These are the retro gaming YouTube channels players recommend most, from game history and reviews to collecting, handhelds and RPGs. The order comes from how many different players named each channel when someone asked what to watch.
Vote with the arrows next to each channel.
Playing fun games and building a game collection with intention: what to keep and why.
Gaming and technology news, with daily videos on emulation and retro handhelds.
Retro gaming history and criticism. Their documentary series PlayStation Year One and N64 Chronicles look at every game released for those consoles in order.
Emulation tests and long gameplay videos on handheld devices.
A married couple reliving their childhood through video games and old media. Their current goal is the full North American 3DS collection.
A challenge to beat every Nintendo 64 game ever released, with a new game every Friday.
How classic games work under the hood, from SNES graphics modes to the bugs speedrunners use, explained with clear animations.
Retro gaming news and handheld reviews, running since 2019.
No-cheat playthroughs of classic games from the 80s and 90s, start to finish.
Old and new consumer tech, with a lot of forgotten formats and gadgets. Gaming comes up when the hardware is interesting.
Martin from Scotland repairs and mods retro tech, and shows off his quirky pickups.
Very detailed retrospectives of older games, looking at a game as a whole after playing it to the end.
Little-known facts about video games, from cut content to development stories, often for classic games.
Everything Nintendo 64. The N64 Beta Project digs into unreleased versions of games, and N64 Magazine Time Capsule looks back at old magazines.
In-depth documentaries covering over 40 years of gaming history, consoles and computers alike.
Game hunting and collection videos, plus the Riggstalgic shows.
Console mods and restorations, from Game Boy screens to full rebuilds, with the steps shown in detail.
Retro consoles and mods, plus new hardware made for old systems.
A channel about JRPGs, with the most love for the Trails series and Nihon Falcom.
Technical breakdowns of retro games: why a game behaves the way it does, down to the code. They also show how to fix some of it.
Retro handheld and emulation device reviews, with a focus on what each device runs well.
Chronological surveys of console history. NES Works goes through the American NES library in release order, and sister series do the same for Sega and Game Boy.
Reviews of retro handhelds and new gaming tech, made to help you decide what is worth buying.
Anything about video games, home of the Just Bad Games and The Worst Ever series.
Retro gaming news and hardware, with plenty of Nintendo Switch along the way.
Home of The Video Game Years and other classic Retroware TV shows. The company also makes and publishes new retro-style games.
Reviews of games old and new, often in long, funny episodes about a whole series.
Retro and import games, with a lot of Japanese releases most players have never seen.
Twitch archives of Mike playing old games, often on a real CRT. Mike was a longtime part of Cinemassacre.
80s and 90s nostalgia, with trips to shops and flea markets hunting for video games and vintage toys.
Yahel makes documentary-style videos on video game history, with the occasional game review.
Long, quiet videos about PS1 games, made to relax to.
Game hunting and collection videos for anything retro.
Strategy guides for players who are not experts, showing how to beat hard retro games step by step.
Splash Wave documents game development in the 8-bit and 16-bit era: the limits of the hardware and how developers got around them.
Long-form videos about RPGs and other strange old games.
Reviews of obscure consoles and homebrew games, including systems most collectors never see.
Retro games and collecting, plus the games John makes himself, which he sells on itch.io and as physical releases.
Reviews, lists and recommendations for RPGs, old and new, from a channel that sticks to the genre.
A group of four making documentaries about video game history: how a game was made and what happened to its studio.
Emulation on Raspberry Pi, Android, PC and handheld devices, with setup tutorials and performance tests.
Retro gaming hardware news and reviews, plus a weekly podcast about what is happening in the retro scene. It goes with the retrorgb.com website.
Software, hardware, games, magazines and toys from the 70s, 80s and 90s, explained with a lot of history.
Long comedy reviews of PlayStation 1 games and other childhood favourites.
Educational videos on retro technology from the 80s, 90s and 2000s: how old computers work, repairs and restorations, and his own new game for old hardware.
Analysis and reviews of RPGs, with a lot of classic Japanese RPGs, made by a fan who treats them as literature, music and art.
Video essays that pick apart what a game is trying to say and how its design says it, often about older PC games.
Long, scripted retrospectives of older games, including the series Halo and Mass Effect... Years Later.
A comedy show about video games, mixing reviews with retrospectives. Old consoles and forgotten accessories come up often. New episodes two to four times a month.
Documentaries on the history of speedrun world records, mostly for retro games like Super Mario Bros. and Punch-Out!!. Each video follows a record from the first run to today.
Matt talks about collecting and hidden gems in a way that makes the hobby feel good. New videos every Friday.
Calm, well-researched retrospectives of classic games and consoles. No yelling and no reaction faces.
Russ tests new ways to play classic games: in-depth handheld reviews and emulation setup guides. He doesn't accept sponsorships.
A retro channel with a heavy focus on RPGs from the NES and SNES era.
Game technology and hardware analysis with their own capture tools. For retro fans, the DF Retro series breaks down how classic games and consoles push their hardware.
Clint Basinger covers retro tech and PC gaming. Expect classic computers and thrift store finds, with old PC games played on period hardware.
Tech deep dives on consoles old and new: how a system was hacked, how an emulator works, why a port runs the way it does.
One of the oldest game review shows, running since before YouTube. It reviews classic and new games, and lately runs its own animated series.
Comedy reviews of NES games, flea market hunts in Flea Market Madness, and The Video Game Years history series. Pat also hosts the Completely Unnecessary Podcast.
A channel for Sega fans, with most videos about the Sega Saturn. Top 10 lists and import picks cover every Sega console.
Coury Carlson and Marc Duddleson explain how to get the best picture from retro consoles, from RGB cables to scalers and CRTs. They also talk about their own history with games.
Norman Caruso researches, writes and edits documentaries about video game history. Each episode tells one full story, from a company's rise to a strange accessory nobody remembers.
Hidden gems and buying guides for every console, filmed with friends from the Seattle gaming scene and set to heavy metal. Start with the hidden gems video for a console you own.
Short, to-the-point reviews from one person, covering everything from the Super Nintendo and Game Boy to the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 and Switch. A good place to find the less famous games on a console.
Joe and his co-hosts look at games on one theme per episode, often across Genesis, Saturn, SNES and PC Engine. Episodes are long and come out every other Sunday.
The home of the Angry Video Game Nerd, James Rolfe's comedy reviews of bad NES and SNES games. The channel also runs Monster Madness and movie reviews.
