Needs More Love / Video Games

• A Witch's Tale is about a young witch-in-training who wants to become the greatest witch in time and space. She releases a Sealed Evil in a Can and must go on a quest to defeat it along with her vampire sidekick, rescuing six princesses along the way. A very excellent game, full of comedic moments and Tear Jerkers alike.
• Abuse, a PC side scrolling platformer from the early '90s. Had a great atmosphere, mutants that closely resembled Alien, and was incredibly fun!
• Act of War : Direct Action and its expansion pack High Treason were particularly great RTS games, not just in an extensive campaign, faction diversity, audio and visuals (they still look and sound good by today's standards, and well scaled), but in the fact it was very realistic in terms of gameplay, with units being incapacitated and requiring of repairs or healing before coming back into the fight, also aircraft units come from off the map, terrain and vegetation affects units sight and urban combat interaction feels like you are looking a real S.W.A.T. operation. Unfortunately AoW was released by the same time as Command & Conquer Generals and didn't have too much appretiation from reviews, which said there was no particular innovation for the genre (a rather dull argument considering RTS gamers usually don't appretiate changes to classic gameplay) or simply diminished it, these videos show a bit of the game.
• Antonball Deluxe is an underappreciated arcade-style Elimination Platformer by Summitsphere. Though not anywhere near as popular as its sequel ANTONBLAST, Antonball is still a great game in its own right. The game has 3 different gamemodes. Antonball is the platforming of Mario Bros., mixed with the brick breaking of Breakout, and it combines perfectly, resulting in a very unique experience. Punchball is more traditional Mario Bros fare. Except that instead of jumping underneath the enemies to stun them, you chuck punchballs at them. And finally, the last game mode is Vs. Antonball, a Platform Fighter, but with a twist: Instead of defeating your opponent, you have to break the opponent’s bricks the same way you do in Antonball. Not to mention the game has 23 playable characters.
• Aquaria is an indie game made by BitBlot about a Fish Girl with amnesia who simply wants to discover who she is, where she is, and what happened to everyone in all of these ruined civilizations you run across. Along the way, you gain Shapeshifting Powers, get to ride giant turtles and seahorses, enjoy a massive amount of Scenery Porn and Awesome Music, and kill gods.
  • Seconding this one. One way to describe it is Ecco the Dolphin meets Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but even that is a woefully simplistic and inadequate description for this gem.
• The Atari 7800 had some pretty solid arcade ports and was also compatible with almost all Atari 2600 games. Too bad it had the misfortune of being overshadowed by the Nintendo Entertainment System.
• Bang-On Balls: Chronicles is an amazing 3D platformer with humongous open worlds that you enter through TV portals. It also has extremely awesome graphics on par with triple-A games and tons of special combat-items and weapons that allow you to customize the way you approach combat. It's honestly baffling that the game hasn't received as much attention as many other 3D platformers, given its insane replay value and sprawling open worlds.
• Bug!. A fun and comical platformer featuring a bug who has to travel six different worlds to save his family from an evil spider, it was also one of the first 3D platformers. Gameplay was fun- your character had a regular Goomba Stomp, but gained powerups too, while each set of levels had unique and different types of insectoid enemies. The bosses were quite entertaining- whether it be fending off a swamp worm, defeating a yeti, or playing fish tennis with an octopus. Level designs were great- there were many paths for the player to take in each level, including multiple secret paths. Despite all these lovely aspects, it's unfortunately become more polarizing these days.
• Baten Kaitos Origins. This game has an utterly insane amount of attention paid to detail. To give an example, every one of the cards used in-game has a description about 4-5 full lines long — all 655 of them. It certainly helps add to the Scenery Porn and Crowning Music of Awesome too. Just about the only thing this game didn't have was good marketing.
  • Hey, don't forget Eternal Wings! It may not be quite as polished as its prequel, but it's still just as much fun to play.
• The Battalion Wars games deserve more love than they get. It has TPS qualities,yet there are some great RTS elements to them to. What could go wrong with games with great level designs, excellent online multiplayer,and The Theme Park Version of both World-Wars with some Cold War elements? Yet the first was a Sleeper Hit, and the second was passed over.
• Battlezone, a RTS-FPS mix featuring a compelling storyline, great graphics and overall high production values was largely overlooked by consumers when it came out in the late 90's even though it was awarded high scores by critics.
• Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer, a relatively obscure game that had you play as a Native American and fight bears, windigos, and other creatures. It was a decent game that not many know about.
• Darkstalkers, Rival Schools (see below), Star Gladiator (see below), Power Stone, Cyberbots, Tech Romancer, Red Earth... Pretty much any Capcom fighter not named Street Fighter could be deserving of this distinction. You want to know why none of these games have had true sequels in over a decade? Because they're not Street Fighter. For the likes of many of the characters hailing from these series, most of their exposure and popularity outside of their cult fanbases is due to appearances in the Vs. series, and unlike Strider Hiryu, none of their series have received another title out of the deal. In fact, it's been stated multiple times that the creative teams at Capcom (including Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono) want to make a fourth Darkstalkers, but the higher ups keep shooting them down. Face, meet hand.
  • Rival Schools is a fighting game series that manages to have a plot that isn't paper thin yet not overly complex, has arguably Capcom's most varied character designs since Darkstalkers and an accessible fighting engine that still contains a deep metagame for skilled players. Despite this, Capcom has hardly given it a chance to succeed (the original was released during the initial wave of 3D fighters and ended up being overlooked; and the second was released only on the Dreamcast after the console was announced it would be discontinued) and the series toils in obscurity along with the company's other fighting game franchises, even during the current fighting game renaissance.
  • Star Gladiator is in the same boat as Rival Schools, in which it has a basic and simple yet effective and interesting storyline with a unique and diverse cast of characters, complete with great memorable music and fluid fighting gameplay. Just like Rival Schools, Capcom has hardly given Star Gladiator a chance to succeed and that it had faced the same problems that Rival Schools had to endure. It's quite unfortunate that the series shares a spot with Rival Schools from within the world of obscurity.
  • There's even a fighting game franchise that's already named Street Fighter that never did get enough appreciation: Street Fighter EX. In fairness to Capcom, though, they can't just develop the series if they please, partly due to the fact that they aren't the only owners of the franchise (Arika owns the non-Street Fighter characters: Hokuto, Skullomania, etc.), but still.
    • Worse still, you'll see certain SF fans railing on the game to this day for perceived "faults", such as "being in 3D" (which it wasn't) and bizarre character designs (which were no stranger than those of the newcomers in III and IV, who received similar backlash at first), despite the fact that many of its gameplay mechanics influenced the ones in SFIV, intentionally or not. The only real crime of the EX series is that it seems to have came out about a decade too early.
• Chippy is a bullet hell twin-stick shooter with difficult bosses that can be taken apart pixel by pixel. Though by no means for the faint of heart, its unique challenge and gameplay are their own rewards.
• Crash Fever just doesn't get enough love. Whatever it collaborates with, be it The Battle Cats to Re: Zero to even Full Metal Alchemist, it's just overshadowed. The mechanics haven't been seen anywhere else, the plot is masterfully crafted for each and every line, the art squeezes all it can out of quests, down to the last detail, it has a sublime techno soundtrack (check out this Triumphant Reprise of the goddamned menu theme, which plays when you've got one of the QUEENS to their last health bar) and overall just provides a unique, fun and (sometimes, such as when one's got a particularly hard boss on the ropes) heart racing experience. It certainly lives up to its name, but that doesn't matter because it saves your progress on the quest, so when it goes wrong, it's always still there.
• Cryostasis. Seriously, it's one of the few pieces of fiction that made a huge philosophical impact on me, and I hardly ever meet anyone who knows about it. The gameplay and storytelling are slow, the game runs slowly even on high-end computers, the voiceacting is everything from horrible to amazing. And the story is, well, confusing to say at least. But the game is layered with symbolism, the plot is deep, thoughtful, and heavily ambigious, the atmosphere heavy and the gameplay innovative. And if you wait out the ending credits, you get one of the best quotations ever seen in a video game.
• Daikatana may be one of the most infamous critical and financial failures in gaming history, but the game is not half-bad with the unofficial 1.3 patch, which turns what was once a borderline-unplayable game into a decent or even great boomer shooter FPS experience. And the Game Boy Color Reformulated Game is a really great and underrated 2D Zelda clone.
• Daytona USA 2 is a victim of First Installment Wins. It doesn't have music as awesome as the original's, but the tracks (particularly in the non-Power Edition version) are really nice, and (in my opinion) it's easier and more balanced than the original.
• Demolition Company by GIANTS Sofware.
• Disney Magical World is a fun and very peaceful Simulation Game where you visit through various world and help various NPCs and Disney characters.
• Disney Party for the Nintendo GameCube is a fun Party Game where you play as Mickey & Friends to try and see who wins the level.
• Donkey Kong Land 2 and III. These are two games that sadly, didn't get as much attention their Super NES counterparts got. Donkey Kong Land 2 is a Game Boy port of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, with changes to the game from DKC2. A lot of the game has changed to fit to accommodate the Game Boy's limitations. (though Misblamed on Rare). Even for an 8-bit system, the second game's underrated, yet awesome music by Grant Kirkhope is still as awesome as its Super NES counterpart, even if the sound system was limited. Donkey Kong Land III is a different game that's based on Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!. The entire game is different (with a couple bosses missing; it still somehow keeps the trend of awesome music for an 8-bit system. This time it's Eveline Fischer composing). It also includes a time attack mode as a reward for completely beating the game. The only complaint (to some) is that the game may be too short for some people. It also received a Video Game Remake for the Game Boy Colour in 2000 that never left Japan.
• DOOM is a widely-beloved game at least for its PC version and later ports, but the PlayStation version is a criminally underrated version that goes beyond just porting DOOM to Sony's console. Moodier colored lighting has been added as well as revamped sound design, that all works to make the game Darker and Edgier than the already dark PC version. The PS1 versions turn DOOM into an outright Survival Horror game well before DOOM 64 (which was made by the same team as PlayStation DOOM and shares a lot of similarities in sound design and atmosphere) and Doom³ (which is arguably more of a sequel to this version of DOOM than the original version in terms of being Darker and Edgier). The port is not perfect, as some levels had to be simplified or cut out, and the port only supported Password Saves, but there are also a lot of new exclusive levels. And this port includes levels from both DOOM and DOOM II. Faithful recreations of the game on GZDoom code exist in the forms of DZDoom^note A standalone source port of the Midway Trilogy of PlayStation DOOM, PlayStation Final DOOM, and DOOM 64 and DOOM CE^note A total conversion for the Midway Trilogy which also adds in a plethora of new levels, new features, and updated graphics. After the source code of the PlayStation port was released, fans have also developed a reversed-engineered port in the form of PsyDoom^note Requires a disc image of either PlayStation DOOM or PlayStation Final DOOM, but it faithfully brings a near 1:1 port of these games with some optional modern quality-of-life improvements, modding support, and the ability to play ROM hacks such as the GEC Master Edition..
• Dragon Project is a very unique MMORPG in a sense that it's literally Monster Hunter on your Android/iOS! Sure the Gacha mechanic can get frustrating, and the fact that the game plays better on iOS than Android, but issues aside, the game has great character and monster designs, very fun weapons to mess around with, and an engaging story with twists. Speaking of the monsters, the game the most diverse monsters out of any Monster Hunter clone or the series itself. For example, you would face off Animated Armor, Ghostly Samurais, Shapeshifting Robots, Robot Knights dual-wielding a pair of lances, Fallen Angels, Spider Geishas, Giants, and even the Grim Reaper! As the game's name implies, there are TONS of unique dragons, such as a dragon that's basically a toaster whale, a super long snake dragon that summons flames from its super long tail, a pair of Draconic Humanoids with ice and thunder powers, a pair of dragons that look like dinosaurs with wings with fire and earth attributes, a pair of majestic sea-serpents, and a pair of Armored Dragons with powers over light and dark. The weapons are worth talking, such as a series Swords and Shields that cancel enemy attacks with Shield Bashing, a series of super fast and powerful Drill Lances that basically sum up as Lightning Bruiser, Energy Bows that lock onto markers and fire a salvo of homing lasers a'la Panzer Dragoon, Dual Blades that fire lasers, and a Goddamn Gun Sword that destroys everything in its path! And that's just the icing on the cake for both Monsters and Weapons! It's a shame that not only this game isn't very well-known, but its Japanese servers are shutting down, and who knows how long will the Global servers last. If you're hungry for a Monster Hunter game on the go, then Dragon Project is your perfect answer!
