Ninja Gaiden, but also of hidden NES Gem Shatterhand, and I love that about the game. The more you play, the more abilities you get, and eventually the earlier levels and advanced challenges alike become not only firm-yet-fair, but when you land the hits and get in the sweet spot with the game's mechanics and gameplay, feels so GOOD when you rule the screen with those abilities!

Steel Assault: I'd argue that Steel Assault feels more like Gunstar Heroes for one player than any Castlevania, but no matter what, it's well worth getting. The main mechanic of casting wires everywhere to hang from and climb also gives off a certain air of Bionic Commando, as well. The game has so much going for it in it's brief runtime!

part two of two

Oniken: Unstoppable Edition should be included on this list.

Horizon Chase Turbo is one of my favorite switch games. So much fun to drop in for a few races.

I’m surprised that the Azure Striker Gunvolt series was not mentioned either, as a clear inspiration from the 16-bit Mega Man X games.

For me:

• Wargroove
• Blazing Beaks
• Horizon Chase Turbo
• Shovel Knight
• Into the Breach

Mighty No. 9 got some pretty terrible reviews, but expectations were way higher than the game could bear, and when the dust settled we were left with a pretty decent action platformer, IMO.

Narita Boy is a time machine that oozes style and atmosphere.

Video Kid will make you remember the feel of your pocket full of quarters, bathed in the glow of the cabinet in the dank, dark din of the arcade.

Ditto Hyper Sentinel.

Cybarian is the NES game you'd never heard of, that your wealthy friend bought because she was bored, and that hooked you from the first stage.

Gato Roboto is kinda weirder and better than any Metroidvania you've ever played, and it's over before you know it.

And can we all go have an adventure in the SNES world of Iconoclasts? That'd be nice.

Great list, some amazing games, some I haven't played personally. For anyone who is into modern retro games, I'd highly recommend Carrion. It's like playing John Carpenter's The Thing, as the titular 'thing', in 2d kind of 'metroidvania' style, escaping being held captive in a lab. It has anything from impersonating dead people and turning on their friends, via sneaking through vents pulling in guards by the legs as a weak small thing, to eating and tearing apart rooms full of scientists and guards and robots as a screen filling monstrosity. A one of a kind game that is one perfect sequel away (which I hope for, as much as I hope for a sequel to The Thing the game) from perfection.

I've recently gotten to play some more of these. Mega Man 11 is a great time and a worthy entry in a fantastic series. Yooka-Laylee is a great take on the collect-a-thon that maybe sticks a little too much in the past at times, but is still a ton of fun for fans of the first two Banjo-Kazooie games.

On the other hand, I found Octopath Traveller a disappointment despite having a lot of fun with it for the first several hours. The presentation, aside from the voice acting, is tremendous, and the battle system fun. However, game mechanics outside battles are shallow and extremely limited, and the story is bad even by video game standards.

Some good games here but none have really got me that excited. Axiom Verge got close but it’s no Metroid. Golf Story is the retro inspired game that I connected with the most but it’s not here. Shame. A great lil game.

Great list, though I'd like to add a few more:

Umihara Kawase Fresh! - An amazing 2D platformer with intriguing grappling physics that, while takes time to get used to, create a uniquely-designed progression. It deserved far more than being discounted as "an average game".

Yooka-Laylee - It doesn't peak to the likes of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie (and Donkey Kong 64 even), but while it isn't a "phenomenal" 3D platformer, it definitely gave me that "Banjo-Threeie" I longed for after Tooie.

The Legend of Dark Witch - The danmaku elements and modifiers are more than enough to make this game more than a "cheap Mega Man clone", and is by far the best version of the first game.

Kinda surprised neither Astalon: Tears of the Earth or Panzer Paladin are on this list.

Edit: Aggelos, as well.

Downwell (would've been one of the best ever Spectrum games if it was released back then, and awesome on the big screen if you can rotate your screen 90°) and Full Metal Furies (like a cross between Secret of Mana and Contra III, with added mindbending puzzles) are my favourite retro games on the Switch. Neither are the easiest of games but always seem fair.

A great list already anyhow, including new stuff for me to check out. And the games I mentioned were recommended by Nintendo Life on other lists.

I will always go in to bat on behalf of yooka laylee and the impossible lair. Say what you want about the first one (even though they did what they said they would do, which is probably the problem), but impossible lair is just a really fun platformer with some great music and a ludicrously hard final level that lives up to the name on the lid.

Oniken, Odallus, Panzer Dragoon, UnMetal, and many more could all be on this list, but that's just a testament to all the retro goodness to be had.

I'd throw in I Am Setsuna/Lost Sphear for those who miss the low-poly jrpg era, Blossom Tales and Kamiko if you want more 2D Zelda, The Way Remastered for a faithful homage to old adventure games, Golden Force and Slain for some authentic retro difficulty, Dadish and Goblin Sword for a generous helping of pixelated platforming at bargain bin prices, Jotun/Sundered if you're nostalgic for those weirdly dark animated movies your cousins had on VHS, and for the metroidvania fans, there's Iconoclasts, Cave Story, Blasphemous, Sundered again, and Xeodrifter. Plus Foregone and Golf Story, which I'm not sure have a direct comparison to any retro games, but they're pixel art and they're really cool.

Am glad Timespinner was included. Great metroidvania.

Shout out to Chasm (another metroidvania) and Shadows of Adam (RPG).

This is a great idea putting this list together.😁

A lot of charmers on this list. The Huntdown is just too good. I can’t believe it exists.

Dusk for certain!

Good choices. Surprised Streets of Rage 4, Snake Pass, Wolfenstein and Doom are not on there though.

It's a shame that Goblin Sword wasn't reviewed by this site. At it's £4.49 RRP / $4.99 MSRP, it might be one of the best bargain buys on the eShop.