Recommendations for Retro Games for Kids Under 5?

[racketboy]

My son (4 1/2 years old right now) has a handful of games he can play somewhat by himself without getting stuck/frustrated. Sonic 2 and Sonic CD being the tops -- he also enjoys Super Mario Galaxy on the parts that aren't so tricky.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for good games (not necessarily dumbed down stuff) that kids can enjoy?

[BoneSnapDeez]

My daughter is five.

She likes 2-player puzzle games quite a lot, especially Puyo Puyo, Pokémon Puzzle League, Magical Drop II, and Bust-A-Move.

We have a lot of fun with Nuts & Milk. Levels can be edited so I make them super easy and eliminate the pitfalls.

[Key-Glyph]

Ecco Jr. I realize I seem totally biased here, but hear me out!

It was specifically designed to be a parent/child experience for kids who were just learning how to play video games. There's even a "Parent's Menu" that allows you to customize the game in ways that can make the experience more fun for all types of young players, like turning on auto-sonar to ease up on the need for controller dexterity or making a level a free exploratory swim by removing its objectives. You can also make it more difficult if you like, as there's a separate difficulty setting.

It's chill, beautiful, and charming. I also spent a significant portion of the weekend with a friend whose six year old became obsessed with playing the game while I supplied silly commentary and cheered him on, so I can say it's been tested and approved by an actual kid as well!

[racketboy]

Ecco Jr. I realize I seem totally biased here, but hear me out!

It was specifically designed to be a parent/child experience for kids who were just learning how to play video games. There's even a "Parent's Menu" that allows you to customize the game in ways that can make the experience more fun for all types of young players, like turning on auto-sonar to ease up on the need for controller dexterity or making a level a free exploratory swim by removing its objectives. You can also make it more difficult if you like, as there's a separate difficulty setting.

It's chill, beautiful, and charming. I also spent a significant portion of the weekend with a friend whose six year old became obsessed with playing the game while I supplied silly commentary and cheered him on, so I can say it's been tested and approved by an actual kid as well!

Ooh! I will have to look into that! Thanks!

My daughter is five.

She likes 2-player puzzle games quite a lot, especially Puyo Puyo, Pokémon Puzzle League, Magical Drop II, and Bust-A-Move.

We have a lot of fun with Nuts & Milk. Levels can be edited so I make them super easy and eliminate the pitfalls.

Sweet Thanks! We do some puzzle games (he was intrigued by Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine due to the characters, but it didn’t hold his attention to long — maybe later)

World of Illusion (MD) is pretty easy, and it's 2-player co-op.

Maybe Yoshi's Story? It seemed more geared towards younger kids than its prequel.

He did find the PS3 Mickey remake (we had the demo) interesting , so maybe I’ll look into that.
Also Yoshi Story could be cool. I don’t have a ton of N64 and he’s a big Yoshi fan!

[Nert]

All the Kirby games for sure, easy enough but still plenty of depth. There's Kirby's Dream Collection for Wii which has all the old ones on there.

Paper Mario is a great introduction to RPGs. Not overly grindy, lots of options for items and battle strategy.

Super Mario World is pretty forgiving, I remember having some trouble on the later levels when I was really young but the early levels aren't bad at all.

[Ack]

At that age, I was playing a lot of Tetris, Super Mario Bros., and Mega Man games. It worked for me!

[Key-Glyph]

I just asked my friend (the father of the six year old I was gaming with) what other games his kids enjoyed when they were teeny tiny, and he additionally suggests:

• The Katamari games
  The earlier Lego games
  Thomas the Tank Engine on SNES ("It's actually really nicely done, and the soundtrack is the Follins")
  Crystal's Pony Tale (this gets panned a lot for being "girly" but my friend confirms his boys liked it)
  Yoshi's Wooly World on Mellow difficulty

Also seconding the Kirby suggestion above!

EDIT: Whoops, sorry about the more modern recommendations. I forgot we were limiting to retro.

[Tanooki]

My six year old is always wanting to play on my neo geo to do both of the bust a move games, though the other day she coined into Metal Slug and didn't do all that bad with me playing along for a few missions. I got her both the NES/SNES mini systems and on both she goes right for Kirby and Mario stuff. Now if you have a GoG account, there is a fun game you can do, kind of slightly educational but The Manhole Masterpiece Edition for Windows is $6 and worth it.

In the last few days I found a $10 pink/white netbook I restored and gave to her along with a usb mouse and found a nice case for it today (extra ram in the mail upping it to 2GB.) It's a 32bit XP machine which is fantastic and like the google chromebooks at school in size/use so it's perfect.

She was really starting to dig into that, but I had also set the original Sim City Classic for Windows on there (and Sim Tower) as if you just throw a major money cheat at it, they're 2 kickass sandbox games to learn how to build and have fun doing it.

[Anapan]

My nephew enjoyed Frogger on Atari 2600 as much as I did when I was his age. The frog getting run over is as much fun as making it across the street, but once you make it across, the river is a good, but obtainable challenge.

Most kids want to play interactively. It might be too advanced, but Ibb & Obb was good fun for a while before it became too hard to play with a child.
Single screen games are a good start. Combat was what I started with, but I'd suggest to get the platformer skills, Jump'n'bump, or balloon fight. There's other good suggestions already here.
My nephew also really enjoys slither.io

just read above; +1 for the manhole. Both of my bro's kids loved it - probably ageless, but it's great that the narrative is so easily understood at any age that can talk.

[Ack]

Shoot, I used to enjoy playing Combat on the 2600 or even E.T.