• Drawn to Life is a platformer where, as the name implies, you draw a lot of stuff. Also, the gameplay is quite solid despite poor-ish controls, and the story is quite interesting, involving well-implemented Christian symbolism along with a genuinely interesting Satanic Archetype as the main antagonist. Not to mention, the soundtrack is amazing and quite unique!
• Earthlock is an RPG in the style of those from the 90s made as a labor of love from a team in Norway. It has a tremendous amount of lore, a solid battle system, plenty of sidequests, interesting characters, and some surprisingly good full-3D graphics for an indie game without backing from a larger company. It's also the result of a successful crowdfunding campaign, and those who have played it tend to quite like it. Problem is that, outside of the crowdfunders and a few scattered curious people, it has failed to get noticed anywhere else. It has completely failed to spread via word-of-mouth that more famous indie games have accomplished. It is so obscure, it currently has no TV Tropes page!
• Elebits, a game where you shoot Pikmin-like creatures to generate electricity. Somehow, it's incredibly awesome.
• Elona. A Roguelike on drugs. Schizo Tech, Crapsaccharine World, and a band of Little Girl Dog-Centaur Generic Experiments... Forming a band. Full of bizarre game mechanics, silly writing, and sheer randomness paired with a persistent life sim. While having fully fleshed out dungeon crawler mechanics with infinite Randomly Generated Dungeons, one could instead choose to be a farmer, a merchant, the most awesome band leader in North Tyris, or an insane doctor making little girl-dog centaurs. It recently got a large fan expansion pack called Elona+, which adds a pet evolution system, and fleshes out some of the more difficult to get into parts of the game. Not to mention doubling the length of the much ignored story. Once you find yourself in Elona, it is hard to get back out.
• Empire: Total War. As much as a history lesson as a game, each unit, technology, and upgrade had a detailed history. You could pause a battle and read up on the soldiers slinging lead at one another at any time. And whats a more fun way to learn than spreading your influence across the known world of the 18th century? (cue evil laugh). Few games centering around 1700 to 1799 go in to so much depth about the history and tactics of the era. The gameplay too, while being complicated, is fun and very enjoyable. Despite being considered a huge step for Total War as a series, its often overshadowed by its Roman and Medieval cousin and isn't very well known outside of that circle.
• The Escape Velocity series by Mac-based shareware developers Ambrosia are great. They're basically Elite from a 2D, top-down perspective. Become a trader, a pirate, hero of United Earth, fly off into the unknown to meet new alien races, whatever. The first two, Escape Velocity and Override were originally only released on pre-X version of macOS, but the newest, Escape Velocity Nova, was released for macOS X and Windows, and total conversions of Nova to the previous two are available.
• Evil Islands Curse Of The Lost Soul: It would really benefit from a New Game Plus, but it's still an entertaining RPG.
• Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles: A challenging Platformer with a dark, surrealistic art style and a great musical score. It wasn't even released in America.
• EXTRAPOWER, a series of Japanese-language doujin games. Each game in the series is a different genre: a horizontal shoot'em up that has you fighting swarms of Mecha-Mooks and Big Creepy-Crawlies as, say, a masked wrestler who uses his punches as a projectile, a demon on a stealth mission who saturates the screen with homing spiders, or a valkyrie or even ex-valkyrie who attack in melee range with their swords; an action-adventure game where you can play as someone so strong, he can throw enemies into each other, stop boulder traps by picking them up and tossing them into his attackers, and throw bullets and even lasers back to their shooters; or a tactical RPG that brings all EXTRAPOWER characters into a Crisis Crossover to save the Earth with style influences across manga, tokusatsu and video games. The language barrier and obscurity of being a doujin game distributed on freem makes it a hard series to discover, but are overwhelmingly amazing when they're gotten into. These days, tools like Textractor make it even easier to dip into Japan-only doujins.
• Folklore. It's not the most polished game, and it does have its issues, but it's a lovely little action-RPG with a unique art style, a cool game mechanic (one of the few games to use the Sixaxis controller right) and engaging story. It was just one of those games that slipped under the cracks and wasn't good enough to be a cult classic like Psychonauts.
• Fortress Forever, a Team Fortress fan game made in the 2004 Source Engine build by Team Fortress Classic fans during the period in the early 2000's where it seemed that Team Fortress 2 was never coming out. A lot of work was put into it, and when it came out in 2006, it seemed like it would become the new Team Fortress - if not for the real Team Fortress 2 actually coming out soon after it and immediately killing it. It's available for download for free on the Steam store, but nowadays, you'll be incredibly lucky if you find a single other person playing it.
• Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon is a wondrous game. The atmosphere does a wonderful job of making you feel isolated, the music is gorgeous (especially the two themes by Aoi Teshima), and the story is a great well of Crowning Moments of Heartwarming and Tear Jerkers. The Memory Items only add to the depressing yet touching nature of the game, with a few sets even seeming worthy of being short stories in and of themselves. Mix all that in with The Power of Friendship done right, an apocalypse that doesn't rely on being so brown and gray all the time, and you have a prime example of how video games can be art.
• Freedom Wars isn't a perfect game of course, but there are reasons why it's a personal favorite among PlayStation Vita owners: deep character customization, character designs, setting, monster/robot designs, and stunning kickass weapons. The very fact that you can break off a giant robot dragon's wings off with a Shotgun and break its legs with a Drill Lance is just Goddamned awesome! The massive variety of builds also sweeten the game's character customization too, and you can wear freaking Cat Hoodies for fuck sakes! The soundtrack is pretty neat too.
• The Ganbare Goemon series by Konami is one hell of an underrated series. This series is filled with very fun games that include bizarre yet very funny humor (Plasma Man, anyone?), great graphics, memorable music and most of all, fun gameplay. In fact, it used to be REALLY popular in Japan, but sadly most games fell into No Export for You status (possibly because of the Quirky Work factor), and on top of that, the few games that were localized (namely, the first of the SNES games and the two N64 games) were practically ignored. It doesn't help that there doesn't seem to be any fan translations for the Japan-only games (which is even worse given that some games require some basic Japanese to be playable). It's really sad especially since it's been more than 10 years since the last game has been released, and given Konami's lastest actions, it's very unlikely that there will ever be another proper Goemon game, on top of the Japan-only games getting released outside of Japan.
• The Gargoyle's Quest franchise, particularly Demon's Crest. They were Sleeper Hits, but nowadays they're almost always overshadowed by the Ghosts 'n Goblins games, with Red Arremers back to being non-controllable Demonic Spiders. Ol' Red popped up in SVC Chaos, but SNK missed a chance to give these games a Shout-Out by naming him "Firebrand."
  • He's appearing in MvC3 (and he's named Firebrand), and also the first game of the series is now a downloadable title for the Nintendo 3DS, so maybe that will spark some interest in the series.
• Gearheads: A very obscure Lighter and Softer version of Archon. Two players with a collection of wind-up toys must send as many of those toys to the other side of the screen as possible. Each toy works differently: one serves as a tank to block other toys, a toy chicken hatches windup chicks, and yet another "scares" toys, flipping them around and basically converting them over to your side. There's 12 toys, but players can only use 3 types per game. Making things more challenging is that toys that are too slow eventually slow down and stop moving. This game is so obscure that the only the Mac version can be found online. You can download it here.
• Gex. The first game is often cited to be one of the best games on the 3DO, enough to warrant a PlayStation port and two sequels. The first game, a side-scrolling 2D platformer with pre-rendered sprites, was about a gecko named Gex who was Trapped in TV Land by an evil (alien?) overlord named Rez who wanted to make Gex the new mascot. It was an excellent, addictive game that was Nintendo Hard but not unfair, with hilarious one-liners from Gex, voiced by Dana Gould. The sequel, Gex: Enter The Gecko for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, featured Gex being bribed by a Government Agency of Fiction to go back into the Media Dimension to make Rez 'disappear'. The game had a Super Mario 64 style 'pointless item collecting' vibe. While it wasn't exactly as good as its predecessor, it was still an enjoyable experience (despite occasional bouts of Camera Screw). Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko featured Agent Xtra, a fellow secret agent, being kidnapped by Rez to get to Gex. Gex rescues Xtra with the help of his butler, Alfred the Turtle, his cousin, Cuz the Platypus, and Rex the Dinosaur. The gameplay is similar to the last game, except with the other characters, bonus stages, and a Debug Room. Unfortunately, Eidos apparently was too busy milking Lara Croft to continue with the series, despite many believing that it would make the leap to the Sixth Generation of Consoles.
• Ghost Trick is a puzzle/adventure game for the Nintendo DS, made by the same folks behind the Ace Attorney series. You play as the ghost of the just-murdered protagonist Sissel, who can manipulate objects and go back four minutes into the past to prevent people's deaths. Sissel has to figure out why he was murdered by sunrise, or he'll cease to exist. An excellent murder mystery storyline and memorable characters complement its clever puzzle gameplay.
• God Hand. Silly, Nintendo Hard, and full of fourth wall breaking fun and shout outs to other games. Also insanely awesome with a very well thought out combo system that allows for fluid movement, allowing Gene to essentially be the Fist of the North Star. The music is beyond awesome, as well, even the fight with the Mad Midget Five has incredible music.
• Grabbed by the Ghoulies comes from the same team that made Banjo-Kazooie. The team put just as much effort into it as the Banjo titles, and did a brilliant job of creating a game accessible to all ages with its incredibly simple (yet very fun/effective) control scheme, and tucked in excellent parodies of nearly every aspect of the horror genre known to humankind. It also features a boatload of Easter Eggs relating to the Banjo games. Yet, it has been thoroughly passed by because it's exclusively on the Xbox, rather than a Nintendo console.
• Gubble is an extremely obscure yet fun puzzle maze game in the style of Pac-Man, except that more strategy is involved as the player needs to use different tools to extract the different objects throughout the level. With pseudo-3D graphics, good and entertaining gameplay, quirky characters and enemies as well as some of the best music never heard, it's a pity that hardly anybody knows about this gem of a game.
• Two words: Gugus Crew. A French RPG Maker 2003 game made by "YF06 Adventures" whose gameplay is a Shout-Out to WarioWare. You'll know it once you have watched the video for the game.
• You think it was Heroes Of Annihilated Empires (from the creators of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., by the way) who started the RTS+RPG trend? Yes?! Then you fail. Hanjuku Hero a.k.a. Hanjuku Eiyuu for the NES is an extremly rare Ur-Example of a top-down real time strategy game which also successfully combines Role-Playing Game elements (if early Final Fantasy graphics may count as an RPG element as well, heeh), castle capturing elements and Rule of Funny in one blender. Sadly, nobody outside Japan even knows it.
• Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, one of EA's unappreciated masterpieces. A critical darling but commercial flop, it combines hack and slash combat, Panel de Pon and the closest a professionally-made game will ever come to Platform Hell. It's got a charming, original presentation, memorable characters, incredibly smooth gameplay, you transform into a Steampunk Mecha by DRINKING TEA, and it's one of the hardest games for the DS not made by Atlus. Oh, and it was developed by the same guys who make Madden''.
  • From the same creators you have Monster Tale. It's the perfect mix of Metroidvania and Mon training. Just like Henry Hatsworth the music and graphics are good and effective, the story is silly but cute in it's own way. So why doesn't this game get any love? Because people look at the cover and think "Hey, the protagonist is a girl and she isn't hot? Logically, this is a game for girls! I bet it's super easy!". First of all, you'll probably forget Ellie is a girl since you'll be too busy blasting mooks with your bracelet buster and doing violent combos with your satchel, health is almost impossible to find and enemies get more cheap near the end, if you don't upgrade Ellie and learn to use Chomp you'll die soon. The worst part is, the creators were very aware of this, they were pressured to make either a male progonist or sexy female since that would increase sales. In the end, just like Henry Hatsworth, they picked the unconventional protagonist, the courage alone deserves respect.
• Herzog. No, not this Herzog. Just count how many people know Zwei and how many know its prequel. Considering the original is AS awesome as the sequel, despite different gameplay and storyline. And, what makes it even more undeservedly overlooked... it has the 2-player mode too!
• We all know Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear series, which may go down in history as one of the best series of all time. But, what about his other games that are not about bipedal nuclear tanks and cardboard boxes? Policenauts, Snatcher, Zone of the Enders, Boktai... every last one of the aforementioned games are — despite their inherent flaws — incredibly worthy games in their own right. It really makes one wonder just what Kojima could come up with if only he were given some time off from Metal Gear...
