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Great games you would recommend from before 1990? (feddit.org)
submitted 4 months ago by Wrufieotnak@feddit.org to c/patientgamers@sh.itjust.works
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I noticed that pretty much all games I played in my life have been released after 1990. So now I'm asking those with earlier experience here:
Which games can you recommend from before that time?

But: they should still be fun in their own right and not just interesting to play in an historian sense of trying to understand how genres developed.

Games I played that are older than 1990:

  • Tetris (classic for a reason)
  • Pacman (interesting but simple)
  • Prince of Persia (was too young to understand how to correctly play this game, I should maybe try to play it again)
  • The Legend of Zelda (too old school and clunky for my liking)
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[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Prince of Persia, 1989.

This game pioneered rotoscope animation and directly influenced the Tomb raider series in many ways:

  • Crumbling slabs that you fall through
  • spikes that kill you if you fall on them, but you can walk through them
  • Clanging jaws that will chop you in half
  • the re-cycling of multi-tier map design, when one big room with many levels becomes a central atrium to which you return many times, just sometimes higher or lower than you were before. Also a very clever use of limited memory resources.
  • A random doppleganger encounter that hurts you when you hurt it.
  • block-based jump physics with standing, running, and vertical jumping
  • hanging from ledges as a mechanic
  • little known fact about prince of Persia but if you holster your sword and hold X and T while drawing your sword, the player draws a pair of uzis instead
[-] bob_lemon@feddit.org 2 points 4 months ago

Be aware that the game requires you to memorize the level layouts, including multiple completely blind jumps.

It's still a great game, bit I thought it'd mention this because it may frustrate players trying it out.

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Oh and you have to beat it in under an hour or you automatically lose.

That was a fun mechanic. Fun, fun, fun.

this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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