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What is an obscure and relatively unknown game that you think everyone needs to play?

Jtibh

Banned
Bloody awsome game this, no one I know played it and everyone I talk to about it has never hear of it.

Do yourself a favour, go and have a go.

bpkLRoG.jpg
Second this.
Absolute must.
 

Vlaphor

Member
Part of me wants to say Steambot Chronicles, since that is one of my favorite PS2 games of all time, but I'm gonna go with a more recent one.

QndFPPq.jpg


AI: The Somnium Files is a visual novel/adventure game from the writer/director of the Zero Escape (999, Virtue's Last Reward, Zero Time Dilemma) series and I am loving the hell out of it. It's basically all of the wonderful things he's known for (a fun juxtaposition of serious with silly, scifi elements with multiple realities, fun/very easy puzzles, and great characters-including one of the best AI companions ever) but polished to his highest degree yet. If you have a love of scifi visual novels, this is a must get. Gonna put some screencaps below, nothing spoilery, but still gonna spoiler tag it.

qPqvJHU.jpg


nDMigjX.jpg


fkJnJnH.jpg


MLbsodi.jpg


qFbqmyb.jpg


0gcRcTl.jpg


69zj5iZ.jpg
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
Part of me wants to say Steambot Chronicles, since that is one of my favorite PS2 games of all time, but I'm gonna go with a more recent one.

QndFPPq.jpg


AI: The Somnium Files is a visual novel/adventure game from the writer/director of the Zero Escape (999, Virtue's Last Reward, Zero Time Dilemma) series and I am loving the hell out of it. It's basically all of the wonderful things he's known for (a fun juxtaposition of serious with silly, scifi elements with multiple realities, fun/very easy puzzles, and great characters-including one of the best AI companions ever) but polished to his highest degree yet. If you have a love of scifi visual novels, this is a must get. Gonna put some screencaps below, nothing spoilery, but still gonna spoiler tag it.

qPqvJHU.jpg


nDMigjX.jpg


fkJnJnH.jpg


MLbsodi.jpg


qFbqmyb.jpg


0gcRcTl.jpg


69zj5iZ.jpg
Actually I want play this game, i know part of personal is Yusuke kozaki one of the artist of No more Héroes and Fire emblem. I want it for Nintendo Switch but im waiting a little more low price.
 
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I would name it if i could remember it. A browser mmo or something that i played on school computers in like 2003, top down like diablo but, from memory, vehicles based...
 
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Terranigma always needs to be mentioned in these threads, I know it usually does but it never seems most people tend to play it.

Also important to mention is Klonoa 2 on PS2, people tend to remember the first but the second game is so much fucking better and the OST is beautiful.

But to actually go obscure: Dragon Valor on PS1 is something I never really see mentioned. The intro alone is one of the best on the system, but it's a pretty great game in general.

 
The entire PSP library IS full of awesome games that are often (and i hate to use the word) underrated or down right misunderstood since at the time handheld gaming was thought of as a quick 20-30 minutes diversion.
Here's a couple of examples
The Rengeku duology
rengoku-tower-purgatory-ntsc-cover-sleeve-psp-rengoku-sleeve-1147712969.jpg

