u/occamcs

Howdy!

I have no idea if anyone else will find this useful, but I put together this spreadsheet as a personal project and someone suggested I share it here. The sheets/tabs on the bottom cover each console.

I wanted to play through a lot of retro games, but I quickly realised that figuring out the best version of each game was a grueling (and incredibly subjective) task. Between original releases, ports, remasters, remakes, etc. there's an awful lot to choose from.

So I went through every retro game I had even a passing interest in across all of the major consoles, ranked them very loosely (based on a mixture of reputation, influence, critical reception, and my own personal interest/preference/curiosity), and then noted the version I'd personally choose to play today.

I call these "Reissues", as the list includes ports, remasters, remakes, compilations, collections, etc. These don't always catalogue the "Best" version, if the "Best" version is the original. In those cases it'll just call out which version is available today.

The order of platform priority is:

• Steam/PC (strongly preferred)
• Nintendo Switch
• PS5
• PlayStation Vita

If a game is available on PC and another platform, I've almost always chosen the PC version unless the reissue is specifically bad. Only one version is listed per game, the one I'd personally recommend playing, and platforms can be emulatable such as a 3DS reissue of a DS game.

This is absolutely not intended to be an objective "definitive list". It's just the choices I made after doing weeks of research and compiling

I'm sure there are omissions, mistakes, and debatable picks, so feel free to point them out.

PS. I know I'll never play all of these games :)

Notes

• This isn't a list of console exclusives although they generally are prioritised
• The DS and 3DS tabs are probably a little overstuffed because I originally made this while waiting for my Ayn Thor (my beloved)
• The PS3 tab is still very incomplete and will likely stay that way
• I'm British, so you'll see Mega Drive instead of Genesis and other PAL names
• I removed a few personal-use columns before uploading this version, so there may be a bit of extra content that's missing context
• The genre categories are wildly inconsistent and I've accepted defeat on those, apologies
• When I list PS5, a PS4 version is usually perfectly fine unless there's a PS5 exclusive/upgrade but I haven't made that clear
• Switch 2 is only specified for Switch 2 exclusives, Switch is for all of the rest even though the Switch 2 runs most games better
• I probably won't be keeping this public version updated
• Availability reflects what was accessible to me, not every platform a game has ever been released on
• I haven't considered ROM hacks, patches, or emulation enhancements - just fan translations
• "Best" is based on a combo of content, quality-of-life improvements, performance, accessibility, and convenience rather than some objective gamer scale
• The WiiU is retro now, I am old :(