Nearly everyone has a favorite video game series. There have been so many classic ones, and if you loved a particular one as a child, there’s a good chance that your own kids still play it, though they play a new and improved version. Some video games don’t ever seem to die, as certain franchises have come out with dozens of titles over multiple decades.
We’ll talk about some of the best video games of all time right now. You might know about some of these, but if you see any here you have never tried before, you may want to check them out when we finish. You’ve got to take a break from fantasy football at some point.
Super Mario Brothers
Any video game article probably has to mention the Super Mario Brothers franchise. It’s hard to believe, but these games have been around for more than four decades.
It started in Japan, as so many other franchises did, but it caught fire when the original Super Mario Brothers game showed up in the US as part of the Nintendo Home Entertainment System, commonly abbreviated as the NES.
The NES made its way into houses and rec centers in the mid-1980s, when most people played Super Mario Brothers for the first time. The game came standard with the NES, along with Duck Hunt.
Mario and his brother Luigi are plumbers, and the original game was quite simple, although somewhat nonsensical, as many games are if you stop to think about them for a moment. As Mario or Luigi, who looks much the same, except that he wears green and blue instead of red and blue, you try to rescue the princess who Bowser has kidnapped. Video games from this era were all about rescuing damsels in distress.
Since that first game arrived on US soil, dozens of other Mario-themed ones have left their imprint on kids and their parents. You have the Doctor Mario spinoff franchise, which is similar to Tetris. You’ve also got the Mario Kart series, which is a driving game featuring Mario, Luigi, Toadstool, the Princess, Donkey Kong, and several others.
Donkey Kong
Speaking of Donkey Kong, he has left his mark on the video game world as well. The original Donkey Kong arcade game allowed you to play as Mario as you tried to ascend to the top of the board, where the villainous ape lurked, ready to throw barrels at you to try and deter you from rescuing the princess. Again, this game featured a princess-rescuing element.
Donkey Kong was a villain in the original arcade version in the 1980s, but he became a hero in later versions, including the memorable Donkey Kong Country series for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES. Kids who grew up in the 80s playing NES usually begged their parents for a SNES in the early 90s. If they got it, the first Donkey Kong Country game probably appealed to them.
Donkey Kong Country for SNES sold very well. It featured the titular ape trying to reclaim his lost banana hoard with help from some jungle friends. The visuals at the time seemed incredible to kids who had grown up with 8-bit graphics.
SNES was capable of delivering 16-bit graphics, which were groundbreaking at the time. Comic book ads from that era encouraged you to “join the 16-bit revolution,” a phrase that seems quaint when you consider current video game technology.
Street Fighter
Street Fighter started as a Japanese game called “Fighting Street.” The original came to the US and showed up in arcades, where it quickly caught on. You fought as one of eight characters and tried to defeat either the computer or a fellow gamer in the best two out of three rounds.
Street Fighter II for the arcade was the one that became pretty much ubiquitous, though. You would see one in every pizza parlor and video arcade all across the country in the early 90s. That version featured memorable characters like Blanka, Chun Li, E. Honda, Ken, Ryu, Guile, and Zangief.
Super Street Fighter II: The New Characters eventually came out in arcades, and it came out for the SNES in 1994. Since then, the series has branched out. The Street Fighter characters battled the Marvel characters in the popular Marvel vs. Street Fighter series, and that eventually came out for home video game systems as well.
Castlevania
The Castlevania series first came out for NES in the late 1980s. It was a fairly bleak video game world, where you play as a member of the Belmont family, cursed to battle Dracula and his minions throughout Transylvania. Rudimentary graphics couldn’t give you much of a scare, but the series featured immersive gameplay and truly challenging levels.
Simon, Trevor, and the other Belmont family members mostly used whips to slash at the bats, wolves, and other foes that assaulted them. The icon whipcrack sound from the game remains seared into many adult memories because of hours spent playing the game on rainy Saturday afternoons.
The Belmont family eventually returned with games for SNES and later game systems. Everyone brought with it better graphics and more menace. Castlevania even became a TV series for Netflix, though the sex, violence, and adult themes made it inappropriate for younger children.
You can also look at the Double Dragon series if you want iconic video games that never seem to go out of style. The Megaman series did great business for many years, as did the Final Fight series. Golden Axe came out with many versions for arcade and home use, as did Ninja Gaiden.
If you liked these games as a kid, you might introduce them to your own children if you have not done so yet. More current versions of many of them exist, or you can find the originals if you have an old-style game system. You’ll probably get a kick out of reliving your childhood.
