What's your main retro gaming interest / area of expertise?

[Tanooki]

Historically, genre didn't matter (still doesn't) but my general area of expertise has just been the NES, SNES and Gameboy (and Color) just in general. The further back though the more so that I can recall on the fly like some weird encyclopedia. It's rare there's a game on those systems (maybe outside of licensed turds I try and ignore) that I'll at least know the name and a little about it. In younger years people would come to me to ask about the 80s/earlier 90s stuff as I'd know something. It has carried over the years, just only soured on the NES/SNES stuff the last few years due to the market manipulation games I'm just over. Gameboy is my thing these days and it will surprise me when I discover a game I don't recall or remember ever seeing like recently I stumbled upon Aerostar, a really weird vertical unique shooter. You drive on the ground, have to hop from place to place, but otherwise follow the usual vertical shooter mechanics.

[Exhuminator]

I tend to gravitate towards fan translated retro games, regardless of genre. I can't resist the taste of belated forbidden fruit.

[strangenova]

The genre I spend the most time with and enjoy the most are 2D platformers. Primarily the 8 and 16 bit eras of platformers. Even the bad games in this genre are easily pleasing to me. If it's got platforms and decent music, best believe I'm gonna play it.

I used to be really into jrpgs but the older I get, I find myself leaving them behind. Occasionally I'll play a final fantasy or chrono trigger but it's rare.

The series I'm most familiar with is megaman. And man do I love me some megaman.

[Xeogred]

Pre-7th gen Capcom and Megaman. That logo was the ultimate stamp and seal of quality to me. Back in the pre-internet days, if I saw CAPCOM on that cover then it was more than likely an awesome game. I say Megaman specifically since I beat Megaman 10 without getting hit and got "Mr Perfect". I've always been great at the traditional ones and love most of them, grew up idolizing Megaman more than Mario and Sonic. I'm sure Megaman contributed to my love for sci-fi as well.

Capcom were godly up through the end of the PS2, with awesome stuff like Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry 3, God Hand, all the Clover games, their last hurrah. They had a huge volume of games being released even compared to the other big Japanese developers, and had the quality to back it up. They were for a multitude of years, my favorite developers.

Square Soft. So easy to say that because Square Enix is obviously the cut off. SNES-PSX Square Soft is some of my favorite stuff ever. They experimented sometimes and just had awesome games everywhere. Still lots of stuff I need to check out I'm sure.

Feels cool to say I've beaten Final Fantasy 1-10, admittedly not the originals for 1-2 though (kind of refuse to play NES 2 haha). But for the most part I love this series despite having a few other JRPG's I like more story wise or whatever, but FF is really fun stuff and I go back to several of them a lot for replays. There's just so much to love with Uematsu's music, Amano's designs and the awesome sprite work.

Some genres of my highest interest are Metroidvania and FPS's that blend RPG elements and elements of dungeon crawling or exploration into the experience (Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Deus Ex, etc). Immersive FPS's with intricate level design that might have branching paths to explore, giving reason for replay value or experimentation, and things like characters to interact with or RPG elements to break up the pace and make the gameplay even more dense.

Metroidvania I love a lot because there's such a huge sense of satisfaction with progression as you collect more items, power ups, reach new places you couldn't get to before, etc. It's no wonder that Super Metroid and Link to the Past are my favorite games of all time. Castlevania did a good job changing up the formula to something similar like Metroid. And Blaster Master is one of my favorite NES games of all time. Nowadays, there are things like 3D Zelda that I love, and the From Software's line of Souls titles which I find easily comparable to these types of games a lot. There is a lot to love artistically and technicality with sprite work. When you look at an SNES game next to an N64 game, which looks better and more appealing in retrospect? Subjective, but the answer is easily the SNES here to me.

I love games that progress from pure gameplay with little to no story, which sums up Metroidvania types and the Souls games.

Sprites. Feels like a good place to emphasis this. In an era of indie and budget titles, I have a very hard time getting into "indie" games. You'd think I'd love Cave Story because it's Metroidvania, except the pacing bugged me and the aesthetics did nothing. A lot of atmosphere can be delivered in 2D games with sprites, cue Super Metroid or Secret of Mana and so on... it's something I really love and get picky about with some of the throwbacks thesedays. But Shovel Knight was a legit case of pure awesomeness. Give me more indie games like that and I'll be heaven.

Most of Nintendo's classic IP's goes without saying. For years I called videogames "Nintendo games" haha.

[flash1987]

Interesting topic. My knowledge of pre 16 bit is no way near as good as it should be but from there on I have a fairly wide knowledge base.

In recent years my forte has become the new wave of PC indies though and things like Terraria, a load of different roguelikes and roguelites and other smaller unusual/unique titles take my interest more often than not and the kind of thing I like to read previews, reviews and other info about. I also really feel we're in a bit of a terrible age for AAA games where sequels and repeating genre conventions are the order of the day whilst we are in an absolute golden age for smaller games in general as there is so much unique stuff coming out that its almost impossible to play it all.

[ExedExes]

For me it's five-fold. The following is what I enjoy and are most knowledgeable about.

Shmups
FPS
Arcade & Pinball
Atari 2600
DOS gaming

and average knowledge/interest of everything else.

[Key-Glyph]

ExedExes is knowledgeable in kicking classic arcading butt.

I didn't get a chance to congratulate you on your tournament placement, Exed. Bravo, man!

[samsonlonghair]

I could talk Sega Genesis all day long. I know a lot about the hardware and the software. I could tell you about every single bit of Genesis related hardware released in North America, and lots of the hardware released across the globe. I know about the beat 'em ups, the platformers, the arcade games, and just about any worthwhile game on Sega Genesis. I also know every cartridge Treasure ever released on Genesis.

My second love after Sega Genesis, is NES (we just called 'em Nintendo games on my playground too). I'm pretty familiar with all the classic Nintendo franchises that began right here on NES. Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Megaman, Punch Out!, Kid Icarus, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warior, and other classic franchises that didn't technically begin here but were still very popular here including Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. (arcade), Kirby, and Metal Gear.

I'm also a big fan of the Wario platformer franchise. I can tell you all about Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land, Wario Land 2, Wario Land 3, Wario Land 4, Wario World (also by Treasure), and Wario Land: Shake it!

But there's more than one kind of expertise, isn't there? I can talk about the games and systems above, and I can play them well enough, but I'm not an expert-level player in any of them. The only games I can play at an expert lever are the Real Bout Fatal Fury trilogy and the Soul Calibur games. I can confidently say that there are few players who could beat my in any Real Bout or Soul Calibur games.

[Ack]

Eh...I think it would be more interesting to see what other people consider folks' area of expertise.

[Exhuminator]

Eh...I think it would be more interesting to see what other people consider folks' area of expertise.

Yeah. Agreed.

I'll start. When it comes to retro gaming lately, Ack specializes in USA released SNES RPGs, as well as 90s FPS entries.