  • Things may be turning a turn for the better, as Kojima's first game since leaving Konami is the massively successful Death Stranding, which continues to show the wonderful ideas in Kojima's mind beyond Metal Gear.
  • Even within the Metal Gear franchise, there are some hidden gems. The MSX Metal Gear games are surprisingly obscure given the popularity of their sequels, which often reference the first two games. Not only that, but their innovative stealth gameplay is still very fun to play to this day.
  • Metal Gear: Ghost Babel is a great non-canon Alternate Continuity spinoff that many people may have mistaken for being a downgraded version of Metal Gear Solid made for the Game Boy Color due to its Market-Based Title outside of Japan. It is still actually a really great Metal Gear spinoff that perfectly blends together the gameplay of the MSX games and MGS1 in a 2D plane, while presenting a new story in an Alternate Continuity that has some surprisingly dark and creepy moments for an E-rated Game Boy Color game.
• The PS2 game Homura is this in spades. And that despite having some unique gameplay features and an awesome soundtrack and it doesn't even have a Wiki or TV-tropes page.
• Humongous Entertainment is now an obscure company that made many charming games for children back in The '90s. They had point-and-click Adventure Games like Freddi Fish, Putt-Putt, Pajama Sam, and SPY Fox. They also had the Cash-Cow Franchise which has sadly overshadowed the aforementioned games, Backyard Sports. Even so, all of them have faded into obscurity, but they seem to be slowly gaining popularity back.
  • There's also Moonbase Commander, which was obscure to the point that it was responsible for killing Humongous. It was a unique strategy game that was easy to pick up and play, and was very addictive. It actually won IGN's "Best Game No-One Played of 2002" award, and is considered a great game that deserves a lot more attention.
• While many gamers have at least heard of Shadow of the Colossus, its predecessor ICO is less well known. It's an Escort Game in which the titular Kid Hero and a Fallen Princess named Yorda attempt to escape an ancient castle. It averts many of the negative elements that tend to crop up in an Escort Mission, and makes it so that the player wants to protect Yorda. It's hauntingly beautiful and, like Shadow of the Colossus, worthy of being called art.
• I=MGCM a.k.a. I Am Magicami was released on PC (2019) and smartphones (2020). Although the gameplay is similar with Summoners War: Sky Arena, this game has stunning visuals and has Persona 5, Promare and Muse Dash vibes. Its opening animation is gorgeous, the character art is well-made, its themes are vivid, yet the stories are balanced between seriousness, comedy, heartwarming moments and tearjerking moments. It has an Aesop: There is always hope in despair.^However... It's best not to play the DX version for one good reason
• Jeanne d'Arc. Joan of Arc as a Magical Girl fighting demons, with a good plot.
  • Seconded, although in its defense it got great reviews. Still, virtually nobody played it or even heard about it because it looks like your standard FF-fill-in-the-blank turn-based handheld RPG — until you actually play it.
• The PSP game Kingdom of Paradise (alternate names: Key of Heaven (EU) and Tenchi no Mon (JAP)) is a fantastic, thorough, highly-rated RPG heavily influenced by the Ssu Ling (Four Symbols, or gods of Chinese mythology). It features gorgeous graphics, well-developed characters, good music, and a wholly gripping storyline complete with dynamic twists and turns. It is so under the radar that it isn't even popular enough to have any semblance of fandom whatsoever.
• The Kirby series is well known and already popular, but one game in the series that was vastly ignored (mostly due to F-Zero and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) was Kirby Air Ride. With unique controls, interesting gameplay, an amazing orchestrated soundtrack, and the adventurous City Trial mode, this game could have been more innovative had people not been so harsh on it.
• Krypton Egg is an excellent breakout clone with a cool powerup mechanic.
• The Last Blade. Goddamn, The Last Blade. One Two of the best nineties 2D fighters ever released, both brushed aside because 3D was the hot new thing at the time. While we're at it, Real Bout Fatal Fury 2.
  • And that's really just denting the surface; SNK has unfairly overlooked gems by the dozen, to the extent of having games overlooked among amateurs of overlooked gems. How many of you have ever heard of Savage Reign or caught a glimpse of Fatal Fury 3?^note Both of which are from 1995 for those of you who can't see what the big deal is.
    • Savage Reign may be good, but its sequel, Kizuna Encounter, is much, much cooler. And just as under-appreciated.
  • In a similar vein, we've all heard about Last Resort the stage, but almost nobody played Last Resort the game. King of the Monsters goes there also.
  • Let's just say, the Neo Geo has a sizable games' gallery (mainly SNK games, but also games from second-parties like Data East and ADK), but just a handful of them are in the gamers' memories. The King of Fighters comes to mind first, followed by Metal Slug and Samurai Shodown (at least until the fourth game). There's also Fatal Fury, which remains mostly in the memory of arcade vets. But what about Art of Fighting, NAM-1975, Magician Lord, Sengoku (not the one that has an article here, this is an unrelated Beat 'em Up)...? And even while SNK was "dead", there was Noise Factory's Rage of the Dragons, an amazing fighter which is also sadly overlooked.
  • Not even The King of Fighters is immune to this. The Maximum Impact sub-series is often forgotten due to being a 3D take on a traditionally 2D franchise.
• Lethal Crisis, an action-platforming doujin game in the veins of SUGURI was completely ignored by many people so much to the point that pirating the game is nigh impossible (not that it's advised, mind you). The game has some interesting features like having a huge assortment of weapons at your disposal and being able to upgrade them, being able to fly around the area, and try out different combinations of weapons that suits your playing style. It's such a shame people who attended Comiket just outright ignore the game for "not being Touhou". A prime example of needs more love for a doujin game.
• Little King's Story seems really underrated. It has fun Pikmin-style gameplay, bright and colorful graphics and a very catchy Public Domain Soundtrack.
• Little Samson and Joy Mech Fight, games for the NES/Famicom. Little Samson is an hardware-pushing Mega Man clone with four distinct playable characters you switch between on the fly; and Joy Mech Fight is a Fighting Game for an 8-bit system, and a well-designed one at that (as opposed to, say, Kart Fighter), where all the characters have Floating Limbs. It also allows you to Mega Man entire playable characters. They were largely ignored due to both releasing after the SNES had already hit the market, and in Joy Mech Fight's case, being Famicom-exclusive.
• Malicious is a gorgeous-looking action game for the PS3 with an Updated Re-release on the Play Station Vita. Your goal is to defeat five bosses to gain enough power to face the titular Malicious. You'll face off against these foes with a shapeshifting Scarf of Asskicking called the Mantle of Cinders that gains new forms and abilities as you defeat more bosses. Sadly, it's practically unheard of.
• Bungie's Marathon. What did this game bring into video games, specifically first-person shooters? Let's start with vertical aiming, Multiplayer objectives other than just kill everybody, single player objectives other than just kill everything, computer-controlled allies, idle animations for enemies, the ability to swim, dual wield, "Jump," use an in-game Radar and map, and use an alternate fire for some weapons; enemy chatter, humerous in-game dialogue, asymettrical character models, different models for players with different guns (In DOOM, all players appeared to have a gun that wasn't in the game regardless of what weapon they were actually using), vacuum areas, an Oxygen Bar, and not to mention it has an incredibly in-depth plot and was the inspiration for Halo. Despite all of this, people still acclaim Halo for setting the guidelines for First-person shooters, mainly for its regenerating health.
  • Marathon also had built-in voice communication when played on a network— yes in 1994.
  • Bungie's other games, such as Myth. There are about a dozen of them. Oni, Abuse, Myth, Marathon, and Pathways into Darkness are all good and all brought new concepts into their genres, yet are all ignored and overshadowed by Halo.
• Metal Walker, an Action RPG for the Game Boy Color that deconstructs an empty overworld and actually has citizens helping you out!
• The Meteos series. It got a quick burst of popularity for being an early-release DS game and sunk quickly into obscurity afterwards, despite being the game that allowed Q? Entertainment to be taken seriously as a game company. It takes the Falling Blocks and Match-Three Game concepts for puzzle games and turns it on its head: Instead of them disappearing, they launch upwards, sending every block above them upwards too, which is how you actually clear the field. Also unique to puzzle games is a large set of playable characters (actually civilizations, but they function as characters) who have their own traits, such as field size, color composition and frequency, how quickly the blocks move, and so forth, requiring different strategies. It doesn't look bright for the Meteos series, however, as Q Entertainment seems to prefer its little brother Lumines and has struck it big with Child of Eden.
• Monkey Hero: AND HOW! It was an action RPG released in 1999 for the PlayStation. Although the game was pretty much a Zelda clone, it was actually pretty good. It had a strong sense of atmosphere, good graphics and a kick ass soundtrack to boot! In the game, you play as a monkey named Monkey and travel a wide spacious world exploring dungeons and defeating bosses to collect all of the magic storybook pages to defeat the Nightmare King. You even get to use a wide inventory of unique items and weaponry. The game is sadly virtually unknown.
• Noitu Love, especially the sequel. It is a brilliantly fun game, a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up with great boss battles, a sense of humour, and a whole pile of fun. The definitely as much love as it can get, as the creator, Joakim 'Konjak' Sandberg is in dire monetary straits, and had a kind of crisis of confidence. Check out his website: he's also released a game called Chalk which is fun on a bun, and there's a whole bunch of unfinished and/or abandoned projects that show he has real game-making chops. Here's a few game trailers you should check out.
• Noctis is a galaxy generator exploration game yet look at how little is on its page.
• Opoona, dubbed a "Lifestyle RPG", was largely ignored by the gaming community (despite favorable reviews) due to it looking like an rpg for kids, being hard to classify into a simple genre, and for being able to be played with just the nunchuck for some reason (it's way better to use the classic controller). The game, worldwide, sold about 75000 units. But the game had a fun new battle system based on trying to arc your attacks to hit the most enemies, large assortment of mini-games in the form of regular jobs, a story with some interesting plot twists, a monumental amount of people who change what they say often, and a world so fully realized that towns had waste treatment facilities and each region had a selection of television shows, as well as entire museums full of art with different artistic periods. Add onto that an amazing soundtrack produced by Hitoshi Sakimoto. The sheer amount of work gone into making this title makes it a case study in world exploration. Deserves as much love as EarthBound (1994).
• Russian RPG/FPS/ Adventure /Survival Horror game Pathologic has a very intense atmosphere, great soundtrack, fascinating steam/diesel-punk setting, and, above all, completely brilliant plot. There are many characters, each of them are belivable and have deep personalities. It also has one of the most shocking Twist Endings ever. There is also an incredibly realistic in-game economy system - NB, not in a tycoon or a strategy game, but in a first-person adventure. Sadly, this game also has loads of bugs (though many of them were fixed later by patches), archaic (even for 2005, when the game was released) graphics, very difficult fight system and very rough gameplay, which many players found boring. Despite all these flaws, the game has a huge cult following in Russia, but what is the saddest, that the English translation was awful, and though the game has some fans among English-speaking people, it is not nearly as popular as it deserves to be. Yes, there is a Fan Translation team, but they have been working for more than a few years, without any results.
  • Some of the game's flaws may be justified - the first, its purpose is not to give to players pleasure, but to tell them amazing story, and make 'em live a few days in fictional world. The second - the developers presented their product not as a game, but as a simulator of survival.
• Peter Pan The Legend Of Never Land is a good licensed game of Return To Never Land for the PlayStation 2. As an Action-Adventure game, it tells an original story. If you go onto the game's page on the Disney Wiki, you'll see comments praising it. Sadly, its creator, Blue 52, ended up getting closed. Yes, that Blue 52.
• Phantasy Star: It had a fully fleshed-out plot years before Final Fantasy II for the Famicom came out, it was one of the first RPGs to feature a female protagonist, it took place in a science-fiction setting (which is rare for RPGs, even today) and it came to the United States a full year before Dragon Warrior. The rest of the series also deserves mention, as they are all great RPGs, comparable to the Final Fantasies of the era.
  • Speaking of Phantasy Star, Phantasy Star Online 2 is an amazing online action-RPG. Sega announced a western release, but nothing else has been announced about this version since (not counting the SEA version, because no one likes its publisher Asiasoft), so we need to be more vocal with Sega about the fact that this game deserves to see the light of day outside of Asia.
