Bubble Bobble is one of my favourite retro multiplayer games since it has both players playing simultaneously (not each take a turn/hand off the controller) but might still be a bit difficult for a 5 year old 🤔
Edit: Tetris & Dr. Mario for the SNES might also work
Hard to beat Super Mario Brothers. I tried other classics, bunch of arcade games, but my son never liked them. Ms. Pac-Man might work. The big hit with us was Wii sports.
Sonic 2. Make him be tails. As is tradition.
TMNT Turtles in Time on SNES. Its a fun game and kids can button mash, and turtles are still relevant today. Puzzle games like tetris can be good for using the brain. There were a ton of puzzle games in the snes era, like bust a move (puzzle bobble), yoshi's cookie, puyo puyo (kirby's avalanche), and many more.
I would mostly avoid NES because it looks really dated, aside from a handful of the real classics like Super Mario Bros 1 & 3.
You both can play Goof Troop. It's a Co-op game with Goofy and Max as protagonists, it's very funny.
Balloon Fight (NES)
Kirby Superstar (SNES) is great for this, I play it with my 5-year-old. The second player plays as the "helper" character, and when they die, Kirby can create them again. It effectively plays like a "buddy mode." That game is also one of my all-time favorites just for what it is, so I'm a bit biased.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Little one can be Tails and play coop.
I would say that most retro games can be enjoyed by a 5-year-old (having once upon a time been a 5-year-old playing some of them myself), but the first one that comes to mind is Donkey Kong Country.
Super Mario World, Battletoads
"Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkotron" (Genesis) has a very well designed "little kid mode" in the options, and it's still really fun.
Edit: Example regarding violence - you get to throw jars at humans to trap them for transport back to earth. And you need to watch out for bowling balls falling out of trees.
Battle City
Sonic 2.
Controlling Tails can be good fun if you’re very young and don’t fully know what you’re doing!
Can be hard keeping both characters on screen at times though.
SNES:
Harvest Moon - this can lead into allowing the kid to plant something IRL and having them water it regularly, allowing them to "be a real farmer". Incidentally this is also a great way to get a child to eat vegetables, as a child who refuses to even consider eating a vegetable will change their mind when they grew it themselves
Super Mario Kart
Mega Drive:
Goof Troop, for SNES.
A bunch of arcade games become much more friendly to kids with infinite continues, shmups, fighters, brawlers, etc but for those you'll need to filter on violence. I'd probably also avoid anything RPG or story heavy.
My picks would be Bubble bobble, Kirby on SNES, ice hockey on NES, Mario 1-3, super Mario kart, Tetris, monkey ball, Dr Mario. For Sega Sonic 1-3 & knuckles, ecco, robotnik's mean bean machine, Alex kidd, outrun
The NES sesame Street games are pretty good.
My youngest loved sesame Street countdown. it was really forgiving and taught her basic platformer mechanics.
Joust. Easily understood game for little ones, and you can discourage player killing.
Lots of other great suggestions. But I do think the consensus is multiplayer games with coop.
Konami beat ‘em ups like TMNT, The Simpson, Xmen would be great.
I’m also going to throw in Party games or kart racers, CTR and Mario Kart of Mario Party or Crash Bash would also be great
That said Pokémon might be a nice option too though not sure how you’d play that together.
Or edutainment like Gizmos and Gadgets or Jumpstart
Troddlers - SNES
The music in Troddlers slaps.
Its a puzzle platformer game similar to Lemmings. Little dudes walk in a straight line and you play as a wizard that can place blocks. You have to get the little dudes to the exit.
The only violence is when the little guys or the other player gets smooshed by a block I think, its been a long time since I played the game.
Sonic 2! Let the 5yo be tails! He'll never die. He can collect rings and kill enemies. It's the best 2 player platformer ever created
Turtles in time
Magical Quest 2 & 3 are very good for that. They already know the characters, and the games are beautiful and pretty good gameplay-wise.
You play together and if the child loses all his/her lives, he/she can steal yours. For difficult sections or bosses, you can do it alone.
There are new costumes regularly so the child wants to continue to discover the next costume, and its associated powers.
Magical Quest 2 is easier than 3, so I think it’s better to start with this one. You can either play as Mickey or Minnie.
In Magical Quest 3, you can either play as Mickey or Donald. Donald is meant to be played by the child because his gameplay is a bit different (with his soldier costume which is wooden barrel, preventing him to sink while Mickey has a silver armor which kills him if he goes into water with it). It’s not that difficult to play as Mickey (my nephew did not want to play as Donald and we had no major issues).
Super Mario by far IMO, basically all of the games.
5yo is probably still too young to understand Zelda.
World of Illusion (Genesis)
from a sega childhood my top:
On the SNES, all of the games below have coop:
City Connection, Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle. While neither are co-op my mom and took turns playing crazy castle on the nes when I was a kid and we beat it. Core memory right there.
I think Tetris or Doctor Mario had 2 player modes but I'm not sure.
