Best Retro Tower Defense and Strategy Games

Retro Strategy Games: Before StarCraft and Age of Empires

The real-time strategy genre (RTS) wasn’t defined until Westwood’s Dune II (1992) and Blizzard’s Warcraft (1994) — but the turn-based strategy genre predates them significantly. Tactical RPGs like Shining Force and Fire Emblem, military strategy games like Military Madness (TurboGrafx-16) and Herzog Zwei (Genesis), and the wargame tradition that influenced them all produced the strategic gaming tradition that RTS games later built on.

The console strategy game had specific constraints that PC strategy didn’t: no keyboard, no mouse, a controller as the primary interface. The best console strategy games developed interfaces that worked within these constraints — Advance Wars’ unit selection with directional pad, Fire Emblem’s menu-driven combat planning — while maintaining strategic depth.

Herzog Zwei — The RTS Prototype

Herzog Zwei (1989 Genesis) by Technosoft is the closest thing to an RTS on a 16-bit console. Players controlled a transforming aircraft (mech-to-fighter), issued orders to ground units, captured bases, and tried to destroy the opponent’s main base. Both players acted simultaneously — unlike turn-based strategy, units moved and fought in real-time.

The game is cited by Westwood developers as an influence on Command & Conquer’s design. Herzog Zwei’s specific combination of unit command, base capture, and real-time combat predated Dune II’s formalization of the RTS genre and demonstrated that the core idea was viable before PC hardware made it practical at scale.

Military Madness — The TurboGrafx Wargame

Military Madness (1989 TurboGrafx-16) by Hudson Soft was a hex-grid science fiction wargame — more traditional in form than Herzog Zwei’s real-time action. The 16 units (tanks, artillery, helicopters, soldiers), their terrain movement costs, and the supply mechanic (capturing supply depots to maintain unit effectiveness) created the same strategic depth as PC hex wargames in a console format.

Military Madness was one of the earliest strategy games to offer multiplayer on a console and was played competitively among its small but dedicated audience. It predated Advance Wars by 12 years and demonstrates that the portable strategy game tradition has roots in the earliest console strategy games.

Dragon Force — The Real-Time Army Management RPG

Dragon Force (1996 Saturn) by Working Designs combined traditional JRPG monarchs-and-generals structure with 100-vs-100 real-time battle resolution. Players managed armies across a map (hiring generals, assigning troops, conquering territories), then watched the result of battle decisions play out in real-time sprite combat. The scale — hundreds of units fighting simultaneously — was unprecedented for a console strategy game.

The eight playable monarchs (each with distinct story perspectives and troop types) and the approximately 70 recruitab generals gave the game breadth that console strategy games rarely attempted. Dragon Force was Working Designs’ most ambitious localization and one of the Saturn’s finest games.

Langrisser II — The Technical Strategy RPG

Langrisser II (1993 Genesis/PC) is the finest entry in NCS’s Langrisser series — a tactical RPG where commanders led units of soldiers (troops under each general’s command, separate from the generals themselves). The troop-based combat created scale that unit-based tactical RPGs (one character = one unit) couldn’t achieve: a general commanding soldiers was both more powerful and more complex than a single unit.

The Western Genesis release was titled “Der Langrisser” in some markets and received limited distribution. The game’s combination of tactical depth, character development, and the troop-based combat system is unique among 16-bit strategy games.