Old School side scrollers

[The Alaskan Assassin]

Okay this is is the first time I've posted a topic in here. so "Hi"

Now I am a child of the 80's and 90's I love my side scrollers. (except the creators of Ghosts and Goblins, they need to burn in hell.) Anyway, one of my all time favorites is Metroid. Thou I still need to finish the first one. (yeah I *should*) I love the series and the new approach for the 3D systems, but I digress. I played the hell out of super metroid, even more than super mario (world or otherwise in the fist super mario, I can get up to 8-4, but i can't seal the deal. -_-).

The reason I'm telling old video game war stories is a simple one. A friend of mine introduced me to a japanese donateware
side scroller named Doukutsu aka Cave Story. My god I haven't played an awesome sidescroller like this for ages. It's as if Metroid and Ghosts n' Goblins gave birth to an illegitimate japanese child. Unlike GnG, you can actually win! It has an english patch and it is avaliable for both Windows and Mac OS X.

At first I was going to just make a thread solely about the fantastic japanese side scrolling game Doukutsu aka Cave Story I just mentioned. But then it may not have gotten as many responses and the game thread would die out of the forums. thus, a few questions were considered to be asked:


what were your first 2D side scroller(s)? mine was actually Super Mario Brothers
Do you have any you still need to finish? see above
Do you know of any modern computer based side scrollers in recent history post 2000? (please throw us mac people a bone too)
Have you heard of Cave Story?

I neglected to read the policy for linking downloadable games, so I will leave the Cave Story links blank unless I'm told other wise or if i won't get distracted for VA picks.....

[ZenAmako]

I've found that the old school side-scroller lives on in the current handheld systems. I have several of those retro game collections for the PSP and I really enjoy them.

These are some of my favorites:

Rastan (arcade) My first exposure to parallax scrolling. Never played the sequel. Any good?

Shadow of the Beast (Amiga) Even harder to beat than GnG unless you cheat. Superb graphics and soundtrack, though.

Metroid/Super Metroid (NES/Super NES) Super Metroid is by the far the SNES game I have the fondest memories of (except for maybe SFII).

Castlevania/Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (NES/PS1) Damn medusa heads! Ahem. Love these games.

Ghosts 'n Goblins/Ghouls 'n Ghosts (arcade) Sure, the game design is evil, but the games are still very addictive.

Gradius/Life Force/Parodius (various) I imported the Salamander and Parodius collections for the PSP and they rock. I love that the PSP is region free (for games).

Rygar (NES) This was an action/RPG with no save or password feature. I remember leaving my NES on for days to play this.

Bionic Commando (NES) I'll always remember Hitler's head exploding like a rattled can of cherry soda (the bad guys in this were originally Nazis).

[Andrew Cunningham]

Cave Story isn't a bootleg or anything, so you should be able to link to it.

Yoshi's Island is the all time best (the DS sequel blows pretty hard, though.)
A friend sent me something called Klonoa, a GBA game; almost more of a puzzle game than platforming. The hoverboard and autoscrolling stages can be insanely hard, but are skippable if you feel your blood pressure starting to boil over, and the rest of the game is a blast.
I think what really makes it is the play control, which is very tight. A lot of these games have sort of loose controls; and you end up running off of things you meant to land on.

[PatrickSeitz]

Darius Twin FTW.

[jecca-neko]

My first 2D sidescroller I really got into was Super Mario Bros, however, I did play Pitfall on the Atari 2600 before that. Badly. Very, very badly. I mean, I was only about 5 at the time so I blame my pathetically poor gaming reflexes on that. :P

As far as modern 2D computer sidescrollers, do they even make those anymore? Computer gaming has really fell down over the years, feeling like it mostly encompasses Myst clones, MMOs, FPS, and RTS games.

You can find some pretty good sidescroller games elsewhere though. My favorite recent sidescroller is New Super Mario Bros for the DS. It has a very NES Super Mario Bros feel to it.

[Sugei]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night

Gunstar Heroes

[WRX]

I keep hoping someone will make a new sidescrolling game that's all pimped-out for 16x9 HDTV and with excellent art/design on the PS3 or X360. I liked R-Type on the PS2 and it seems like either next gen system could support an awesome sidescroller.

[nekonene]

side scroller huh...

Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, A, B, Selct, Start

Now that first has been determined, you can now quibble for second ;)

[Andrew Cunningham]

You mean Up, Up, Down, Down, surely?

[ZenAmako]

It was up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start (on the NES, at least).

I just saw that they are making a new Bionic Commando game. I hope it turns out well. :)

[Andrew Cunningham]

Apparently it works on the Hayate the Combat Butler DS game. Why am I not surprised?

[theotaku]

Princess Crown for the sega saturn and Odin Sphere for the PS2 are side scrollers.

[Super Saiyajin Joshua]

Princess Crown for the sega saturn and Odin Sphere for the PS2 are side scrollers.

And even though it's a very recent game Odin Sphere deserves a PS3 re-release so that I can see those beautiful graphics in true 1080p goodness. That game has some amazing artwork.

I love shooter type games like R-type and Gradius. I'm also chomping at the bit for the Bionic Commando remake for PSN/X-box live. Super Metroid is the only reason my SNES still has a life. I'll go back and replay that game about once every few months. The GBA Metroids are really fun too though. They keep the spirit of Super Metroid alive very well.

[gnikdrazil]

I love my side scrollers. Currently, I am playing Metal Slug X from the Metal Slug Anthology on PS2. I just need to get a friend over so we can double team the game.