"From Aztec to Toshinden: in praise of forgotten video games"

[oni-link]

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When I was ten years old, most of the computer games I played on my Commodore 64 were not very good. They weren’t the classics we all remember; they mostly weren’t Impossible Mission or Way of the Exploding Fist (though I did play those too, I wasn’t a barbarian).

Every week my mum would take me to Wythenshawe library in South Manchester where you could rent games for 10p each. The best ones were constantly unavailable, so I’d grab what I could – weird titles no one else wanted.

Later, in the 1990s, the success of consoles like the Snes, Mega Drive and PlayStation and the relative low cost of developing and distributing software, led to a huge proliferation of offbeat, idiosyncratic games that may have been useless compared to the accepted classics of the era, but were often all we had when Auntie Jane misunderstood our birthday or Christmas lists.

For me, that meant evolutionary titles like Mega Lo Mania, which helped invent the real-time strategy genre, or Runabout, a Japanese vehicle destruction game which contributed toward the arrival of the open-world driving genre.

And did you ever play Interstate 76, the driving adventure set in an alternative 1970s? Or Ephemeral Fantasia, the Konami role-playing game which incorporated the company’s guitar controller, allowing the player to serenade drunken sailors?

The history of video games, like all art forms, is littered with failed experiments and eccentric offshoots. It is peppered with things like multi-puzzle musical tie-in Frankie Goes to Hollywood and paranoid full-motion video (FMV) thriller Spycraft: the Great Game, one of the first titles to have its own dedicated website.

The accepted history of games is a rather tyrannical thing – it wants us to believe that there was a narrative to game development; an accepted route from Pong to Portal.

When I look back, if I’m honest, it often wasn’t the big games that I got stuck into, it was the also-rans. It wasn’t Street Fighter or Tekken, it was Ehrgeiz, Tobal No 1 and Toshinden. It wasn’t Gran Turismo, it was GTI Club: Rally Côte d’Azur and Sega Touring Car Championship. At the time, this wasn’t because I was some sort of video game hipster, it was because I was reviewing games as an inexperienced freelancer and these were the ones I was offered. But through it I ended up havingsome very odd, memorable experiences.

The tyranny of video game history has a habit of devaluing the offbeat, nuanced and arcane. Games aimed at girls come off really badly in this re-evaluation process, because often, the people who get to decide what has merit and which genres were “important” often weren’t playing Barbie Fashion Designer or Rockett’s New School or Crystal’s Pony Tale. But those games meant something to people; people spent hours playing and enjoying them.

Of course I put in reservation requests at the library for the big hits – for Paradroid, Last Ninja and Summer Games II, and those were the games I asked for at Christmas. But the reality of gaming for me was the cast-offs on the shelves, and the budget games they sold at video stores and in newsagents. The Mastertronic, Firebird and Codemasters games. £1.99 for Super Robin Hood or Chiller or Clumsy Colin Action Biker. A lifetime of memories for a week’s pocket money.

The best games, in the end, are the ones you loved for their flaws, their charms and for the fact that you actually owned them and played them to death. History cannot take that from you

Really enjoyable article so thought I'd share

It's also an excuse to post all those strange and forgotten games you played as a child

I remember putting dozens of hours in the NES puzzler Kickle Cubicle

 

[gingerbeardman]

Enjoyable article but it only scratched the surface, didn't really go anywhere.

 

[Phediuk]

I didn't forget about either of those games.

 

[retroman]

The 8-bit home computer era was a treasure trove for budget games with all sorts of wacky premises.

My favourite will always be Bozo's Night Out for the Commodore 64.

The entire point of the game was to get as drunk as possible and safely return home from the pub.
The more drunk you got, the harder it became to control Bozo.
Eventually you'd be seeing pink elephants!
Also, if you managed to complete the game, a 'rotten liver' award would be yours...

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Wasn't there a Toshiden released for Wii only in Japan?

 

[Zero83]

Wasn't there a Toshiden released for Wii only in Japan?

I never played either but I remember reading that those two games were totally unrelated to each other.

Edit: maybe not totally unrelated it seems.

 

[SillyEskimo]

I mastered Alley Cat as a child.

 

[Raitaro]

I mastered Alley Cat as a child.

I have fond memories of this one as well. May have been one of the first PC games I've played. Really ahead of its time with regards to the gameplay variety I feel.

 

[Hyun Sai]

How can anyone forget Toshinden lol. It was the 3D game everybody got waiting for Tekken ^^

And the most eroic epic battle theme ever ah ah ah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bwx01foVgI

 

[Hasney]

How can anyone forget Toshinden lol. It was the 3D game everybody got waiting for Tekken ^^

And the most eroic epic battle theme ever ah ah ah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bwx01foVgI

It's also the game that took a shit on first impressions for the Saturn. Just have that and VF1 side by side and you're going to think the PS1 was close to another generation ahead.

 

[Hyun Sai]

It's also the game that took a shit on first impressions for the Saturn. Just have that and VF1 side by side and you're going to think the PS1 was close to another generation ahead.

Yeah, I think it was a mistake releasing the first VF. They should have waited and launched with VF Remix.

 

[Laieon]

The only game that I feel fits this description for me would be Jewel Chase. It was repetitive, but being one of the games that was packaged with our first computer, I loved it. Would love a sequel.

 

[AmethystEnd]

Duuuuuude, Battle Arena Toshinden was my shit.

Mondo's theme was awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSMOuuOnZ8I

Edit:

I just realized I linked the wrong version. Same melody, but the one I loved most was from Toshinden 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZSmqFCrRIo

 

[Kayhan]

Toshinden definitely wasn't some obscure game. Pretty sure it is still remembered by tons of people.

 

[jond76]

I loved Interstate 76 and Spycraft. Guess I have weird tastes. There was another game similar to Spycraft where you were tracking a serial killer, they would actually send you emails and call you. Can't remember what it was called though...

Edit: got it! Evidence: The Last Ritual. It was so cool, the packaging was an evidence bag.

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/evidence-the-last-ritual-review/1900-6161677/

 

[AmethystEnd]

Toshinden definitely wasn't some obscure game. Pretty sure it is still remembered by tons of people.

Well clearly a lot of people remember it, but relatively speaking, literally no one in my circle of friends knows it but me.

I loved Interstate 76 and Spycraft. Guess I have weird tastes. There was another game similar to Spycraft where you were tracking a serial killer, they would actually send you emails and call you. Can't remember what it was called though...

Edit: got it! Evidence: The Last Ritual. It was so cool, the packaging was an evidence bag.

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/evi.../1900-6161677/

That sounds amazing.

 

[Syril]

Well clearly a lot of people remember it, but relatively speaking, literally no one in my circle of friends knows it but me.

Back when it first came out it was actually really heavily promoted because it was a launch game in North America and because OMG 3D!!! Hilariously despite never being exactly good it was pioneering as (to my knowledge) the first 3D fighting game to have a manual sidestep maneuver as well as an early attempt to combine 3D with the motion-based special and super moves of 2D fighters.

 

[goodcow]

Toshinden definitely wasn't some obscure game. Pretty sure it is still remembered by tons of people.

Toshinden was garbage, though.

 

[petran79]

I too feel fortunate having experienced computer games that did not fit with the established video game narrative and popularity, post-NES years.

Yet I liked playing or watching those games as much as Mario and Zelda, if not more.