Misc Obscure games that you're fond of?

[drakonic]

I find that many of my favourites tend to be games that not many actually know about. I wonder if I'm not the only one.
And so I'd like to try to start a discussion about obscure games that people love... They don't have to be "good" games, just something that you hold dear to your heart or you had a fun time with
Any platform of course.

By obscure here I mean games that:
- don't have much/any info about their contents online
- don't have/have few recorded playthroughs
- are just generally never talked about
- aren't necessarily "hidden gems"

Here are some of my obscure favourites:
- Make 10: A Journey of Numbers (Nintendo DS) - A really fun little math game. It has a really cute art style and characters. I have to admit the main factor here is nostalgia...
- How to Train your Dragon (Nintendo DS) - Yes, a licensed movie game! It has major flaws, but it has a really cool turn-based battle system. Also, it is really impressive to me how the dragon animations are so expressive and full of personality with such limited 3D models.
- Heart&Slash (PC) - A hack and slash roguelite game set in a post-human world where robots rule. I love the main characters, the visuals, and I had a lot of fun 100%ing this game.

 

[V800]

I used to like a lot PS2 Rise to Honor - a beat n' up where you used the analogue stick to perform kung fu punches and round house kicks. I played a month ago and it haven't age well.

 

[Fugelmir]

The OLLDDD Warpath windows game involving intergalactic trade/warfare.

 

[Jacobh]

I have fond memories of Movie Creator for Commodore 64. I think it qualifies as obscure since I can’t find much information on it anymore, but someone did post a video to YouTube.

 

[drakonic]

I have fond memories of Movie Creator for Commodore 64. I think it qualifies as obscure since I can’t find much information on it anymore, but someone did post a video to YouTube.

Oh, I didn't even know these types of games/software go back that far! Really cool

 

[Blauhasenpopo]

A lovely and obscure (setting) game is Mr. Moskeeto on PS 2, i love the game and its setting is very unique

 

[Veho]

I was going to say Thexder because I've never seen it talked about or mentioned anywhere, but apparently it was a huge hit, ported to 15 different platforms and sold a ton of copies and, um, yeah.

The version I played was Thexder 95.



Another one I played the hell out of but never see/hear mentioned was Bolo:



Arkanoid clone but with vertical movement, and mouse control. It was awesome.

 

[AncientBoi]

A Pop-Cap game called Ice Bowling I think it's called

 

[master801]

Pixygarden (PS1)

God simulator
You pick a spot on planets and cultivate an entire race (multiple races? not sure) by changing the environment. Not really sure how the environment can be changed, other than planting a bunch of flora. This is an incredibly obscure game and not much is really known or understood about it, other than it originally being a NEC PC-98 (no, not the Windows 98 OS) game, which was later ported / remastered for Windows 98, then eventually being remade into this PS1 game. Great soundtrack.

PS1:
PC-98:

---

My Garden (PS1)

Garden simulator
Similar to Harvest Moon, but on a tiny scale. Not much gameplay of it is available on YouTube and I have yet to figure out the true mechanics. I have fumbled around with it in-game, and it does seem pretty good. Although emulators tend to have this weird rendering issue.

---

Oz no Mahoutsukai - Another World - Rung Rung (PS1)

RPG / adventure?
Not much can be said about this. The premise is basically Wizard of Oz with Dorthy getting blown away to different world and trying to go back home to Kansas, but with a twist. Someone has taken all of the color out of the world, meaning the area will be impassable unless the color is restored. Not completely sure of the plot, but it does seem like a very underrated game. It's a shame it was never localized, even unofficially. It was, however, released on the Japanese PSN store as a PS1 Classic, which means it had some kind of recognition back then at least.

---

Unfortunately, none of these games have been translated yet (with the semi-exception of Rung Rung and someone putting translated captions in their gameplay videos on YouTube).

 

[Ligeia]

Power Soukoban on SFC. It's a brilliant mix of Soukoban & Zelda. I wish more games like this were made to refine the formula.

 

[drakonic]

Pixygarden (PS1)

God simulator
You pick a spot on planets and cultivate an entire race (multiple races? not sure) by changing the environment. Not really sure how the environment can be changed, other than planting a bunch of flora. This is an incredibly obscure game and not much is really known or understood about it, other than it originally being a NEC PC-98 (no, not the Windows 98 OS) game, which was later ported / remastered for Windows 98, then eventually being remade into this PS1 game. Great soundtrack.

