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Bubble Bobble is one of my favourite retro multiplayer games since it has both players playing simultaneously (not each take a turn/hand off the controller) but might still be a bit difficult for a 5 year old 🤔
Edit: Tetris & Dr. Mario for the SNES might also work
Nah. I played the crap outta Bubble Bobble around that age. Some of my best early memories involve playing Bubble Bobble on NES with my parents after dinner every night. Had all the level codes jotted down on a sheet of notebook paper, including all the lettered levels.
If Bubble Bobble fits; Snow Bros, TumblePop, Puzzle Bobble or Super Pang may work too.
Hard to beat Super Mario Brothers. I tried other classics, bunch of arcade games, but my son never liked them. Ms. Pac-Man might work. The big hit with us was Wii sports.
Wii sports is retro..........
cries
Nearly as old as Super Mario Bros. at release.
Are you saying that Wii Sports is nearly as old now as Super Mario Bros was when Wii sports released? Because Wii Sports came out in 2006?
Because SMB came out in 1985 and …
…
Jesus Christ.
I'm sorry
.....what.....no. That can't be.......
does math
..........STOP USING NUMBERS AGAINST ME!!!
Sonic 2. Make him be tails. As is tradition.
Honestly? This is a great, low stakes way of letting him get the feel for the game without feeling like he's not "helping".
This is the way.
And in case OP doesn't know: the same can be done with Sonic 3 and then with Sonic and Knuckles.
But also, I second starting with Sonic 2. The controls are a bit simpler, and it's a classic.
TMNT Turtles in Time on SNES. Its a fun game and kids can button mash, and turtles are still relevant today. Puzzle games like tetris can be good for using the brain. There were a ton of puzzle games in the snes era, like bust a move (puzzle bobble), yoshi's cookie, puyo puyo (kirby's avalanche), and many more.
I would mostly avoid NES because it looks really dated, aside from a handful of the real classics like Super Mario Bros 1 & 3.
Those beat em ups are a great way to spend time together. As long as you can keep continuing, you barely need to pay attention and it gives you something to talk about.
You both can play Goof Troop. It's a Co-op game with Goofy and Max as protagonists, it's very funny.
Balloon Fight (NES)
With that avatar, I wonder why you might suggest that ;-)
Kirby Superstar (SNES) is great for this, I play it with my 5-year-old. The second player plays as the "helper" character, and when they die, Kirby can create them again. It effectively plays like a "buddy mode." That game is also one of my all-time favorites just for what it is, so I'm a bit biased.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Little one can be Tails and play coop.
I would say that most retro games can be enjoyed by a 5-year-old (having once upon a time been a 5-year-old playing some of them myself), but the first one that comes to mind is Donkey Kong Country.
My 4 year old raging at mine Cart madnessis a particular find memory of mine
"Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkotron" (Genesis) has a very well designed "little kid mode" in the options, and it's still really fun.
Edit: Example regarding violence - you get to throw jars at humans to trap them for transport back to earth. And you need to watch out for bowling balls falling out of trees.
Super Mario World, Battletoads
Sonic 2.
Controlling Tails can be good fun if you’re very young and don’t fully know what you’re doing!
Can be hard keeping both characters on screen at times though.
Actually Sonic 3 is a slight improvement in this regard once you get the hang of things - Tails can be more helpful, and carry Sonic to higher ledges
from a sega childhood my top:
Super Mario by far IMO, basically all of the games.
5yo is probably still too young to understand Zelda.
I'm still too young to understand Zelda 2, and I played it when it came out!
IMO I think it's less "understand" and more "find a way cheese those bullshit Iron Knuckle fights". I've completed Zelda 2 a few times. Those are still torture and terribly un-fun.
Mortal Kombat is pretty tame I hear.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Goof Troop, for SNES.
