Games released on September 26
12 games that still hold up, from Castlevania in 1986 to Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout in 2019
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Castlevania 1986
Simon Belmont enters Dracula's castle with the Vampire Killer whip, through 18 stages against the clock and bosses drawn from horror films, in a 1986 platformer.
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Wing Commander 1990
Turned 36 this year DOS
A nameless second lieutenant flies from the carrier Tiger's Claw in a war against the Kilrathi Empire, in Chris Roberts' space flight simulation.
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Command & Conquer 1995
Turned 31 this year DOS
In an alternate history, a meteorite carrying Tiberium lands near the Tiber in Italy, and the UN's GDI and Kane's Brotherhood of Nod go to war over it. It helped define real time strategy.
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NBA Live 06 2005
Turned 21 this year GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox
EA Canada's basketball game with Dwyane Wade on the cover, whose Dynasty mode runs one team over many seasons of trades, signings and coaches.
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Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves 2005
Turned 21 this year PlayStation 2
Sly, Bentley and Murray gather allies from around the world to break into the Cooper Vault, with Bentley and Murray now able to pickpocket, in a stealth platformer for the PlayStation 2.
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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2013
Turned 13 this year PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita
A turn based role playing game from 2013 that opens a long series, where a bar shows the order of every turn and characters linked in pairs follow up each other's attacks.
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Shadow Warrior 2013
Turned 13 this year
A reboot of the 1997 shooter, in which Lo Wang, a mercenary ninja, fights demons who have come through in a present day of East Asian myth, with a katana that cuts in the direction you swing.
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The Vanishing of Ethan Carter 2014
Turned 12 this year
A detective follows a boy's letter to Red Creek Valley, where the boy has vanished, and pieces together deaths with paranormal sight, in an open exploration mystery with no combat.
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Hob 2017
Turned 9 this year PlayStation 4
In a science fiction world of strange wildlife, overgrown buildings and old machinery, a small area opens out into more of the map with every power you gain, in Runic Games' last game.
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Ruiner 2017
Turned 9 this year PlayStation 4, Xbox One
A silent, masked cyborg assassin tears through Rengkok, a cyberpunk city of 2091 run by a conglomerate, to find his kidnapped brother, guided by a hacker known only as Her, in an isometric twin stick shooter.
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Ys IX: Monstrum Nox 2019
Turned 7 this year PlayStation 4
An action role playing game in which Adol Christin is locked up in Balduq, a city dominated by a prison, and turned into a supernatural being called a Monstrum.
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Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout 2019
Turned 7 this year Switch, PlayStation 4
Ryza, a girl from Kurken Island who longs for adventure, sneaks onto the mainland with her friends and becomes an alchemist's apprentice, making items by placing materials on a web of elemental nodes.
