It's true: I've mostly been a PC gamer all my life. Although I eventually gave mobile games a try from 2016 onward, I have practically zero experience with any and all console games. It's very strange, but I honestly don't recall begging my parents for an NES or even a Game Boy when I was young. I believe I was well aware that video games were out there, but I spent most of my time watching cartoons until around 1995, when my family bought its first computer. From there, PC gaming became my new obsession. Several of my classmates at the time were into PlayStation, but I never hopped on that bandwagon.

As it turned out, I only started learning about retro video games at any length in 2006, when an online friend introduced me to the Angry Video Game Nerd's videos on Youtube. I spent the following decade watching him and other similarly comedic Youtubers solely for entertainment, as I still felt no compulsion to dive into that world myself. That continued to be the case...up until a month or two ago.

I've been a fan of Jason Pullara's "Until We Win" series for a couple of years now, as I enjoy watching him suffer through difficult video games. Much like with the AVGN, Jason's videos have given me enough reason to stay the hell away from the side-scrolling shooter genre (which looks more frustrating than fun for someone with my tastes). That being said, two ARPG games caught my eye:

Until We Win - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Until We Win - Crystalis (Part 1)

Until We Win - Crystalis (Part 2)

I am by no means the most hardcore RPG enthusiast in the world, but I have a feeling I'd really like Zelda II and Crystalis. It's unfortunate that I can't afford any NES gear these days; I would certainly have been interested in giving those two oldies a try. At the same time, though, I can't imagine buying a strange new console just so I could play a couple of very specific games. Oh well, maybe someday.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. So, can anyone relate to my situation?

Many PC games are also retro video games.

Price of old consoles is ridiculous now, but there are many cheaper way to play those old classic games.

Many websites provides online emulators. You can play many great console games via browsers.
No need to download illegal ROM files.

How legal those websites are? Well...

Download the ROMs. Nobody cares.

If you're dead set on paying for it though, get a 3DS. It's a great handheld. It's still on the market so it's very easy to find but old enough that it should be fairly cheap now, particularly if you get it used. It has plenty of great games that are either ports/remakes of old console games or sequels to console games, like Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Quest, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, Star Fox, Donkey Kong Country, Luigi's Mansion, etc. It's backward compatible with the original DS, which has an amazing library of games. Most importantly for you though, you can legally purchase and play old NES and SNES games on it from Nintendo's online store.

you really only missed atari, imo

consoles have always been way overhyped and overrated

and while the superearly days of PCs were great for what they were, you really are quite well-off coming into the world of them in the mid-90s as you did, as that's when they really started to boom bang bing

We had atari as young as I can remember, and we got our first PC in '86 and a whole BUNCH of public domain PC games - I loved to play videogames and was very aware of the videogame world (way more than people who lived around me, since it was pre-original nintendo) - and the original nintendo came out and people were getting them by the bunches and I just didn't care. and then I played some, and had a little fun with them, but still didn't care at all about having one, I could tell they weren't nearly as good as PC games, or even my old atari games.

and their hype has done nothing but grow over the years, but I think now people are starting to get a clue

You're probably right. The videos occasionally speak of the rudimentary nature of these early games, so newer ones are likely to have refined controls and gameplay elements. Yes, that's a real shame. I perused the going rates on eBay recently and couldn't believe my eyes. Needless to say, buying classic PC games at 70-90% off during these GOG sales have spoiled me. Thanks for the tip! I hadn't considered handheld alternatives before, so I may end up giving them a try eventually. Unfortunately, I think I was born way too late to appreciate what Atari had to offer. AVGN speaks very glowingly about those earliest games, but they look too dated for me. Even on the PC side of things, playing Ultima IV for the first time two years ago took a lot of getting used to. And as for early text-based adventure games like Mystery House, I have absolutely no desire to try them. So yeah, the 90s gaming environment spoiled me irreversibly. I guess you had to have been there.

Pretty much the opposite for me. Outside of a few games here and there (like the freeware version of Quake, Commander Keen 4, Runescape, and some other stuff), I spent more time playing console games (started out with the SNES and N64). It wasn't until around 2010 I started to get more into PC gaming and played some of the classics that were released here (Fallout 1, System Shock 2, Hocus Pocus, Sword of the Samurai, etc.).

i was in a similar boat in the sense that i never owned a console. but i do own all the gears of war games on the microsoft account. i loved gears of war one on the pc and naturally one would assume the rest would be awesome. so i picked up a console. the result was shocking. performance was rubbish and the 30fps limits honestly do hurt. it had to go back. never again.

i don't know the legality of emulation but speaking for my younger, don't-know-what-law-is self. sega genesis, nintendo 64 were some of the greatest games i've played. i have tried playstation but wasn't really my thing. games like sonic 1-3, zelda, rare games - banjo kazooie etc, shinobi etc, i could still pickup and play today. i don't know if i'd recommend an authentic experience such as buying the console. or a steam experience, where sega has done worse than the emulator devs but grabbing an emulator and roms can be loads of fun. DISCLAIMER - i have no idea if this is legal and i am not condoning illegal activities. just make sure it's legal if you want to do emulation :)

There are a few ways to get some NES games.

The NES classic mini that you might have heard about has Zelda II, as well as the original Zelda and many other games; it also has a few other games you might like, such as Metroid (I guess you could call it a Metroidvania) and Castlevania II (which has some similarities to Zelda II).

