Exiled Kingdoms is my favourite "obscure" game by far. Its not old like these but it has that old diablo/fallout art style and story is interesting too. I recommend it!
Twisted Tales of Spike McFang, a bit of a slept on title from the SNES, it's a really cute and quirky action-adventure romp where you play as a vampire prince/magician who eats tomatoes instead of blood and attacks with his top hat and cape! Loved playing that game when I was younger, it's still pretty fun now!
Usually, when I see 'Obscure' or 'Hidden Gem' lists, I already know 90% of the games. However most of the games in your video are truly obscure. Thank you for these great recommendations
Loom is one of the reasons I got into the game industry. Years later I was out in LA working with some voice actresses, and afterward I was talking with the voice producer we had met, and she told me her first title in the industry was Loom as a temp and that was her start in the industry, and I got to tell her how Loom was one of the things that shaped me as a kid and as a developer and thanked her for her work as we both were tearing up. Definitely made it a weird dinner for the rest of our dev group! It is one of my all time favorites and will always hold a special place in my heart. I often sneak little references to Loom in many of the things I've helped make, or even my personal projects. Thanks for highlighting it!
Loom really was something magical. I wish Double Fine would get to do something with the property, even just a straight up remake would be amazing - but they must absolutely build in microphone capture so you can play the tunes yourself.
@@martinkrauser4029 That would be a really cool addition... I'd also love to see a remake, but mostly just a graphical one, I really enjoyed it mechanically, and the voice acting was really good! I remember freaking out when I got the CDROM version and it had 256 colors and dialogue audio, it was like a whole new game! I also loved that the spells were randomized every playthrough so you had to learn them and experiment and write them down.
The creator of Loom was one of my professors in college. Really interesting guy, he was obsessed with 2001 Space Odyssey and helped organize a screening of the movie on campus. He left his professor job my final year to go back in to the industry. During one of our labs I remember him mentioning that he was contacted by a group of developers who had funding and the rights to Loom and that there might be a sequel developed. Im not 100% sure, but that sequel might be in the works right now.
@@jupez9428 That's awesome, it would have been really cool to pick his brain about it! Really would be amazing to see a Loom sequel. Funny how big and small the industry is at the same time...
Troika deserved so much better than they ended up getting. ToEE, Arcanum, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines are all beloved games with dedicated communities to this day.
To be fair though... Every game they released was riddled with game breaking bugs that they never did anything to fix. People are never off Bethesda's case about their bugs and they pale in comparison. I've played all of the games you mentioned many times over. And pretty much in every single one, I hit at least 2-3 play throughs which I either had to abandon a long play save, or cheat, to get past a bug that screwed me over. Troika's games are only playable 'because' the community fixed them. They had all the heart and great ideas, they just never once delivered without major problems.
Man I agree about the bugs, but the base games were some of the most amazing games to me personally. I still play Arcanum to this day (with community fixes) I kind of think it's my top game for me
@@Striker9 oh I absolutely agree, I loved most of their games and also still play VtM:B and Arcanum. Temple of Elemental Evil was also one of the best D&D translations to cRPG I had played up until that point and it still stands out as a great version! But they were abysmal for the bugs lol. I could be wrong, but I'm sure that's part of why they went bust?
@@GrigeralI don't think it would have been the bugs, lol. These games released years before game forums were anything more than small niche places. I think their bankruptcy could just more be attributed to just releasing a relatively unsuccessful at the time game for a genre that was on the outs around that time as tastes were changing. A PC exclusive first person RPG in 2004 was not really the kind of thing to gain traction. Had it released one or two years earlier or also gotten a console port it might have had a chance, I think.
@@torinriley7569 So, having just done a little research, Bloodlines apparently sold 80,000 copies during its initial release, which is certainly wasn't great. But critics at the time were put off by the technical flaws. I think it's also absolutely vital to remember that Bloodlines released in the same month (November 2004) as both Half-Life 2... And World of Warcraft. Both being absolute mammoths in the FPS and RPG genres, so it got completely overshadowed. For Arcanum, the only real thing going for it was the story and system the game used. I recall it was considered to still look dated when it released, considering that Final Fantasy X came out months before it. Then add to that the numerous flaws and the fact it was likely still competing with Baldurs Gate 2 (which came out 2 months prior), it sold well, but still fairly middling. So I think they had a tendancy to release games that still looked fairly dated, where extremely buggy and had a bad tendency to release at really bad times! (Although in fairness, I remember playing Bloodlines at the time and thinking it looked amazing, so maybe they learned their lesson on that one lol)
9:36 WOOOOO! Septerra Core! The first RPG I ever played, and damn was it memorable. No walkthroughs, no hints, a hot summer, and tons of cheeseburgers, trying to play through it with my friend. One of my defining life experiences as a teen.
Holy- FUTURE TACTICS? For most of my life now, I would occasionally think about that game from my childhood, but could never remember the name. It's like a nostalgic fever dream hearing Ghostcharm acknowledge it existed.
I have some more obscure stuff. Technically around 7-8/10 games but I played them a lot because I had them. Lost Eden (1995), an adventure game with dinosaurs and "crazy graphics". Thunderscape (1995), turn-based party dungeon crawler. Summoner (2001), RPG with real-time combat and vast epic story. Project Eden (2001), a "lost viking in 3D" adventure game. The Last Remnant (2008) difficult and forgotten squaresoft JRPG, insanely long.
Three. You hit me with three deep cuts here. First was Loom, which I remember watching my """adoptive dad""" play on a cobbled together scrap computer, it was running DOS from what I think was an original disc (like, to install the OS with) and Loom was loaded in the same way. Second was Goblin Commander, which I actually own/owned a copy of on GC, and even played a little bit of. I'd never played an RTS before, and I was young and not too patient for it's very alien (to me) gameplay, so I never got far, but I DID play it. And third is I-Ninja, a game truly near and dear to my heart, though unfortunately, one I never 100 percented (a few of the special challenges were just too friggin hard for me, like the one hit rock-em sock-em robots challenge, egg head something or other I think). Really nice hearing somebody talk about them, even if it's basically just because of the feeling of that DiCaprio meme (the TV pointing one).
Custom Robo Arena for the DS went hard as a kid. You control a little robot in a tabletop diorama thing, and you gotta clean it with a little ring, and apparently there's a criminal gang that uses illegal military grade robo parts for the tiny toy sized robots. That's what I faintly remember
Hell ya, custom robo was such a fun game. If I remember right, one of those illegal parts was a dragon head that fired a massive dragon shaped tracking laser with a roar. It was so cheesy but so fun.
About Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds, you say there is always emulation, but the game actually does exist on PC! I played it for ungodly amounts of hours as a kid, and I even still have it on my laptop for whenever I'm out traveling and need a small game to pass the time in an airport or whatever. I really do hope they one day remaster it or do this idea again but more refined.
phantom dust is another card game turned competitive action. its publised by microsoft when the og xbox was being released into the market. They bitched out didnt release it overseas past Japan where it was developed. The just recently did in 2022 if i recall correctly. its on gamepass and their store. should be on pc via their store as well.
It got a US release. You could often find this used for $20 before it became a bit of a cult classic on the XB. This is an Deathrow are two of my favorite in my collection from that era.
I would like to reccomend you a RTS game made by THQ Nordic called Impossible Creatures, i don't know how obscure it actually is, but people don't talk about it enough, the main gimmick is that you can make an army of animals to fight with, except your animals are made of animal fusions, you can take 2 animals and mix and match their bodyparts to create a frankenstein version of both, and use them to muster an army, there's a lot of animals to pick and choose and you can just get lost on the beast creation process The RTS part was fun enough too, the campaign honestly speaking was kind of slow if i remember it, but that was probably just me being too impatient to unlock more tech and animals, which you had to go out and collect their DNA The game is currently availible both on Steam and GOG with all patches and extra content, and people have made some mods for it too, there's a very cool one with dinosaurs that i found recently and may give it a try
Impossible Creatures was published by THQ but it was developed by Relic, the same guys who made Dawn of War and Company of Heroes which explains why it's so good.
21:50 bro I knew that name sounded familiar. In the monkey island game one of the first characters you talk to actually talks about Loom and how it's a great game and you should play it lol
Highly recommend Sega Saturn games. Super underrated system and has a ton of great games that are easy to pickup and play. I'll recommend a few games with a paragraph for each, so safe to say big wall o text incoming. Panzer Dragoon I & II - Starting with one that actually got some recognition with a cool remake recently. Contrary to what it sounds like, it's an on-rails shooter in which you ride a dragon and shoot stuff. That's literally it and it's fun as hell. Like most Sega games, it has tons of enemies, explosions, and is easy to pick up and play. There are limited continues, so keep that in mind if you're using some kind of emulation. You can also play the remake on Switch, which I haven't played but I highly recommend anyway since it might be our chance to see more remake goodness from Sega. Bulk Slash - Do you like mechs? I like mechs. Play as one in third-person and blast and shoot stuff. Tons of high-quality sprites and animation by Hudson, so expect detailed anime stuff. Levels are in 3d and are pretty open. You can even fly around if you want. Exploring is recommended as you'll find pilots who need assistance and give you new abilities. Pretty self explanatory, and goddamn is it satisfying to shoot things. Saturn Bomberman - Holy Homberman, it's Bomberman. You probably get the gist: place a bomb and kill some dudes, but try not to get killed by your own bombs. Tons of cool powerups, including the then-new Dinosaur helpers, who give you an extra hit as well as various abilities such as jumping over stuff. Why should you care? Because this is a Bomberman game that supports TEN PLAYERS. This can also be done through emulation, just make sure to activate your multiplayer adapter in whatever core you're using. Even the single player is tons of fun, and can also be done with 2 players. Grab some friends and have a BLAST. Fighters Megamix - The Saturn's Smash Bros., a crossover fighter with Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter with tons of unlockables from other Sega games like Virtua Cop and Daytona USA (YES you can play as the car). People will talk about the insane skill ceiling, but simply starting this game couldn't be simpler: you have a block button, a punch, and a kick. That's it. Don't stress about the learning curve, just grab friends and have fun like you do in Smash, because this is an amazing game for goofballs. Did I mention you can play as characters from Sonic: The Fighters? Legend of Oasis - A prequel to Beyond Oasis on Mega Drive, you play through an Arabian-style overhead setting with a sword, solving puzzles and fighting stuff like big bad bosses and big dumb knights with various techniques. It's mostly like Link to the Past, but unique to this game are Elementals, spirits that follow you around and do various things like heal you or burn fellas. Another game that's pretty simple to understand and play. It's also called Legend of Thor 2 in Europe. Astal - Short artsy single-player platformer. Play through a fairy-tale story as a little kid with super strength and a bird companion. Interesting bird mechanics changes per stage. Co-op allows the 2nd player to be the bird. JP version recommended since the USA version has limited continues and an alternate intro without lyrics. Understanding Japanese is not required, as it's yet another game that's easy to understand how to play and the story is pretty simple despite having a lot of talking in the intro. Policenauts - Before Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima made some sweet cinematic adventure games. This one in particular features detail-rich anime cutscenes taking place in a future scifi world in which you are an astronaut awoken from cryosleep and now must work as a detective in LA. The rest of the story is incredible, but I'll say no more as it's best played blind. Has been on a few systems in Japan, but has unfortunately never seen an international release. Fans have picked up the slack, as the best port of this game is on Saturn with fan translation. Panzer Dragoon: Saga - Goddamn does this game tickle my pickle. Set to compete against Final Fantasy VII, it's Panzer Dragoon as an RPG. Tons of story and cutscenes with voices, it pushes the technical prowess of the Saturn to its limits and is a technical marvel. Rare and expensive, this cult classic can sell for upwards of $1000 complete in box. Someone in the comments of a longplay I found said it's the best game they've never played, and I can't say I disagree with that.
LOOM is one of those games I used to watch my dad play, and I pretty much started hyperventilating upon seeing it again. I'm so, so happy that it's on Steam (even if that's imperfect) because I'm not tech-savvy enough to rig up these old games myself . . .
Getting old games to work on emulators isn't as hard as you might think. Basically comes down to installing an emulator program, downloading games, starting up the emulator and using it to open the game you want to play. There is plenty of information to be found detailing any troubleshooting around controllers etc but if you can get a controller to press keyboard buttons, that's typically as complicated as it gets for older games
If you're a big fan of Gladius and also enjoy boardgames or the table top experience, I highly recommend looking into the two Hoplomachus titles from Chip Theory Games. Gladius was the direct inspiration when making the series, and they live up to the video game. One of the releases is a fully solitaire experience called Hoplomachus: Victorum, each run of the game you're selecting a hero character and building up a troop of gladiators, and then make your way through three acts of defeating the big bad's champions and then finally taking on the boss on Mt. Vesuvius. The second title is called Hoplomachus: Remastered, which is a collection of nearly all the original Hoplomachus games that were Chop Theory's first games with entirely new art and balanced so you can interchange things with Victorum and vice versus. Remastered focuses more on larger arena one off skirmishes, either PvP or PvE, with multiple game modes for all, and two different arenas with different mechanics. They're both large lifestyle games, built around replayability and high production value. I can't recommend them enough if you enjoy both Gladius and table top gaming.
