Garland will knock you all down! Final Fantasy is the genre-defining classic of 8-bit Japanese RPGs. It also happens to be a personal favorite of mine. My nostalgia for it is strong enough to compensate for its outdated elements. The monsters and gameplay of Final Fantasy are taken straight from Dungeons & Dragons. You control a party of four characters, to whom you assign names and classes. The classes are warrior [fighter], monk [black belt], thief, red mage, white mage, and black mage. The red mage is a jack of all trades and master of none: he can cast white and black magic spells, but not the most powerful ones. Unlike other mages, he can also equip swords, armor, and shields. This makes him versatile. The monk doesn't wear armor, which makes him vulnerable to physical attacks, but he can dish out huge damage with his bare hands. The thief can't steal anything, because there are no class-specific commands in this game besides magic. Instead, he is a weaker fighter who

Boy does time fly: Super Mario Kart is 30 years old! This was one of my favorite SNES games when I was a child. Featuring eight Mario characters riding go karts, twenty fun tracks, an assortment of items and weapons, and two different multiplayer modes, Super Mario Kart is a top-tier video game. Super Mario Kart laid down the basics of the popular franchise. You choose one of eight classic Mario characters (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Bowser, DK Junior, Koopa Troopa, or Yoshi), an engine speed (50 or 100 CC), then a circuit of five tracks (Mushroom, Fire Flower, or Star). Then you race! The characters belong to different weight classes: Junior and Bowser, being heavy, have the highest maximum speed but poor acceleration. New players should try a lightweight like Koopa Troopa or Toad. Driving over question tiles on the track gives your racer an item, such as a turbo Super Mushroom, Super Star, banana peel, red Koopa shell, green Koopa shell, lightning bolt (which briefly shrinks everyone