Master of Orion is the original space 4X game, before the 4 Xs were established. While it appears primitive, showing its age, that is also its strength. This is a game you can complete in just one or two sittings. All the information you need is present on single screen, with very little page switching or scrolling. My only real criticism is that the game appears to be clocked to run as slowly as the original DOS game running on poor hardware --- this is all that stands between me and completing a game within the day. This is the only reason I withhold the 5th star in my rating. Minor nit is that the graphics were designed for an era of much smaller screens, and could really use some upscaling. However, we do have 100% fidelity to the original game, which may be more important. One last note is that predating the 4X genre gives it an interesting take on the tech tree. There are 6 fields of research; each can be researched in parallel; you get a randomly assigned subset of the options each gme, and may have to steal key tech from other players; the most original aspect is that you acrue interest on your science in each field, encouraging you to split you research across the fields to maximize the interest bonus, rather than sprint one tech at a time. Worth a play just to try the different approach to a science tree --- buy prepare to be frustrate if you do not get along.
The Bard's Tale is a true classic, that I played back in the 80s on my trusty Sinclair Spectrum. This remastered version has handy quality-of-life additions such as an automap --- the days of scrawling our own maps in pen on paper may have been fun back in the day, but would be far too tedious now. The graphics and gameplay are not going to tax any systems or players, but would the game hold up without the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia? We has a quick and simple smash-and-grab looter whose simple interface leads to quick gameplay. For folks that focus on the game rather than the polish, a good time will be had.