Septerra Core! Clearly a forgotten one, nice to see it mentioned! That was the very first game I bought on GOG back in 2010. I have it in the back of my head to revisit it someday, loved the world and ambiance, very original. Loom wasn't overlooked at the time. Back then adventure games were a way bigger part of gaming than now, and any Sierra or Lucas Art release couldn't possibly go under the radar. Loom was seen as the very different, poetic one, a unique game. Too short unfortunately but yeah, so worth playing even today. Thanks for this very well made list, good not to hear about the same games again for once. And for sure this is the golden age of entertainment!
Holy sweet baby batman..you have no idea how long I've been looking for the game Silver. I have a single memory of the game, sort of like a screenshot in my mind, of a friend playing it on PC so many years ago. I could never find out which game it was. I tried searching for it by describing this image I had of the game on google and stuff like that, but never found it. Over the years whenever that memory came up I always tried to figure out which game it was but always in vain. I was just casually listening to this wonderful video while working, and when I glanced at the screen my jaw dropped as I instantly recognized the game as the same "screenshot" in my mind. Crazy stuff! Thank you and awesome video!
One available RPG I'd recommend is Sudeki it's a British made game that is unique. Also the shopkeeper Kamo is best character. Another game is Brute force a 4 character tactical third person shooter. Then there's Kingdom under fire.
I remember my parents renting Sudeki from Blockbuster for me as a kid. I played through hours of the game, and loved every bit of it, only to encounter a bug that broke my profession, and I was stuck. I bought it again on Steam a while back, but haven’t gotten around to playing it again.
Sudeki mentioned! *Sweet*! Sarcastic greedy duckman shopkeeper i certainly remember. I liked it as it was, but want to see it be more than it ended up being.
Resonance Of Fate? Hell yeah dude that is my 2nd favorite jrpg on the 360. Its pacing, story, and cast reminded me of Cowboy Bebop in many ways. It's a shame so many people couldn't figure out the combat system because they have a 3 minute attention span. If you're looking for more obscure but fun rpgs/strat games I'd recommend Growlanser 3 (ps2), Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 (ps2), The Unholy War (ps1), Future Cop LAPD (ps1), Destiny Of An Emperor (NES), Ogre Battle (snes). Wouldn't be surprised if you've played most of these ones already though.
Some of my old obscure favorites include the likes of Hellsinker, Ashes 2063, Little Fighter 2, DX Ball 2, Dragonshard, Digital Devil Saga, AirXonix, Shinobi Ps2, Hinokakera, Kings Bounty the Legend, Ar Tonelico 2, Splosion Man, Hydro Thunder, Soul Nomad and some more I can't quite think of at the top of my head.
Someone put dx ball on every computer in my middle school and we played that shit for hoursssss. That was my first introduction to that kind of game and i loved it.
Little Fighters 2 was like the chad of free online games. Just fun, no Cash Shop, not the 12384th version of a Discount WoW-Clone and fun. Kinda disappointing that LFO didn´t live up to the legend.
kings bounty remake is as far from obscure as it can even get not only is it banking on the glorious name of kings bounty, it was so extremely highly rated and sold so well they were releasing addons for it for decades and now made kings bounty two it's like one of the biggest games ever made
Nice video ! Here is my list for people reading the comments : Galleon (Original XBox) - This is a action-adventure game that has quite some problems : kind of ugly, weird controls, lack of polish in some aspects, and pretty bad audio with ton of stock sound effects. However, beneath the surface, this game is really nice for various reasons : It has a very good level design. You get to visit seven different and huge islands in this game, all of which have their own gimmicks, and your goal is pretty much always to get to a certain point of these islands. Your character can do many things to accomplish this : run super fast, jump super high, climb some walls, freely swim and slide on walls, and if there are enemies around fight using some sort of martial art. While I said the game is kind of ugly, the levels themselves look super good thanks to their cartonny style. The most important aspect of this game however is without a doubt the controls. They are kind of weird, but once you get used to them they feel natural : unlike most other platformers, your character can either move "safely" or "quicly". Basically, if your are walking, your character will never fall off a cliff, but instead take a safe path to get to the direction you are looking at. If you were to run however, your character would fall off that same cliff, unless of course you decided to jump over a gap for example. It's not a game for everybody, but I'm sure it is a game many don't know about. Star wars : Jedi Knight - Dark Forces 2 AND Jedi Knight 3 - Jedi Academy (PC) - Don't really know if I can say those games are THAT obscure. But honestly, not many people have played them at the end of the day. Dark Forces 2 has an excellent level design, possibly one of the best I've ever seen : the game really wants you to explore these impressive, gigantic maps to find secret areas, which in turn allow you to have even better force powers. I think one of my favourite moment in this game was when I ended up on the ledge of a extremly high imperial building, with wind sometimes pushing me to my death. Jedi Academy on the other hand, has a worse level design, but is the perfect game if you ever want to feel powerful. Ligthsaber combat is excellent, and throwing people in lava while choking them with force powers is a mood. (I ommited Jedi Outcast, because I think it had a pretty mediocre level design unlike it predecessor, and has a slightly less good lightsaber combat than it's successor, but if you like both these games I mentioned you might want to try it out) Streets of Rogue (PC) - Don't really know if it's obscure, but it's just great. It's basically a roguelike where you can choose a character based on his profession (for example : soldier, doctor, drug-dealer, vampire, gorilla... yeah) and based on the character you picked, you will be thrown in a generated map with some goals to achieve (soldiers must blow up stuff, doctors must heal people, drug dealers must sell drugs, etc...), with each character having its own quirk (a doctor cannot kill people, rich boy must always be on drugs, gorillas are hated by everyone except other gorillas...). It's very chaotic, but also very fun, and there is multiplayer too ! A sequel is also in the workings. X-morph defense (PC) - When I look at the cover art of this game, I am under the impression that I am going to play a chinese knock-off of comand and conquer. In reality, this game is a tower-defense with three interesting twists : firstly, you actually play the bad guys, as in aliens invading Earth and draining it of its energy. Also, you get to play as a small alien ship hovering on top of the entire map, and you can shoot the incoming troops (not really unique, but not many tower defense games do that either). And last but not least, you actually determine where enemies will come from. Not by selecting where they will spawn or whatever, this is predetermined, rather, you can place blockades on their path so that they have to take another one, the only condition being that they need at least one path to get to you. And if you can't place any barricades because of your lack of energy... You can DESTROY buildings so that they FALL on their path. You can throw a bomb at the base of a building so that it falls on the road. You can blow up a bridge so that they can't take it anymore, nor take the road beneath it. In fact, you can blow absolutely anything in this game, and it always remain visually impressive. I have plenty of other games, but I don't really know if I can say they are obscure enough or good enough to be recommended...
I've played Septerra Core, I always thought that's where valve got its inspiration for Alyx's robot friend Dog in Half Life 2 since there is a robot dog creature companion very similar to him in SC .
LOOM is the very first game I played as a kid. On a Macintosh classic with a 9" black and white screen. Couldn't even read at the time .Without colors and voices, only midi music, there was no chance to understand anything about it. But I spent hours going everywhere, clicking on everything, trying to understand what this experience even was. That was it, I was hooked. Hearing that music again got me in tears. Thank you for the trip down memory lane of days long past when times were much brighter.
Drakan: Order of the Flame was a somewhat janky "Tomb Raider" clone, except you had swords, magic and a fucking Dragon! Little Big Adventure 2 was a tank-controlled adventure of Twinsen where you help him save his planet from an alien invasion that initially look friendly, but there is more to their diplomatic smiles.
Going to also recommend Drakan. It was the game I raced Y2K to beat (losing the race, but still beating the game) and for the era it was actually really good. The dragon flight mechanic really sucked, though. There is a group of people who have been modding it for multiplayer, which while I haven't been keeping up with them, still sounds like a ton of fun.
I was going to mention this game, surprised to see it in the comments already. I loved it, still play it every now and then. For its time its actually very well made game, with big open maps full of dungeons and optional quests and items to collect. Not to mention you could fly a dragon anywhere. After 20 years I'm still finding new things in that game.
23:55 Marg Simpson Also you showed in in the video so I thought you was going to mention it. The OG Digimon World was one of my favorite games growing up. Maybe it was because I lived in nowhere Appalachia Ohio, but even back then it seemed obscure. No one else in my class of 59 kids had heard of it. The only place that sold games was wal mart 45 minutes away, they didnt have it. There was a video safari (rental) about 20 minutes away that had the game. I rented it several times, until they let me buy it because no one else ever rented it lol
Whenever I see videos about obscure video games, I always get sad when people don't mention Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, it's a action/platformer with some puzzles in there, it's similar to The Last Guardian, it's cute, and I love it. 10/10 would recommend
I'm glad there're still people who remember Septerra Core, it was a great game with intriguing world-building, too bad it never got a sequel. The ending hinted there might have been room for a sequel or two. From my side, I'd suggest Metal Fatigue, an rts from 2000. Its selling points were combots, a mecha that the player could customise, and maps which consisted of 3 layers: the first one on orbit, the second on surface of the planet, and the third one was underground (interestingly, all 3 layers were interconnected, and could be used to launch attacks in unusual ways). It featured 3 campaigns showing 3 corponations duking it out in a fight for access to ruins of an alien civilisation.
I'm not sure if this game could be considered obscure, but definitely Sacrifice. I don't think I have heard anyone talk about it and it is honestly one of my favorite games. Also, it has Tim Curry so it is a must. ALSO WHEEL OF TIME FPS MENTIONED!!
Also Messiah, released in the same year by the same developer. A possession game (similar to Geist mentioned in the video) where you play as a cherub (aka angel baby) who is sent to Earth to cleanse sin. Really underrated edgy 2000s era game which is also, fun fact, the origin of the iconic Roblox "oof" sound.
I played Loom as a 12 or 13 year old on our Windows 98 in the basement and was awestruck. It remains one of the most original and fascinating games I've ever played.
it's insane how Temple of elemental evil has graphics so amazing that it looks like it was released a year ago, not 21 years ago. Seriously, there are titles released every week that look worse than this old thing. I remember when it came out, I pirated it (I was 14 and broke) and I had no idea what to do because of its difficulty.
One game that i's call obscure is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle's: My Life as a Darklord, which takes the Tower Defense genre VERY literally! It's a shame it was a WiiWare exclusive, but that only makes my Wii all the more valuable! Also could you do a Villianpedia on the Overlords from the Overlord videogame series?
Oh man, if you ever can find it, and your into that kinda generic high fantasy 90s DOS RPGs, then you absolutely should play Betrayal at Krondor if you ever get the opportunity. It's actually a canon entry in Raymond E. Feist's Krondor series of books, but even with the author's input, the story isn't anything groundbreaking. The gameplay however is actually a really fun RPG that feels like it's underlying systems are very rooted in D&D. The game plays from a kind of first person super low texture 3d view when on the world map, and cuts into a tactical turn based kind of 3d field map for combat. What really blew me away as a kid were the more realistic elements like needing good and rest that would usually end up being a chore and annoying in most games, but somehow they manage to be just intrusive enough to be interesting while not so burdensome that they run the momentum and fun of a gameplay session. Like I never thought that a game where you are required to keep enough good for your party on hand would benefit from said food spoiling after so long preventing you from just loading up all at once, but somehow it works by keeping your pack space less cluttered while also encouraging exploration. Like, in hindsight it's not the most technically innovative game, even for it's time, but it's definitely worth a play through, I think anyone who can appreciate these old games would be impressed.
Man, Rygar and I Ninja really took me back. I played those games so much as a child. One of my favorite obscure games of all time is Arx Fatalis. Classic Arkane Studios. If only we could get another.
I remember being in a Babbages in 1999, trying to decide whether to buy Septerra Core, or Silver. I ended up with Septerra Core, and I don't regret it. I never did get back around to Silver, but Septerra Core just oozed style. Very Final Fantasy 7/8 inspired, but the point-and-click interface and the ability to talk to characters about multiple subjects gave it a vibe kinda like Fallout or Baldur's Gate.