• Plok was an SNES platformer from 1993 that's... er, really good. The soundtrack has this sunny, jazzy atmosphere that sounds too good to be coming out of an SNES, the graphics are cartoonishly psychedelic and very unique, and the gameplay is varied and challenging. Oh, and it did Rayman's shtick two years before Rayman came out. Just play it on an emulator that has save states.
• The Sega CD's library has its fair share of hidden gems, but none shine brighter than Popful Mail, a Nintendo Hard adventure platformer which also had some of the best voice acting of ANY game released for it's time. Dubbed voice acting, at that! It's a damn shame that it came out so late in the Sega CD's life, after it had been established that the system was a gimmicky add-on to the Genesis, because this game truly did make the best use out of the power of CD-based media (even if said power was throttled by the Genesis).
• Po Po Lo Crois is a Japanese RPG series for the PlayStation which was almost released over here, but wasn't. No fan translations exist, but if you understand Japanese, check it out. Even if you don't, an English version was released on the PSP which combined the plots of the first and third game. Apparently it's vastly inferior to the originals, but still fun. Two anime series were also created, both of which have been subbed by some awesome guy named Wyrdwad (who incidentally is Tom Lipschultz, a localization manager at XSEED Games).
• Quake Arena Arcade. A delightful Xbox Live Arcade port of one of the FPS that revolutionized the genre. The gameplay is what you can expect from III and Team Arena, and even contains new content, some of which even made it back into Quake Live. The main (and sometimes ONLY) criticism it gets? "Not enough people is playing it".
• Rayman Origins is one of the greatest platformers ever made, but tragically did poorly sales wise. However, it did manage to Win Back the Crowd of the original Rayman fans, and it spawned a sequel, Rayman Legends.
• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. As the title implies, it's a musical RPG. It also happens to take place in the Disgaea-universe, although it doesn't deal with it at all. There's also a refreshing bit of optimism and sweetness that is sadly all-too uncommon in RPGs these days.
• Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends. Let me see you have a four way battle involving death spheres, giant tanks, huge dragons, and one very massive cannon, on your games.
• Oh, Ristar. Poor, poor Ristar. A beautiful game with a unique, central, and fun gameplay mechanic of swinging and headbutting everything with your elastic arms, mixed with a ton of personality and charm. But thanks to it being released in 1995 on the Genesis, it was overshadowed by the hype of the next generation, and didn't sell awesomely like Sonic or other platformers. Because of this, it couldn't get the Even Better Sequel it deserved. You have little excuse to not try it out if you come across it on the various platforms it's been re-released for.
• Rocket Jockey (not to be mistaken for the same-titled Action 52 game) is a 1996 PC game about rocket bikes. With grappling cables. That can join anything together, if needed. Using these vehicles, you can compete in one of three events: the self-explanatory Rocket Race, slinging balls/pucks into any goal in sight in Rocket Ball, and a Rocket War, which involves inflicting as much Video Game Cruelty Potential as possible on every other person in sight using the grappling cables and even the occasional bomb! All this to the tune of a surf guitar soundtrack courtesy of Dick Dale. So Cool, It's Awesome, and yet practically no one has heard of it... but the ones who do will never forget it.
• Robotopia for the PC. Shareware game, but, among many sharewares, this one is obscure. Extremely obscure. Basically, you control a battle bot who can do a lot of various stuff, starting with switching between walk and infinite jetpack modes (that automatically means you can fly everywhere) to causing complete mayhem with Z-Sabre. The location is somewhat O-Ban-ish or even Firebugs-ish (you decide) with same ancient looking exotic paysages with several bits of techno and loads of weird vegetation, but, ironically enough, that's one of the coolest features in the game. Among other ones: four minigames, somewhat deep customization of your robot, crowdy multiplayer and ironically good and catchy DnB soundtrack.
  • It has its own problems, though... With first having only 8 missions to play (you'll need to find a version with Free Roam mode available after that, if you're a big muchkin) and with the remaining being Good Bad Bugs and related.
• Robopon wasn't the most fast game ever, but it and its sequel did a good job of distinguishing itself from Pokemon as well as having an interesting, quirky story.
• RosenkreuzStilette. It's a doujin game inspired by several classic games (most notably Mega Man), where you play as a church maiden who has to stop a misguided rebellion led by her own friends and their supervisor. It's got excellent music provided by several Japanese bands, and the visuals simply look stunning. Sadly, it never gets the attention it deserves, and for a couple reasons. Its wiki seems to be in a state of turmoil, the fanbase is broken since the Eastern fans think there are no true Western fans^note They obviously don't know a good chunk of the Touhou Project fanbase, and that those who are are merely "pretending" (case in point, one of the most prominent fans in the Western base is accused even by the developers themselves as being a complete asshole to the game, even despite his reform).
• Sakura Wars, a pioneer of Dating Sim-type RPGs (it was basically Persona 3 a decade before the actual Persona 3 existed, but with mecha), finally got an American release more than a decade after the first game was released... which ended up revealing that the series will probably never regain its former Cash-Cow Franchise status. At least it's still respected enough to be represented on Project × Zone's roster...
• Senko no Ronde, a Fighting Game-meets-Shoot 'Em Up by G.rev that unfortunately received harsh criticism by critics often citing It's Short, So It Sucks! and the lack of "worthwhile" content during its initial release in North America and Europe, yet this is a game manages to blend two genres that many wouldn't think would be even possible and pulls it off in spades. The game has a lot of things going for it that many people in the West never saw: A unique fighting game unlike any other before it, character art-style and a storyline influenced by Keiko Takemiya's Toward the Terra, a diverse cast of eight characters with two different Cartridge types that technically brings a total of sixteen playable characters, a soundtrack composed by a former ZUNTATA member, and a solid online play with a surprisingly good netcode that was nothing like fighting against the computer... or at least it used to until players stopped playing any online matches in general, making it more depressing and harder to find anyone willing to play online matches.
• Singularity is an oft-forgotten FPS dealing with time travel and alternative histories. Vastly underrated and never promoted much. A really fun way to blow at least 6 hours.
• SkyGunner, a game akin to something like a Steampunk-styled Ace Combat. It has a charming presentation, and an incredibly deep control system to boot. Unfortunately, it's particularly unknown, even for an Atlus game.
• Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. A little game released at the end of the DS life cycle. Ten years in development, seven spent on Worldbuilding, and it shows. The story is well-written and engaging (and, at points, surprisingly deep), the characters are likeable and funny, and it's got absolutely epic music and gorgeous graphics, even for such a tiny screen. It does seem moderately popular in Japan (the 100 commercials to break a Guinness record may have something to do with it), but Americans have hardly heard of it and those that have can't seem to get past the fact that the main character is a dog-guy. Tail Concerto, which it is a Spiritual Sequel to, could also use more love, along with the Fuga games.
• Sonic Pinball Party is a must-have if you have a Game Boy Advance/Nintendo DS and any nostalgia for Sonic Team's Saturn and Dreamcast games, with tables based on NiGHTS and Samba de Amigo featuring tracks from Burning Rangers, Phantasy Star Online and ChuChu Rocket!.
  • And speaking of underrated Sonic Team games... Ni GHTS Into Dreams and its sequel (moreso the original) are games often looked over because of their colourful graphics and "weird" protagonist. Give them a go—the original is an incredible time attack, point scoring racing game with an open-ended story, and the sequel has gorgeous music (including remixes of the original's already amazing tunes) and even got me teary at points. Just because it looks "kiddy" doesn't mean it is!
• Space Siege, a Sci-Fi version of Dungeon Siege.
• Star Soldier is a odd case. You've probably heard of it, but have you ever played it? Shame, because it's an excellent shooter.
• Steambot Chronicles for the PS2 may not be on the same level as Mass Effect or Fable, but it makes up for its lack of diverse story branches with great music, a simple sandbox set up, and a cast of quirky characters that seemed to have stepped right out of a Miyazaki-Ghibli feature film. The game is a great open-world experience that can be best summarised as the open world freedom and roleplaying elements of Grand Theft Auto meets the laid-back and cozy tone of Animal Crossing, with a steampunk flavor.
• Streets of Rogue is a non-traditional rogue-lite in a city setting where a tyrannical mayor has taken over the city. You complete missions your own way with fighting, sneaking, befriending, hacking and more. Featuring 24 character classes and counting, a custom character creator, and mutators that change the gameplay, there are countless ways to play. The Steam page sums it up as "It's like Nuclear Throne meets Deus Ex, mixed with the anarchy of GTA. Rogue-lite meets immersive sim, and goes completely insane."
• Super Monkey Ball. It's about rolling monkeys in plastic balls around obstacle courses, but its Nintendo Hard difficulty, fun minigames, Scenery Porn, epic soundtrack, and cute characters are sadly ignored, and eventually got the series overshadowed by THAT BLASTED HEDGEHOG!
• The Tetris: The Grand Master series. If you've mastered playing the Game Boy or NES iterations at level 19, or think newer Tetris games are too easy while older ones are too clunky, give this a shot. Most people only know it as "those crazy Japanese Tetris games with the invisible Tetris part", but if you have the curiosity to think of TGM as more than that, and the dedication to explore the seemingly-simple series' depths, the TGM series has some of the best Falling Blocks games you will play, period.
• The Closer: Game of the Year Edition: This Eastern RPG weaves an absurdist and existential tale around modern American baseball, similar to how The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles and 17776 do for gridiron football. It's got a good selection of music, combat that's not just a rehash of the usual RPG fare, several quirky playable characters who nonetheless get well fleshed out, and a plot and Central Theme that both grab your attention once the game seriously gets going. Not bad for an RPG Maker-made title, though the developers themselves being very obscure doesn't do it much favors for its popularity—the only reason the game has a TV Tropes page in the first place is because Something Awful archived a goon's Let's Play of it.
• The Guardian Legend. A hybrid shooter for the Nintendo Entertainment System which pretty much embodied Nintendo Hard. Desperately in need of a next generation reboot!
• The Haunted Mansion video game, based on the famous Disney Theme Parks ride. Released the same year as the ill-fated 2003 film (though it had nothing to do with it outside its source material), the game was a gem lost under the wave of games. With some solid gameplay, great puzzles, Mythology Gag filled areas, and some Nightmare Fuel added in, it's worth picking up if you have a system it works on.
• The Legend of Dragoon is a Final Fantasy VII-esque game that came out two years after the aforementioned game and was published by Sony itself. The game featured the usual JRPG Turn-Based Combat, but occasionally you could turn into a Dragoon, a Dragon Knight, for a few turns and unleash your true power. Possibly the reason it's been underrated and somewhat unknown is because of its similarities to FFVII and the subsequent sequels.
  • And the music, more specifically the games main theme/credits song "If You Still Believe...". It's bound to send chills down your spine, especially when you know the context of the ending.
• The Precursors is an obscure Space Sim which actually allows you to land on planets and run around them doing missions on foot. You have a lot of freedom, both the "Space Sim" and "Ground" gameplay are excellent, the annoying bugs and inconvenient mechanics of the developers' previous games have been fixed, and this is really the only game of its kind.
• The Reconstruction has incredibly detailed wordbuilding, interesting characters and plot, and an inspired take on the Eastern RPG formula that makes it an incredibly fun and interesting game. Unfortunately, despite being nominated as a featured game on RMN, it has low publicity even by RPG Maker game standards, barely seeming to have caused a blip on the radar.
  • Surprisingly, its prequel, I Miss the Sunrise, is actually getting significantly more publicity, though it's still pretty obscure. With any luck, by the time it's finished, it will have at least risen to Cult Classic levels.
• The entire The Tale of ALLTYNEX trilogy is very fit for this list especially since of those few who have played them consider them (especially Kamui) to be the best games of the genre the PC has to offer. Let this teaser convince you.
  • And now it's available internationally, for digital purchase and download. It's still a bit under the radar and only searched for a niche public, but it's reasonably popular even so.
• The Unholy War can only be described as a great fighting game. You've plenty characters to choose from, an strategy mode to make the game more interesting, and it's awesome to play against a friend. Not only that, but it was a full 3D game, with free movement, in 1998! (something weird back then). Even with all that, the game was poorly received, and very few people know about it.
• The Way of the Samurai series is a very interesting Quirky Work, and one that doesn't get much respect in the west. Each game is very short, clocking in at around a few hours at most, but there are a wide array of choices to make, factions to ally oneself with, endings to view, and stuff to unlock.
