Obscure games

[electricmastro]

Obscure games that you feel are worth pointing out, not necessarily for how good or bad they are, but for something about them that interests you in general.

 

One that interested me was The Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World, for how it uses the dynamic of a computer virus which is constantly spreading. I’ve never seen another game like it on the NES:
 

 

[Tales from the Game Room]

Obscure games rule!

[+davidcalgary29]

I feel like a lot of games published during that weird mid-'90s phase, when the market was churning and Wintel machines were becoming viable dedicated gaming options, are either pretty obscure or have been forgotten today. I really liked one of SSI's last games, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall, and spent too much time on Little Big Adventure (although I'm sure that the package I bought had "Twinsen's Adventure" on it). I doubt anyone under the age of thirty has even heard of those games.

 

Okay, they weren't published on a console, but still.

[electricmastro]

4 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said:

I feel like a lot of games published during that weird mid-'90s phase, when the market was churning and Wintel machines were becoming viable dedicated gaming options, are either pretty obscure or have been forgotten today. I really liked one of SSI's last games, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall, and spent too much time on Little Big Adventure (although I'm sure that the package I bought had "Twinsen's Adventure" on it). I doubt anyone under the age of thirty has even heard of those games.

 

Okay, they weren't published on a console, but still.

I’m only familiar with the second LBA game through the main theme of it, which is pretty melodic.

 

 

[Hwlngmad]

17 hours ago, electricmastro said:

Obscure games that you feel are worth pointing out, not necessarily for how good or bad they are, but for something about them that interests you in general.

 

One that interested me was The Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World, for how it uses the dynamic of a computer virus which is constantly spreading. I’ve never seen another game like it on the NES:
 

 

Adding this to my list of NES games to check out for sure.

[carlsson]

Kind of related topic, but exclusively about computer games: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/318088-games-youve-probably-never-knew-existed/

 

[electricmastro]

2 hours ago, Hwlngmad said:

Adding this to my list of NES games to check out for sure.

There are quite a number of other NES games I’ve understood are pretty obscure as well and are rarely mentioned, even on retro game forums:

 

Race America

The Untouchables

Classic Concentration

Fun House

Orb-3D

Rocket Ranger

L'Empereur

Thunderbirds

Casino Kid 2

Dance Aerobics

F-117A Stealth Fighter

Overlord

Shooting Range

Mechanized Attack

Times of Lore

Michael Andretti's World GP

Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing

Rock 'n' Ball

Thunder & Lightning

Videomation

Flight of the Intruder

Loopz

Rally Bike

Short Order / Eggsplode!

Motor City Patrol

Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston

Street Cop

Super Cars

[carlsson]

About half of those were logged in the weekly tracker with the following totals:

 

Flight of the Intruder - 7 min.
L'Empereur - 2 min.
Loopz - 50 min.
Mechanized Attack - 122 min.
Motor City Patrol - 5 min.
Mutant Virus - 20 min.
Orb-3D - 317 min.
Overlord - 214 min.
Race America - 3 min.
Rally Bike - 7 min.
Rocket Ranger - 2 min.
Shooting Range - 108 min.
Super Cars - 5 min.
Thunder & Lightning - 32 min.
Times of Lore - 2 min.

Edited August 12, 2021 by carlsson

[+jgkspsx]

Reporting for duty.

 

The first two games that come to mind were unknown to me and I think forgotten to time generally.

 

Ishido was on EVERYTHING and was moderately successful, but I don’t think I ever heard it mentioned until I got it for the Lynx and discovered that it was a wonderful meditative experience.

 

 

Hexcite was a Game Boy Color launch title, a turn-based territory control puzzle game that really rewards screwing over the other player. Apparently it got quite a bit of marketing but nobody bought it. New copies are still available cheap. I love it to pieces and came very close to the grandmaster rank.
 

It got Japan-only sequels for the GBA and PlayStation. I just wish there were an online version. They also made a physical board game version of it- I would love to get a copy of that.

 

 

[Hwlngmad]

4 hours ago, electricmastro said:

There are quite a number of other NES games I’ve understood are pretty obscure as well and are rarely mentioned, even on retro game forums:

 

Race America

The Untouchables

Classic Concentration

Fun House

Orb-3D

Rocket Ranger

L'Empereur

Thunderbirds

Casino Kid 2

Dance Aerobics

F-117A Stealth Fighter

Overlord

Shooting Range

Mechanized Attack

Times of Lore

Michael Andretti's World GP

Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing

Rock 'n' Ball

Thunder & Lightning

Videomation

Flight of the Intruder

Loopz

Rally Bike

Short Order / Eggsplode!

Motor City Patrol

Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston

Street Cop

Super Cars

Cool!  Will have to look into some of these for sure.

[Mikebloke]

It might not be that obscure, but neither game came to Europe so its virtually unknown over here. Aerobiz and Aerobiz supersonic for the snes and mega drive. You run airline businesses and have to adjust flight numbers, planes and advertising. I feel like it's been done a few times on the indie scene since, but doesn't capture the same feel as these 16 bit gems. It's usually the first games I load into a new mobile phone. 

[electricmastro]

3 hours ago, Hwlngmad said:

Cool!  Will have to look into some of these for sure.