About an obscure game recommendation: there's a cool game called Bandits: Phoenix Rising, created by GRIN (now the developer has gone bankrupt, but some of the natives of this company founded Overkill Software (Payday 2 developers)). This is a venicular combat game in which you play as a pair of bandits Rewdalf and Fenech, who are just trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The essence of the game is simple, first you select one of the three cars, then you choose weapons for it and go on a mission. At the start you only have one car and a couple of guns available, the rest becomes available as the game progresses. Each mission is simply a trip from point A to point B where you shooting enemy cars on your way, but sometimes there are more original missions (like protecting a train from attacking bandits, defending base and etc). There worth mention that there are no saves or checkpoints in this game, so when you die, you begin mission right from the start. And some hard missions become real pain in the ass because of it. Other than that, this game really worth checking
Zeno Clash is more obscure than Oddworld where it concerns worlds mainly inhabited by bizarre and weird creatures, yet both of them deserve to be a lot more known.
@@NostraDavid2 Foreign indeed. It got a surprise prequel relatively recently, by name of Clash: Artifacts of chaos. Different perspective and part of Zenozoik, but still recognizably Zenozoik and very much worth checking out. Nice wordplay on the Greys here, too.
Xanadu Next is such a gem. I wish they'd remaster it, as that 2016 re-release on Steam and GOG has a plethora of issues on modern hardware, especially Windows 11. Another two I wanna mention are Umihara Kawase, specifically the first game (original release on the SNES, it's also available on Steam), and Meadow, from the same studio that made the Shelter games.
The sheer validation i felt when I-Ninja was mentioned lol I rememeber playing that game for hours and hours as a kid on the ps2, and i never got tired of it. THERES A GIANT MECH FIGHT AT THE END LIKE CMON?!! Im glad that lil kid me at least kinda understood what was cool, cause that game is still so much fun today. I remember my oldest sister gettin it for me for a bday, it was like $5 at gamestop or somethin, and i played that thing until it stopped workin, genuinely. I also didnt have a memory stick at the time so i had to redo the entire game every time the ps2 turned off, but i didnt care. It was that game, sly cooper, and some weird duck driving game where youre on a moped and theres an aligator thats unsettling lol
I remember playing Silver on a demo disk I had on the dreamcast and Rygar on a demo disk I had for the PS2! Shadow of Rome was amazing, I wish that got a sequel, I remember playing through that twice!
Once upon a time, my mom won a free video game at a trade fair. She didn't want it, so she let me pick it. We went to this dude's house and picked from five boxes on his kitchen table. The game? Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. A weird game about people living with giant bugs. Action adventure, light RPG elements, and very simple gameplay. Had a rockin' soundtrack and is still one of my nostalgic favourites. Never heard anyone talk about it.
Also reminded me that I rented Goblin Commander for PS2 from a Hollywood video when I was a kid (8 as for rygar the creator of God Of War was asked about it and said it was inspired by devil may cry and he hadn't even heard of rygar before people brought his attention to it
One of my favorite obscure/cult classic games is Gitaroo Man for PS2 (2001?). It's a Japanese indie rhythm game that came out around the same time as the Guitar Hero craze, so it was pretty overlooked both because of a small production run and from being overshadowed by larger franchises like Guitar Hero and DDR. Gitaroo Man is the definition of a hidden gem though - it has a quirky aesthetic that reminds me of FLCL and incredible original music that reminds some people of The Pillows. Despite being a small budget game you can tell the team really put a lot of heart into it. I recommend at least checking out the game on youtube so you can hear the music, the tracks are awesome and include rock, funk, and even reggae inspired tunes.
As a guy Currently streaming Wizardry 1-2-3 translated snes version and a DND game alternating I have to say I can totally appreciate the first several games on the list. Yeah some obscure titles on here, and I'll even admit I don't know them all, heck for the first time in my life I don't know half of them, and in the community I deal with usually comes to me for the obscure stuff. 50 points for you and a hat tip.
@@energyfitness5116 in original your party also ages. if you can usually finish the first game in 30-50 years alright, when you start the second one and it's the same dudes. in the third one you play as falling apart ancients who gonna die any second of old age
In terms of Warhammer games - i got a massive flashback to being a kid in the late 80s (i am old) and we had an Atari ST - one of the best WH games ive ever played was on ST, it was a turn based squad extraction thing, i think it was Space Marines? It was incredible fun, i spent hours with it when i was little. I recommend it through an emulator! Come to think of it, ST had some really wild and wonderful obscure games. My dad had managed to find a bunch of boxes (i mean BOXES) of floppy disks for the ST so I had the joy of growing up with the old Sierra titles (indiana jones, monkey island, etc) - some of which were unplayable because of the unique piracy prevention methods (the game would ask you to type in a word in the physical manual on a random page and line) I remember a game called (i think) "Hunter" - it was a first person sandbox game with vehicles you could drive! Also: Desert Island Dizzy, Ikari Warriors, Robin Hood RPG, James Pond, etc etc - Those were the days, thanks for the video!
some "obscure" video games i recommend (all of them are on Steam): 1) 8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure 2) Astronite 3) Cave Crawler 4) Chessplosion 5) Dadish 6) Dadish 2 7) Donut County 8) Fireboy & Watergirl: Elements 9) Grapple Dog 10) Jet Kave Adventure 11) Just Shapes & Beats 12) Maptroid: Worlds 13) Open World Game: the Open World Game 14) Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death 15) Skator Gator 16) Snail Bob 2: Tiny Troubles 17) Spaceship for Newbies 18) Spoiler Alert 19) SteamWorld Heist 20) Swallow the Sea 21) They Always Run 22) Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion 23) Will You Snail? 24) Yoku's Island Express
If you know anything about Gary 'TPK' Gygax, you know exactly what kind of game ToEE is. It's an adventure designed to kill the party. There is little to no hand holding, and you can wipe at any second. Saying that it's 'hardcore' doesn't even do it justice. It's just a design that, at it's core, aims to mess with the players as much as possible.
An "obscure" game I recommend would be Starseed Pilgrim. It's pretty obtuse, but brilliantly designed, really fun to go into blind and see how much you can figure out. It's like an infinitely replayable puzzle game where you get these little seeds that grow diffrent types of blocks with their own rules and interactions with each other, and you're trying to grow away from the central starting island because there's like, a black corruption spreading up through it towards you and you gotta get away. There's more to it than that but I'm choosing not to spoil it :) It's got a cool vibe and aesthetic, it feels quite contemplative and meaningful--but in a very open way, it's a very subjective experience and can be about as much as you want it to, as big and all encompassing in its themes as you can imagine or a very simple, personal story. It feels like a very humble, unassuming title that just somehow gets you asking these big and small questions through engaging with its premise and just by... continuing to play and see the outer-limits of the world and discoveries.
::30 seconds into a musing about the unique nature of obscurity in gaming:: Narration " . . . some random forgotten Sega Saturn Shoot em' up . . . " Me: "OH MAN SHIPPU MAHOU DAISAKUSEN!" If that's not a recipe for an instant follow, I don't know what is. Love me some Raizing/Eighting stuff. Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that my dream is to have an Armed Police Batrider cabinet at my wake. Resonance of Fate, Loom, Scrapland, PS2 Rygar, Puppeteer . . . . some real killers on here. Excellent taste.
Someone else remembers Scrapland???? Hell yeah, awesome game, spent hours just exploring levels with the little clipnote thing, blowing up the mercs and police or crafting funny looking ships. The story is surprisingly interesting as well, though not super deep, there is a modicum of social commentary thrown in too. And man I did not like the Crazy Gambler arena gameplay but played them just to look at the ruins and wonder how this world came to what it is.
I may add to these in the future: - Atomic Runner: Sega genesis arcade platformer that was basically and endless runner before they were cool. Fun and challenging with great graphics and music - Gore Ultimate Soldier: Old and somewhat janky boomer shooter with tons of weapons with primary/secondary fire, a localized armor system and goofy enemies - Sonny 1,2: turn based rpg flash game, fully combat focused, with a great emphasis on strategy. Both the originals and the reboot are great imo
Oh yeah, Sonny for sure. Really great stuff. Speaking of Flash games I have a whole list somewhere; or at least I've written one before. But one of my personal favorites -which I think might be divisive or unliked by many- is Caravaneer 2. It's set in a Fallout-like universe and has a multi-branched story (I think two main paths you could take), along with Fallout 1/2 type of turn-based grid combat. It does have some big downsides. For one thing it heavily has trading simulator traits, and some people might not like that type of game. More importantly, the combat can be tedious/slow late game when there are 30+ characters in battles since each one has their own turns, and you might be controlling 10-20 characters yourself too. There is auto-combat but it's an easy way to lose your crew that way so I couldn't get myself to use it.
@@MsHojat Never heard of it, probably not my cup of tea but it looks very interesting, i'm also glad there is a steam release for it. I'd love to read the rest of your flash game list. Some of the ones i remember more fondly are the Mardek series, Arcuz, Protector 3, Rebuild, Mushroom Rampage, Motherload and Tower of Heaven
I guess I am just that old. I remember seeing previews for Scrapland and I remember when the game eventually came out. I played Septerra Core a bit when it came out and tried playing Temple of Elemental Evil, but it was soo buggy that it was unplayable on my system. Cool list. I'll have to go check these out on Steam. Very weird to hear about this as the Golden age of gaming, but it was probably my favourite Era - before DLC, mobile gatcha games and games as a service. Also a time when graphics weren't good enough to be convincing, but could spark your imagination. The simpler graphics made games far more readable as to what the play space was. A lot of modern games I struggle with because they try to be realistic - masking the underlying game systems.
I felt old when he brought up Geist. Since I remember Game Informer hyping it up and then being disappointed at what they believed to be rather limited possessions.
Temple of Elemental evil - I remember and love this one. This is pretty much one of the best and most faithful DnD 3.5 recreations you will ever see - it takes fairly few shortcuts, striving to be as tabletop accurate as possible in terms of all the rules. And the massive, extensive in-game encyclopedia and game manual - it is pretty much a basic DnD rulebook.
It's hard to remember how I first encountered Septerra Core. I actually finally went through the effort to beat it (mind you with cheats, I don't have the patience for the full game for the entire time it expects me to play). The game glitched out with the final cinematic which basically just put me in the final dungeon at the start and forced me to do the final boss fight again, so I had to watch that online, but technically I've beaten it at this point. I wouldn't say it's an exceptional game, but it is interesting and worth spending a couple bucks to see for yourself. Impossible without a guide, though. I've gotten lost in this game so many times trying to go guideless as a kid and in more recent years so I can safely warn people against trying that. The game is very confusing sometimes. I would kill for a fully-realized remake, though. Maybe tune up the combat a bit to be a little more interesting, simplify the puzzles or add a guidance system to the game. Whatever it is, the game would be great. Keep the original voice-acting, though. That was always flawless, in my opinion, and part of what gave this game its incredible charm. Small note, I found it interesting that some characters in your party *hate* each other. I don't just mean they make mean comments, I mean they will actively try to murder each other until you complete a small side quest that allows them to see each others' perspective and stop wasting turns killing each other.
Obscure hidden gems I recommend: 1. Lost Technology (play lizardman faction, then human faction) 2. Odin Sphere (if you like smash bros, you will love this) 3. Death's Gambit (story rivaling Chrono Trigger and Deus Ex 1) 4. Zer0Ranger (the ultimate plot twist, shootemup?) And if you somehow love fire emblem, Tear Ring Saga (it has the best localization of any game in existence)
Can absolutely second the recommend on Geist. That had some of the best multiplayer I ever had as a teen. Racing to be the first player to get the "golden gun" possession on each level and then trying to take down the other person if they managed it first was insanely fun. As far as obscure recommends I will throw out "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars" for the 3DS. I picked it up on a whim cause it was one of the first games that came out for the handheld and I was desperate for anything, expecting it to be a 3rd person shooter that I would trade off as soon as something better came along. Instead I found a fun little tactics game that is still a part of my collection to this day.
so good to finally see scrapland on one of these videos - man what a game. Used to play it when I was 7 or 8 with my older brother on the OG xbox, I absolutely adored it. To this day I still have the stocky robot cop voiceline "STOP STOP, GIVE ME MONEY GIVE ME MONEY" playing in my head
Great video. Even as someone who has looked at older games from all gens, you managed to cover mostly titles I had never heard of. EDIT: As for an obscure games, I will suggest two: Soul Blazer, a zelda like released on the SNES. Great music and gameplay. AFAIK, it has never been rereleased since. Tzar: Burden of the Crown, a RTS with 3 factions (Europeans, Arabs, and Asians). It has a truly satisfying feel to it when playing, plus the editor was pretty advanced for its time, I remember trying to make whole campaigns with scripted content in it as a kid.
