A couple that I'd recommend-- First is Rescue Rangers 1 & 2 for NES (they have the same engine, so I'm counting them as one). Unfortunately, they were never rereleased and the cartridges are expensive today. Second is Doom 93, as it has a co-op mode, at least in the modern source ports like Zandronum (I don't know about the original). Correction: I *just now* learned about a collection called "Disney Afternoon Collection" released for PS4, XBOne, and Steam that includes the two Rescue Rangers games, so it was re-released after all.
Elden Ring on PC has a "Seamless Co-Op" mod that alleviates the janky co-op problem. You can play through the whole game with your friends, everyone gets loot, and there's no invasions.
@@Walamonga1313 There's no way to co-op the whole game with a friend without waiting for another summon sign after beating a boss; it's not possible to split up and tackle different areas of the world; there's no way you can prevent being invaded once you summon someone. The Seamless Co-Op mod changes that, among other things. You might not see the default system as being janky, and that's fair.
As a relationship therapist, I found the Book of Love in "It Takes 2," to be so ridiculous that I had to laugh. I agree, the daughter was annoying and I didn't like having to hurt a toy at one point. It just felt wrong. But, my partner and I really enjoy the co-op mechanics. Great video. Thanks for posting.
I'm definitely more of a single player fan, even for co-op like playing Vice City by passing the controller every time someone dies. The usual Mario Party, Overcooked, Worms, Among Us etc. are great fun with the right group though. Actually Halo couch co-op was amazing (up to 4 people) but maybe that was because of the people
Well, I just bought Shredders Revenge 😄 Double Dragon "Arcade Version" made me love co op and I think Fantasy Life is my favorite co op of the last 20 years
X-Men 2 Clone Wars...such an amazing game. But Lord did they want you to fight with your cousin or best friend. 8 Eyes was really fun though, we didn't have Castlevania. Contra was a practice in synchronized destruction. While every Streets of Rage game was just amazing with a friend.
Another great vid! 🤘🏻 Some recommendations: -Tom Clancy’s Wildlands (🔥x10) -Don’t Starve Together* 💀🏆 -Nobody Saves the World -Destiny 2 -Struggling -Sackboy -Anthem (I’d C rank it) -Mario 3D World -Fury Unleashed -Path of Exile -Terraria -Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 -Unravel Two *Don’t Starve, Cuphead, Shadow of Mordor, and Hollow Knight…got me back into gaming after a decade+ of not playing. Killers! Wildlands I didnt think Id like…I was wrong!!! Struggling is crushingly difficult, but somehow easier with friends (?!) and hilarious in a passing-the-controllers-around environment. Destiny 2 was great, Anthem was okay…but both suffer from complex maps and dialogue/narrative, specifically Anthem. Dying Light is waaay more fun with a goofball teammate that falls off everything, gets lost and attacked by zombie hordes! 🤣 I found its sidequests/fetches its biggest detractor. Agreed, Cuphead and Elden Ring are waaaaaaaaaay harder co-op (esp E.R.) but I found them to be rewarding despite the extra struggles. Though I will say, Invaders in Elden Ring should be restricted to arenas. It has a tendency to ruin the game after a while, and some of the tougher areas I beat single player just to avoid them.
Me and my nephew beat cuphead together all the way through and we found it much easier thna single player, beuase it has the REVIVE mechanic. U jusp on youyr dead fiend ghost and bring them back to live. MMany battles we revived each other multiple times in the same battle. Something imposisble in singlke player.
Luigi's Mansion 3 on Switch was the #1 best ever co-op game I have ever played. Me and nephew played through the entire game together over the course of many sessions. Highly recomended if u can get a second person to play through the whole game together. too big for one sitting so schedule game sessions. The coop was so integral to the game, i can't imagine playing it single player, it owuld be annoying having to position gooigi and swap chbaracters all the time. Plus having 2 brains to try and solve the many cryptic puzzles. Only a few times did we check internet when stuck.
