Doesn’t time fly when you are having fun? Well, even if you are not, those hands on that grandfather clock ain’t stopping any time soon. But look on the bright side: in 2025, there are so many games that are turning thirty years old. It’s time for them to leave home, find a partner, and start a family!
Jokes aside, while many of those games are still celebrated today, there are many others that seem to have been somewhat forgotten by critics and audiences alike. Which ones might still be worth your time and money? Here are our best picks from the best year in the mid-90s.
Which games from 1995 you might want to revisit?
Donkey Kong Country 2 : Diddy’s Quest
In a case of sequels being almost better than the original, what we could perhaps define as a “Terminator 2-case,” Donkey Kong Country 2 (or DKC2) does give the first game a run for its money. While many might reasonably feel that something is missing because Donkey Kong is not the main protagonist, the dynamic duo of Diddy and Dixie do not monkey around and do add a lot to the gameplay.
With Diddy having a good attack and Dixie being able to float and help with those nasty jumps, Diddy’s Quest can reasonably be called – at least most days of the week – a superior game to the original. But there’s more! David Wise is back with one of his best soundtracks ever (just listen to Stickerbush Symphony!), even beyond simple nostalgic feelings. DKC 2 is a great example of the final years of the glorious era of 2D platforms. Fortunately for users who want to revisit this classic, it’s currently available as part of Nintendo Switch Online’s SNES Classics software line-up.
Warcraft 2 : Tides of Darkness
While the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, back in 1994, was a perfectly alright real-time strategy game that started Blizzard’s journey into the genre, the sequel still showcases how much care and attention the company put into the series. By creating a huge amount of lore for their sequel to their small hit, Blizzard sold several million copies of the game and helped to create, along with Westwood’s Command & Conquer (also released in 1995), the short-lived RTS boom.
The gameplay not only offers solid RTS action but also stand-alone scenarios for bite-sized gameplay sessions, along with skirmishes against the computer. While the much greater atmosphere and narrative focus that Blizzard will put into Diablo is yet to come, it is easy to see where it came from and the huge influence the game had on Starcraft. If you are curious to see how Blizzard became one of the biggest gaming companies, Warcraft 2 is a great history lesson and still quite the engaging RTS game today. Warcraft 2 recently received a quite decent remastered version, so there’s no time like the present to dive back into the history of The Second War.
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
The mid-90s were a great period for the so-called FMV adventure genre. The explosion of the CD-ROM as a medium, also thanks to Myst, meant that developers finally felt authorized to include as many video sequences as they could while providing some decent video quality as well. Sierra was among the first companies to jump on the FMV adventures bandwagon. While 1995 would also be the year of Roberta Williams’ Phantasmagoria, that game today is a little difficult to recommend because of a certain scene, so instead, I’d go with The Beast Within.
The second game in the Gabriel Knight series sees the writer travel to Germany to seek more information on the bloodline of the Schattenjäger, the defenders of the faith. In the end, he will find himself dealing with a mystery involving werewolves and attacks on the local population. With interesting homosexual subtexts, a main character that feels both shy and charismatic, and incredible production values for the time (the soundtrack even includes an aria specifically written for the game), The Beast Within might easily be the best FMV adventure of its time. The game is also relatively easy to get ahold of and play, as it can be found on GOG and Steam, and running it on modern systems is a mostly hassle-free experience.
Time Crisis
In this case, we can safely say that the first original in the series might not really be the best. But still, that doesn’t mean that it should be left to rot beneath the sands of time. Perhaps it might be less obvious today, but Namco’s 1995 title debuted unique gameplay features for the genre, such as the ducking mechanic, weapon reloads and time-limited missions to complete. Indeed, before 1995, reloading your weapon in an on-rails shooter wasn’t even a thing. How far we’ve come!
While the more well-known PlayStation port would arrive only two years later, also sadly missing the nifty pedal that you could use to duck on the original arcade cabinets, it is still an incredibly fun experience all thirty years later. While it is a game you might want to use a gun for, as using the original PlayStation DualShock is definitely not as exciting, the experience is still mostly intact from the arcade original. Sadly, playing it today is a bit of a headscratcher, as the game is not available legally anywhere, and the two-player mode is even harder to emulate correctly. On the plus side, PlayStation games are still cheap. Well, relatively so, at least.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
How do you follow up a groundbreaking classic such as Super Mario World? Well, it turns out you don’t. In fact, Yoshi’s Island originally started life simply as a new platformer starring Yoshi, as Nintendo felt all the ideas with Mario were, more or less, already spent. Turns out they were quite wrong! Still, the game spent three years in development, with the team working to add more and more magic tricks to an already unique platformer where the little dinosaur has to transport baby Mario safely from start to end. The Super Nintendo cartridge even had a special chipset for all the crazy graphic modes the team developed.