Thanks for the recommendations: I would recommend you: RPG: Arcanum Adventure: That Cat Lady Strategy: 5D chess with multiverse and time travel Action: Cold Fear FPS: Nosferatu Wrath of Malechi
i remember grabbing Resonance of Fate at gamestop as just a throwaway for a pre owned deal. ended up playing it more than the game i originally bought. it is so damn good
Thanks, I liked hearing someone talk about Septerra Core, it was a really good game back in the day. Some Obscure games for you. At least to me Patapon (2 is my fave) -Rythm The Dominions Series (4 was my favorite) by Illwinter games -Strategy Dungeon of Dreadmore-Roguelike Chaos Seed (Probably the most Obscure, old SNES game japan only release.. you can find it translated though) - weird Dungeon builder Barony- First Person RPG, fun Co-op game Death Road to Canada- Action (Probably the least obscure I think but still fun)
Septerracore, despite all its flaws, Is still one of my favorite RPGs ever. You didn't mention the tarot card system that was a blast! Gladius was infamous where I'm from. The official Xbox magazine released a demo back then, that was so difficult that If you could record yourself beating the demo and sent them proof, you'd win a full copy of the game. I did manage to beat it, but there were no smartphones available back then... MTG Battlegrounds was one of my favorites. The local multiplayer was also a nice touch! However, my parents' house meta ended up revolving around who could Counter Spell the other more efficientely haha
Shadow of Rome was one of the best games I have ever played still to this day, I rented that every 4 dollar Tuesday from the local video shop at least 10 times. I remember getting blisters on my thumb from spamming the X and Square buttons to choke guards out when playing Octavianus. So underrated.
I have a couple! Stick it to the Man, a super weird, trippy platformer which actually has great characters and story and is really fun. The graphics are very unique. Secondly, probably not that obscure but Stacking by Lucas Arts is amazing. You play as a Russian doll and solve puzzles by jumping inside other Russian dolls with certain costumes. Hard to explain but look it up if you don't know it, it's fantastic. Oh and another one - 5 Days a Stranger, a free, indie point and click which is one of the best point and click games I've ever played. Its so creepy and engrossing. And truly is obscure! Sick video man.
Pirates: The Black Buccaneer was an adventure "hack and slash" (iirc) game where you play as a shipwrecked pirate and get this amulet of The Black Buccaneer where you'd enter a "rage" mode to transform into him. A lot like God of War but Pirates. It was on PS2 and it's heavily likely that this is just nostalgia talking but, idk, something about fighting as the Buccaneer was so cool as a kid. Always did want that necklace amulet.
I’m so glad you mentioned Xanadu Next! Another great thing about it is the exploration. I hate to draw the comparison, but it's very “Souls-like” (or would it be King's Field-like?) in how you constantly open up shortcuts to previous areas, with plenty of side routes and secrets to find. But one thing that I absolutely hate, and which I feel I should warn everyone about, is an enemy near the end. It has an attack which drains your XP. The monsters actually level you down, and if you save your game afterwards, well… I hope you like grinding.
One of my all time favorite video games that's obscure is Jade Cocoon 2 on PS2. I rarely hear anyone mention it. And it's such a fun and interesting game about merging monsters with a cool rotational battle system. Highly recommend it!
I played that game as well as the original jade cocoon for PS1. Gotta say the original was the better of the two. Either way, the series is legendary and yes, the monster merging mechanic was truly innovative. Great artstyle too.
oh, here's a good one: The Summoning. a kinda forgotten SSI game from 1992, with its own clever and innovative rule system, a *heap* of lore (the manual came with a short story setting out the backstory), and a great plot. super fun, and unjustly overlooked.
In the late 90's there was this strategy games called Magic & Mayhem by one of the developers of the original X-COM. It was built around summoning creatures and casting spells with limited resources, combat was turn based but you could pause time which meant you could be very granular with unit placement. The story and themes were driven by Celtic mythology and all the character animations were claymation which had a very unique feel. I can't say I played the whole thing but I did enjoy it.
Two games that are never talked about, both have an *amazing* soundtrack and aesthetics, and have stuck with me forever since I played them: - Critters For Sale - Umurangi Generation
Charlie the Duck, Asterix & Obelix XXL, Hegemony Gold: Wars of the Ancient Greece, Oriental Empires, Granny in Paradise, Sven XXX, Vedelm: The Golden Horde, Asterix & Obelix: Mega Madness, Dragon Fist 3, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: Pacific Theater, Neighbors From Hell, Enigma, Sea Dog 2 (alt. title: Pirates of the Carribean), Armed with Wings, Larry and the Gnomes, Plazma Burst 2: Forward to the Past, Commander: The Great War
I Ninja seems like someone’s reinterpretation of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. That first person mech sequence gives it away. Looks great tho. I don’t usually go for videos like this but I think you got a pretty cool list here. Also, being probably a little older than you I was surprised to hear of the 2000s as the golden age, I would think of the 80s with the NES and insane arcade scene, but it actually makes a lot of sense we’re still riding out what was set up in the 2000s
Kinda want you to do a villainpedia on AM, the AI from the short story "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" and the video game of the same name. There's a bit more lore in the video game, but both versions should be analyzed to get the full picture of the character. This character was the inspiration of many ai villains in later franchises.
Oh my god, i was looking for that "A Series of misfortune events" game for 15 years I had the demo version on a disc as a kid, but i lost the damn cd and forgot the name of the game. I asked people on web forums for a long time if the description hits any bells and people were convinced i hallucinated this game.
18:20 I absolutely adore cases where people who wrote old books were old nerds who loved videogames and put effort into making games out of their own stories. I mean off the top of my head I can only think of this one and I have no mouth and I must scream, but it's still always a thrill to hear about
I remember playing a sort of obscure MMO called Rubies of Evantide in 2009. I was still pretty new to MMOs so I didn't really grasp a lot of the concepts/gameplay, but I met some people and they let me into their guild. They rolled new characters and we played together, I didn't realize the game was about to hit EOS. They were surprised to see someone new to the game. If you're out there, Gang of Heroes, (the guild in question) you guys are legends.
Since you recommended I-Ninja and Puppeteer which are some of my favorite games of all time I will recommend you a few others I like too. 1 - Chulip: it's a PS2 you play as a boy trying to find the courage to confess to his crush so he has to get a kiss of everyone in town to increase his confidence, you can't forcefully kiss someone or they'll hit you so you gotta find a way to solve their troubles and make them happy so they can thank you with a kiss, it has some really fun puzzles and mini games but the star of the show are the incredible characters. 2 - Total Overdose: it's a mix of GTA: San Andreas and Max Payne with a banger mexican soundtrack and incredible combat, it's available on GOG for dirt cheap and if nothing else sold you in this game, just know that if you headshot someone wearing a hat you will send it flying and if you touch the hat with your upper body your character will wear it for a while. 3 - Soul of the Samurai: tank controls in a samurai game is a terrible idea, but once you get the hang of it I dare to say it plays better than the first Tenchu. You can find the game on PS1 and there are two main characters, I suggest you choose Kotaro as the story will make more sense if you play him first and something else you should know is that when you parry just in the right timing you'll perform a super even without meter, it's pretty cool, aside from that don't look anything up cause the hook on the story is one of the coolest part of the game and it happens right at the beginning.
It's not old but it's an indie game, anodyne 2: return to dust. It hits nostalgia hard for early 3D games, as well as blaster master, but it's story driven, excellent music, a story that explores a lot of difficult but very real human experience, and levels that always feel fresh and innovative.
Thanks for making this video! I love looking back through games i missed and thinking, “how did i miss this!!!” Haha. I hope someone would make an entire channel series out of finding retro/obscure games.
Fact about Temple of Elemental Evil: the final boss of the game had a tendency to wander around killing mobs and popping up randomly to challenge the party unexpectedly during development. They had to program special "magic seals" to contain it to the last floor.
Ah, ToEE, I beat that one with a solo Level 2 Rogue character (required a lot of save scumming in the beginning to get the ring of invisibility which breaks the game.) I played the Operencia demo on Steam, and one thing I really didn't like is how it handled the "rows/distance" in combat. Why are enemies in the "far" row still considered in the "far" row when their allies in the closer rows are all dead? Are my melee characters unable to take a couple steps to get closer to the now unprotected enemy archers and spell casters? This nonsense really broke my enjoyment. I don't know if this was fixed in the main game. I'm glad you mentioned that the EGA version of Loom is the best way to play it :)
As an old fart who's been gaming for decades, I've played a bunch of these. Honestly I'm floored by how you've actually managed to put together a list of truly obscure titles worth playing. Bravo.
Battlezone 1998 is pretty obscure. I was fascinated by the demo and bought that game on launch day. Dominated quite a bit of my childhood, and to this day I feel it is the pinnacle of FPS/RTS hybrids, with Command and Conquer Renegade pulling a close second. BUT, here's my REALLY obscure contribution. And so far, I haven't seen it mentioned in the comments. Also, there are VERY few TH-cam videos covering this game. Star Crusader. That game so thoroughly dominated my childhood, that I existed SOLEY in that fantasy universe for almost 5 years. I even made my parents call me Roman, after the main character. I win the obscurity challenge.
My addition: Shadow of Memories / Shadow of Destiny, an utterly unique *adventure game* by Konami for PS2/PC. It's a time-travel romp where you have to solve / prevent your own murder by going back in time and sabotaging your killer's various schemes before they happen. Plus it has a ton of endings, with some that require deliberately rewriting history during the game. Sadly, it's never been reissued, and the PC version is a pain to get working today. Emulating the PS2 version is probably the best option.
Bless LucasArts for having Guybrush in the Monkey Island Games (multiple of them) have "I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?" as a random line of dialogue. Damn LOOM. You deserved so much more.
For fans of Septerra Core, I'd also recommend Cosmic Star Heroine! It has a similar vibe, sort of cyberpunky blend of western and eastern aesthetics in a turn-based RPG (even has a timer system). I think it's closer to anime though, very clearly inspired by a mix of Phantasy Star and classic 80s sci-fi and cyberpunk anime like Cyber City. It's great fun!
Haven't played Septerra Core, but as for Cosmic Star Heroine, it's pure 10/10 in everything except the story. Story is lackluster, some story beats are off, and basically you don't care about some characters, and there are no real themes to hit you with (compare with FF6/FF7 or Chrono Trigger) Aside of that, combat is insanely good for a JRPG, definitely the best of all turn-based JRPGs.
@@theyellowarchitect4504 My only real issue with CSH's story is the tone. Could never quite tell what kind of tone the story was going for. Zeboyd Games are known for satircal games but CSH at times was written more seriously but also the characters felt like complete jokes the other half. It was really uneven.
Operencia is really good! The devs took a break from pinball games and made a sleeper dungeon crawler hit! There's actually a VR mode that's pretty cool and I played bunch of the game in VR. Nothing too fancy but it's cool seeing the monsters in 3d and it feels very immersive to play it that way.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
th-cam.com/video/zc9JOcNJaNs/w-d-xo.html
Heavy Bullets, a fun little rogue-like fps that came out in 2014
One of my absolute favorite extreme sports games from the EA Sports BIG era was Freekstyle
Exiled Kingdoms is my favourite "obscure" game by far. Its not old like these but it has that old diablo/fallout art style and story is interesting too. I recommend it!
Twisted Tales of Spike McFang, a bit of a slept on title from the SNES, it's a really cute and quirky action-adventure romp where you play as a vampire prince/magician who eats tomatoes instead of blood and attacks with his top hat and cape! Loved playing that game when I was younger, it's still pretty fun now!
I've been playing astral chain on the switch. It's very much a modern hidden gem
Usually, when I see 'Obscure' or 'Hidden Gem' lists, I already know 90% of the games. However most of the games in your video are truly obscure. Thank you for these great recommendations
Loom is one of the reasons I got into the game industry. Years later I was out in LA working with some voice actresses, and afterward I was talking with the voice producer we had met, and she told me her first title in the industry was Loom as a temp and that was her start in the industry, and I got to tell her how Loom was one of the things that shaped me as a kid and as a developer and thanked her for her work as we both were tearing up. Definitely made it a weird dinner for the rest of our dev group!
It is one of my all time favorites and will always hold a special place in my heart. I often sneak little references to Loom in many of the things I've helped make, or even my personal projects. Thanks for highlighting it!
Awesome story, thank you for sharing.
Loom really was something magical. I wish Double Fine would get to do something with the property, even just a straight up remake would be amazing - but they must absolutely build in microphone capture so you can play the tunes yourself.
@@martinkrauser4029 That would be a really cool addition... I'd also love to see a remake, but mostly just a graphical one, I really enjoyed it mechanically, and the voice acting was really good! I remember freaking out when I got the CDROM version and it had 256 colors and dialogue audio, it was like a whole new game! I also loved that the spells were randomized every playthrough so you had to learn them and experiment and write them down.