Mutplayer with friends or family is fun. But this degenrate mainstream multiplayer with random peopls sucks. It is all ful of cheaters and hackers and ruins everything. Maybe not quite as bad on new modern systems before they ar ehacked. BUYt for sure, anyone that plays mutiplayer games competitive is a full on sucker. SO many cheaters ruins it.
Are there any zombie games where you get to be one of the zombies? If not, there should be. Just call it BRAINS!!! They could even do a sequel called MORE BRAINS!! Copyright Todd, someone get on it. Hi applehead.
Check out zstro duel on switch for 4 player vs battle. It is like asteroids trhe way it controls, but u rush in arena and grab a powerup and try to kill all your homies. That is the entire tame, vry small game but super fuin 4 plauer couch coop. 3 is pretty good too but 2 player no good. A cool gimmick about it, u get just 3 shots available, and they slowlyh respawn one at a time. So u can shoot 3 real fast hoping to spray your victim, but then ou are out of ammo for a few seconds and then only one at a time responds each few seconds. And u have a dash move too
Enjoyed the vid Pam! Nicely done as always. For future reference it would have been sweet if you mentioned if the games were cross platform or not. I can relate to Battletoads! Always thought if I could just pass that level it’s gonna be great. Well I didn’t know getting stuck was a blessing cause the next level even harder. F@ck that game!
I personally would switch the positions of A Way Out and It Takes Two. A Way Out was great, except of the last part and its ending, which was the opposite of co-op. It Takes Two was even better, it is much longer than expected, but definitely not too long, because nothing was repetitive.
Some coop games I highly recommend are all made by arrowhead games. They are masters at coop. Magicka, be a bunch of wizards and work together and accidentally blow each other up Gauntlet (arrowheads 2014 version), in this version each character is different and the wizard plays like a lite version of the wizards in magicka. I'm not a fan of most Gauntlet games because every character is the same and just shoots a ranged attack. This one you actually feel like a dungeon delving party and complement each others character. Helldivers, isometric coop shooter, the levels are randomly generated and you can accidentaly blow each other up but can endlessly call each other back in as reinforcements and is on of my favorite isometric shooters.
You put Battletoads in this list, which is awesome that there are gamers out there, who still remembers Battletoads. And Battletoads is the only game, i was never able to finish. The Speed Bike level, always killed me. And even on Rare Replay, i couldn´t finish the game, it was the rat race level i couldn´t pass.
I had a good experience playing "Dragons Crown" as a couch co op years ago. It is a side scrolling beatem up, but also so much more. It's also an RPG where everyone levels up their character. It has some really nice voice acting for narrating at story points. It's not a 'loot grabber' though. You open big chests in the stages, and the weapon and armor upgrades are awarded when you go back to town. Sorting through loot isn't a problem either because the game does a good job of auto-sorting and when you choose an equipment location on your character the game only shows you the relevent gear for you character with some level based sorting and up-arrow and down-arrows showing you stat differences at a glance.
Dragon's Crown is one of the best games of the 2010s. Honestly, with that game, and 13 Sentinels, I genuinely think they might be one of, if not THE, best developers in the world, right now.
I think I would swear too much. I dread to think what I would say if I got my bum kicked and it wasn’t my fault. Obviously it never is. I’m perfect. Haha. We are the gang of anti socials. Loud and proud baby.
I can't believe the ascent, a beautiful RPG with metrovania esq exploration and great story scored an E, while call of duty is a B. Sounds like a very impatient co op group tbh. I played with with a group of 3 and we all thought the dialogue/ story were amazing and the progression/build system to be quite deep. Definitely not friendly to casual gamers though !
Took me a long time to beat Battletoads in one player mode. I trained someone up to beat the game in two player and you know what happened? The mission where the toads have to hold onto the super speedie unicycles that drive on walls and ceilings was unfinishable because the player 2 controller didn't work at all. I guess the playtesters never even bothered to complete the game with two players together at the same time.
Also, while my friends and I LOVE ROR2, I think your criticism of the game is correct. The fact that you can't rejoin games after you get dc'd is a big problem.
