Wanna talk real obscure?

[Elvis Starburst]

Dunno how obscure it is, but I throw my hat into the ring with the Ys series as a whole. It's a JRPG series with a little less of the common JRPG mess and... the RPG, really, in exchange for quicker storytelling, lovely hack n slash combat, and by far some of the BEST music in any series I've heard. Seriously, this stuff is just flat out incredible, from awesome fittings tracks for a location to intense metal instrumentals. Oh, and one of the common instruments is a violin. Awesome~

From Ys Origin [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkDasPSBMms]

From Ys: The Oath in Felghana [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXHtkHlLcxQ]

From Ys vs Sora no Kiseki [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAuJY7gWsXs]

 

[PFCboom]

Evolution Worlds, for the Nintendo Gamecube. I got this game from Menards. Yup, Menards sold games. Evolution Worlds was actually pretty fun, though the endless dungeon-crawling wasn't too great. The music, if I recall correctly, was a lot better than the game deserved. Oh, and the combat was creative, making for some genuine strategy during each turn.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Is Kuon considered obscure? I know I do. It's one of my favorite "obscure survival horror games" for the PS2. I think it's got some of the best atmosphere and set design I've seen in a game. It's unnerving and features a lot of eerie stuff and jump scares. It's also the bloodiest game I've played. Not the most violent, but the most BLOODY. Believe me.

 

[-Seraph-]

Summer Carnival 92, also known as Recca for the NES. Still blows my god damn mind that this was an NES game. Crazy fast and hard shmup, but just god damned awesome.

Dunno how obscure it is, but I throw my hat into the ring with the Ys series as a whole.

Kingdom of Paradise for the PSP.

Fantastic RPG with a good story, really great music, and a pretty innovative combo system that can be customized by the player. I still consider this to be one of the best games I've ever played. To be fair, though, I'm kind of a sucker for good music in my games; I'm willing to excuse some flaws in lieu of a good soundtrack.

Any fan or mention of the Ys series deserves one of these by me. Love those games and am so excited to get Memories in Celceta soon.

As for KoP, god it's been a while since I played that. Such a great and endearing game, some moments in that game gave me the feels.

 

[lord canti]

I don't know if it's obscure or not but it was an old NES game called Crysalis. I never see anyone talking about it which is a real shame because it's an excellent action adventure game.

 

[ccggenius12]

Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest. It's a game where you're a multi-limbed cube in a cube-centric ecosystem and you need to eat, evolve, sex, and poo your way to the top of the food chain. Seriously, there's a button dedicated to defecation.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I've played a lot of The Note on ps1, a first person survival horror game (wherein you have the ability to close curtains among other things), it says on wikipedia that it's among the most obscure games on the ps1 and considering that it isn't even listed on Amazon i think there might be something to it. Unfortunately the game is quite bad and not really worth digging up.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Obscure? Ok, how's a Japanese indie game for pc with only a fan translation.

Meet Hydra Castle Labyrinth
I can pretty much described it as the original Zelda game mixed with the classic metroidvania style.
It does everything so perfectly with tight controls, fun bosses, interesting items and the least aggravating loop song you'll every hear.
If anyone does try this after hearing about it I can give you one suggestion, make your own map because it will triple your fun and make finding items so much more rewarding. I was lost for awhile and ended up looking up what to do first but once I figured that out I started making my own map and it just got so much fun!
Look it up, download it, play it, it's free!

 

[FourCartridge]

Believe it or not, Jeff's Wayne's War of the Worlds got a videogame on Windows. It's a strategic RTS that plays like a prototype of Total War; you play has either Martians or Humans(they actually have a fighting chance this time) in a single player campaign that spans Great Britain. You gather resources through special buildings in a Risk like map, use those to build factories to build units which you command in battles. The campaign was generally freeform and you could lose a battle and still win the war. Here's some pics:

PS: Do Blur & Daytona USA count?

 

[somonels]

Not really. The real topic seems to be sharing tales of games you grew up with that have been forgotten by the public conciousness.
If you want lesser known old games go check out Home of the Underdogs, an abandon/shareware site and pick one. My goto site up until 2004-6.
If yo like old junk and don't need all them new fangled production values and excitement then go check out Matt Chat videos on the Armchair Arcade, which regularly does interviews and discuss games form ye olden times with their creators.

aand you made me fall into bad habits again. aand probably getting warned about promoting other sites. double aasss.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I've never seen anyone talk about Netstorm: Islands at War before.

One of the more odd RTS games I've played as every actual combat unit is a static siege engine. In a way it plays more like a puzzle game as you have to claim territory by building bridges, bridges at which you can connect said siege engines, and place those so that you can intercept enemy resource gatherers which do move.

It's really quite unique in both gameplay, setting and overall design. It was actually quite ahead of its time as it was chiefly designed, which I did not know at the time, for online play. I never got to try that out as I didn't actually had an internet connection back then.

The launch cutscene does a pretty swell job of showing the design of the units"

Dat 1997 3D. It's freeware now, by the way.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Summer Carnival 92, also known as Recca for the NES. Still blows my god damn mind that this was an NES game. Crazy fast and hard shmup, but just god damned awesome.

