I’m building a tabletop/“barcade” style emulation machine as a gift.
It’ll be two players and emulate everything up to the PS1 era (hopefully)
I’d like recommendations on your absolute favorite 2+ player games, with a focus on co-op but versus is fine too.
Ideally games meant for an arcade button/joystick control scheme, too.
Right now I have a couple of the classics in mind, like the Double Dragon games, TMNT arcade game, some Mortal Kombat, those kinds of things, but I’m really out of my depth when it comes to “good arcade/retro coop games”, so please list as many fun multiplayer games as you can think of (up to the PS1 era preferably).
Edit with a little more detail:
Emulator system is a Pi4 running RetroArch. It’s capable of running games up-to the ps1/ n64 era, but that’s where it starts to run into problems with the more demanding, usually 3D games. For a reference example, it can run SM64 smoothly enough, but really struggles with Goldeneye. I know goldeneye is a bit of a special case, but that’s roughly the era I’m looking to stop at with this, if anyone has experience with this kind of emulation I’m all ears!
knights of the round, king of dragons, wild guns, super Mario kart, zombies ate my neighbor, Kirby super stars, Disney's magical quest, world of illusion, contra 3, killer instinct, Joe & Mac 1-2, power rangers the movie (Genesis version), ninja crusader, rampage, bubble bobble
All great games.
I think SNES Drunk (youtube) did a couple videos specifically on SNES co-op games, including Japan only titles.
Raiden, Metal Slug and Golden Axe (and all their sequels) come to mind. In fact, check out Neo Geo games in general.
A bit dated now, but I used to love the Road Rash series for beating the crap out of my friends in multi-player. Rock and Roll Racing is pretty fun too, and has an arcadey feel.
Haven't seen Bomberman mentioned yet, either.
I would love to see some progress posts and more info on what you're using; this is a great project.
I had a road rash game on pc, that was probably one of the most fun experiences I’ve had with racing games. I’ll have to see which ports/versions are available and run best, that would be a great one to get working.
Cheers man, I’ll have to remember to make a WiP/finished post when I actually get it built. Just got the buttons/control board delivered the other day, now its just about summoning the effort lol.
Noice.
Sega had a few, 3 was good but obviously the graphics are dated. I think there was at least one for PS1.
My favorite NES co-op game is Jackal. For a good versus NES game, North and South.
For arcade/MAME, The Simpsons is a solid co-op classic.
Fuck yeah man, I always wet my panties everytime I see a fellow (old) gamer mention North and South. To me it was one of those hidden gems in the NES catalog.
I played it as a kid and never forgot about it. I was really surprised when I googled around for it and found out it wasn't very well known (and also that it was a FRENCH NES game about the American civil war)
Altered beast, narc, rampage, gauntlet, final fight, smash tv, sunset riders, dig dug, bubble bobble
X-men, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, PS2 Warriors game had a side scroller mini game that was fun, Avengers, Maximum Carnage
Before I even bother with a list, just go to arcadepunks.com and thank me later.
Here's the list anyway.
NES:
Contra, Super C, Jackal, Silkworm, River City Ransom, Double Dragon II, Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers 1 and 2, Bubble Bobble, Snow Brothers, Life Force, Little Ninja Brothers, TMNT 2 and 3, Ikari Warriors 1 and 2 (if you can stand the slow walking pace)
Genesis:
Streets of Rage 1,2 and 3. Gunstar Heroes, TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist, Ren and Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention, Contra Hard Corps, The Punisher, X-Men, X-Men 2: Clone Wars, World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie, Golden Axe 1,2 and 3. Altered Beast, Captain America and the Avengers, The Chaos Engine, Forgotten Worlds, Biohazard Battle, Vapor Trail: Hyper Offence Formation
SNES:
Contra III, The King of Dragons, Pocky and Rocky 1 and 2, Wild Guns, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Doom Troopers, Battletoads and Double Dragon, ToeJam and Earl 1 and 2, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Kirby's Dream Course, Final Fight 2 and 3, The Peace Keepers, The Pirates of Dark Water, Run Saber, Joe and Mac 2, Jurassic Park 2, Smash TV, Total Carnage, The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Goof Troop, Biker Mice from Mars (not co-op, but pretty fun anyway), Sunset Riders
Sega Saturn:
Guardian Heroes
Gunstar Heroes and Batman and Robin for the Genesis are peak co-op shooters.