You forgot the most unique fun one of all, despite it being kind of a hidden gem: Hunt Showdown, on PC and console, but no crossplay. If you haven't, you should really check it out, but expect to be curb stomped for the first few hundred hours, the learning curve is Steep :P
@@Cannotbetamed1 Yes, if you are not a very experienced FPS player, it will take you at least 100-200 hours of gameplay to properly get into Hunt Showdown, because it's so punishing, big maps, lots of different AI enemies, sound queues, angles and a pretty difficult gunplay. But it's the most unique and special FPS out today, so well worth the grind IMO :)
SUPER MARIO PARTY is very good. Yeah Dyling Light is better solo. You should try Path of Exile! Easy the best hack&slash out there. Not everyone likes to fight National Socialists - watch THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD.
Thanks for another great ranking video Pam! I'm not very big on mp games, but you've provided a couple that I could enjoy with my daughter on couch co-op
As always, your awesome channel introduced a ton of games that I’d not heard of until now and will soon undoubtedly enjoy! Also, my wife (who also loves your channel) and I are currently looking for good co-op games as we don’t know too terribly many other than the classics, so your video arrived at a perfect time-thank you! :) Ones from your video that I can picture us playing: Children of Morta Deep Rock Galactic Jamestown Kingdom Two Crowns Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (this looks so cute!) Hope all is well, and catch ya next time!
Unless they fixed Battletoads for Rare Replay, it's not even possible to finish in co-op; once you get to the penultimate stage, the second character just can't move, so you keep getting crushed. For my personal S-tier co-op experiences, I'd say Altered Beast (Arcade), Trog (Arcade), Gunstar Heroes (Genesis), Streets of Rage 3 (Genesis), and Secret of Mana (SNES), with Secret of Mana being the most fun I've ever had playing with someone else in anything. I'd definitely like to play Haven someday, since I enjoyed it a great deal. My lady and I do also love the Borderlands series, but I'm not sure if I'd want to play it co-op, even with her, entertaining as it'd be to see the adventures of DPS Wifey and Sniper Wifle.
If yoo get a Playstation, try that version of _Friday the 13th._ Do NOT play it on PC (its hacked so badly that its basically unplayable). I like it on Switch, but it has a lot more bugs than Playstation. I haven't heard much about it on Xbox.
My favourite has got to be the realisation you can control the duck with P2 controller Nes in duck hunt. 8 year old me loved wiggling the d pad unbelievably fast when my dad was playing with the light-gun. He still has no idea. Heheh E.
SHREDDER’S REVENGE has teamwork as the main theme. This is as fun as any game I’ve ever played. It allows for differentiated play styles. Throw your partner across the screen to strike an enemy, use your special to shield a buddy who’s reviving a downed teammate. Only one pizza available? High-five until your buddy gets to 100% then eat the pizza to fully regenerate your own health bar. It’s just too bad that the different builds aren’t there for the ones who didn’t experience them when they were playable in the beginning.
21:59 "You get into terrible bike accidents" :D I'm not familiar with Generation Zero at all, but this little detail made me laugh out loud for some reason.
Pam, I wonder if you'd like Nemesis : Lockdown in coop. It's an adaptation of the tabletop game. It's just like the movie Aliens. There's intrigue, but the main loop generally happens in coop.
I agree so much with generation zero. I keep hearing people talk about how cool it is and I tried it and it was so janky. managing the inventory and reloading your gun is painstakingly difficult (and not in the like "I need to reload each bullet into the magazine before reloading it" type, but more you need to tie each stack of ammo to a gun and it doesn't explain how to do that at all and you just have to fuck with it until you get it to work). and using the interact button is so finnicky that you can be right on top of something mashing the interact button at every different angle to try and use the thing and it just doesn't work until it does, for no reason whatsoever.
You took a bit of reach to get Mario Party in there. 😋 Only a few of the mini-games are co-op. Second, I'm glad "World War Z" was ranked high, I was considering picking that one up recently. Last, you missed two heavy hitters for co-op...Mario and Sonic! Sonic Origins & Sonic Mania, and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Super Mario 3-D World.