Dunno how obscure it is, but I throw my hat into the ring with the Ys series as a whole.

Kingdom of Paradise for the PSP.

Fantastic RPG with a good story, really great music, and a pretty innovative combo system that can be customized by the player. I still consider this to be one of the best games I've ever played. To be fair, though, I'm kind of a sucker for good music in my games; I'm willing to excuse some flaws in lieu of a good soundtrack.

Any fan or mention of the Ys series deserves one of these by me. Love those games and am so excited to get Memories in Celceta soon.

As for KoP, god it's been a while since I played that. Such a great and endearing game, some moments in that game gave me the feels.

It's always good to hear someone enjoy it as much as I do~ And yes, Ys MiC looks awesome!

 

[-Seraph-]

It's always good to hear someone enjoy it as much as I do~ And yes, Ys MiC looks awesome!

Got my collectors edition paid off, only a matter of picking it up on release The 3 disc sound track (spanning tracks from the entire series) is worth it alone, because Ys music is the fucking shit. Though I would have gladly paid even more extra if it came with some sort of Adol statue/figure, because that would make for an excellent 25th anniversary trinket.

I still feel guilty for having to play Ark of Napishtim through rather nefarious means, since it never got a localized PC version and doubt it would come to steam unless XSEED, Falcom, and Konami work something out.

 

[Laser Priest]

I am not entirely sure how obscure it is, but Gotcha Force for the Nintendo Gamecube.

It's a fairly simple game. You simply assemble a team of any of the characters you have unlocked (known as borgs) and you fight enemies until either their force or your own is wiped out entirely. Each time the borg you control is defeated, you respawn on the next one in your force.

Each borg has simple attacks (only two buttons, possibly with charge functions or alternate attacks at close range), but the variety comes from the sheer amount of characters. While a lot of them function similarly to some of the others, there are over 200 possible characters, ranging from samurai to soldiers to jets to tanks to knights to dragons to bugs. And some of them are flat out hilarious. One is the Walking Bomb, whose sole purpose is to grab an enemy, pull them in, and then explode, killing himself and dealing probably lethal damage to everyone around. Then the Death Eye, which is a slow character with one jump, one point of health, an attack that fires a single, low-damage bullet and who dies in one hit from almost everything. Then you unlock the Death ICBM. It's the Death Eye, but riding a missile. Which you then plow into the ground to make an explosion that deals insane damage to everything over most of the battlefield.

The game had mediocre reviews and almost no marketing, but even if it's not technically a great game, it kept me and my friends entertained for quite some time. And at least in my searching, it seems to be impossible to find at anything less than collector prices outside of Japan.

 

[Laser Priest]

you might be suprised but gotcha force has become somewhat of a cult classic for some mainly because for unique gameplay

I have heard as much, but it still seems obscure enough to me. Most people I know who have played it enjoyed it, but most people I know have not even heard of it. I think it's a fair guess that the vast majority of gamers would have no idea what it is.

Also, from what I hear, Capcom considers it one of their favourites of their own games. I almost wish Capcom would have made more games off of this than... well, most of what Capcom has made series out of.

 

[the_great_cessation]

OT: Anyone remembered the ps1 game , Dark stone? It was an isometric Rpgs kind of like diablo? With insane loading times? It was a very fun game.

Holy shit. I had actually zero recollection of this game until you mentioned it here. I remember getting that from my local Canadian Tire for like $2 as a kid. I remember finding it really slow and boring - although to be fair, I was much younger and didn't play it for longer than a few hours before just losing interest. Still though, really neat contribution.

I absolutely love threads like these as they really give context to the truth breadth video games have had as a medium and highlights titles that will unfortunately end up being lost to history in upcoming years. As for my contribution, I'll try and think of a few...

I'm not sure if these games are as obscure as I seem to think they are considering the name From Software have made for themselves in recent years, but holy hell - what an amazing series of games. I never played the sequel but I can assure you that the original was a really special game. It's a japanese hack and slash game with a really tight combat system and amazing atmosphere and setting - think an almost gothic take on Japanese mythology and folklore. I highly recommend these games to anyone who's looking for a game with a similar challenge and style of the Souls games albiet with a much faster paced play style.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

It's always good to hear someone enjoy it as much as I do~ And yes, Ys MiC looks awesome!

Got my collectors edition paid off, only a matter of picking it up on release The 3 disc sound track (spanning tracks from the entire series) is worth it alone, because Ys music is the fucking shit. Though I would have gladly paid even more extra if it came with some sort of Adol statue/figure, because that would make for an excellent 25th anniversary trinket.

I still feel guilty for having to play Ark of Napishtim through rather nefarious means, since it never got a localized PC version and doubt it would come to steam unless XSEED, Falcom, and Konami work something out.

Yeah... They need to bring it to Steam. I just bought Origins on there. Did you know they made a PSP port of it? They added voice acting, but the loading times were terrible apparently. But, it might be the only way to play it locally. I wanna play it too, myself