Some recent Nintendo consoles have a virtual console service, if you are willing to put up with DRM (or willing to hack the console).

You could, of course, emulate the games, if you're not worried about legality (or lack thereof).

By the way, Zelda 2 is actually very different from the rest of the series.

One other thing: You mentioned Crystalis. When I played Ys VI: The Ark or Naphistim, it reminded me of Crystalis, so you might want to look into that game (which is available on GOG).

I've owned few consoles, and few games for them. I was more on consoles until recently when hardware is more or less cheap enough to do tons of games for many years, emulated or otherwise.

If you want to try the games out, finding the roms and emulators isn't hard. I say SNES, Genesis, N64 & PS1 are easily within reach for almost any computer, even one ten years old and barebones. Master system, NES and earlier aren't really worth playing, unless you really want to.

PS2 and later require a lot of processing to emulate.

But most of the games won't be fun unless you have a decent controller. Choose one that works for you and you should be fine once you memorize which buttons are which. Or have an authentic controller (360, PS2, PS3, etc) and plug it in.

I had a first generation Gameboy and I played some console games with friends who owned consoles. Other than that I always have been a PC (or before that, C64) gamer. But I did play several NDS games via an emulator. The NDS Castlevanias are amazing!

On the contrary, I've always been a console gamer, starting with the NES. I still have those games, with the first Zelda and the first three Marios. I use my PC to play Indie games or old classics not avaiable (or not easy to found) on the consoles I own.

I started PC gaming around 2004 or so, before that, I didn't own a computer for the first 33 years of my life, but I became a PC gaming enthusiast quite quickly. Consoles I heard about from people talking about them on the internet, but only a few years ago I got to know a console gamer in real life (outside of my family that is, but I never talked much with my nephews about gaming), when a colleague of mine told enthusiasticly about his Playstation gaming experience.

Out of curiosity, I bought a second hand Playstation 2 in 2014 to find out what playing on a console is like. The advantage of the PS2 being it was dirt cheap secondhand. Only 34 euro's for the console itself and 5 euro per game, later on bargain buys of 3 games for 5 euro or even less.

As I did like the PS2, I got a PS3 for 120 euro. Games for it where also to be found cheap second hand. I played a lot of Call of Duty on it, not because it's easier on a console, but because Activision has a ridiculous policy of selling CoD games over a decade old for 50% of 19,99 in a sale, when Call of Duty (the first game) should really be sold for just 1,50 in a sale, considering it's age.

Outside of second hand buying, console gaming is way to expensive. And after trying out several games, liking some of them but discarding others that I bought and turned out not so fun after all, I've decided to phase out console gaming. I find it far more comfortable to be playing with keyboard and mouse at my desk.

I always have a hard time remembering controls on a console, each game has different uses for the X's, O's, squares, triangles, trigger buttons and directional buttons and there's no alphabetical mnemonics like in keyboard controls where M=map, O=Options and Use is almost always E or F for sitting neatly next to your index finger in WASD position and if it's not, you can reconfigure buttons on a one-on-one basis).

Plus there's far better field of view to be had into the game world with my eyes half a metre from a 20" monitor than with my eyes several metres away from a 24" TV screen (my priority in living room cabinet space goes to my music collection, not to TV that I hardly ever watch).

There's two RPG's I still want to finish on the PS2 (Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 and Lord of the Rings: The Third Age) and on PS3 there's one game I'm still playing (CoD Black Ops 2, I'd rather play it on PC but it's too expensive there) and 8 I still want to try out, but I don't buy any more PS games. I won't discard the Playstation 3 however, as unlike my old DVD player that sends it signal through SCART, I can play DVD's on the PS3 with HDMI quality.

Console gaming is a different kind of fun. It has simple control, and easy to understand gameplay (usually)

There are many worthwhile titles on console.

Zelda A link to the past, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Castlevania Symphony of the Night , are some examples of great console games.

There are things called emulator you can run on your pc. These emulators can run console games. Almost every console have emulator. If you want to see if console gaming is for you, download emulator, rom (the game) and give it a try. Consider it a demo. If you like it then buy the console. I would advise you to play it with gamepad. A Xbox gamepad would be suitable for most of them.

If you don't want to buy console because of the price, you can try handheld games. Try emulating psp or nds games. Handheld machines is cheaper and you can play on the go. A huge plus in my book

Didn't completely miss out on it myself, but I did mostly miss out on it. The only console I've ever owned was an nes and I did have a lot of fun with it (TMNT 3, GI Joe and Super Mario Bros especially). I do recall begging my parents for a playstation at one point, but that was mostly motivated by the fact that my 486 was getting too slow for games like Tomb Raider 2 to run properly. I figured that a console would be cheaper than a new pc and all games would run equally well on it.

I do recall desperately wanting a sega console to play sonic (after I played for about 10 minutes on a demo station in some store), and later a N64 to play Goldeneye. The N64 especially was almost the stuff of legends when I was in primary school, especially because I don't think anyone in my grade had one.
After I got my first 3D card however, an 8MB Voodoo2, I was extremely content with exclusively gaming on the pc for many years. Only in the last couple of years have I started to feel like I seriously missed out on some great console gaming, especially, but not exclusively, Nintendo titles.

Examples of series/games that I intend to make some serious time for since I feel as if I've missed out:
- Mario (only played super mario bros on nes)
- Sonic
- Zelda
- Metroid
- Metal Gear
- Red Dead Redemption (since it seems unlikely that it will ever come to pc at this point)