Trippy, psychedelic alien shooter ChainStaff shows there are still new ways for games to be 'retro'

1 week ago 7

Rommie Analytics

I love a new-old game as much as anyone, but it's hard to pretend that today's retro throwbacks aren't drawing inspiration from a small, predictable selection of extremely popular games:

Zelda. Chrono Trigger. Final Fantasy. Castlevania. Metroid. Mega Man.

These are perfectly understandable picks for a game of any size to be inspired by—there are very good reasons why they're considered timeless classics, after all—but the sheer quantity of new games blatantly leaning on these same few styles can at times make a retro aesthetic wearily familiar from the very first promotional screenshot.

Thank goodness there are indie developers like Mommy's Best Games out there, willing to venture off the beaten path and then reappear with reminders that even decades ago gaming was an incredibly varied and creative field. A quick browse through the Mommy's Best Steam page almost feels like I'm spinning a ROM roulette wheel spanning decades of work across multiple continents and chipsets.