The creator of Loom was one of my professors in college. Really interesting guy, he was obsessed with 2001 Space Odyssey and helped organize a screening of the movie on campus. He left his professor job my final year to go back in to the industry. During one of our labs I remember him mentioning that he was contacted by a group of developers who had funding and the rights to Loom and that there might be a sequel developed. Im not 100% sure, but that sequel might be in the works right now.
@@jupez9428 That's awesome, it would have been really cool to pick his brain about it! Really would be amazing to see a Loom sequel. Funny how big and small the industry is at the same time...
Troika deserved so much better than they ended up getting. ToEE, Arcanum, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines are all beloved games with dedicated communities to this day.
To be fair though... Every game they released was riddled with game breaking bugs that they never did anything to fix. People are never off Bethesda's case about their bugs and they pale in comparison. I've played all of the games you mentioned many times over. And pretty much in every single one, I hit at least 2-3 play throughs which I either had to abandon a long play save, or cheat, to get past a bug that screwed me over.
Troika's games are only playable 'because' the community fixed them. They had all the heart and great ideas, they just never once delivered without major problems.
Man I agree about the bugs, but the base games were some of the most amazing games to me personally. I still play Arcanum to this day (with community fixes) I kind of think it's my top game for me
@@Striker9 oh I absolutely agree, I loved most of their games and also still play VtM:B and Arcanum. Temple of Elemental Evil was also one of the best D&D translations to cRPG I had played up until that point and it still stands out as a great version!
But they were abysmal for the bugs lol. I could be wrong, but I'm sure that's part of why they went bust?
@@GrigeralI don't think it would have been the bugs, lol. These games released years before game forums were anything more than small niche places. I think their bankruptcy could just more be attributed to just releasing a relatively unsuccessful at the time game for a genre that was on the outs around that time as tastes were changing.
A PC exclusive first person RPG in 2004 was not really the kind of thing to gain traction. Had it released one or two years earlier or also gotten a console port it might have had a chance, I think.
@@torinriley7569 So, having just done a little research, Bloodlines apparently sold 80,000 copies during its initial release, which is certainly wasn't great. But critics at the time were put off by the technical flaws.
I think it's also absolutely vital to remember that Bloodlines released in the same month (November 2004) as both Half-Life 2... And World of Warcraft. Both being absolute mammoths in the FPS and RPG genres, so it got completely overshadowed.
For Arcanum, the only real thing going for it was the story and system the game used. I recall it was considered to still look dated when it released, considering that Final Fantasy X came out months before it. Then add to that the numerous flaws and the fact it was likely still competing with Baldurs Gate 2 (which came out 2 months prior), it sold well, but still fairly middling.
So I think they had a tendancy to release games that still looked fairly dated, where extremely buggy and had a bad tendency to release at really bad times! (Although in fairness, I remember playing Bloodlines at the time and thinking it looked amazing, so maybe they learned their lesson on that one lol)
9:36 WOOOOO! Septerra Core! The first RPG I ever played, and damn was it memorable. No walkthroughs, no hints, a hot summer, and tons of cheeseburgers, trying to play through it with my friend. One of my defining life experiences as a teen.
The combats got super repetitive but the art, the world, the story, the characters, the game really is a precious gem!
Holy- FUTURE TACTICS? For most of my life now, I would occasionally think about that game from my childhood, but could never remember the name. It's like a nostalgic fever dream hearing Ghostcharm acknowledge it existed.
I have some more obscure stuff. Technically around 7-8/10 games but I played them a lot because I had them.
Lost Eden (1995), an adventure game with dinosaurs and "crazy graphics".
Thunderscape (1995), turn-based party dungeon crawler.
Summoner (2001), RPG with real-time combat and vast epic story.
Project Eden (2001), a "lost viking in 3D" adventure game.
The Last Remnant (2008) difficult and forgotten squaresoft JRPG, insanely long.
Three. You hit me with three deep cuts here. First was Loom, which I remember watching my """adoptive dad""" play on a cobbled together scrap computer, it was running DOS from what I think was an original disc (like, to install the OS with) and Loom was loaded in the same way. Second was Goblin Commander, which I actually own/owned a copy of on GC, and even played a little bit of. I'd never played an RTS before, and I was young and not too patient for it's very alien (to me) gameplay, so I never got far, but I DID play it. And third is I-Ninja, a game truly near and dear to my heart, though unfortunately, one I never 100 percented (a few of the special challenges were just too friggin hard for me, like the one hit rock-em sock-em robots challenge, egg head something or other I think). Really nice hearing somebody talk about them, even if it's basically just because of the feeling of that DiCaprio meme (the TV pointing one).
"Every single game means something to someone." Thank you. this is the purest testimony to why we love games.
Custom Robo Arena for the DS went hard as a kid. You control a little robot in a tabletop diorama thing, and you gotta clean it with a little ring, and apparently there's a criminal gang that uses illegal military grade robo parts for the tiny toy sized robots. That's what I faintly remember
Hell ya, custom robo was such a fun game. If I remember right, one of those illegal parts was a dragon head that fired a massive dragon shaped tracking laser with a roar. It was so cheesy but so fun.
that game was amazing
The concept for this game is perfect, I was mesmerized when I played
Oh yeah been wanting to play the Custom Robo games for a while. They look so underrated !
I heard about it from a friend, really hope I get around to playing it sometime
About Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds, you say there is always emulation, but the game actually does exist on PC!
I played it for ungodly amounts of hours as a kid, and I even still have it on my laptop for whenever I'm out traveling and need a small game to pass the time in an airport or whatever.
I really do hope they one day remaster it or do this idea again but more refined.
You should upload a copy online! We need to preserve it
@@plentyoflulu4694myabandonware has it
@@plentyoflulu4694 It is already available if you know where to look :3
Search the old bay of those who say Yohoho and you will find what you seek.
phantom dust is another card game turned competitive action. its publised by microsoft when the og xbox was being released into the market. They bitched out didnt release it overseas past Japan where it was developed. The just recently did in 2022 if i recall correctly. its on gamepass and their store. should be on pc via their store as well.
It got a US release. You could often find this used for $20 before it became a bit of a cult classic on the XB. This is an Deathrow are two of my favorite in my collection from that era.
I would like to reccomend you a RTS game made by THQ Nordic called Impossible Creatures, i don't know how obscure it actually is, but people don't talk about it enough, the main gimmick is that you can make an army of animals to fight with, except your animals are made of animal fusions, you can take 2 animals and mix and match their bodyparts to create a frankenstein version of both, and use them to muster an army, there's a lot of animals to pick and choose and you can just get lost on the beast creation process
The RTS part was fun enough too, the campaign honestly speaking was kind of slow if i remember it, but that was probably just me being too impatient to unlock more tech and animals, which you had to go out and collect their DNA
The game is currently availible both on Steam and GOG with all patches and extra content, and people have made some mods for it too, there's a very cool one with dinosaurs that i found recently and may give it a try
Impossible Creatures was published by THQ but it was developed by Relic, the same guys who made Dawn of War and Company of Heroes which explains why it's so good.
God I loved Impossible Creatures. I still have the CDs.
i played it recently,but god damn the last mission is so unfair
That game was so good. Underrated
Oh man, that was the game for me and my best friend
21:50 bro I knew that name sounded familiar. In the monkey island game one of the first characters you talk to actually talks about Loom and how it's a great game and you should play it lol
Highly recommend Sega Saturn games. Super underrated system and has a ton of great games that are easy to pickup and play. I'll recommend a few games with a paragraph for each, so safe to say big wall o text incoming.
Panzer Dragoon I & II - Starting with one that actually got some recognition with a cool remake recently. Contrary to what it sounds like, it's an on-rails shooter in which you ride a dragon and shoot stuff. That's literally it and it's fun as hell. Like most Sega games, it has tons of enemies, explosions, and is easy to pick up and play. There are limited continues, so keep that in mind if you're using some kind of emulation. You can also play the remake on Switch, which I haven't played but I highly recommend anyway since it might be our chance to see more remake goodness from Sega.
Bulk Slash - Do you like mechs? I like mechs. Play as one in third-person and blast and shoot stuff. Tons of high-quality sprites and animation by Hudson, so expect detailed anime stuff. Levels are in 3d and are pretty open. You can even fly around if you want. Exploring is recommended as you'll find pilots who need assistance and give you new abilities. Pretty self explanatory, and goddamn is it satisfying to shoot things.
Saturn Bomberman - Holy Homberman, it's Bomberman. You probably get the gist: place a bomb and kill some dudes, but try not to get killed by your own bombs. Tons of cool powerups, including the then-new Dinosaur helpers, who give you an extra hit as well as various abilities such as jumping over stuff. Why should you care? Because this is a Bomberman game that supports TEN PLAYERS. This can also be done through emulation, just make sure to activate your multiplayer adapter in whatever core you're using. Even the single player is tons of fun, and can also be done with 2 players. Grab some friends and have a BLAST.
Fighters Megamix - The Saturn's Smash Bros., a crossover fighter with Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter with tons of unlockables from other Sega games like Virtua Cop and Daytona USA (YES you can play as the car). People will talk about the insane skill ceiling, but simply starting this game couldn't be simpler: you have a block button, a punch, and a kick. That's it. Don't stress about the learning curve, just grab friends and have fun like you do in Smash, because this is an amazing game for goofballs. Did I mention you can play as characters from Sonic: The Fighters?
Legend of Oasis - A prequel to Beyond Oasis on Mega Drive, you play through an Arabian-style overhead setting with a sword, solving puzzles and fighting stuff like big bad bosses and big dumb knights with various techniques. It's mostly like Link to the Past, but unique to this game are Elementals, spirits that follow you around and do various things like heal you or burn fellas. Another game that's pretty simple to understand and play. It's also called Legend of Thor 2 in Europe.
Astal - Short artsy single-player platformer. Play through a fairy-tale story as a little kid with super strength and a bird companion. Interesting bird mechanics changes per stage. Co-op allows the 2nd player to be the bird. JP version recommended since the USA version has limited continues and an alternate intro without lyrics. Understanding Japanese is not required, as it's yet another game that's easy to understand how to play and the story is pretty simple despite having a lot of talking in the intro.
Policenauts - Before Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima made some sweet cinematic adventure games. This one in particular features detail-rich anime cutscenes taking place in a future scifi world in which you are an astronaut awoken from cryosleep and now must work as a detective in LA. The rest of the story is incredible, but I'll say no more as it's best played blind. Has been on a few systems in Japan, but has unfortunately never seen an international release. Fans have picked up the slack, as the best port of this game is on Saturn with fan translation.
Panzer Dragoon: Saga - Goddamn does this game tickle my pickle. Set to compete against Final Fantasy VII, it's Panzer Dragoon as an RPG. Tons of story and cutscenes with voices, it pushes the technical prowess of the Saturn to its limits and is a technical marvel. Rare and expensive, this cult classic can sell for upwards of $1000 complete in box. Someone in the comments of a longplay I found said it's the best game they've never played, and I can't say I disagree with that.
Dragon force 1 and 2 also. The Saturn had great games but many of its games came too late or never outside of Japan
you forgot Snatcher, Kojima's 2nd game after Metal Gear
Ristar is also good
LOOM is one of those games I used to watch my dad play, and I pretty much started hyperventilating upon seeing it again. I'm so, so happy that it's on Steam (even if that's imperfect) because I'm not tech-savvy enough to rig up these old games myself . . .
Getting old games to work on emulators isn't as hard as you might think. Basically comes down to installing an emulator program, downloading games, starting up the emulator and using it to open the game you want to play. There is plenty of information to be found detailing any troubleshooting around controllers etc but if you can get a controller to press keyboard buttons, that's typically as complicated as it gets for older games
You should check out the eXoDOS project then.
If you're a big fan of Gladius and also enjoy boardgames or the table top experience, I highly recommend looking into the two Hoplomachus titles from Chip Theory Games. Gladius was the direct inspiration when making the series, and they live up to the video game. One of the releases is a fully solitaire experience called Hoplomachus: Victorum, each run of the game you're selecting a hero character and building up a troop of gladiators, and then make your way through three acts of defeating the big bad's champions and then finally taking on the boss on Mt. Vesuvius. The second title is called Hoplomachus: Remastered, which is a collection of nearly all the original Hoplomachus games that were Chop Theory's first games with entirely new art and balanced so you can interchange things with Victorum and vice versus. Remastered focuses more on larger arena one off skirmishes, either PvP or PvE, with multiple game modes for all, and two different arenas with different mechanics. They're both large lifestyle games, built around replayability and high production value. I can't recommend them enough if you enjoy both Gladius and table top gaming.
Septerra Core! Clearly a forgotten one, nice to see it mentioned! That was the very first game I bought on GOG back in 2010. I have it in the back of my head to revisit it someday, loved the world and ambiance, very original.