PS1:
PC-98:

---

My Garden (PS1)

Garden simulator
Similar to Harvest Moon, but on a tiny scale. Not much gameplay of it is available on YouTube and I have yet to figure out the true mechanics. I have fumbled around with it in-game, and it does seem pretty good. Although emulators tend to have this weird rendering issue.

---

Oz no Mahoutsukai - Another World - Rung Rung (PS1)

RPG / adventure?
Not much can be said about this. The premise is basically Wizard of Oz with Dorthy getting blown away to different world and trying to go back home to Kansas, but with a twist. Someone has taken all of the color out of the world, meaning the area will be impassable unless the color is restored. Not completely sure of the plot, but it does seem like a very underrated game. It's a shame it was never localized, even unofficially. It was, however, released on the Japanese PSN store as a PS1 Classic, which means it had some kind of recognition back then at least.

---

Unfortunately, none of these games have been translated yet (with the semi-exception of Rung Rung and someone putting translated captions in their gameplay videos on YouTube).

Oh these games all seem really cool! Putting them on my "games to check out" list. Bit of a shame they don't have an english translation... But I'm still interested

 

[Veho]

Millenia: Altered Destinies.

 

[SiliconExarch]

I think I have a contender for the most obscure game related to a well known franchise - Rayman Garden, a puzzle game released exclusively on Mitsubishi feature phones in the early 2000s.
The phones show up on eBay from time to time and they're normally pretty cheap

 

[Latiodile]

some random rollercoaster game i barely know much of except for "disney imagineering ultimate ride roller coaster deluxe", it's just a low budget roller coaster sim game, almost impossible to find but it was one of the first games i had on PC, there's 3 versions, i had the one with the yellow roller coaster and red kart on the cover

i barely remember much of the game because i had it a long time ago and lost my copy

would obscure entries in an otherwise well known series also count? because i have fond memories of the psp version of sims 2, and atv offroad fury blazin' trails for the psp, which is just a (bad) port of offroad fury 3

 

[JaapDaniels]

Too bad this is run on a emulator for not all sound effects work as i remember them on a super famicom.

 

[Lostbhoy]

Mine has to be Cliff Hanger (and his brother coat!) on C64. The road runner style gfx really grabbed me as a kid in the 80s and the game itself is not a million miles away from road runners premise!

You play the sheriff and your goal is to stop the bandit getting to town by using a manner of tools or contraptions. Played out like a movie by scenes rather than levels but it's awesome for a play even today.... As long as the loading doesn't put you off!

 

[hippy dave]

Power Soukoban on SFC. It's a brilliant mix of Soukoban & Zelda. I wish more games like this were made to refine the formula.

View attachment 353941

Oh this sounds good - happy to find that there is a translation https://www.romhacking.net/translations/4985/

Edit: played through the first dungeon, is pretty good.

 

[Veho]

I just remembered another one.
Star Wars: Yoda Stories.

It's a point and click adventure but every other character in the game is playing a Zelda knockoff.

The game is a set of unrelated missions ("stories") procedurally generated from a pool of storylines, characters, items, triggers and victory conditions, through randomly generated terrain, and each one is basically one long convoluted fetch quest of the "find a [device] to open the [door] to acquire the [item] to operate the [contrivance] to get to [location] to talk to [character] to learn the [second location] where [CRITICAL ITEM] can be found, then bring it back to Yoda" variety, all the while fighting (or avoiding) randomly generated nuisances that lurked around the map (Stormtroopers, various beasts, etc.).

Not sure as to the obscurity of it but I can't remember it being very popular. But I liked it.

 

[Jayro]

This game is really fun and addictive. And the simple music bops for being fairly repetitive. It's also cheap, usually anywhere between $10 to $15 USD complete.

 

[Scarlet]

View attachment 354237

This game is really fun and addictive. And the simple music bops for being fairly repetitive. It's also cheap, usually anywhere between $10 to $15 USD complete.

Oh God it's been years since I've seen this! I remember it got an iOS port a long while back, but I imagine it was a 32 bit game that wasn't updated, since there's no trace of it on the store anymore.