So you just bought yourself an expensive new gaming monitor for Christmas, but have no idea what games to play on it first. The first game on a new display has to be carefully chosen in order to properly christen it, but with so many options to choose from it’s hard to know if you made the right choice.
Not every game is perfectly optimized to get the most out of your new monitor’s features, but we here at Hard Drive have got you covered with this list of the top 11 retro games to test out your shiny new gaming display.
#11 – Resident Evil (2002)
Unfortunately early GameCube games are retro now, but at least you can make the most of it by replaying the absolutely gorgeous remake of Resident Evil. Its striking visual style and pre-rendered backgrounds keep it from feeling dated, and heavy contrast makes it look stunning on higher end displays.
#10 – Tetris
You want heavy contrast? Tetris has got you covered. The visuals are crisp and utilitarian, and never sacrifice readability for flair. It isn’t ideal if you want something with more than four colors, but blue and red are for losers anyway.
#9 – Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII is a classic for good reason. While character models can feel a little lacking today, the field backgrounds are beautifully made and pack so much detail into every inch. Depending on the release you choose to play, you might even have a high enough resolution to realize that the characters finally have mouths.
#8 – Starfield
You may be arguing that Starfield isn’t a retro game and that you aren’t going to buy it, but I disagree. It’s full of retro-futuristic technology, which is almost the same thing as being a retro game, right? It’s also so janky and unoptimized that it might as well have been released on the Sega Saturn.
#7 – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Ocarina of Time actually looks fantastic with no modifications except increasing the internal resolution. Like many N64 games it’s carried by prioritizing strong art direction over raw fidelity, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s still one of the most enjoyable Zelda games to play.
#6 – Doom
If you’re any good at Doom, you’ll be moving too quickly to realize that most of the art actually looks a little weird on an HD screen. It doesn’t matter anyway, because you were going to play this every year to pretend it’s still 1992.
#5 – Super Mario World
The crisp pixel art from the SNES may have been intended to be seen on a CRT, but still looks great on an HD monitor. Super Mario World is still the best looking 2D Mario game, and your shiny 4K monitor will show you every sprite in fantastic detail.
#4 – Duck Hunt
What better game to play on your brand new monitor than one that won’t even work? That’s right, NES Zapper games do not work on modern displays! Relying on the dependable timing of a CRT television to know if you shot a duck, it will not work correctly on your new monitor, and you will be very disappointed to learn that.
#3 – Goldeneye 007
Goldeneye has some of the jankiest first person controls ever made, and it has character models that some will lovingly call ‘low-poly’ and ‘charming.’ It actually looks pretty terrible, but so do the old James Bond movies, so it’s just being accurate to the source material.
#2 – Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II is a classic fighting game that you’ll sit down to play at home and realize you weren’t actually ever any good, it’s just that all the other kids at the arcade were a little bit worse. At least the pixel art looks nice.
#1 – Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger is the best looking SNES game and also the best turn-based RPG ever made. It is absolutely gorgeous, with timeless pixel art that perfectly captures the personalities of the characters through animation, and a fantastic soundtrack that will sound terrible through your monitor’s built-in speakers. The Steam release got patched to remove that terrible upscaling filter, so you can play it on your PC exactly the way you remember it.