• The Whispered World could use more love. It's a cute 2D quest/adventure game with memorable characters (sorrowful clown, nigh invincible caterpillar and a cowardly secret agent, just to name a few), surprisingly noob-friendly but challenging puzzles and artwork so beautiful you could hang each frame on the wall.
• The TimeSplitters games are funny, fast paced first-shooters with tons of characters that range from monkeys, robots, zombies, robot monkeys, and zombie monkeys, tons of guns, Awesome Music, and level editors.
• Tornado Outbreak, a surprisingly well-done clone of Katamari Damacy made by former Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog members that focuses on flinging things away instead of attaching them, with a nice co-op mode, an actual plot and unique powerups. See here.
• While Touhou Project has a huge fandom, attention towards the predecessor PC-98 games seems to be small. While the graphics may not be as advanced, and an emulator is required to run them on a modern computer, they are extremely good. The music is just as good as the music from the newer games, the characters just as frilly and interesting, and the gameplay is actually a bit easier than the Windows games — perfect if you're looking to get into Touhou Project but suck at Bullet Hell.
  • Touhou Danmakufu has a surprisingly small fandom compared to Touhou, even though some of the scripts are on par with, or even better than, the official games. And, unlike the official games, Danmakufu itself and many of the scripts can be downloaded legally for free. If you fear Sturgeon's Law, just check out the reviews before you download scripts.
• Toy Soldiers by Signal Studios. Despite being a wonderful take on the Tower Defense genre and the best selling Xbox Live Arcade game of 2010, which hasn't appeared in any "Best Games" lists despite its commercial success.
• Universe Sandbox is a space simulator game that allows you to do anything from making planets collide and using the Death Star's laser on them to terraforming planets and creating entire solar systems. The game recreates the physics of space extremely accurately, has a fittingly great soundtrack, and has genuinely amazing graphics.
• Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict. A game way ahead of its time that mixes First-Person Shooter and Fighting Game genres, creating in the process most of the template for the Hero Shooter genre, with characters having distinct personalities and in-game properties such as weight class, adrenaline abilities, starting weapons, a more in-your-face meleé-based approach... which also happened to be launched as a closing title for the original Xbox and also had both the bad luck of "not being Unreal Tournament" and being part of the Midway years. But that's not all! Although the game has a main story, it also has individual ladders telling each of its protagonists' stories, challenges, lots of unlockables (mutators and characters)... Most things that are commonplace today can be found in this 2005 game!
• Wild 9 was a great game for the PS1, that played rather similar to Earthworm Jim. Had great graphics, and a funny gameplay. Almost nobody knows about it.
• The Ys series. With a decent sized fanbase in Japan, but a minuscule one in the rest of the world, it's a great series with great characters, and pretty fun gameplay. The PSP remakes and Ys SEVEN from the same system are definitely worth your time if you're an RPG fan.
  • Seven was a large improvement over its predecessors. I don't think it quite belongs here, as it is something of a Newbie Boom. Memories of Celceta, on the other hand, does. A remake of IV with the same improved battle system from Seven (improved further with new mechanics, more depth, and a guard button), it was overlooked primarily^note though admittedly not entirely due to being on an unsuccessful platform. Of particular note is the genius implementation of the teleportation feature. You see, in many open world games,^note including previous games in the series you are given the ability to teleport between save points, because otherwise exploring the game world would become quite tedious. In Mo C, you can teleport right after beating the first dungeon. But it also averts the Boring, but Practical side of that by making it so you can only teleport between save points of the same shape and color, so you still have a reason to take a nice stroll^note Well... around the luscious sea of trees. And then, later on in the game, you're given the ability to travel to any save point from anywhere, which is a very pleasant surprise, considering it was at this point revealed that crossing between two parts of the map would erase other traveler's memories, and even Adol's beforehand, kicking off the plot of the game. It's the best of both worlds! Add in likable characters and the aforementioned Awesome Music, and you've got a reason the Vita didn't deserve to be abandoned...
• Take Maddox Games's early 90s shooters, and you'll get the catch. Specifically Z.A.R., made in 1997. In a nutshell, it's an open-air mission-based first-person shooter, with, however, pretty wild dynamics. Wilder than it's supposed to be for a Nostalgic Science Fiction One-Man Army Crapsack Other Planet FPS. Two more features I haven't spotted in any other game of this genre so far: no-border levels, in fashion of Wraparound Background and even Color-Coded for Your Convenience weapons, depending on the location you're currently in!
  • Not to mention landforming, which is, for this genre, older than everyone thinks.
• ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal is an old (2002) PC fantasy adventure game of German origin that plays like it's Pokémon if it were a first-person shooter — which isn't a bad thing. While not much can be said for the plot, the gameplay is a different twist on a familiar model, the music is beyond beautiful, and the (numerous) non-human character designs are all interesting and original. And did I mention that ZanZarah's mons are laser-shooting fairies?
• How many cool ZX Spectrum games, including homebrews, get little attention?! You'd never thought that Sturgeon's Law now would apply not only for crud but for overlooked things! ...on one occasion, I even think it would grow into a separate category. One day.
  • Prime example: Dr. Mario Which has awesome music.
    • Now with the viruses and pills available in seven flavours.
  • Goody had crappy jump physics, that's right. That didn't stop it from very little-quantity fans from rebooting it into a PC remake. And yes, it's both hillarious AND awesome!
  • They say Dune II started the genre, we say it didn't. Stonkers and Nether Earth still have their own little fanbase on which they rely.
  • AWS Mortal Kombat. A mishmash of the original MK and its sequel which, unlike the other attempts to "create MK on ZX", is fully finished and WORKS. What it seriously suffers from, still, is the lack of Color-Coded Multiplayer.
  • Kliatba Noci a.k.a. Curse of the Night, a funky horror beat-'em-up platformer, where you guide the protagonist, Loki, through the castle literally filled with mages, skeletons and beasts while you listen to this music.
  • Moving on to more recent developments, Vera, a top-down adventure game, yet it's still point-n-click. With it being a short, but extremely light-hearthed game, it never became well-known outside Russian-speaking countries. The creators wanted it to be in English as well, but... the last announcement before the official site froze was that they need a guy who may translate all ingame text...
  • Wolfenstein. Just Wolfenstein. Of course, you'd expect the protagonist to be Willie Blazkowicz, but no. While he makes his way through a Nazi prison, a Russian scout known as Shtirlitz will help him to finish the WWII. Along with breathtaking speed, visuals, excellent chiptunes and EVEN a level editor, you sure need to take a look at it. One little problem is able to spoil the game completely, though... You can't strafe.
  • Several Phantomas remakes. Just imagine. One tape contains a lot of understandment of HOW overlooked these and the original game was, plus Nintendo Hardness and a lot of unexpected demo effects which start to show up EVEN at the loading screen.
• Black for the PlayStation 2 might be a bit of tech demo game and quite short, but it's also a load of fun to play. Lot's of explosions, gun porn and destructible environments makes for some memorable moments, not to mention a difficulty level rarely seen in FPSs.
• NieR is a flawed game that seemed to created a strong divide between critics, and at first glance could be mistaken as just a Zelda clone. But it has an interesting mix of varied gameplay mechanics and an equally beautiful and heartbreaking story. And it has one of the most memorable New Game plus modes due to the different perspective it provides on some of the events in the game.
• Darkwatch is an arcadey fps set in a Wild West/Horror/Steam Punk universe, and at times feels a bit similar to Painkiller. Even though it's repetitive at times it's still a lot of fun throughout.
• Might and Magic: Dark Messiah is a very immersive action-RPG that eventually gained itself a bit of a cult following. It has some cool spells and environmental kills, and the few cutscenes that there are are very interesting. Despite numerous glitches and some dodgy level design it's really a great experience overall.
• The Deep Cave is a challenging side-scrolling platformer on Xbox Live Indie. It has an incredible 8-bit soundtrack and is unmissable at the price of one dollar.
• Sam & Max Season 1 and 2 is a fantastic entry into the adventure genre. The puzzles generally tend to work on absurd logic, but the hints in the dialogue and small level sizes never makes them frustrating. The writing is incredible witty and has all sorts of pop culture references and dark humor.
• Alpha Protocol doesn't have quite as polished gameplay as one might hope, but it's still a great sucessor to Deus Ex and Vampires: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. There's an unbelievable level of freedom when it comes to making choices that effect the character and plot development, and the writing is top notch also.
• The Granstream Saga, a game that seamlessly blends fighting and JRPG style. Yes, that's right, the combat mechanics are a fighting game, but with leveling up, equipping armor and three different types of weapons, magic spells, and a truly unique story, complete with gorgeous anime cutscenes and excellent voice acting. Flaws: blocky graphics, especially on faces, and having to compete with Final Fantasy VII.
• Last Scenario, a game that was made in RPG Maker, yet rivals or exceeds any iteration of Final Fantasy in the quality of its writing and gameplay. The plot is deliberately initially set up as a Cliché Storm, but everything is eventually subverted Tales Series-style. It has well-written Character Development, interesting plot twists and awesome pacing and reveals. Sadly, many people are put off by the simple, mediocre art, lame beginning and stock tiles and music.
• Fancy Pants Adventures is an underrated platformer with disambig slick graphics and tight game-play combining Super Mario Bros. and Sonic while still being original and never monotonous. Platformer fans have to give this game a try.
• The Chaos Rings series, especially Chaos Rings II. A gem of an Eastern RPG with great characters, fun gameplay, and an engrossing plot by the same studio that made the cult classic Wild ARMs series. Sadly, they are for IOS devices, which has not yet gotten a reputation as a "serious" gaming platform. As a result, hardly anyone has played them.
• NeoTokyo (2014). You'll be surprised in how detailed this Half-Life 2 mod is. It is based on multiplayer with focus on teamwork as there is no damage direction indicator. Every engagement is always fast and fatal. Couple this with commercial-quality maps and in-game models and you get one of the most hailed upcoming mods in its time. Too bad to developers seemed to abandon it and not much of its player base are left.
• The Space Bar: Thanks to a bad combination of epic bad luck with choice of producers, lousy marketing and a short print run, and having both turn limits and deaths in an era when adventure gaming was changing to become more and more forgiving instead, the game ended up being mostly relegated to the obscurity bin. However, the game is full of clever writing and dialogue (unsurprising, since it was written by Steve Meretzky of A Mind Forever Voyaging and Leather Goddesses of Phobos fame), manages to be both genuinely funny and genuinely creepy in places, uses all wonderfully creative and strange ideas for aliens, and has some excellent voice acting (including Alan Rickman (!)). Oh, and the character designs were done by Ron Cobb. Yes, that one and also that one.
• ATV Offroad Fury definitely counts. With fun controls, Good Bad Bugs (one of which involves running over a tiny bush and watching the ATV literally fly in the air) and an excellent soundtrack (who can say know to a game with music from Soundgarden, Bender [no, not that one] and Sevendust?), it really needs more love.
• Drill Dozer takes a single gameplay mechanic, drilling, and manages to make a great game out of it. Made by Game Freak, known for Pokémon, Drill Dozer has beautiful graphics, awesome music, some really epic boss fights and just a flat-out cool design for the dozer and main character. It just had the misfortune of being released in the Game Boy Advance's last days.
• Universe at War: Earth Assault was a (unusually enough) good RTS for the Xbox 360 with a good story, decent gameplay, a soundtrack by Frank Klepacki (the guy who composed for Command And Conquer) and proof that just because a trope is old does not mean it is bad. However, it just never caught on and the planned sequel was canceled. Darn shame, if you ask me.
• Speed Power Gunbike is a Japan-exclusive action-racing game for the PlayStation where players control a motorcycle that can transform into a Mini-Mecha, ala Megazone23. The game is tough, fast-paced, and stuffed to the gills with Gratuitous English.
• You may have played Puzzle League before, at some point in your life. You probably have not, however, played - or even heard of - Panel de Pon, outside of Super Smash Bros.. While the gameplay is more or less the same as later incarnations of the series, the character designs are what earns it a spot on this page. The game, and its Nintendo Puzzle Collection pseudo-sequel, has some of the most adorable characters you're ever going to see (I daresay it's more adorable than Kirby, a difficult feat to accomplish!). The game would eventually see Western release through the Switch's online service in 2020.
• Conquest: Frontier Wars has all the elements of a great game, good gameplay, decent storyline, good quality cutscenes ,and well balance factions. There was supposed to be a sequel, but the developers went bankrupt, leaving its fate unknown.