rengoku%2B2.jpg

I'll let this YouTube comment i found today explain:
"Here we have Rengoku The Tower of Purgatory a PSP launch title very undeserving of it's average 2/5 star ratings. It's a dungeon crawler where you're a heavily customize-able android A.D.A.M. by the name of Grahm. You go through each floor fighting other A.D.A.M. units collecting new equipment and EXP's as well as mastering damage output of various categories by using weapons of said categories. What's cool about it is that each enemy is pretty much equal to you, aside from the fact they have no idea how to get around a wall, so each encounter is very hectic as you not only have to often fight multiple opponents with similar loadout and stats to yours but you also have to worry about the usage on your weapons and the heat they generate. That is where customization part comes in. The weapons you pick up can be assigned to different body parts, each part has it's own heat resistance which can be upgraded with EXP you collect from enemies or by dismantling useless equipment. You can also increase the number of slots for each body part up to 5 (some weapons take up multiple) and your HP, Physical and Electric defense. it's allot of fun figuring out the next crazy set up you can do with your current load out and optimizing your ADAM around that, but if you have no clue what to do just put a machine-gun on it and call it a day. Also the music ABSOLUTELY slaps. I do have some gripes with the game, that 2 star rating did came out of somewhere. The dungeons are UTTERLY bare bones, if you told me stages were randomly generated I'd believe it and still call it uninspired. Most floors are made up of tetris blocks and the rooms themselves often have nothing but bare floor in them. The game also has some pretty absurd balancing, which may not be as noticeable here as I cut out all of the grinding, you are pretty much REQUIRED to replay each floor at least once to have a fighting chance against monsters on the next one. which in on itself wouldn't be so bad if the dungeons weren't so utterly drab. And then there is the elephant in the room which is: this game EXPECTS you to play it again once you finish it to actually get the real ending... the second playthrough HAS some changes to it but nothing REALLY worth going through on your own; the bosses have some new dialogue and there are new weapons however most of them can be described as "more better" versions of what you already seen. But I played it so you can just skim through it :) All in all, just play the sequel you won't miss much."
TL;DR Very fun games with a lot of flaws.
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Kenka_Bancho_Badass_Rumble_PSP-Coverart.jpg

kenka-bancho-badass-rumble-4138100f-a764-4313-8706-850a6eaa1d7-resize-750.jpg

Exit_USA_PSP-Coverart.jpg

Exit_2_EUR_PSP-Coverart.jpg
179055-gurumin-a-monstrous-adventure-psp-front-cover.jpg
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adamosmaki

Member
if you are into strategy games sins of a solar empire is a marvelous game. it takes some time to get used to game mechanics but is really rewarding. to bad we never got a sequel outside expansion packs
 
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Silvawuff

Member
Klonoa_door_to_phantomile.jpg

This and the sequel, Lunatea's Veil. I think it had a really good identity as the platformer it was, had an interesting mechanic with grabbing enemies and using them to fight/solve puzzles, interesting level design and great music. There were several titles on the GBA and I think it enjoyed a brief release on Wii. Namco remake or at least port pls.

Also Tail Concerto. It aged badly and had a very-hard-to-find recent spiritual sequel called Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, but damn if it wasn't charming. Both are part of a series called Little Tail Bronx, which has an offshoot mobile game out in Japan.
 
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(Also available on current consoles)
I stumbled onto Splasher and loved it. It's a precision platformer with a generous difficulty curve and some great level design. Aside from running and jumping you will acquire the means to spray water, sticky-ink and bounce-ink onto surfaces - allowing you to create paths up walls and ceilings or ricochet off surfaces.
I don't consider myself a super-skilled gamer so am wary of precision platformers but was able to perfect all campaign levels and enjoyed every moment.

DRoD is and old game, with an old look. But it has timeless ingenuity in its design and layout and is probably the fairest game I've ever played.
The game is incredible and shows taking a few entities, extremely clear rules and logic and combining them so skilfully and deftly that you'll face challenges that delight as much as they confound.
As for that fairness - everything moves in a grid-like fashion and follows clear logic. When you move, so does everything else - in accordance with its logic. So this removes any concerns about reaction/twitch gaming and even affords the play a nice 'undo-last-move' function - even reversing fatal mistakes.

And, seeing as some people are really going a long way back:

Intensity - C64
iu

Explanatory gameplay video (Check out that first comment)

Intensity is a shooter without bullets. Developed by Andrew Braybrook, best known for seminal C64 shooter Uridium, this is an overlooked classic that released to little fanfare back in the day.

Each stage is a single screen. You control two ships. You have direct control over a (mostly) indestructible 'Skimmer'. You also have indirect control over the 'Drone'.
You whizz around the screen as a skimmer, colliding with spawning aliens, bonuses and pickups. When you press FIRE the Drone flies to your XY co-ordinate.
The objective of the game is that each screen is a space station and little hatches open to release evacuees. Evacuees are vulnerable and need to be picked up by the Drone.