Loom wasn't overlooked at the time. Back then adventure games were a way bigger part of gaming than now, and any Sierra or Lucas Art release couldn't possibly go under the radar. Loom was seen as the very different, poetic one, a unique game. Too short unfortunately but yeah, so worth playing even today.
Thanks for this very well made list, good not to hear about the same games again for once.
And for sure this is the golden age of entertainment!
Holy sweet baby batman..you have no idea how long I've been looking for the game Silver.
I have a single memory of the game, sort of like a screenshot in my mind, of a friend playing it on PC so many years ago. I could never find out which game it was. I tried searching for it by describing this image I had of the game on google and stuff like that, but never found it. Over the years whenever that memory came up I always tried to figure out which game it was but always in vain. I was just casually listening to this wonderful video while working, and when I glanced at the screen my jaw dropped as I instantly recognized the game as the same "screenshot" in my mind. Crazy stuff!
Thank you and awesome video!
why u so Chill
Grammar.
@@ih7729+chill
🫵🤓@@ih7729
You got problem with that ?
+30 chill
One available RPG I'd recommend is Sudeki it's a British made game that is unique. Also the shopkeeper Kamo is best character. Another game is Brute force a 4 character tactical third person shooter. Then there's Kingdom under fire.
I remember my parents renting Sudeki from Blockbuster for me as a kid. I played through hours of the game, and loved every bit of it, only to encounter a bug that broke my profession, and I was stuck. I bought it again on Steam a while back, but haven’t gotten around to playing it again.
>Brute force
Is it similar to Conflict series?
@@AikisDominator i haven't played the conflict games.
Sudeki mentioned! *Sweet*! Sarcastic greedy duckman shopkeeper i certainly remember.
I liked it as it was, but want to see it be more than it ended up being.
Sudeki is pretty cool, but I have to wonder why anyone would play a slog like Brute Force
Resonance Of Fate? Hell yeah dude that is my 2nd favorite jrpg on the 360. Its pacing, story, and cast reminded me of Cowboy Bebop in many ways. It's a shame so many people couldn't figure out the combat system because they have a 3 minute attention span.
If you're looking for more obscure but fun rpgs/strat games I'd recommend Growlanser 3 (ps2), Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 (ps2), The Unholy War (ps1), Future Cop LAPD (ps1), Destiny Of An Emperor (NES), Ogre Battle (snes). Wouldn't be surprised if you've played most of these ones already though.
Some of my old obscure favorites include the likes of Hellsinker, Ashes 2063, Little Fighter 2, DX Ball 2, Dragonshard, Digital Devil Saga, AirXonix, Shinobi Ps2, Hinokakera, Kings Bounty the Legend, Ar Tonelico 2, Splosion Man, Hydro Thunder, Soul Nomad and some more I can't quite think of at the top of my head.
Someone put dx ball on every computer in my middle school and we played that shit for hoursssss. That was my first introduction to that kind of game and i loved it.
Little Fighters 2 was like the chad of free online games. Just fun, no Cash Shop, not the 12384th version of a Discount WoW-Clone and fun. Kinda disappointing that LFO didn´t live up to the legend.
Hydro Thunder is a really fun time
kings bounty remake is as far from obscure as it can even get
not only is it banking on the glorious name of kings bounty, it was so extremely highly rated and sold so well they were releasing addons for it for decades and now made kings bounty two
it's like one of the biggest games ever made
Nice video ! Here is my list for people reading the comments :
Galleon (Original XBox) - This is a action-adventure game that has quite some problems : kind of ugly, weird controls, lack of polish in some aspects, and pretty bad audio with ton of stock sound effects. However, beneath the surface, this game is really nice for various reasons : It has a very good level design. You get to visit seven different and huge islands in this game, all of which have their own gimmicks, and your goal is pretty much always to get to a certain point of these islands. Your character can do many things to accomplish this : run super fast, jump super high, climb some walls, freely swim and slide on walls, and if there are enemies around fight using some sort of martial art. While I said the game is kind of ugly, the levels themselves look super good thanks to their cartonny style. The most important aspect of this game however is without a doubt the controls. They are kind of weird, but once you get used to them they feel natural : unlike most other platformers, your character can either move "safely" or "quicly". Basically, if your are walking, your character will never fall off a cliff, but instead take a safe path to get to the direction you are looking at. If you were to run however, your character would fall off that same cliff, unless of course you decided to jump over a gap for example. It's not a game for everybody, but I'm sure it is a game many don't know about.
Star wars : Jedi Knight - Dark Forces 2 AND Jedi Knight 3 - Jedi Academy (PC) - Don't really know if I can say those games are THAT obscure. But honestly, not many people have played them at the end of the day. Dark Forces 2 has an excellent level design, possibly one of the best I've ever seen : the game really wants you to explore these impressive, gigantic maps to find secret areas, which in turn allow you to have even better force powers. I think one of my favourite moment in this game was when I ended up on the ledge of a extremly high imperial building, with wind sometimes pushing me to my death. Jedi Academy on the other hand, has a worse level design, but is the perfect game if you ever want to feel powerful. Ligthsaber combat is excellent, and throwing people in lava while choking them with force powers is a mood. (I ommited Jedi Outcast, because I think it had a pretty mediocre level design unlike it predecessor, and has a slightly less good lightsaber combat than it's successor, but if you like both these games I mentioned you might want to try it out)
Streets of Rogue (PC) - Don't really know if it's obscure, but it's just great. It's basically a roguelike where you can choose a character based on his profession (for example : soldier, doctor, drug-dealer, vampire, gorilla... yeah) and based on the character you picked, you will be thrown in a generated map with some goals to achieve (soldiers must blow up stuff, doctors must heal people, drug dealers must sell drugs, etc...), with each character having its own quirk (a doctor cannot kill people, rich boy must always be on drugs, gorillas are hated by everyone except other gorillas...). It's very chaotic, but also very fun, and there is multiplayer too ! A sequel is also in the workings.
X-morph defense (PC) - When I look at the cover art of this game, I am under the impression that I am going to play a chinese knock-off of comand and conquer. In reality, this game is a tower-defense with three interesting twists : firstly, you actually play the bad guys, as in aliens invading Earth and draining it of its energy. Also, you get to play as a small alien ship hovering on top of the entire map, and you can shoot the incoming troops (not really unique, but not many tower defense games do that either). And last but not least, you actually determine where enemies will come from. Not by selecting where they will spawn or whatever, this is predetermined, rather, you can place blockades on their path so that they have to take another one, the only condition being that they need at least one path to get to you. And if you can't place any barricades because of your lack of energy... You can DESTROY buildings so that they FALL on their path. You can throw a bomb at the base of a building so that it falls on the road. You can blow up a bridge so that they can't take it anymore, nor take the road beneath it. In fact, you can blow absolutely anything in this game, and it always remain visually impressive.
I have plenty of other games, but I don't really know if I can say they are obscure enough or good enough to be recommended...
I've played Septerra Core, I always thought that's where valve got its inspiration for Alyx's robot friend Dog in Half Life 2 since there is a robot dog creature companion very similar to him in SC .
LOOM is the very first game I played as a kid. On a Macintosh classic with a 9" black and white screen. Couldn't even read at the time .Without colors and voices, only midi music, there was no chance to understand anything about it. But I spent hours going everywhere, clicking on everything, trying to understand what this experience even was. That was it, I was hooked. Hearing that music again got me in tears. Thank you for the trip down memory lane of days long past when times were much brighter.
Drakan: Order of the Flame was a somewhat janky "Tomb Raider" clone, except you had swords, magic and a fucking Dragon!
Little Big Adventure 2 was a tank-controlled adventure of Twinsen where you help him save his planet from an alien invasion that initially look friendly, but there is more to their diplomatic smiles.
Drakan always had that "hard mode always" feel. Rune, as well.
Going to also recommend Drakan. It was the game I raced Y2K to beat (losing the race, but still beating the game) and for the era it was actually really good. The dragon flight mechanic really sucked, though.
There is a group of people who have been modding it for multiplayer, which while I haven't been keeping up with them, still sounds like a ton of fun.
I was going to mention this game, surprised to see it in the comments already. I loved it, still play it every now and then. For its time its actually very well made game, with big open maps full of dungeons and optional quests and items to collect. Not to mention you could fly a dragon anywhere. After 20 years I'm still finding new things in that game.
23:55 Marg Simpson
Also you showed in in the video so I thought you was going to mention it. The OG Digimon World was one of my favorite games growing up. Maybe it was because I lived in nowhere Appalachia Ohio, but even back then it seemed obscure. No one else in my class of 59 kids had heard of it. The only place that sold games was wal mart 45 minutes away, they didnt have it. There was a video safari (rental) about 20 minutes away that had the game. I rented it several times, until they let me buy it because no one else ever rented it lol
I still play Digimon World every once in a while. Such a solid game.
Whenever I see videos about obscure video games, I always get sad when people don't mention Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, it's a action/platformer with some puzzles in there, it's similar to The Last Guardian, it's cute, and I love it. 10/10 would recommend
I'm glad there're still people who remember Septerra Core, it was a great game with intriguing world-building, too bad it never got a sequel. The ending hinted there might have been room for a sequel or two.
From my side, I'd suggest Metal Fatigue, an rts from 2000. Its selling points were combots, a mecha that the player could customise, and maps which consisted of 3 layers: the first one on orbit, the second on surface of the planet, and the third one was underground (interestingly, all 3 layers were interconnected, and could be used to launch attacks in unusual ways). It featured 3 campaigns showing 3 corponations duking it out in a fight for access to ruins of an alien civilisation.
I'm not sure if this game could be considered obscure, but definitely Sacrifice. I don't think I have heard anyone talk about it and it is honestly one of my favorite games. Also, it has Tim Curry so it is a must.
ALSO WHEEL OF TIME FPS MENTIONED!!
I know of Sacrifice through Mandalore. When he first alluded to it in a previous video, i thought he was referring to Brütal Legend.
Also Messiah, released in the same year by the same developer. A possession game (similar to Geist mentioned in the video) where you play as a cherub (aka angel baby) who is sent to Earth to cleanse sin. Really underrated edgy 2000s era game which is also, fun fact, the origin of the iconic Roblox "oof" sound.
I played Loom as a 12 or 13 year old on our Windows 98 in the basement and was awestruck. It remains one of the most original and fascinating games I've ever played.
11:29 Septerra Core being like "We have Midgar at home."
it's insane how Temple of elemental evil has graphics so amazing that it looks like it was released a year ago, not 21 years ago. Seriously, there are titles released every week that look worse than this old thing. I remember when it came out, I pirated it (I was 14 and broke) and I had no idea what to do because of its difficulty.
One game that i's call obscure is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle's: My Life as a Darklord, which takes the Tower Defense genre VERY literally! It's a shame it was a WiiWare exclusive, but that only makes my Wii all the more valuable!
Also could you do a Villianpedia on the Overlords from the Overlord videogame series?
Oh man, if you ever can find it, and your into that kinda generic high fantasy 90s DOS RPGs, then you absolutely should play Betrayal at Krondor if you ever get the opportunity.
It's actually a canon entry in Raymond E. Feist's Krondor series of books, but even with the author's input, the story isn't anything groundbreaking. The gameplay however is actually a really fun RPG that feels like it's underlying systems are very rooted in D&D. The game plays from a kind of first person super low texture 3d view when on the world map, and cuts into a tactical turn based kind of 3d field map for combat.
What really blew me away as a kid were the more realistic elements like needing good and rest that would usually end up being a chore and annoying in most games, but somehow they manage to be just intrusive enough to be interesting while not so burdensome that they run the momentum and fun of a gameplay session. Like I never thought that a game where you are required to keep enough good for your party on hand would benefit from said food spoiling after so long preventing you from just loading up all at once, but somehow it works by keeping your pack space less cluttered while also encouraging exploration.
Like, in hindsight it's not the most technically innovative game, even for it's time, but it's definitely worth a play through, I think anyone who can appreciate these old games would be impressed.
Man, Rygar and I Ninja really took me back. I played those games so much as a child. One of my favorite obscure games of all time is Arx Fatalis. Classic Arkane Studios. If only we could get another.
I need more Arx in my life
Never beat it.
I remember being in a Babbages in 1999, trying to decide whether to buy Septerra Core, or Silver. I ended up with Septerra Core, and I don't regret it. I never did get back around to Silver, but Septerra Core just oozed style.
Very Final Fantasy 7/8 inspired, but the point-and-click interface and the ability to talk to characters about multiple subjects gave it a vibe kinda like Fallout or Baldur's Gate.