SNES:
Harvest Moon - this can lead into allowing the kid to plant something IRL and having them water it regularly, allowing them to "be a real farmer". Incidentally this is also a great way to get a child to eat vegetables, as a child who refuses to even consider eating a vegetable will change their mind when they grew it themselves
Super Mario Kart
Mega Drive:
A bunch of arcade games become much more friendly to kids with infinite continues, shmups, fighters, brawlers, etc but for those you'll need to filter on violence. I'd probably also avoid anything RPG or story heavy.
My picks would be Bubble bobble, Kirby on SNES, ice hockey on NES, Mario 1-3, super Mario kart, Tetris, monkey ball, Dr Mario. For Sega Sonic 1-3 & knuckles, ecco, robotnik's mean bean machine, Alex kidd, outrun
Joust. Easily understood game for little ones, and you can discourage player killing.
Magical Quest 2 & 3 are very good for that. They already know the characters, and the games are beautiful and pretty good gameplay-wise.
You play together and if the child loses all his/her lives, he/she can steal yours. For difficult sections or bosses, you can do it alone.
There are new costumes regularly so the child wants to continue to discover the next costume, and its associated powers.
Magical Quest 2 is easier than 3, so I think it’s better to start with this one. You can either play as Mickey or Minnie.
In Magical Quest 3, you can either play as Mickey or Donald. Donald is meant to be played by the child because his gameplay is a bit different (with his soldier costume which is wooden barrel, preventing him to sink while Mickey has a silver armor which kills him if he goes into water with it). It’s not that difficult to play as Mickey (my nephew did not want to play as Donald and we had no major issues).
Turtles in time
Troddlers - SNES
The music in Troddlers slaps.
Its a puzzle platformer game similar to Lemmings. Little dudes walk in a straight line and you play as a wizard that can place blocks. You have to get the little dudes to the exit.
The only violence is when the little guys or the other player gets smooshed by a block I think, its been a long time since I played the game.
Sonic 2! Let the 5yo be tails! He'll never die. He can collect rings and kill enemies. It's the best 2 player platformer ever created
The NES sesame Street games are pretty good.
My youngest loved sesame Street countdown. it was really forgiving and taught her basic platformer mechanics.
Lots of other great suggestions. But I do think the consensus is multiplayer games with coop.
Konami beat ‘em ups like TMNT, The Simpson, Xmen would be great.
I’m also going to throw in Party games or kart racers, CTR and Mario Kart of Mario Party or Crash Bash would also be great
That said Pokémon might be a nice option too though not sure how you’d play that together.
Or edutainment like Gizmos and Gadgets or Jumpstart
World of Illusion (Genesis)
My kid used to love one of the Kirby games for the Wii, where the three of us could play at the same time. I can't remember the name of it, but I'm pretty sure it was previously released for the SNES. It was the one with Armor Knight, if I'm remembering the character name correctly.
Kirby's return to dreamland for the wii probably, but I doubt the old raspberry pi's could run it
It doesn't count as non-violent, but every kid I have played it with has thoroughly enjoyed the TMNT arcade game (as well as the Simpsons game that plays similarly. If you play with them you can essentially carry them through the game and they are just along for the ride, but feel like they are part of the team.
A GREAT game to play with kids is called "Stacking". Looks like there's a Linux version so you might be able to get it running on the Pi:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_(video_game)
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Linux
The gag is this...
You play the smallest of a set of Russian nesting dolls and you want to re-unite with your family.
In order to do that you have to solve a bunch of puzzles in a world filled with other Russian nesting dolls.
You can jump into any doll one size larger than you, and you can jump out to be one size smaller.
Each doll has a specific skill or ability, so by swapping bodies, you use the various skills to solve the puzzles.
The challenge is, you might find one that has the right skill, but you're too small to jump into them, so you have to find the right chain of dolls to size up and size down to do what you need to do.
Trailer:
City Connection, Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle. While neither are co-op my mom and took turns playing crazy castle on the nes when I was a kid and we beat it. Core memory right there.
I think Tetris or Doctor Mario had 2 player modes but I'm not sure.
Does Sonic Spinball on the Genesis have multiplayer?
Not that I recall re: Spinball, but hot damn i loved that game