Challenge comes from threat priority management and realising that your Skimmer can be destroyed by your Drone whilst it's moving. Later levels feature more bulky objects on the surface that the Drone would collide with unless you map a path for it to follow around them.

I've always liked this game as it's a great example of inventive design for pretty limited performance. Single screen. Single button. No weapons.
 
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My favorite game of all time - Skies of Arcadia Legends, the enhanced port of Skies of Arcadia (originally released for the Dreamcast). I've yet to see another JRPG with such a heavy focus on air pirates, airship battles, discovering landmarks and recruiting crew members. Sadly, it's one of those games that will be forgotten more and more with each new console generation unless SEGA do the right thing and re-release it one more time.

21840-skies-of-arcadia-legends-gamecube-front-cover.jpg
 
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Oh oh oh i got one!

Gladius, from GameCube! Quick time event timing style battle mechanics are surprisingly engrossing! Very legit gladiator school management, character development, slowly unlocked new zones and fighter types, gear, interactive world map travel~ cool fantasy oriented fusion of ancient Rome-era Europe... Heaps of voice acting...Starting characters have different starting zones! it's just all great

images
 
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The entire PSP library IS full of awesome games that are often (and i hate to use the word) underrated or down right misunderstood since at the time handheld gaming was thought of as a quick 20-30 minutes diversion.
Here's a couple of examples
The Rengeku duology
rengoku-tower-purgatory-ntsc-cover-sleeve-psp-rengoku-sleeve-1147712969.jpg

rengoku%2B2.jpg

I'll let this YouTube comment i found today explain:
"Here we have Rengoku The Tower of Purgatory a PSP launch title very undeserving of it's average 2/5 star ratings. It's a dungeon crawler where you're a heavily customize-able android A.D.A.M. by the name of Grahm. You go through each floor fighting other A.D.A.M. units collecting new equipment and EXP's as well as mastering damage output of various categories by using weapons of said categories. What's cool about it is that each enemy is pretty much equal to you, aside from the fact they have no idea how to get around a wall, so each encounter is very hectic as you not only have to often fight multiple opponents with similar loadout and stats to yours but you also have to worry about the usage on your weapons and the heat they generate. That is where customization part comes in. The weapons you pick up can be assigned to different body parts, each part has it's own heat resistance which can be upgraded with EXP you collect from enemies or by dismantling useless equipment. You can also increase the number of slots for each body part up to 5 (some weapons take up multiple) and your HP, Physical and Electric defense. it's allot of fun figuring out the next crazy set up you can do with your current load out and optimizing your ADAM around that, but if you have no clue what to do just put a machine-gun on it and call it a day. Also the music ABSOLUTELY slaps. I do have some gripes with the game, that 2 star rating did came out of somewhere. The dungeons are UTTERLY bare bones, if you told me stages were randomly generated I'd believe it and still call it uninspired. Most floors are made up of tetris blocks and the rooms themselves often have nothing but bare floor in them. The game also has some pretty absurd balancing, which may not be as noticeable here as I cut out all of the grinding, you are pretty much REQUIRED to replay each floor at least once to have a fighting chance against monsters on the next one. which in on itself wouldn't be so bad if the dungeons weren't so utterly drab. And then there is the elephant in the room which is: this game EXPECTS you to play it again once you finish it to actually get the real ending... the second playthrough HAS some changes to it but nothing REALLY worth going through on your own; the bosses have some new dialogue and there are new weapons however most of them can be described as "more better" versions of what you already seen. But I played it so you can just skim through it :) All in all, just play the sequel you won't miss much."
TL;DR Very fun games with a lot of flaws.
180010-half-minute-hero-psp-front-cover.jpg