I was stunned to see septerra core. Find those birds
About an obscure game recommendation: there's a cool game called Bandits: Phoenix Rising, created by GRIN (now the developer has gone bankrupt, but some of the natives of this company founded Overkill Software (Payday 2 developers)). This is a venicular combat game in which you play as a pair of bandits Rewdalf and Fenech, who are just trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The essence of the game is simple, first you select one of the three cars, then you choose weapons for it and go on a mission. At the start you only have one car and a couple of guns available, the rest becomes available as the game progresses. Each mission is simply a trip from point A to point B where you shooting enemy cars on your way, but sometimes there are more original missions (like protecting a train from attacking bandits, defending base and etc). There worth mention that there are no saves or checkpoints in this game, so when you die, you begin mission right from the start. And some hard missions become real pain in the ass because of it. Other than that, this game really worth checking
One obscure video game I'd love to see covered is Oddworld. A criminally underrated series with a lot of charm to it
Absolute GEM
Zeno Clash is more obscure than Oddworld where it concerns worlds mainly inhabited by bizarre and weird creatures, yet both of them deserve to be a lot more known.
@@jurtheorc8117oooh, I remember that game! It was a truly alien experience! No, not grey alien kind of alien. Just super foreign.
@@NostraDavid2 Foreign indeed. It got a surprise prequel relatively recently, by name of Clash: Artifacts of chaos. Different perspective and part of Zenozoik, but still recognizably Zenozoik and very much worth checking out.
Nice wordplay on the Greys here, too.
Xanadu Next is such a gem. I wish they'd remaster it, as that 2016 re-release on Steam and GOG has a plethora of issues on modern hardware, especially Windows 11. Another two I wanna mention are Umihara Kawase, specifically the first game (original release on the SNES, it's also available on Steam), and Meadow, from the same studio that made the Shelter games.
Praise be, another GhostCharm video. Blessed day.
The sheer validation i felt when I-Ninja was mentioned lol I rememeber playing that game for hours and hours as a kid on the ps2, and i never got tired of it. THERES A GIANT MECH FIGHT AT THE END LIKE CMON?!!
Im glad that lil kid me at least kinda understood what was cool, cause that game is still so much fun today. I remember my oldest sister gettin it for me for a bday, it was like $5 at gamestop or somethin, and i played that thing until it stopped workin, genuinely. I also didnt have a memory stick at the time so i had to redo the entire game every time the ps2 turned off, but i didnt care. It was that game, sly cooper, and some weird duck driving game where youre on a moped and theres an aligator thats unsettling lol
I remember playing Silver on a demo disk I had on the dreamcast and Rygar on a demo disk I had for the PS2! Shadow of Rome was amazing, I wish that got a sequel, I remember playing through that twice!
I had it on PC Gamer PC demo disc.
Once upon a time, my mom won a free video game at a trade fair. She didn't want it, so she let me pick it. We went to this dude's house and picked from five boxes on his kitchen table. The game? Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. A weird game about people living with giant bugs. Action adventure, light RPG elements, and very simple gameplay. Had a rockin' soundtrack and is still one of my nostalgic favourites. Never heard anyone talk about it.
Also reminded me that I rented Goblin Commander for PS2 from a Hollywood video when I was a kid (8 as for rygar the creator of God Of War was asked about it and said it was inspired by devil may cry and he hadn't even heard of rygar before people brought his attention to it
❤
😊❤😊❤❤
One of my favorite obscure/cult classic games is Gitaroo Man for PS2 (2001?). It's a Japanese indie rhythm game that came out around the same time as the Guitar Hero craze, so it was pretty overlooked both because of a small production run and from being overshadowed by larger franchises like Guitar Hero and DDR. Gitaroo Man is the definition of a hidden gem though - it has a quirky aesthetic that reminds me of FLCL and incredible original music that reminds some people of The Pillows. Despite being a small budget game you can tell the team really put a lot of heart into it. I recommend at least checking out the game on youtube so you can hear the music, the tracks are awesome and include rock, funk, and even reggae inspired tunes.
As a guy Currently streaming Wizardry 1-2-3 translated snes version and a DND game alternating I have to say I can totally appreciate the first several games on the list. Yeah some obscure titles on here, and I'll even admit I don't know them all, heck for the first time in my life I don't know half of them, and in the community I deal with usually comes to me for the obscure stuff. 50 points for you and a hat tip.
Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord on NES. Shit that was hard. RNG wiped my high level parties more than once.
@@energyfitness5116 in original your party also ages. if you can usually finish the first game in 30-50 years alright, when you start the second one and it's the same dudes. in the third one you play as falling apart ancients who gonna die any second of old age
In terms of Warhammer games - i got a massive flashback to being a kid in the late 80s (i am old) and we had an Atari ST - one of the best WH games ive ever played was on ST, it was a turn based squad extraction thing, i think it was Space Marines? It was incredible fun, i spent hours with it when i was little. I recommend it through an emulator!
Come to think of it, ST had some really wild and wonderful obscure games. My dad had managed to find a bunch of boxes (i mean BOXES) of floppy disks for the ST so I had the joy of growing up with the old Sierra titles (indiana jones, monkey island, etc) - some of which were unplayable because of the unique piracy prevention methods (the game would ask you to type in a word in the physical manual on a random page and line)
I remember a game called (i think) "Hunter" - it was a first person sandbox game with vehicles you could drive! Also: Desert Island Dizzy, Ikari Warriors, Robin Hood RPG, James Pond, etc etc - Those were the days, thanks for the video!
some "obscure" video games i recommend (all of them are on Steam):
1) 8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
2) Astronite
3) Cave Crawler
4) Chessplosion
5) Dadish
6) Dadish 2
7) Donut County
8) Fireboy & Watergirl: Elements
9) Grapple Dog
10) Jet Kave Adventure
11) Just Shapes & Beats
12) Maptroid: Worlds
13) Open World Game: the Open World Game
14) Sir Whoopass: Immortal Death
15) Skator Gator
16) Snail Bob 2: Tiny Troubles
17) Spaceship for Newbies
18) Spoiler Alert
19) SteamWorld Heist
20) Swallow the Sea
21) They Always Run
22) Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
23) Will You Snail?
24) Yoku's Island Express
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion was actually quite big for an indie, it even got a sequel this year
@@Doomroar i know, i just thought it was "obscure" enough because it's not Undertale, Hollow Knight level famous
domut county and steamworld games are very popular
If you know anything about Gary 'TPK' Gygax, you know exactly what kind of game ToEE is. It's an adventure designed to kill the party. There is little to no hand holding, and you can wipe at any second. Saying that it's 'hardcore' doesn't even do it justice. It's just a design that, at it's core, aims to mess with the players as much as possible.
An "obscure" game I recommend would be Starseed Pilgrim. It's pretty obtuse, but brilliantly designed, really fun to go into blind and see how much you can figure out. It's like an infinitely replayable puzzle game where you get these little seeds that grow diffrent types of blocks with their own rules and interactions with each other, and you're trying to grow away from the central starting island because there's like, a black corruption spreading up through it towards you and you gotta get away. There's more to it than that but I'm choosing not to spoil it :)
It's got a cool vibe and aesthetic, it feels quite contemplative and meaningful--but in a very open way, it's a very subjective experience and can be about as much as you want it to, as big and all encompassing in its themes as you can imagine or a very simple, personal story. It feels like a very humble, unassuming title that just somehow gets you asking these big and small questions through engaging with its premise and just by... continuing to play and see the outer-limits of the world and discoveries.
::30 seconds into a musing about the unique nature of obscurity in gaming::
Narration " . . . some random forgotten Sega Saturn Shoot em' up . . . "
Me: "OH MAN SHIPPU MAHOU DAISAKUSEN!"
If that's not a recipe for an instant follow, I don't know what is.
Love me some Raizing/Eighting stuff. Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that my dream is to have an Armed Police Batrider cabinet at my wake.
Resonance of Fate, Loom, Scrapland, PS2 Rygar, Puppeteer . . . . some real killers on here. Excellent taste.
Someone else remembers Scrapland???? Hell yeah, awesome game, spent hours just exploring levels with the little clipnote thing, blowing up the mercs and police or crafting funny looking ships. The story is surprisingly interesting as well, though not super deep, there is a modicum of social commentary thrown in too. And man I did not like the Crazy Gambler arena gameplay but played them just to look at the ruins and wonder how this world came to what it is.
Oh my good Jesus lord, a second person that remembers Future Tactics!
Make that three people!
Loved that game, it got me into sniping
The Enemies canonically respawning was great, I miss the destructive environments.
I may add to these in the future:
- Atomic Runner: Sega genesis arcade platformer that was basically and endless runner before they were cool. Fun and challenging with great graphics and music
- Gore Ultimate Soldier: Old and somewhat janky boomer shooter with tons of weapons with primary/secondary fire, a localized armor system and goofy enemies
- Sonny 1,2: turn based rpg flash game, fully combat focused, with a great emphasis on strategy. Both the originals and the reboot are great imo
Oh yeah, Sonny for sure. Really great stuff. Speaking of Flash games I have a whole list somewhere; or at least I've written one before.
But one of my personal favorites -which I think might be divisive or unliked by many- is Caravaneer 2. It's set in a Fallout-like universe and has a multi-branched story (I think two main paths you could take), along with Fallout 1/2 type of turn-based grid combat. It does have some big downsides. For one thing it heavily has trading simulator traits, and some people might not like that type of game. More importantly, the combat can be tedious/slow late game when there are 30+ characters in battles since each one has their own turns, and you might be controlling 10-20 characters yourself too. There is auto-combat but it's an easy way to lose your crew that way so I couldn't get myself to use it.
@@MsHojat Never heard of it, probably not my cup of tea but it looks very interesting, i'm also glad there is a steam release for it.
I'd love to read the rest of your flash game list. Some of the ones i remember more fondly are the Mardek series, Arcuz, Protector 3, Rebuild, Mushroom Rampage, Motherload and Tower of Heaven
It's crazy to think kids will never again pick up a game without knowing anything about it purely based on the box
I guess I am just that old. I remember seeing previews for Scrapland and I remember when the game eventually came out.
I played Septerra Core a bit when it came out and tried playing Temple of Elemental Evil, but it was soo buggy that it was unplayable on my system.
Cool list. I'll have to go check these out on Steam. Very weird to hear about this as the Golden age of gaming, but it was probably my favourite Era - before DLC, mobile gatcha games and games as a service. Also a time when graphics weren't good enough to be convincing, but could spark your imagination. The simpler graphics made games far more readable as to what the play space was. A lot of modern games I struggle with because they try to be realistic - masking the underlying game systems.
I felt old when he brought up Geist. Since I remember Game Informer hyping it up and then being disappointed at what they believed to be rather limited possessions.
sub earned by childhood memory unlocked
Temple of Elemental evil - I remember and love this one.
This is pretty much one of the best and most faithful DnD 3.5 recreations you will ever see - it takes fairly few shortcuts, striving to be as tabletop accurate as possible in terms of all the rules.
And the massive, extensive in-game encyclopedia and game manual - it is pretty much a basic DnD rulebook.
i-ninja is GOATED...
Oh yeah, I played that game when I was younger with my dad:)))
It's hard to remember how I first encountered Septerra Core. I actually finally went through the effort to beat it (mind you with cheats, I don't have the patience for the full game for the entire time it expects me to play). The game glitched out with the final cinematic which basically just put me in the final dungeon at the start and forced me to do the final boss fight again, so I had to watch that online, but technically I've beaten it at this point.
I wouldn't say it's an exceptional game, but it is interesting and worth spending a couple bucks to see for yourself. Impossible without a guide, though. I've gotten lost in this game so many times trying to go guideless as a kid and in more recent years so I can safely warn people against trying that. The game is very confusing sometimes. I would kill for a fully-realized remake, though. Maybe tune up the combat a bit to be a little more interesting, simplify the puzzles or add a guidance system to the game. Whatever it is, the game would be great. Keep the original voice-acting, though. That was always flawless, in my opinion, and part of what gave this game its incredible charm.
Small note, I found it interesting that some characters in your party *hate* each other. I don't just mean they make mean comments, I mean they will actively try to murder each other until you complete a small side quest that allows them to see each others' perspective and stop wasting turns killing each other.
I actually didn't know Marty O'Donnell was responsible for the music. I appreciate his work, but other than that: seriously, fuck that guy.
GUYS WHAT IS THE GAME 0:17 CALLED
Tak and the power of juju if I'm not mistaken
@@rofajole2131Not all heroes wear capes
Obscure hidden gems I recommend:
1. Lost Technology (play lizardman faction, then human faction)
2. Odin Sphere (if you like smash bros, you will love this)
3. Death's Gambit (story rivaling Chrono Trigger and Deus Ex 1)
4. Zer0Ranger (the ultimate plot twist, shootemup?)
And if you somehow love fire emblem, Tear Ring Saga (it has the best localization of any game in existence)
There's an obsession with objective/subjective here, not just in the intro, but throughout. Let go of it.