Does Sonic Spinball on the Genesis have multiplayer?
Oh, and sorry for so many responses, but I figure that posting these separately will let the votes give you some idea where to start.
The votes I've seen so far very much reflect the order I would try these games out with a five year old gamer.
My kid used to love one of the Kirby games for the Wii, where the three of us could play at the same time. I can't remember the name of it, but I'm pretty sure it was previously released for the SNES. It was the one with Armor Knight, if I'm remembering the character name correctly.
Lode Runner (NES) might be okay. Not multiplayer, but it's got nice low-stakes puzzling gameplay.
Edutainment games are a bit few and far between on consoles - Donkey Kong Jr. Math springs to mind, but it's remarkably dry for a Nintendo game.
A GREAT game to play with kids is called "Stacking". Looks like there's a Linux version so you might be able to get it running on the Pi:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_(video_game)
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, OS X, Linux
The gag is this...
You play the smallest of a set of Russian nesting dolls and you want to re-unite with your family.
In order to do that you have to solve a bunch of puzzles in a world filled with other Russian nesting dolls.
You can jump into any doll one size larger than you, and you can jump out to be one size smaller.
Each doll has a specific skill or ability, so by swapping bodies, you use the various skills to solve the puzzles.
The challenge is, you might find one that has the right skill, but you're too small to jump into them, so you have to find the right chain of dolls to size up and size down to do what you need to do.
Trailer:
It doesn't count as non-violent, but every kid I have played it with has thoroughly enjoyed the TMNT arcade game (as well as the Simpsons game that plays similarly. If you play with them you can essentially carry them through the game and they are just along for the ride, but feel like they are part of the team.
Mortal Kombat is pretty tame I hear.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Fun-N-Games (Genesis/Megadrive) is mostly single player, but has many mini games accessibile to young gamers.
Goofy Troop
A c64 emulator? Then basically anything, LOCO maybe?
Mega Bomberman (Megadrive) and Super Mega Bomberman (SNES) both have multiplayer mode where players can team up against bots, and the bots have adjustable difficulty (different bot skins have different AI).
Edit: Re violence - you blow each other and bot players up with bombs. Players that die disovle the way Pac-Man does.
Are you committed to using the R.Pi1? You could emulate on your computer or phone (connected to the TV) to have way more options.
How adept is your little one with games? My 4 year old loves any and all Mario games. He plays sitting on my lap. I celebrate his successes and he passes me the controller when he gets to a section too difficult for him. This is mostly with Mario 3D land (3DS) these days.
It's single player, but too good to miss: "Richard Scary's Busy Town" (Genesis) is a fantastic open ended set of mini-games that are fun and accessibible to almost all skill levels of gamer.
Alley Cat Remeow Edition is a fan remake of Alley Cat, an arcade game, with up to 4 players, but it's PC (should still run on that hardware, i hope!)
Ms. Pac-Man (Genesis) is fully co-op throughout, and has adjustable difficulty by choosing smaller maps.
You know what? Gyromite and Stack-Up, the games made to be played with R.O.B. You play the robot. I don't know many co-op multiplayer games on the NES. Maybe Chip & Dale, or Mario Bros. (not Super, the arcade game - though in 2025, I suggest Kaetekitta(sp?) Mario Bros., the rerelease). Bomberman might have cartoon violence, but I don't think it's going to scar a kid.
On SNES, there's Secret of Mana if you want to try for depth. I forget if any of the sports games let you go co-op. Pocky & Rocky (and other cute 'em ups) might be fun too.
Actually, general suggestion, cute 'em ups. Cotton, Twinbee, Fantasy Zone, Air Zonk, and many of the Parodius incarnations (obviously Sexy Parodius notwithstanding).
Wai Wai World 2 on Famicom emulator. Don't need to know any Japanese to play and it has great cartoony sprites.
Bubble Bobble (NES) is great two player, though you're competing
Buster Bros (PsOne, and probably others) probably one of my top 5 co-op games of all time
Micro Mages (retro despite being released in 2019 because it plays on original NES hardware) probably top co-op of all time for me
There's quite a bit more but have various degrees of violence so won't recommend those (Contra, Heavy Barrel, Silk Worm, Jackal, Life Force, etc)
Dashin' Desperados (Genesis/Mega Drive) is a racing platformer, where the adult can control the difficultly by slowing down or backtracking.
Edit: Cartoon violence - you can freeze each-other, light each-others shoes on fire, and stuff like that. And everyone recovers in cartoon timing, of course.
Super Dodge Ball!
Super Baseball Simulator (SNES) is competitive, but can be really chill if the adult player throws easy pitches, and the super powers are hilarious.
Snake Rattle and roll! For the NES.
Kirby Super Star
Multiplayer is hard to find for the megadrive but some cutesy games,
My Famiclone childhood:
Mario Bros (the first one, with POW block in the middle.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.
Battle City, known more by its pirated version name: Tank 1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_City
Gta 1.
Nobody's gonna say hide and seek huh? 🤷
Pong
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