The arcade golden age may have come and gone, but it's been kept alive by movies and the memories of those who were there, not to mention by the legion of games that arcades inspired. Seeking to emulate a classic arcade experience without just ripping off another title or failing to capture what made arcade games special in the first place is tough, but some pull it off.
Chiptune soundtracks, pixel art, and a 2D view were the hallmarks of many iconic arcade games, but they aren't the only features that made those games great. Thankfully, plenty of talented developers have boiled arcade games down to their sweet, satisfying essence. Yet even the best of these sometimes get overlooked. Only older games with less than 5,000 reviews and newer games with less than 500 reviews will be featured here.
7 Owinka Shooter
Though a brief experience that can be finished in around an hour, Owinka Shooter is a great free-to-play arcade game about the escape from a sinister facility. The player controls Owinka 427, who must fight their way through vaguely creepy white jellybeans and solve the occasional puzzle to get out.
Fortunately, the player has a gun with infinite ammo, so mowing down the strange bean antagonists won't be a problem. The graphics aren't amazing, but a fun soundtrack, punchy jokes, and a satisfying gameplay loop make jumping into Owinka Shooter a worthy investment, and the player doesn't need a rare and expensive arcade cabinet to do it.
6 Capcom Fighting Collection
For a long time, Capcom was synonymous with a high-quality arcade experience, so the release of Capcom Fighting Collection is a fantastic opportunity for fans who want to relieve the company's arcade heyday or might have missed it in the first place.
Whether the player is a fan of Darkstalkers, Vampire Hunter, Street Fighter, Cyberbots, Red Earth, or another one of Capcom's excellent titles, there's something in this collection for arcade fighting enthusiasts to love. Every title supports online play with leaderboards and lobbies, and there are generous training modes and on-boarding features for beginners. The only downside is that two of the games (Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers' Revenge and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire) include only the Japanese version.
5 Waste
Waste is a 2.5D life sim in which the player takes on the role of a garbageman, visiting houses in the neighborhood to collect their waste and making sure not to get hit by cars or bikes, attacked by dogs, or suffer any other professional accident. Is this the best that arcades have to offer? In a weird way, maybe.
The object is to keep customers happy, but a time limit is always ticking down, requiring the player to do their job as efficiently as possible in order to make more money before moving on to the next street. The combination of its black-and-white retro aesthetic, unusual premise and classic arcade setup make Waste a delightful throwback for fans of games like Paperboy.
4 Final Vendetta
One of the most enduring arcade genres is the beat 'em up, and Final Vendetta does its best to match the quality and excitement of the genre's classics. The pixel art and smooth animations are one of the best parts of the game. There's something endlessly satisfying about watching a man with a mullet and sunglasses bodyslam someone on a speeding subway car.
Battling gang members through London is enjoyable thanks to the variety of moves that keep fights interesting. Blocks, dodges, and juggles are all integral parts of combat, and every character has a move set that distinguishes them from the others, giving players a good reason to play through the game again after completing it. The game includes two-player co-op, four game modes, and -- yes -- street food.
3 Donut Dodo
2D platformer Donut Dodo doesn't just want to take inspiration from the classic arcade games of the early 80s, it wants to be one, providing an experience that is as retro and bloodthirstily difficult as they come, proving itself alongside the classics that still hold up today.
Baker Billy Burns is on a mission to collect every donut on each level as fast as possible while outmaneuvering the fiendish Donut Dodo.
A chiptune soundtrack, fair controls, 16-color palette, and high lethality all make Donut Dodo a game that would have fit in perfectly in arcades four decades ago and is still a blast to play today. For players who want to squeeze every last drop of the classic arcade experience, the game even has leaderboards that cap names at three characters.
2 TimeShifters
Another game that's not shy about its inspiration, TimeShifters will feel immediately familiar to fans of old-school shooters like GoldenEye and TimeSplitters, with the influence of the latter being particularly pronounced.
The brief story mode centers around a world hostage crisis initiated by a dictator with a time machine, but players will have plenty to do after beating it, whether that's chasing every platinum trophy in challenge mode or playing deathmatch online against friends. The wackiness of the story and challenges shouldn't distract from the quality gunplay, environmental destruction, and player experience. TimeShifters is a game bent on pleasing a certain audience, and it accomplishes its mission.
1 Ex-Zodiac
Ex-Zodiac wears its 90s inspiration on its sleeve. It's a 3D rail shooter about Kyuu's battle to free the Sanzaru Star System from Zodiac, an intergalactic terrorist group. Fast-paced and featuring an excellent 16-bit soundtrack, it doesn't take Ex-Zodiac long to hit players with a wave of nostalgia and prove itself amongst the best modern arcade games.
The game is fast, fluidly animated, and makes excellent use of its bright, low-poly style. The game has a variety of main levels each ending in a boss fight, as well as bonus levels and more on the way once the game leaves early access. For retro fans who just want to go fast and blow stuff up against a pretty background, Ex-Zodiac is just the thing.