It's part of a whole list I made in getting an idea of which NES games may be more obscure than others. It could use updating, but I think it still gets the point across well.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/nes/comments/6xcjh6/the_least_played_nes_games_according_to_gamefaqs/

Edited August 13, 2021 by electricmastro

[Hwlngmad]

13 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

It might not be that obscure, but neither game came to Europe so its virtually unknown over here. Aerobiz and Aerobiz supersonic for the snes and mega drive. You run airline businesses and have to adjust flight numbers, planes and advertising. I feel like it's been done a few times on the indie scene since, but doesn't capture the same feel as these 16 bit gems. It's usually the first games I load into a new mobile phone. 

Actually these titles have come up recently.  Once on an episode of Retronauts on Koei, and another on ARG Presents.  Definitely need to check one of those out sometime.

[electricmastro]

19 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

It might not be that obscure, but neither game came to Europe so its virtually unknown over here. Aerobiz and Aerobiz supersonic for the snes and mega drive. You run airline businesses and have to adjust flight numbers, planes and advertising. I feel like it's been done a few times on the indie scene since, but doesn't capture the same feel as these 16 bit gems. It's usually the first games I load into a new mobile phone. 

Yeah, I’d definitely recommend those for anyone interested in airline management games, because they embrace that genre pretty well:

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by electricmastro

[electricmastro]

Junction, a Sega Genesis game about navigating a ball through a path of connecting lines:

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

Here are a smattering of my favorite primo top-tier Game Gear obscurities. If this thread goes on for a while I will sprinkle more in later.

 

Putt & Putter is an uncommon game and pretty cheap. It plays extremely well. Everyone who has ever enjoyed a game of miniature golf should give this a try. (Also on Master System.)

 

 

Arena: Maze of Death (or just ARENA in Europe) is a Game Gear near-exclusive besides the de rigeur Brazilian Master System release. It’s a very challenging isometric run and gun. Think Smash TV but with a lot of exploration and a slightly slower pace. Okay, fair point, it’s a lot like Alien Syndrome. But it’s one of the best of the rarer US releases.

 

 

I’ve plugged this before, but Buster Fight (JP only) has a fascinating control scheme that works amazingly well with two buttons. With only four fighters it’s more of a demo of a fighting game than a full game, but what’s there is really compelling. This was released on the Master System as Masters of Combat.

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

8 hours ago, electricmastro said:

Junction, a Sega Genesis game about navigating a ball through a path of connecting lines:

This is on Game Gear too. It’s the same idea as Timeball/Blodia on the Turbografx and Diablo on the TI-99/4a, ADAM, etc:

 

 

I like Pipe Dream but this game sends me up a wall.

[HoshiChiri]

Not sure it's properly obscure, but Odama on Gamecube is very unique. Not excactly good, but unqiue- I certainly can't name any other tactics/pinball cross genre games, let alone one with voice commands.

 

An old favorite I've never seen anyone talk about is Cyborg Justice. I haven't played it in years, it may not hold up, but you get to customize your robot fighter. That's not the interesting thing though. What's neat is, you customize on the go- as in, you literally rip parts off of the robots you're fighting & attach them to yourself. And they can do the same to you! And in multiplayer you do it to each other! Playing through a stage constantly ripping the flamethrower arm off each other while pummeling any baddies who try & take it is certainly a different way to fight over powerups!

[electricmastro]

On 8/14/2021 at 11:37 PM, jgkspsx said:

This is on Game Gear too. It’s the same idea as Timeball/Blodia on the Turbografx and Diablo on the TI-99/4a, ADAM, etc:

 

 

I like Pipe Dream but this game sends me up a wall.

Thanks. Puzzle obscurities tend to stick out to me more for how much thought I feel is put into them compared to the generic action game, even if they are variations of previous games. I noticed that the Game Boy seems to have an abundance of games like that in particular:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by electricmastro

[+jgkspsx]

Some good games! Tesserae is much better on the Game Gear as the colors make much more sense than just the shapes. (Still infuriating, though.) Gear Works is about the same on both, fun game.

[electricmastro]

39 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Some good games! Tesserae is much better on the Game Gear as the colors make much more sense than just the shapes. (Still infuriating, though.) Gear Works is about the same on both, fun game.

Yeah, Game Gear can be pretty cool as well. Tempo Jr. for example stood out to me for how colorful and energetic it tried to be, even if it otherwise appears more limited compared to the 32X game:

 

 

[electricmastro]

One of the first post-launch games for the Game Boy Advance, made as if it was modeled after Tetris. I'm sure it would appeal most to anyone who's an enthusiast of games like on the Amiga.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by electricmastro

[+jgkspsx]

Wow, I thought I knew almost every GBA game and that’s news to me. Looks fun! Though frustrating.

[electricmastro]

8 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Wow, I thought I knew almost every GBA game and that’s news to me. Looks fun! Though frustrating.

Yep, one of quite the number of quirky obscurities that appeared in the GBA’s first year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by electricmastro

[Hwlngmad]

18 hours ago, electricmastro said:

One of the first post-launch games for the Game Boy Advance, made as if it was modeled after Tetris. I'm sure it would appeal most to anyone who's an enthusiast of games like on the Amiga.

 

 

Added to my list to check out.