180011-half-minute-hero-psp-back-cover.jpg

pat.jpg

Kenka_Bancho_Badass_Rumble_PSP-Coverart.jpg

kenka-bancho-badass-rumble-4138100f-a764-4313-8706-850a6eaa1d7-resize-750.jpg

Exit_USA_PSP-Coverart.jpg

Exit_2_EUR_PSP-Coverart.jpg
179055-gurumin-a-monstrous-adventure-psp-front-cover.jpg
179056-gurumin-a-monstrous-adventure-psp-back-cover.jpg
90983-coded-arms-psp-front-cover.jpg
twisted%2Bmetal%2Bho.jpg
Ace_Combat_X_Skies_Of_Deception_Cus.jpg
8174bu6i%2B%2BL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
513kjUNUxpL._AC_SL1500_.jpg
Are any of those non-niche legit good games? I've got a Vita and I'm willing to give psp titles a chance of any of those are on the store library
 
Alternate Reality. Both The City and The Dungeon. Way ahead of it's time when it was released.
Oh you the guy today!

I used to have both on the C64.

I loved The Dungeon! I was a little tater tot so RPGs were still new to me so I'd just run around and explore and get my sorry ass killed.

I loved finding all those secret rooms and places. Like you find Charon iirc on the 4th sub-floor.

Man that dungeon was huge too. I think it predates Ultima Underworld but it was very similar.

It's a shame the series got canned.

The twist ending was too obvious even from the start ans even as a kid I knew it. But shit, this game predates The Matrix but yeah same "hey bro all of this was a simulation created by aliens."

Anyways it's awesome to see somebody bring this up. I have very fond memories of this game.

Oh one other thing but regarding The City....

I loved how you could see weird stuff in the distance and you're like "I wonder what the hell that is. I keep going that direction to get there."

Thank you for bringing this up, my guy. I stand with you on recommending this.
 
Kings field ps1-ps2 or strider on nes
I love the arcade Strider but the NES Stridervania was a load of great fun too.

Capcom was weird that way because they had a lot of arcade based games that were different than the arcade version but were either just as good if nit better.

Case in point would be Bionic Commando. I thought the NES game was better than the arcade game.

Some other devs pulled that too. Like the NES Rygar was actually a lot better than arcade Rygar.

But Capcom was beyond amazing. If I saw a Capcom NES game, I knew it was good. The same way I felt seeing Activision games on the Atari 2600.
 
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One of those games that someone I knew just randomly had when I was younger and I've gone back to it ever since. Really surprising that it doesn't get more love because it's honestly up there with SSX in terms of an extreme sports/racing game. Maybe not quite as good but it's not far behind either. The courses and sense of speed in this game are just impeccable.

Part of me wants to say Steambot Chronicles, since that is one of my favorite PS2 games of all time, but I'm gonna go with a more recent one.

QndFPPq.jpg


AI: The Somnium Files is a visual novel/adventure game from the writer/director of the Zero Escape (999, Virtue's Last Reward, Zero Time Dilemma) series and I am loving the hell out of it. It's basically all of the wonderful things he's known for (a fun juxtaposition of serious with silly, scifi elements with multiple realities, fun/very easy puzzles, and great characters-including one of the best AI companions ever) but polished to his highest degree yet. If you have a love of scifi visual novels, this is a must get. Gonna put some screencaps below, nothing spoilery, but still gonna spoiler tag it.

qPqvJHU.jpg


nDMigjX.jpg


fkJnJnH.jpg


MLbsodi.jpg


qFbqmyb.jpg


0gcRcTl.jpg


69zj5iZ.jpg

I've been meaning to get to this for so long now. I've kinda scratched my japanese adventure game itch by playing Ace Attorney Investigations (and AAI2 this week) last week but the hilarity of these screens has pushed me over the edge. Can't put this off any longer.
 

Porcile

Member
I'd need to look at my DS and PS2 library. So many incredible hidden gems. Finding those kind of games was half the joy of owning having those two systems.
 

Cutty Flam

Banned
Not obscure, but nobody has ever mentioned it unless I have mentioned it. In other words, nobody really talks about it:

Road Rash 64

That game is so much fun and fucking badass too. The soundtrack is great as well. Hell yeah
 

RPS37

Member
I made a thread about it, that unfortunately didn't really go anywhere. Gotta plug it again. Shout out to GHG.
H6aNs6c.jpg
 
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