Smaller Unknown Games You Love

[cahtush]

mount and blade warband, really uniqe and fun game

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Probably Vanquish. Chances are, you'll be like "of course I've heard of that game!" but then try asking someone in real life if they've even heard of it. I have a feeling that Platinum games have sort of a cult following.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Fat Princess, I love that game so much but I don't know why!

 

[Starke]

Escape Velocity: Override... the rest of the franchise as well, but especially Override.

Drakensang, though I never finished the first game and now there's a second (and unfortunately final game) out. Though I'm sure any German gamer will mock me for that...

Spellforce seems to fall under this header as well. Every time I mention it I get people looking at me like I'm nuts.

 

[ramboondiea]

Nier a good little rpg gem that no-one really acknowledged
and resonance of fate is another, people never even heard of it and its the hardest rpg ever

 

[veloper]

King's Bounty: The Legend as well as its sequels Armoured Princess and Crossworlds. As far as I'm concerned best game released in 2008, and one of the best series in gaming today. Imaginative, extremely well designed, beautiful to behold and listen to (The soundtrack is brilliant!), and just downright fun! Playing the King's Bounty games is some of the most fun I've had gaming in years.

Majesty

Oh, there's another good one!

Which reminds me: Age of Wonders

Ever heard of the series? Probably not, especially if you weren't a PC gamer during a specific period of time. It's like Heroes of Might & Magic + Civilization with even a splash of the Total War games. So damned good! I still play Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic regularly.

None of these games are small or under the radar.
Anyone into the fantasy-strategy genre has played or atleast heared of these games. The only bigger name is HoMM.

Not that I can think of any games. If it's truly an unknown then it's prolly because it's crap.

 

[burymagnets]

I don't know if it counts as that small but the most underappreciated game I can think of is still good ol' dynamite heady

Best platformer ever, crazy personality style and music, early 2.5d elements that work, and a decent challenge... oh and a giant baby's head, of course

 

[CrystalShadow]

I really enjoyed The Path.

Oh, hells yes. Now that's a lesson in psychological horror that bigger devs should take notice of.

I'm playing The Void right now...

It's... Hard to describe, words just don't do it justice.

I guess you could call it horror, if you had to give it a name... But it's existential horror perhaps. Just... Trying to survive the environment itself.

Quite difficult too. A moment's carelessness and you'll run out of colour... And then it's all over.

All in all, It's really something that should be better known, although it would never be mainstream.

It's an 'artistic' game in the same sense that 'the path' is, though with perhaps somewhat more direction to it. (It calls itself an adventure game, for what it's worth.)

 

[Shycte]

Karoshi [http://www.venbrux.com/karoshi.php], a fun indie game by Jesse Venbrux. Free and all. Your mission in to die.

Have fun.

 

[fnlrpa]

Patapon.
A rythem based game on the psp where you play as their god while using the face buttons to command them.

It is as awesome as it sounds

 

[DustyDrB]

I would say The Saboteur for its style and art or Enslaved again for its art style (green apacolyptic world) as well as its characters.

Enslaved was #4 on my top 5 of last year. It really was a fantastic game.

Others...
3D Dot Game Heroes: It's a blatant Zelda rip-off, but I love that kind of gameplay, so it makes sense that I love this game. I know people have a habit of calling anything remotely similar to another game a "clone", but you'd have a hard time denying it with 3D Dot Game Heroes...

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom: I guess I don't "love" this game, but it was enjoyable enough in small doses. It has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard in a game, but also has a nice and colorful art design. The lighting could be better. The gameplay is pretty good, though pretty repetitive.

Shadowrun (1993 SNES)*: One of my all-time favorites. It plays like a BioWare RPG put into a overhead-view 2D world. It's a mix of cyberpunk and fantasy (dwarven haxorz!), and has some wonderful gameplay that still holds up today (at least for me). It has fallen into obscurity over the years, sadly, and most people today think of that multiplayer-only Shadowrun FPS that came up a few years ago.

*Missed that "of the last 5 years" part...I'm keeping this up anyway.