Perhaps thanks to such a beautiful alchemy, Yoshi’s Island looks beautiful still today. Its hand-drawn look was achieved by first drawing the graphics by hand, then digitally scanning them and approximating them pixel-by-pixel. While the release of Donkey Kong Country the year before had the team doubt themselves and run for the hills to add a couple of pre-rendered videos, luckily, the graphics were left as they were. The gameplay might be a little infuriating at times, especially because of the cries of Baby M, but it is a lovely platformer all thirty years later. Playing it is relatively easy, as the game is available on the SNES Classic edition and on the Switch.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
What if you could play Doom but with Stormtroopers and a fistfight with the Rancor? Well, there are so many mods for the classic ID title that you might easily find several ones, but that is really not what Dark Forces feels like. If you ever wanted to play a rightful old-school FPS taking place in the Star Wars universe, this one will definitely do the trick. Kyle Katarn is also now quite a respected character in the overall lore, so there is really no reason not to fully embrace his adventures while he is trying to steal the plans of the Death Star.
Well, that last part might not really be accepted lore today (see Rogue One), but the part about the Dark Troopers surely is. While it might feel a bit clunky if you are more accustomed to post-2002 first-person shooters, especially in its kind of cumbersome level design, Dark Forces brings all the right ingredients to make you feel like a small mercenary making his way through the Empire’s strongest defenses. There’s no better time than the present to revisit since Nightdive Studios made a wonderful remaster in 2024, currently available on GOG.
Chrono Trigger
Do we even need to explain why this classic RPG is on this list? How about being the product of Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest), Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) and Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball)? They were a true dream team that thought of making an RPG together while on a trip to the United States. A story that starts like a mostly light-hearted romp with friends getting together to enjoy a day at the fair soon becomes more and more ominous in tone as the stakes become much higher.
Chrono, Marle and Lucca are one of the best teams ever seen in an RPG, and the rest of the main cast are endearing as well. There are no random battles, so combat is less infuriating, and progression is quite linear, with not that much grinding. Everything flows beautifully. The soundtrack is also gorgeous and is one of the earliest works of famed composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Mitsuda took on Chrono Trigger after expressing how unhappy he was with Squaresoft’s pay at the time and has since made music for well-known RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Soul Sacrifice.
If you have time to try only one title on this list, let it be Chrono Trigger for sure. Playing it today is, luckily, much easier than other titles on this list, as the game is available on many different platforms such as Steam, Android, PlayStation and the virtual console. Unfortunately, there’s currently no port on the Switch; perhaps on the Switch 2?
Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor
While Sonic the Hedgehog was quite the ideal response to the domination of Super Mario & Nintendo, spearheading the success of the Mega Drive / Genesis 16-bit console, Sega felt like they were still missing something. Where was their Zelda? Try as they might, Phantasy Star never really seemed to rise to the ranks of an unforgettable RPG series such as Final Fantasy. With Beyond Oasis, the company got as close as they could.
Also released on the Sega Mega Drive, this is a top-view action adventure with an open world to explore, a classic story and engaging gameplay. By having to switch weapons to attack enemies plus collecting magic spirits, the player helps Prince Alì in his quest to stop the evil that is threatening to engulf the land. Thirty years later, Beyond Oasis is still a thrilling and fairly long action RPG that is well worth a revisit. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten in favor of other, more well-known titles. Luckily, you can easily pick it up and play right now, as the RPG is available on the Switch online and on Steam as part of the Mega Drive classics collection.
Ristar
Speaking of Sonic the Hedgehog, our little cute yellow star guy here was actually supposed to be the true successor to Sonic. In an alternate timeline, the launch of Ristar in 1995 would mean that the little star would go on to enjoy a long and fruitful career as the new mascot of Sega and their new console, the Saturn. Alas, that wasn’t meant to be. Poor Ristar’s debut did not get as much marketing budget and attention since the launch of the new 32-bit console happened at the same time, and Sega did not seem to care that much anyway.
While Ristar‘s overall arc resembles more that of a Ri-comet, that doesn’t mean you should not play this cute and enjoyable 2D platformer today. With some of the best graphics on the Mega Drive, plus a beautiful soundtrack and a cheeky mix of relaxing platformer and hard-as-nails gameplay, this title will transport you back to that wonderful time when 2D platformers were still reigning supreme. Today, the game is a bit difficult to find and play legally, even though it has been digitally re-released a bunch of times in the past.
Earthworm Jim 2
Ending the list of the classic 2D platformers, we could not forget about dear ol’ wormy here. The sequel to the original, and already quite weird, Earthworm Jim presented many new gameplay ideas that seemed to all be thrown at the wall to see what stuck. While not all of them stick the landing, the overall craziness of the project, the furious pacing of the gameplay, the weird levels and Jim himself all made for quite the unforgettable little package. A very 90s package at that.
We have side-scrolling levels, final bosses that really want to have nothing to do with you, a whole cheese block to destroy with your weapon and, of course, let’s not forget the two cows on the Level Complete screen that will smile at you coy (or was it mooy?). Unfortunately, our worm – like many other mascots – did not survive the jump to 3D and was put to rest back in the ground. Luckily, you can unearth the earthworm today by heading to Steam, along with its Nintendo Switch Online counterpart.
Published: Jan 11, 2025 09:37 am