• Getter Love!!, one of the few dating sims both for the Nintendo 64 and without any explicit content whatsoever, as well as the Spiritual Successor to the Mario Party series. Released only in Japan on December 4, 1998, all kinds of wacky hijinx ensue as you challenge three other guys to build as much of a relationship as possible with one of seven girls while hindering said rivals with theirs, and eventually confess your love to her.
• Robotrek, a SNES robotic mon RPG that predates Pokemon by 2 years, you even start each battle throwing a suspiciously Pokeball-like capsule to summon your robot! Robotrek has an intriguing story that is neither too dark nor too childish, a massive amount of customization (for the time) exists for your 3 robots' weapons, color, and statistics, and you'll invent new objects by mixing various items together. I have yet to see even a spiritual sequel not to mention a true one.
• SD Gundam Capsule Fighter, a Massively Multiplayer Online Third Person Shooter released at the end of 2011 to North America by OG Planet. Though it has been active in other countries since at least 2006, it's only taking off here. Imagine a Gundam game that wasn't set during the One Year War, being able to play as just about any popular (and not-so-popular) unit from the franchise's 30+ years of existence, and just shoot up anyone that gets near you. And when I say just about any unit, I mean anything from popular units like the Freedom Gundam and the Nu Gundam to lame units like the Leo and the Acguy to units you've probably never seen like the Red Frame Custom!
• The first two Bubsy games, which are usually bashed due to Bubsy 3D, but are challenging, cartoony, and fun, and have some good music.
• Even though it's a SNES game, the Goof Troop game is a surprisingly well-done game. Averting The Problem with Licensed Games , with clever mechanics and simple gameplay that is reminiscent of early The Legend of Zelda games.
• Kya: Dark Lineage is a PS2 platformer starring a big city girl who goes to a fantasy world to save her half-brother. Despite getting positive reviews across the board, the game was mostly over-looked by gamers. This was mainly because the game came out the same time more anticipated titles were also being released.
• The First-Person Shooter XIII was a big anticipated game based on the classic French comic book series. It was even developed by the French branch of Ubisoft. The game was supposed to be the beginning of a trilogy. However, when the game came out, it was panned by most of the mainstream reviewers, resulting in low sales. However, word-of-mouth has vindicated the game as being one of the best story-based shooters you can play, with great cell-shaded graphics and a bombastic jazz soundtrack.
• FromSoftware’s Otogi: Myth of Demons is one of the most unknown original Xbox games, which is a shame because it combines Everything Breaks, Scenery Porn, Soundtrack Dissonance, and a simple yet effective combat system to make one of, if not the best games, then at least one of the most interesting games around…And then there’s the Sequel, which is so unknown that even people who have played the first one often don’t know about it. Otogi 2 Immortal Warriors was a near total improvement over the first game, better graphics, better music, better stages, and SIX playable characters to Otogi’s one. It is easily one of the best games on the Xbox, and the fans that do know about it would probably give anything for a next-gen sequel or an HD re-release, and the original Xbox copies are not Xbox 360 compatible.
• Soulbringer has a great plot, awesome Character Development and... lousy graphics.
• Gradius Gaiden. Although Gradius itself is a pretty well-known series, Gaiden, at least in the West, just hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, thanks to an unexported PS1 release and an overshadowed rerelease on Gradius Collection for PSP. It boasts some very pretty stage variety, fun gimmicks like a black hole sucking up the stage and a crystal stage that refracts laser shots, excellent ship selection that makes it hard to decide which ship is the most option, and most importantly, especially for beginners, the option to rearrange your power meter; a very practical use for this is to put Option and/or Shield in the fornt slots so that you can very quickly get shields and options, instead of having to wait for five or six power capsules. Finally the length is just right at about 30 minutes, and it's also one of the easier titles in the series. Of course, if you don't like easy games, you can always start on the second loop of the game instead of the first, which throws some new obstacles at you, including a totally new boss.
• Gatling Gears. You pilot a Mini-Mecha and blast enemies in an overhead Shoot 'Em Up fashion. Features powerful weapons you can upgrade, cool explosions, good learning curve outside the first boss and absolutely breathtaking sceneries. The storyline may be somewhat bare bones (the biggest twist occurs after the intro chapter) but it does teach a Green Aesop. And then we have the boss fights, which are pretty epic in nature and in execution. Finally, don't let the fact that it's an EA game turn you off, in fact, it's one of the better EA games out there. If you're into dual-stick shooter games, you should give this one a try.
• Ever hear of Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure? It's what one can only describe as Professor Layton meets Elite Beat Agents/Rhythm Heaven meets Lupin III. The game features a fairly solid storyline, criminally catchy music and rhythm games that are VERY difficult to put down.
• The 2001 PC Game Hostile Waters. Awesome Premise, setting and internal Mythology (look it up on the TV Tropes page), still holds up both in graphics (except when it comes to animation of humans but it's only used in cinematics) and the gameplay uniquely merges Real Time action and strategy with resource management. You control a carrier that can, provided with enough energy create Tanks, hovercrafts, Helicopters and other stuff out of dirt and thin air. Awesome Vehicle design. Great Story. Nice Characters. Nanobots. Aliens. Fridge Brilliance. Actual Challenge (later on more so).
• Vectorman for the Sega Genesis. Developed by Blue Sky Software, it was most well known for its graphics (near PSX quality on the Genesis) but even beyond that it was a great game that was extremely fun and had a lot of charm, thanks in part to the mini-game rounds between levels. The sequel was just as enjoyable and great in its own right as well.
• CIMA: The Enemy, a very nice game for the Game Boy Advance, made by the same people who made Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. A fun and interesting top-down hack and slash in the style of old school The Legend of Zelda, with a very good strategy system and a unique storyline.
• Bloody Roar by Hudson Soft. While most fighting games (besides Virtua Fighter and Tekken) need a gimmick to make it anywhere, Bloody Roar had one that worked; namely, the Beast Gauge. The ability to turn into an anthropomorphic animal during battle opened up all kinds of crazy possibilities for combat, and was an interesting premise on its own. The fighting is fluid, and the controls are often solid (save for the fourth game). Each game sports crisp, well-detailed graphics that fit their generation, and even have well-done soundtracks (2 in particular was cited as "the long-lost cousin of Guilty Gear").
  • This is to say nothing of the plot, which had a surprisingly intricate narrative for a fighting game of the time. With tense relations between humans and Zoanthropes as a shady corporation reminiscent of Umbrella sought to manipulate the Zoanthropes to their own end, the series was essentially Japan's first answer to X-Men. Sadly, this premise was slowly phased out for more mythical (and some would say mundane) plotlines after Bloody Roar 2, which coincidentally(?) hit full tilt with the fourth game.
• Much like Hudson Soft's Bloody Roar, Taito's Psychic Force is also a severely underrated fighting game series despite its Cult Classic status and that it has a unique and effective fighting engine system combined with a surprisingly intricate storyline which, just like Bloody Roar, pretty much follows X-Men's own strong narrative (Psychiccers are shunned by the normal human population and that some of them only seek to make peace and help unite both the humans and Psychiccers for a bright and hopeful future while others are determined to start a war against the humans for total Psychiccer supremacy).
• TRON 2.0. Hoo boy, where to begin? THIS was the original sequel to TRON before TRON: Legacy deposed it. Created by Monolith Studios, you played as Alan Bradley's son who gets digitized by someone it is implied to be his mother to stop the viral invasion of ENCOM. Barely anyone in the TRON fandom seems to know about this game and Buena Vista Entertainment seemed to screw over the game when they could, including releasing two different versions of one patch, making it so that players could not play with others who had the other version of the patch. This was never officially fixed. Even though it got an Xbox port (which is not backwards compatable with the Xbox 360), BVE refused to patch in the new weapons introduced in the Xbox version.
• Anarchy Reigns. Another offering from PlatinumGames, which, in this case, came at a budget price tag of $30/£20. Surely this would make the game more appealing right? Nope. Most turned their noses up at it. The fact that Sega delayed the game until 2013 for Western audiences despite Japan keeping its July 2012 release date for God knows what reason really shafted the game's chances (Bioshock Infinite anyone?). Not even the promise of Bayonetta appearing as a Guest Fighter helped. Which is a damn shame, since the combat is fluid and great fun, the graphics look great even for a post-apocalypse environment and there are a crapton of characters to choose from (about 18). What's not to like?
• Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a spin off game of the Call of Juarez series. It's a small, stand alone little downloadable title that didn't get much in the way of marketing, but packs a lot of fun, creativity, and wonderful writing in the short run time it has. Remember the famous narration gimmick Bastion had that everyone loved? Apparently ''Gunslinger'" liked it too and decided to take the concept and run away with it; the entire game is the result of an old Bounty Hunter relating his tales of adventure to some bar patrons, and as the tales go on and get more and more outlandish the patrons interupt his story and point out contradictions and inconsistencies all over the place, which is actually reflected in gameplay when set dressings or vistas will suddenly appear or disappear because it was revealed to have all been a lie, or simply not how the story teller was remembering it happening. The Gameplay and Story Integration is so superb that, at a $15 asking price, it deserves to hold a place in everyone's hard drive based library.
• Iggy's Reckin' Balls is a quirky and very underrated Nintendo 64 game that combines racing and platforming in a unique manner, all of it done with spherical, comical characters that just have a grappling hook, their jumping abilities, and a selection of random items picked up from the course to use as they try to get to the top of the towers they're trying to wreck.
• Satazius, a love letter to Horizontal Scrolling Shooters of the 90's. Despite a Steam release, you're lucky to find someone who has it.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP and its sequel. Sure it's not the same Mario Kart we all know and love due to being co-developed by Namco, but the new items are pretty neat, the powersliding mechanic is heaps of fun, and in versus races, you can choose what items to randomly select when you get item boxes, adding an element of strategy when using items. The items are also more balanced; you won't find any lightning bolts or blue shells here! Sadly, the card system, which allows you to save stats and items won from races, is virtually nonexistant in the United States, forcing players into a nerfed experience. Its only problem is that it's an arcade title, and arcades need to be hunted down outside Japan.
• Popn Music, while a mainstay in Japanese arcades, is quite obscure and underappreciated outside of Asia thanks to a combination of No Export for You, proper console setups^* that is, with an arcade-size controller being prohibitively expensive (not to mention the console games having fairly limited songlists and being out of print), and viral "crazy Japanese speed game" videos effectively ruining first impressions for those not familiar with rhythm games. The visuals are cute and colorful, song variety is immense, including electronic music, rock, jazz, and various anime themes, and slapping nine big buttons to music is fun as hell. The series also has a Battle Mode where two players can duke it out in three-button matches. If you happen to encounter a pop'n cabinet in a public setting, and are into rhythm games, it's definitely worth a try, if you can understand the mostly-in-Japanese interface.
• Project Gotham Racing is a very underrated racing game series developed exclusively for Xbox and Xbox 360. It has everything for being one of the foremost racing games, but their developer, Bizarre Creations, has been closed, and the series has languished in the shadow. The last game of the series exited in 2007, so no one really cares about this series anymore, but it's definitely worth a shot. It heavily emphasizes in stunt driving, which earn you Kudos, basically the EXP system of the game. The more Kudos you gain, the wider the selection of championships is given to you. The game modes range from the self-explanatory race against other rivals, to the last-man-standing race, and even style challenges emphasizing stunts. You race in various huge cities around the world such as London, New York, Tokyo and Las Vegas, and the car roster is pretty darn big, with many legendary vehicles such as Ferrari and Lamborghini, and even rare vehicles such as the Caparo T1 (a road-legal Formula One car) and the Callaway Sledgehammer Twin Turbo (a souped-up Corvette).
• Realms of the Haunting is a surprisingly good mix of an Adventure Game and a First-Person Shooter. It has a pretty creepy atmosphere, an interesting plot, some good puzzles, good acting, and it's a pretty good Interactive Movie for the time it came out. Unfortunately, despite the acclaim it got, it bombed in sales due to a lack of advertising.
• Give Groove Heaven some try, it's really catchy, music was great, and the character designs looks cute. It never had its page on here yet, but there must be plans for it. You can download the game for 4 dollars.
  • Not to be confused with Rhythm Heaven.
• Vietcong, developed by the same people who made the Mafia games, is arguably one of the best tactical shooters about The Vietnam War. Sadly, it didn't get much of the attention it deserves.