Have you heard of Ship of Fools? It's a 2-player co-op roguelite game which boasts an adorable visual style that belies its devilishly challenging gameplay. It's a lot of fun!
Hi Pam, great video! And it's just on time as far as I'm concerned : I'm mostly a single player gamer too, but I have 2 PCs and a Steam Deck, so I'm getting all kinds of co-op games to play with my friends on the 3 machines. Great suggestions, very useful!
I remember my frustration with that rope boss in Battletoads and also how much fun I had with the racing levels beat the game on OG hardware with no cheats/saves etc 🥇
love a good co-op game, feels like it often gets left out of the conversation compared to competitive pvp and single player games. got a gajillion hours on Vermintide 2 and L4D2, and just started playing DRG, excited to see how they fare on this list
DRG and VT2 are two of my favorite coop games. The Vermintide devs just released Darktide in November and its a 40k version of the vermintide games with more shooting, but unfortunately its light on content compared to VT2 right now. I think the actual combat is much better so it has potential for the future.
I think my favorite multiplayer games are Halo games with buds... they are just so over-the-top while taking itself so seriously... lots of laughs. The Monster Hunter series is one that is great when you have people just wanting to hang out together and chill. Elden Ring/ Dark Souls are probably my top online multi though, even though they just need to make a multiplayer experience actually intentional.
@@Cannotbetamed1 omg yes... the elden ring "true multiplayer" mod is simply fantastic... FS could easily have made the game work this way, but there's a bit of jank, so maybe it would have taken a while to get it working perfectly
Neat video, thank you for your work. (a quick addition if I may ... Keep Talking and Nobody explodes is as asymmetrical coop as you can get. It's aviable on loads of stuff, including Phones, making it a pretty neat impromptu party game while commuting with friends. Also, since you mentioned tochlight 2, I think Grim Dawn deserve a bit of recognition among multiplayer HackNSlashs) Cheers !
@@Cannotbetamed1 it really is blast. And it's impressive how seamless the learning curve is. Before you know it, you and your pals create strategies to overcome each puzzles ... It's really fun.
Great video, Pam! I never get tired of zombies either, although I don't really play many zombie videogames. Just got the Warm Bodies steelbook that came out in February. My partner and I's all time favorite co-op game is CUPHEAD! We have never had more fun playing a game together than figuring out each and every boss fight on both normal, and Expert mode. Working on the S-ranks now. Unbelievable game! Thanks for existing.
@@UlyssesWachowski-vw5vi Art style is cool but it gets old doing the same boss over and over again. It’s like an arcade game that wants to destroy your cash.
Great list! I still play L4D2 often with friends, I don't think that game will ever get uninstalled off my hard drive. I recommend trying GMurder and Prop Hunt in Gary's Mod. Also, Magika and Magika 2 have a pretty good co-op mode.
It takes two was my game of the year. My buddy and I had such a blast playing through that. It was too bad that it peaked so early in the tree level battling the squirrels. Wasn't a huge fan of the story but some of the references like the street fighter scene really landed fir me. I need to get around to playing a way out.
Love Deep Rock and killing floor 2. One of the better Co-op games I played in a long time was Ghost Recon: Wildlands. 4 player, open world, forgiving and fun as hell with friends.
@@Cannotbetamed1 That’s it young lady. You are going to bed with no dinner all week. The shocking language that has just come out of your mouth would make a sailor blush.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Portal 2 touch my heart, such a comfy game, everyone should try it. Did you ever played Fallout New Vegas or consider playing it? Thanks.
One note Many classic co-op games are available legally. There is the Contra Collection, every Metal Slug is in the E-Shoo, Bubble Bobble just dropped. Shredder's Revenge is fantastic and more players adds to the fun.vits really hard alone. The modern games bleed together for me visually. At least the "AAA" games do. Agree on n Scott Pilgrim. I played it alone and it was an ordeal. If it's as bad in co-op, I mean shit. I use to joke about Hello Fresh. "Hello Fresh, good bye flavor." Good promo spot. I appreciate you not beating us over the head the second the video starts.