Can absolutely second the recommend on Geist. That had some of the best multiplayer I ever had as a teen. Racing to be the first player to get the "golden gun" possession on each level and then trying to take down the other person if they managed it first was insanely fun.
As far as obscure recommends I will throw out "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars" for the 3DS. I picked it up on a whim cause it was one of the first games that came out for the handheld and I was desperate for anything, expecting it to be a 3rd person shooter that I would trade off as soon as something better came along. Instead I found a fun little tactics game that is still a part of my collection to this day.
so good to finally see scrapland on one of these videos - man what a game. Used to play it when I was 7 or 8 with my older brother on the OG xbox, I absolutely adored it. To this day I still have the stocky robot cop voiceline "STOP STOP, GIVE ME MONEY GIVE ME MONEY" playing in my head
Great video. Even as someone who has looked at older games from all gens, you managed to cover mostly titles I had never heard of.
EDIT: As for an obscure games, I will suggest two:
Soul Blazer, a zelda like released on the SNES. Great music and gameplay. AFAIK, it has never been rereleased since.
Tzar: Burden of the Crown, a RTS with 3 factions (Europeans, Arabs, and Asians). It has a truly satisfying feel to it when playing, plus the editor was pretty advanced for its time, I remember trying to make whole campaigns with scripted content in it as a kid.
Thanks for the recommendations:
I would recommend you:
RPG: Arcanum
Adventure: That Cat Lady
Strategy: 5D chess with multiverse and time travel
Action: Cold Fear
FPS: Nosferatu Wrath of Malechi
I have both Arcanum and Nosferatu. Excellent taste.
i remember grabbing Resonance of Fate at gamestop as just a throwaway for a pre owned deal. ended up playing it more than the game i originally bought. it is so damn good
Thanks, I liked hearing someone talk about Septerra Core, it was a really good game back in the day.
Some Obscure games for you. At least to me
Patapon (2 is my fave) -Rythm
The Dominions Series (4 was my favorite) by Illwinter games -Strategy
Dungeon of Dreadmore-Roguelike
Chaos Seed (Probably the most Obscure, old SNES game japan only release.. you can find it translated though) - weird Dungeon builder
Barony- First Person RPG, fun Co-op game
Death Road to Canada- Action (Probably the least obscure I think but still fun)
Septerracore, despite all its flaws, Is still one of my favorite RPGs ever. You didn't mention the tarot card system that was a blast!
Gladius was infamous where I'm from. The official Xbox magazine released a demo back then, that was so difficult that If you could record yourself beating the demo and sent them proof, you'd win a full copy of the game. I did manage to beat it, but there were no smartphones available back then...
MTG Battlegrounds was one of my favorites. The local multiplayer was also a nice touch!
However, my parents' house meta ended up revolving around who could Counter Spell the other more efficientely haha
41:40 Goddamit, I was recently praising Tandem's gameplay for how unique it was...
12:19 NO-KII-AHH ... Oh god
Shadow of Rome was one of the best games I have ever played still to this day, I rented that every 4 dollar Tuesday from the local video shop at least 10 times. I remember getting blisters on my thumb from spamming the X and Square buttons to choke guards out when playing Octavianus. So underrated.
I have a couple! Stick it to the Man, a super weird, trippy platformer which actually has great characters and story and is really fun. The graphics are very unique.
Secondly, probably not that obscure but Stacking by Lucas Arts is amazing. You play as a Russian doll and solve puzzles by jumping inside other Russian dolls with certain costumes. Hard to explain but look it up if you don't know it, it's fantastic.
Oh and another one - 5 Days a Stranger, a free, indie point and click which is one of the best point and click games I've ever played. Its so creepy and engrossing. And truly is obscure!
Sick video man.
Pirates: The Black Buccaneer was an adventure "hack and slash" (iirc) game where you play as a shipwrecked pirate and get this amulet of The Black Buccaneer where you'd enter a "rage" mode to transform into him. A lot like God of War but Pirates. It was on PS2 and it's heavily likely that this is just nostalgia talking but, idk, something about fighting as the Buccaneer was so cool as a kid. Always did want that necklace amulet.
I’m so glad you mentioned Xanadu Next! Another great thing about it is the exploration. I hate to draw the comparison, but it's very “Souls-like” (or would it be King's Field-like?) in how you constantly open up shortcuts to previous areas, with plenty of side routes and secrets to find.
But one thing that I absolutely hate, and which I feel I should warn everyone about, is an enemy near the end. It has an attack which drains your XP. The monsters actually level you down, and if you save your game afterwards, well… I hope you like grinding.
One of my all time favorite video games that's obscure is Jade Cocoon 2 on PS2. I rarely hear anyone mention it. And it's such a fun and interesting game about merging monsters with a cool rotational battle system. Highly recommend it!
I played that game as well as the original jade cocoon for PS1. Gotta say the original was the better of the two. Either way, the series is legendary and yes, the monster merging mechanic was truly innovative. Great artstyle too.
oh, here's a good one: The Summoning. a kinda forgotten SSI game from 1992, with its own clever and innovative rule system, a *heap* of lore (the manual came with a short story setting out the backstory), and a great plot. super fun, and unjustly overlooked.
In the late 90's there was this strategy games called Magic & Mayhem by one of the developers of the original X-COM. It was built around summoning creatures and casting spells with limited resources, combat was turn based but you could pause time which meant you could be very granular with unit placement. The story and themes were driven by Celtic mythology and all the character animations were claymation which had a very unique feel. I can't say I played the whole thing but I did enjoy it.
Two games that are never talked about, both have an *amazing* soundtrack and aesthetics, and have stuck with me forever since I played them:
- Critters For Sale
- Umurangi Generation
Charlie the Duck, Asterix & Obelix XXL, Hegemony Gold: Wars of the Ancient Greece, Oriental Empires, Granny in Paradise, Sven XXX, Vedelm: The Golden Horde, Asterix & Obelix: Mega Madness, Dragon Fist 3, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: Pacific Theater, Neighbors From Hell, Enigma, Sea Dog 2 (alt. title: Pirates of the Carribean), Armed with Wings, Larry and the Gnomes, Plazma Burst 2: Forward to the Past, Commander: The Great War
I Ninja seems like someone’s reinterpretation of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. That first person mech sequence gives it away. Looks great tho. I don’t usually go for videos like this but I think you got a pretty cool list here.
Also, being probably a little older than you I was surprised to hear of the 2000s as the golden age, I would think of the 80s with the NES and insane arcade scene, but it actually makes a lot of sense we’re still riding out what was set up in the 2000s
Kinda want you to do a villainpedia on AM, the AI from the short story "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" and the video game of the same name.
There's a bit more lore in the video game, but both versions should be analyzed to get the full picture of the character.
This character was the inspiration of many ai villains in later franchises.
Oh my god, i was looking for that "A Series of misfortune events" game for 15 years
I had the demo version on a disc as a kid, but i lost the damn cd and forgot the name of the game. I asked people on web forums for a long time if the description hits any bells and people were convinced i hallucinated this game.
18:20 I absolutely adore cases where people who wrote old books were old nerds who loved videogames and put effort into making games out of their own stories. I mean off the top of my head I can only think of this one and I have no mouth and I must scream, but it's still always a thrill to hear about
I remember playing a sort of obscure MMO called Rubies of Evantide in 2009. I was still pretty new to MMOs so I didn't really grasp a lot of the concepts/gameplay, but I met some people and they let me into their guild. They rolled new characters and we played together, I didn't realize the game was about to hit EOS. They were surprised to see someone new to the game.
If you're out there, Gang of Heroes, (the guild in question) you guys are legends.
Since you recommended I-Ninja and Puppeteer which are some of my favorite games of all time I will recommend you a few others I like too.
1 - Chulip: it's a PS2 you play as a boy trying to find the courage to confess to his crush so he has to get a kiss of everyone in town to increase his confidence, you can't forcefully kiss someone or they'll hit you so you gotta find a way to solve their troubles and make them happy so they can thank you with a kiss, it has some really fun puzzles and mini games but the star of the show are the incredible characters.
2 - Total Overdose: it's a mix of GTA: San Andreas and Max Payne with a banger mexican soundtrack and incredible combat, it's available on GOG for dirt cheap and if nothing else sold you in this game, just know that if you headshot someone wearing a hat you will send it flying and if you touch the hat with your upper body your character will wear it for a while.
3 - Soul of the Samurai: tank controls in a samurai game is a terrible idea, but once you get the hang of it I dare to say it plays better than the first Tenchu. You can find the game on PS1 and there are two main characters, I suggest you choose Kotaro as the story will make more sense if you play him first and something else you should know is that when you parry just in the right timing you'll perform a super even without meter, it's pretty cool, aside from that don't look anything up cause the hook on the story is one of the coolest part of the game and it happens right at the beginning.
It's not old but it's an indie game, anodyne 2: return to dust. It hits nostalgia hard for early 3D games, as well as blaster master, but it's story driven, excellent music, a story that explores a lot of difficult but very real human experience, and levels that always feel fresh and innovative.
Thanks for making this video! I love looking back through games i missed and thinking, “how did i miss this!!!” Haha. I hope someone would make an entire channel series out of finding retro/obscure games.
Fact about Temple of Elemental Evil: the final boss of the game had a tendency to wander around killing mobs and popping up randomly to challenge the party unexpectedly during development. They had to program special "magic seals" to contain it to the last floor.
Ah, ToEE, I beat that one with a solo Level 2 Rogue character (required a lot of save scumming in the beginning to get the ring of invisibility which breaks the game.)
I played the Operencia demo on Steam, and one thing I really didn't like is how it handled the "rows/distance" in combat. Why are enemies in the "far" row still considered in the "far" row when their allies in the closer rows are all dead? Are my melee characters unable to take a couple steps to get closer to the now unprotected enemy archers and spell casters? This nonsense really broke my enjoyment. I don't know if this was fixed in the main game.
I'm glad you mentioned that the EGA version of Loom is the best way to play it :)
First youtuber i have heard mention resonance of fate and its amazing! It was one of my favorite games when it came out.
Starting off with ToEE and then throwing in an American McGee joint? Goddamn!
As an old fart who's been gaming for decades, I've played a bunch of these. Honestly I'm floored by how you've actually managed to put together a list of truly obscure titles worth playing. Bravo.
Battlezone 1998 is pretty obscure. I was fascinated by the demo and bought that game on launch day. Dominated quite a bit of my childhood, and to this day I feel it is the pinnacle of FPS/RTS hybrids, with Command and Conquer Renegade pulling a close second.
BUT, here's my REALLY obscure contribution. And so far, I haven't seen it mentioned in the comments. Also, there are VERY few TH-cam videos covering this game. Star Crusader. That game so thoroughly dominated my childhood, that I existed SOLEY in that fantasy universe for almost 5 years. I even made my parents call me Roman, after the main character. I win the obscurity challenge.
My addition: Shadow of Memories / Shadow of Destiny, an utterly unique *adventure game* by Konami for PS2/PC. It's a time-travel romp where you have to solve / prevent your own murder by going back in time and sabotaging your killer's various schemes before they happen. Plus it has a ton of endings, with some that require deliberately rewriting history during the game.
Sadly, it's never been reissued, and the PC version is a pain to get working today. Emulating the PS2 version is probably the best option.
Bless LucasArts for having Guybrush in the Monkey Island Games (multiple of them) have "I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?" as a random line of dialogue. Damn LOOM. You deserved so much more.
For fans of Septerra Core, I'd also recommend Cosmic Star Heroine! It has a similar vibe, sort of cyberpunky blend of western and eastern aesthetics in a turn-based RPG (even has a timer system). I think it's closer to anime though, very clearly inspired by a mix of Phantasy Star and classic 80s sci-fi and cyberpunk anime like Cyber City. It's great fun!
Haven't played Septerra Core, but as for Cosmic Star Heroine, it's pure 10/10 in everything except the story. Story is lackluster, some story beats are off, and basically you don't care about some characters, and there are no real themes to hit you with (compare with FF6/FF7 or Chrono Trigger)
Aside of that, combat is insanely good for a JRPG, definitely the best of all turn-based JRPGs.
@@theyellowarchitect4504 My only real issue with CSH's story is the tone. Could never quite tell what kind of tone the story was going for. Zeboyd Games are known for satircal games but CSH at times was written more seriously but also the characters felt like complete jokes the other half. It was really uneven.
@@amelialonelyfart8848 I fully agree. It tried to go for that Chrono Trigger tone (serious, but masterful transition to comedy) but it failed imo
Operencia is really good! The devs took a break from pinball games and made a sleeper dungeon crawler hit! There's actually a VR mode that's pretty cool and I played bunch of the game in VR. Nothing too fancy but it's cool seeing the monsters in 3d and it feels very immersive to play it that way.