afaik you can still run the free version from the website with TEXT mode and ncurses completely in the terminal without a DE (but you have to spoof X).

If not the newest one, then the last one (v47).

Several emulation programs do actually have a terminal renderer. Impossible to tell what's going on unless you're intimately familiar with the game, but it's neat to see.

It uses DRM/KMS to enable OpenGL (and probably Vulkan too) on the console without needing a display server like Xorg or Wayland. Or if that's too blasphemous for you, there is a libcaca driver.