Aliens vs Predators is awesome. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is great, but I prefer X-Men vs street Fighter backgrounds. Contra was an arcade game originally. Soul Edge started the Soul Caliber series. Neo Geo had several fighting games worth checking out, and the board set was designed way before the PS1, so you can play most of them. Snow Bros is a must. Final Fight. There was an awesome fighter that was a precursor to Smash Bros where you are assassins trying to kill each other, I can't remember it's name. Look up CPS1-2 games, it's like the neo geo set up. Ghostbusters.
Kirby Superstar was the go-to couch co-op with my little sister back when we were kids. It's a great game with a ton of different game modes but the system for bringing in your friend means that it's perfect for friends who have a skill differential. You put the experienced player as Kirby and the scrub gets to bounce in as the helper with basically infinite lives/continues so it doesn't matter how often they die, they're still getting to play and contribute.
Since the PS2 is clearly retro (its nearly a quarter century old), I will always recommend Gauntlet Dark Legacy as one of the best 2-4 player coops. Its also on Gamecube, which is far and away easier to emulate.
The N64 version Gauntlet Legends is still passable, as the later one is just it plus an expansion's worth of content. But its more within your time frame so I suppose that would be it.
Crash Bash for the variety as it's an overlooked gem, I'm trying to think back to my childhood and only game I played co op was that or WWF smackdown, rest I did controller swap.
Crash Bash is a fine game when you aren't doing the miserably difficult story trying to unlock all the games to play with other people. If not for the cheat code that just let you unlock everything, that would be a huge problem on its own.
Gauntlet legends is one of the greatest early co-op games of all time.
Area 88 looked to be a good shmup with coop.
My familiarity is mostly Sega 16 bit. Toejam & Earl (1 more than 2, for me, but many love both), Bonanza Bros, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage series would be my picks... couldn't hurt to have some head to head puzzle games on there, maybe Puyo Puyo 2 for 16 bit/arcade or Bust-a-Move 2 (emulate on PS1, Saturn or arcade for that I think), maybe Super Puzzle Fighter.
This vid seems to have its head screwed on right for megadrive suggestions, since all my favourites are in there, at least, although there's tons I haven't tried. I notice it also includes WWF Raw as a recommendation. This made me realise that for some of the best coop games ever, it would be great if your device could run the N64 AKI developed wrestling games, 'WCW vs NWO World Tour', 'WCW/nWo Revenge' and 'WWF WrestleMania 2000' - pick any one of those (they're very similar; I posted the release order, so in theory they improve slightly with each release but I spent most of my time with either the first or second game). Ofc as you noted, N64 emulation is quite uneven, so you'd have to test how they run. Also for games that utilise the entire N64 pad, it might bump up the number of buttons you include. 6 face buttons, 2 bumpers, an extra stick besides the dpad... that's a lot of buttons that might not even be covered by a stick + 8-button arcade setup. Shame, but those wrestling games are great games - not just competitive in coop, you can do friendly tag, royal rumble, create-a-wrestler, etc.
Since you have TMNT arcade in there, the sequel Turtles in Time as well as the Simpsons arcade beat em up (konami I think) are other great games in that vein. There's a wealth of arcade sidescrolling beat em ups which you could pad out the library with and it's difficult to know which ones to pick. You could start with the games listed in the Capcom Beat Em Up Collection on Steam:
I've played a few minutes of most of those but I only know Battle Circuit and Final Fight. Battle Circuit is fondly remembered. Another one that gets a lot of love is Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Then there's Sunset Riders, but I can't vouch for it personally.
Only problem is that a lot of games in this arcade beat em up vein accommodate 4 player and 4 player party style play is where they shine. The best ones are probably great with just 2 people but some of the more mediocre ones might feel a bit hamstrung without the option of 4 player madness.
If your gift recipients don't mind getting their asses kicked then you can't go far wrong throwing in all the Metal Slug series or even some of the Contra games.