• Okage: Shadow King is a wonderful RPG with some great visuals and humorous writing and interesting characters. It's for the PS2 so it comes recommended for retro gamers or just fans of JRPGs in general.
• Gruntz is a very nice mix of a puzzle game and an RTS, with various funny elements and a very enjoyable atmosphere. It used to have a semi-active community which managed to create over 500 custom levels over the span of 14 years after its premiere. Sadly, now the main source of fan activity, the GooRoo's Gruntz Forum, is rarely ever seeing any kind of activity nowadays.
• Crazy Market was a great casual game for Play Station Vita and on Android, due to the anime-styled arts. It just had its page on here, so you would like to help editing them.
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories integrated player interaction with narrative in some truly innovative and clever ways that pushed the boundaries of interactive storytelling and featured complex, interesting characters and a neat Mind Screw at the end. It was also a late entry in a series widely considered to have Jumped the Shark years before, released on a console not widely favored by fans of its genre (survival horror), and the genre itself is ultra-niche in the best of circumstances, leading it to be largely overlooked.
• Vexx: A videogame so obscure, that hardly anyone in the world seems to have even heard of its existence. Granted it wasn't the best game in the world, it included nearly every classic platforming trick in the book for platformer fans. Although it was technically a complete game, it could have been better had more time for its development been allotted.
• Hexyz Force, a fantasy RPG made by Sting Entertainment, of Dept.Heaven fame. It has likable characters with funny interactions, a pretty good story with some unexpected plot twists, and an awesome weapon management system. It's also chock full of sidequests and the two scenarios allow for two almost completely different stories. It's not perfect, but a good game for those who like the classic RPG formula.
• It made a grim sort of sense at the time with their lack of publisher, but it's baffling that Square Enix is not showing their opus Terranigma due to its poor Japanese sales. It's gotten a cult following in Germany, but it has never been given a proper market in The United States, and is sitting there fully translated in English, yearning for a Virtual Console release.
• Shadows of the Damned, is a fun and funny Resident Evil 4 ish horror fest. It was created by Shinji Mikami, written by Suda51, and had music composed by Akira Yamaoka, three big named people in the gaming industry. It got great reviews, but unfortunately it sold like crap due to its poor marketing and has sadly gone unnoticed. If you have the chance, buy it. It's short, but you'll have a Hell of a time playing it.
• The Wario series (AKA Wario Land, WarioWare, Wario World, and Wario: Master of Disguise). Best described as a series of cult classics which somehow seems to lack the "cult" aspect (they somehow don't have any forums about them, any blogs about them or any organised fandom at all on the internet), which is even stranger considering their parent franchise is by far the most notable and famous video game series of all time. The series consists of a mix of extremely good 2D puzzle / combat platformers and mini game compilations filled with crazy humour and some real good music. It's just that somehow, they've both got stuck in phase 1 / early phase 2 of the Fandom Life Cycle trope and haven't managed to break out yet. And that Nintendo doesn't seem to like marketing any of the games. Definitely a couple of series that need more love (and arguably some semblance of a fanbase in general).
  • Though the one game in the series that gets this the worst has to be Virtual Boy Wario Land. The combination of it being on a system that had a short shelf life, the said system being Nintendo's most famous failed platform, and the lack of any kind of re-release from Nintendo means not many people have played it, which is really a shame as it's considered not only one of the best Wario games by some but also the best game for the Virtual Boy by those who did get to play it. There is fan demand for a re-release both by people who did and even didn't play it. Most want it on the 3DS due to the obvious 3D capabilities of the system in order to re-create the 3D effects the game had on the Virtual Boy.
• Aidyn Chronicles, an N64 game from THQ. Despite its (extremely) small following and lukewarm reception, the game was noted as having a deep gameplay system, a relatively large cast of characters with their own personality and stories, an intriguing world, and a story that compelled you enough to want to finish. Unfortunately, the combat system tended to be rather clunky and left the title mostly ignored. A dedicated fan is depicting the plot of the game in a webcomic.
• The Oddworld series. While they were moderately popular when they came out, they've pretty much been forgotten in this day and age. The Scenery Porn is amazing, the comedy is legitimately funny, and the stories cover dark themes without getting too preachy.
• Slap Happy Rhythm Busters is a little-known fighting game for the PlayStation 1 which despite being mostly in English never saw a release outside of Japan. This ridiculously named fighter has an art style which can be closesly related to that of the Jet Set Radio series, although not a rip-off by any means as they came out at roughly the same time. The game play can be described as a sort of mix between The King of Fighters and Marvel vs Capcom, and features a unique twist in how it handles finishing moves - landing the first hit of the finisher will open up a beatmania-esque mini-game that both players perform in, where the attacker attempts to deal more damage and the defender attempts to sabotage. Truly an overlooked gem hidden deep in the PSX's back catalog.
• Dynasty Warriors Samurai Warriors and its spin-offs? None of these games get any sort of praise in the west when they are pure, distilled catharsis in video game format? Honestly, if someone doesn't like playing one guy beating the living snot out of endless legions of mooks with ridiculous weapons to some awesome rock music.
• Skullgirls is a well-polished game with an interesting universe, great fighting mechanics, and a good art-style... that is sadly overlooked by some of the more heavy hitters in the genre. Despite having a devoted fanbase, said fanbase is small. Being a downloadable only, fanservice-laden game with an Improbably Female Cast certainly doesn't help matters.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky has one of the best stories of any Eastern RPG, but it wasn't promoted widely and so its fanbase is minute.
• The Adventures of Lomax is a very nice, if a little short, spin-off platform game based on the very popular Lemmings series.
• The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night for the Game Boy Advance. While the PlayStation 2 and Wii version has a lot of cheap difficulty and no particularly good sequences, and the Nintendo DS version feels very slow and clunky, the Game Boy Advance version is a horribly under-appreciated Metroidvania. Even within the Spyro fandom, this game is hardly mentioned. The graphics are gorgeously detailed, the combat mechanics work smoothly, and skillful playing is rewarded (maintaining an attack combo rewards you with experience, which you can spend to upgrade elemental breaths, giving them additional effects and strength). There is also a decent amount of collectables and several difficulty options- including a bonus difficulty option, Dark Mode, which you unlock by beating the game on hard difficulty.
  • This isn't surprising, however. The other games in the trilogy had mixed reaction, its predecessor The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning for the GBA was received badly, and (according to The Other Wiki) this was the last GBA game released in Europe.
• Freedom Planet can best be described as "What if Treasure made a Sonic the Hedgehog game?" Many consider the game's quality on par or even higher than that of the original 2D Sonic games, noting the improvements in the core formula (ditching Collision Damage, adding a proper health bar and combat moves), great level design, stellar presentation and interesting influences from other genre classics like Mega Man X and Rocket Knight Adventures. More toned and less enthusiastic reception can also be found, but even the most critical voices (reporting problems with the plot and unbalanced difficulty curve) still admit that a lot of heart was put into the title. While it has gained a small but loyal fanbase, many gamers have quickly and wrongfully dismissed it as a shameless Sonic the Hedgehog rip-off with DeviantArt character design. In the eyes of people who played the game, it hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves. The developer admitted near the time the game was released that he was more focused on delivering a polished product than marketing it properly.
  • Doubly so for the sequel Freedom Planet 2, which improved upon nearly every aspect of the original title. Although it was received very well by those who played it, it more or less slipped under the radar after being released in September of 2022.
• Treasure Hunter Man 1 is a fun platformer, though the difficulty can be unfair at times.
• Castlevania: Bloodlines certainly needs more love. During the 16-bit generation it was hard to measure up to both Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (both of which are often held up by different fans as the best "old school" Castlevania title). It also suffers from the Genesis's sprite limitations, forcing the player-characters to be the size of their NES counterparts. It also has extremely odd artwork for the sub-weapons (the boomerang actually looks like a boomerang and not a cross); the main villain is not Dracula, and the plot doesn't make sense unless you've actually read Dracula. The creative decisions are an acquired taste, but the gameplay is excellent, with some of the best level designs in series history (and a LOT of them, the game is almost as long as Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.) The game also has an alternate protagonist and item crash just like Rondo of Blood. Irritatingly, it's the only non-remake Castlevania game prior to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that has yet to see a rerelease on current platforms.
  • Its sequel, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin can also use some more love, since it suffered a similar fate, being overshadowed by Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
• Dynamite Headdy. An incredibly fun and challenging platformer for the Sega Genesis, featuring one of gaming's best soundtracks, with uniqueness and personality oozing from every pore...and yet it seems barely anyone has heard of it.
• The 2013 Killer Instinct reboot is an incredibly fun fighting game. Every character feels unique in how they play, the mechanics are all solid, and in true Killer Instinct fashion the cast is incredibly varied (it is, after all, the only fighting game series where a raptor can fight a skeleton and it makes sense), not to mention it's being updated with new content on a monthly basis at the time of this writing, AND as of Season 3.5, it has every playable character and boss of both KI1 and KI2!. Sadly, it's exclusivity to the Xbox One and the upcoming releases of more high-profile fighting games (namely Mortal Kombat X and Street Fighter V) have left it largely ignored, in spite of Microsoft pushing it as a flagship Xbox One title and being free-to-play. The COVID-19 Pandemic has given it plenty of attention (as it's one of the few fighting games that has netplay that isn't awful, making it perfect after locals were made unviable), but it's still far from mainstream.
• Eternal Champions and its Sega CD sequel, Challenge from the Dark Side are two awesome fighting games from Sega Interactive that will make you come back for more! The story to these games is pretty cool and detailed (for fighting game standards anyway). Nine (thirteen in the sequel) fighters throughout time were destined to do great things, but they all died before they could fulfill their destinies and the Eternal Champion has set up a contest to determine the strongest fighter to revive with the knowledge that will help them avoid their death. The gameplay is pretty good, too and it will make you think of a good strategy to defeat the CPU opponents, but the Story Mode in the first game is EXTREMELY hard and if you lose a match, you will be sent back to the previous match. Thankfully, the sequel's story mode is easier and more manageable and you can even use some continues if you have to. The characters are cool and interesting, the music in both games is awesome and fitting and the first game has a training mode where you can hone your chosen character's skills. Even though the first game sold over 2 million copies in it's heyday, no one seems to know about it. It's a shame. Thankfully the original Eternal Champions on the Sega Genesis got re-released on Steam and the original Wii's Virtual Console.
• Battle Garegga. Released in 1996 by 8ing/Raizing and the game that put Shinobu Yagawa on the map, Battle Garegga has a surprising amount of depth for a Shoot 'Em Up. There are many Difficult, but Awesome scoring tricks to learn (often involving shooting difficult-to-reach targets...without an Armor-Piercing Attack, or using the Smart Bomb on certain targets), and the game's complex Dynamic Difficulty system encourages the player to be strategic with their shots and to think wisely before picking up powerups. In addition, there are eight different ships (including the Mahou Daisakusen Guest Fighters) with four different types each, and each ship/character changes how the game is played. Though it has been eclipsed by the proliferation of Bullet Hell games in the 2000's and 2010's, there are players who still love the game and strive for the "letter" scores^note when the score exceeds 9,999,999 points, the game starts using letters for the millions digit, or even just simply plan out ways to make the endgame possible, which shows just how much staying power the game has on the genre and its fans. As icing on the cake, its killer soundtrack is one of Manabu Namiki's earliest works.
• Tone Sphere. Take osu!, add charts designed for a multi-touch screen and an on-rails camera that makes you feel like you're playing a Light Gun Game, put in a diverse soundtrack (some of which you may recognize from the BMS of Fighters series) of about 35 tracks with four different charts each, make the scoring system fair and based on hit timing, and throw in all manners of funky "art major graphics". All for only 1.99 USD with free updates. Though best played on a tablet, it's surprisingly playable on smartphones too.
• Two words: Point Blank. It's a series of addicting arcade shooting gallery games that unfortunately never made it past the 5th generation.
• The Desolate Hope is a hybrid of genres, being an action RPG, platformer, and overhead roguelike all in one. Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by its creator's other work. The game looks pretty good, and is all the more impressive when you consider the fact that it was all made by one person. The music is catchy, and gets you pumped up for the extremely fast-paced boss battles, which will definitely give you a challenge if you're not prepared. It can get a bit grindy and repetitive at times, but the rest of the game is enjoyable. As if the deal needed to be sweetened any more, the game is free on Steam.
• Dewy's Adventure. The gameplay is unique, the art style is beautiful, and the bosses are amazing. A great addition to anyone's collection.
• Dungeon Fighter Online. A nod to old school beat-em-up games to the likes of Street Fighter, Dungeon Fighter Online features heavy combo based gameplay, allowing you to choose to bind skills to hotkeys are manually performing commands for them. The music spawns a variety of genres, from rock, to heavy metal. It's retro graphics evoke the feelings of 90s era fighting games.
• Tales of the Drunken Paladin. A game where your save point is a magical hobo, Tales of A Drunken Paladin doesn't take itself too seriously. It features hilarious writing, with surprisingly three dimensional characters underneath one-dimensional facades. The game parodies many RPG tropes while having genuinely heartwarming moments in between.
• Dangun Feveron, a disco-themed Vertical Scrolling Shooter by CAVE, with the art style and attack patterns of Toaplan games and extensive ways to customize your ship at the start of the game. Sadly with no consumer ports, and overshadowed by CAVE's later works. "HEAVEN IS HERE INSIDE MY SOUL!"
• Whiplash is a PS2 platformer essentially about going around various parts of an enormous office complex and smashing everything you can with an indestructible rabbit on a chain. Aside from the fun of going around breaking things, the game is a nicely snarky, absurdist sense of humor, with immensely quotable dialogue. The game would have been a Fountain of Memes if it was more popular.
• Game Dev Tycoon. An amazing game about making games, it's a very detailed look back on how video games have evolved since the introduction of home gaming.
• The games by Falcom. The Trails Series and the Ys are one of the few bastions of gaming that prove that there can still be great story, gameplay and music. But now even in this day and age, graphics, speed and fanservice became top priority. Good characterization and story? Pfft! Who needs those? Give me more detailed graphics, explosions and boobs!!
• How about Zook Hero Z? Made by a Chinese company called Vast Fame, it combines Megaman X and Classic and puts both styles of play into one, and makes a game truly worth playing. Even if it's a bootleg.
• Stacking is a simple little game where you play as a Russian egg doll, using your ability to jump in and out of other egg dolls the next size up to solve puzzles in order to save your family. It may be simple, and it will only last you around 2-3 hours, but the low price is worth it.
• The Japanese Indie scene has been struggling in obscurity over the past several years due to Steam's regional limitations, the non-ubiquity of digital downloads, and the corporate business culture of Japan that makes independent games and projects harder to find. But thanks to this video, they are finally starting to get a little bit of attention. Seriously, Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION, Revolver 360 RE:ACTOR, Fortune Summoners, GIGANTIC ARMY, and Astebreed might all look like crazy hard, serious Bullet-hell arcade shooters, but they are so easy to pick up and get into, with a strong emphasis on just having fun. And if you don't feel like laying cash down, they even have free demos for download.
• 40 Winks is a supreme example of an excellent platformer on the Playstation. No level is like the other, not even within the same thematic world. It has innovative gameplay, gorgeous soundtrack, badass (and funny) power-ups (such as transformations into ninjas, jokers, fairies, robots, etc)... it's just a feast to the eyes and mind to play. In addition, not only is the in-between cutscenes hilarious, but they're very impressively animated, considering it came out in 1998 when Pixar had just begun their renaissance in animation.
• Rocket: Robot on Wheels had the unfortunate fate of bombing in the stores, as it is a hidden gem in the Nintendo 64 library. The game physics are so on point and ahead of its time it makes Super Mario 64 look unrealistic by comparison, each level has their own unique individuality... and you'll fall madly in love with the electric piano frequently used in the soundtrack.
• Astal is an absolutely beautiful Sega Saturn game that unfortunately doesn't get much recognition, about a boy in a crystal world who must save his girlfriend with the help of a bird. It may be short (a longplay of the game on YouTube is about 51 minutes long), but it averts It's Short, So It Sucks! by being one hell of a game the whole way through. It was also made to showcase the Saturn's 2D capabilities, and does a fine job at that as well. Go check it out, you won't regret it!
• Urban Chaos: Riot Response is an extremely forgotten PlayStation 2 and Xbox title. Developed by Rocksteady (yes, the same guys who made the Batman: Arkham Series), you play as a special forces Cowboy Cop liberating a city from a terrorist attack from a group called Burners. The setting is nice, the shooting is satisfying, the graphics look impressive for the time but most importantly, the atmosphere is great. As you play as Nick Mason, you go from an unknown officer to a complete hero, being well-spoken about on TV about your heroic deeds as a One-Man Army against a chaotic anarchist group, who dread your guts and want your head on a spike. It's well-worth checking out.
• The Protect Me Knight series by Ancient is a series that has gone mostly unnoticed. The first game on the now-defunct Xbox LIVE Indie Games section was a short, simple yet fun tower defense game that is one huge tribute to the NES era. The game features four distinct character classes based of classic JRPGs while poking some light fun at the genre. It also features charming 8-bit styled visuals, a catchy soundtrack composed by none other than Yuzo Koshiro, multiplayer for up to four players, and Survial Mode, all for $3 when it was available (but not anymore after Microsoft purged the service in late 2017). It later gained a sequel on the Nintendo 3DS and later localized as Gotta Protectors overseas which upped the ante with two more classes to play as, a much larger single-player campaign filled nods and pokes fun at retro games and 80's Japanese pop culture, expands upon the core gameplay, features the ability to customize your characters' abilities and equipment, brought in more composers along for the game's music (Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Shinji Hosoe, Hisayoshi Ogura, and Motoaki Furukawa), and a map editor which not only lets you create your own maps, but also share them among friends through QR codes. Those that grew up in the Sega Genesis era were also in for a treat since the game also featured an FM Synth Pack DLC which gives the game's music some extra blast processing. It's retro-styled throwback series that definitely needs more love, but it's a shame these games aren't available on other platforms.
• Super Daryl Deluxe is a surreal, Reference Overdosed Genre Mashup action game with a self-aware sense of humor that seems made to appeal to Tropers in particular. It was made by a 2-man development studio, but has production values on par with much bigger projects - especially in the music.
• X-Scape/3D Space Tank for DSiWare, a sequel to the Japan-only Game Boy game X, is a rather extensive game with an expansive plot and many sidequests, unlike most DSiWare games. They managed to fit so much into the DSiWare size limit using a unique visual style in which each planet is made up of only 2 or 3 solid colors. Hardly anyone talks about it online except regarding Totaka's Song.
• Copy Kitty is a fun, explosive game brimming with personality and satisfying gameplay. You play as a cheerful Cat Girl in a virtual simulation to test her magic powers, with the freedom to smash a roster of quirky adorable robots. It takes the concept of Power Copying to the logical extreme, with three elemental weapons that can be combined into unique abilities, with 175 possible weapon combinations (120 triple weapon combinations + 45 double weapon combinations), and that's only for one of the two playable characters, on top of solo weapons. The levels are short and fast-paced, with the simple objective of killing every enemy target, with a gradual difficulty curve that only ramps up the challenge when you've grown to use the mechanics you've learned. The bosses get more wild and exciting the further you go, the music dynamically shifts to incorporate a wide variety of actions, averts Critical Annoyance by turning the health warning into a catchy techno beat, and has a surprising amount of Worldbuilding and characterization for such a small cast. It also features unlockable cheat codes, a plethora of content including two randomly-generated Rogue Like modes, an extra difficulty that continues the story mode, and a second character that plays in a very different fashion. Unfortunately, like many indie games, it got lost in the piles of quick, cheap games during Steam's Greenlight phase, and has a very small fanbase.
• Beat Hazard is a rather fun twin-stick shooter game, but there hasn't been much of documentation or people playing its sequel, which is the same crazy-fast disco strobe-light gameplay of Beat Hazard, but now with more powerups and weapons, more musically-generated enemies, ships, and there's now even generated bosses instead of the pre-built bosses the first game had! Gone are the awkward Shadow-Op ranking/missions, replaced instead with the module system, which boosts the stats of the ship you either got from ther Steam Workshop or a generated one you bought after finishing a global song when you clear at least two missions. The music can also be streamed using the Game's "Open Mic!" mode now, in case you wanted to connect Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Music, or any other streaming service to your game. Oh, and the first game's option to bump up the visuals to 200%? You can set it up to 300% now.
• Rising Dusk. To quote a review on Steam, "This is an awesome and cute little take on the [platformer] genre featuring some seriously beautiful artwork and a cute Pocky & Rocky-esque protagonist girl, and I feel like it could use a bit more attention for the amount of heart and soul clearly poured into it." This "anti-coin collection" Puzzle Platformer executes its innovative concept fantastically, putting a strategic twist on the coin collection mechanic found in pretty much every other platformer that makes the game challenging and interesting without being too frustrating, while also being extremely pleasing in aesthetic terms, with neat 16-bit visuals, a traditional Japanese styling, a rocking soundtrack, and a rich implementation of Japanese youkai legends. Highly recommended to anybody who loves Japanese myth and folklore or wants a platformer that does something original.
• Sid Story.This Korean Card Battle RPG Game by Singta has the same premise as Fate/Grand Order due to both of them having historical, mythological and literary figures. Also they have Modern Day Historical Figures like Neil Armstrong or Stalin, Southeast Asian Historical Figures like Suriyothai or even Korean Historical Figures like Queen So-Seo-no of Korean and various obscure historical, mythological and literary figurse and they also have dark versions of characters and original characters.
• The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is a cool Boss Rush Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up with roguelite elements and a lot of content to keep the experience fresh — there are 80+ bosses, all of which change depending on their level, as well as 300+ neat power-ups that may show up during your playthroughs (you get a choice between a few randomized battles, which both keeps things varied and gives you a chance to steer the direction of your run and build). No It's Short, So It Sucks! here! It also has good music, a well-done ambience and a fascinating setting and story.
• Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark - The 3DS version, done by WayForward Technologies ditches the Third-Person Shooter from the other games for a Strategy RPG! There's tons of cool moves such as Punch Barrage, Heavy Smash (clap your hands on the sides of the opponent's head and Dropkick) which are powered by a series of points that are gained each turn and the more powerful the move, the more points it needs. Each character is divided into four classes (Recon, Assault, Heavy and Leader) with their own strengths and weaknesses (Recon class characters have the biggest range but the lowest health) and each map is a grid based field wherein most of the times, the goal is to smash all your foes! In addition, the 3-turn battles and moves means choices like "smash this palooka with a punch and save points or spend points right away for a heavily damaging move". In addition, there's more spotlight on the Movie gang and it's certainly gotten far better reviews than the console version. Unfortunately, due to the console version's poor...everything, the WFC games were cancelled and there was never a 3DS exclusive Rise of the Dark Spark 2.
• One developer that doesn't get enough attention is Foxy Boxy Games, who develops Retraux video games for Steam and sells them for incredibly cheap. They currently have three games released:
  • Masami Sushi Ace is a simple Falling Blocks game with a charming aesthetic. It's also playable for free in a browser from Foxy's official website.
  • Zodiac DX is a loose adaptation of an obscure webcomic that was Cut Short, and a great example of No Problem with Licensed Games. While it's very short, with a single playthrough only being about 25 minutes, there are three playable characters with different methods of attack, there's a wide variety of enemies to face, and the cutscenes provide some Adaptation Expansion, progressing the story past the point where the webcomic initially ended. The game also has the Nintendo Hard Maniac difficulty for those seeking a challenge that evokes the good ol' days, and two bonus modes in the form of a Boss Rush and a Triple Triad-style minigame, easily earning its asking price of $3 USD.
  • ROBO OH is a Humongous Mecha fighting game designed to invoke the style of fighting games of the 90s. The controls are simple, with the only buttons being for light and heavy attacks (the Select button serves as a macro for both of those buttons at the same time, which is how you use throws and Overdrive moves) and motion inputs being kept relatively simple. Where the game is notable is in the Hyperdrive mechanic, where you can spend 2 bars of meter (which are gained very fast in this game) to dash cancel any attack while putting your robot in a temporary Super Mode where all of their attacks gain juggle properties. The game has also received a long list of updates, and Foxy has been very supportive of the small community the game has formed, even providing pages on their website showing frame data for all the characters. While it doesn't have native online, it's more than worth the $2 USD it costs, and a sequel is in the works as of this writing.
• No mention of The Path yet? Seriously, go check it. It's a retelling of the tale "Little Red Riding Hood", with 6 sisters taking the role of titular character, and exploring the forest with beautiful and surreal visuals. It's an interesting game that worth for checking out, especially if you're a fan of World of Symbolism meets Fairy Tale.

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