Obscure games. Awesome games.

The Museum of Broken Memories: an adventure game that I'd describe as philosophical, somewhat meta at times, and very strange.

Nightmare Ned. A game with a backstory that sounds like a creepypasta*, but some great level design and absolutely beautiful music:

• Basically, it's based on a cartoon that aired on ABC just after Disney bought the network. It was a show about a boy and his bad dreams. The show drew complaints, and Disney pulled it off the air, buried almost all evidence of it's existence, and never spoke of it again.

Lethal Thunder (Also known as Thunder Blaster)

Fire Barrel (also known as Air Assault)

Gubble and its sequel

Out Zone and its sequel FixEight

Tyrian

Intrusion 2 (Yes, this is a Flash Game)

edited 13th Jun '13 12:19:48 PM by ironcommando

I remember when Disney ran comics of it in their Disney Adventures magazine. One in particular had Ned going to a costume party as a spork, only to be dragged into a basement where reject condiment costumed kids are killed... and then it turns out to be a horrible daydream.

Dogyuun

• Silent Thunder: A-10 Thunderbolt II: (Note: The "II" refers to the plane itself — the original "Thunderbolt" was the P-47 — as there was only one game.) A flight simulator by Sierra (yes, they published things other than adventure games) that puts you behind the controls of an A-10 "Warthog." One of the oldest flight sims I ever played, and gave me an abiding love for the Ugly Cuteness of the plane itself.

EDIT: Oi, formatting.

edited 17th Jun '13 4:29:40 PM by Specialist290

My dad had that game. Awesome!

Well, Little Fighter 2 is somewhat obscure and a pretty fun beat em up/ fighting game- multiplayer modes are quite satisfying and Stage Mode is a pleasant challenge (and delightfully chaotic if you have enough CPU allies). Its Spiritual Successor Hero Fighter seems decent and is still being updated with new stages and characters and gameplay features. (Apparently they recently added dinosaurs that you can ride on? Haven't played in a while.)

Cool!

There's this game, Papers Please, where you're an immigration inspector, and you get to decide who gets into your country and who doesn't by checking their papers for inconsistencies, it may sound boring, but things get interesting when terrorist attacks start happening.

Hero Fighter? Ooh, so that's its Spiritual Sequel.

Little Fighter 2 Reinforced had loads of brkoen chars (but they were fun to play as!). I changed some of the files and it got even more broken instead, leading to characters firing crazy strong projectiles from their weak projectile move.

I saw a guy do a Let's Play of that game. Shame there's not much to it at this point, but I'll definitely be buying when the full release comes out.

Well, I certainly would have a few positions to list...

Airfix Dogfighter and Little Big Adventure were already mentioned, but here are a few others:

• Gruntz: A very nice puzzle game with lots of possibilities for puzzles and a very nice multiplayer mode too. It's a shame everybody seemingly forgot about it these days.

• Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf: A rather obscure Looney Tunes game, where you sneak around and use various wacky tools in order to steal sheep from Sam Sheepdog. I really recommend it.

• Etherlords II: An interesting strategy game centered around a combat system where you summon various creatures and buff them up in order to defeat the enemy summoner and his summons.

• Might and Magic: Everyone is nuts about Heroes of M&M, but nobody seems to talk about the series of games where you control a party of adventurers and walk around in a sort of group first person, exploring the world and being able to fight either in turns or in real time (well, in MM 6, 7 and 8, anyway). I especially like the 8th installment, mostly because it's the easiest one.

• Rayman M: A very nice multiplayer game (that can be played solo) set in the classic Rayman 2 universe. Real shame it has no online support...

• The Adventures of Lomax: A pretty nice platformer (if a little rushed towards the end) set in the Lemmings universe.

• Kao the Kangaroo: Mostly referring to the sequel; while not as polished as some other platformers out there, it's still a pretty nice platformer.

• Toy Story 2: The video game adaptation of the second movie, and very nicely done at that. Very enjoyable. For that matter, I could add Emperors New Groove and 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue under this category as well.

• I-Ninja: Another great platformer, if a bit Nintendo Hard at times.

• Colobot: A very unique strategy game combined with a bit of edutainment in that it tries to teach you how to program things. A very enjoyable game on top of that.

• LEGO Rock Raiders: A very nice strategy game based on a now discontinued line of LEGO sets. I really recommend it.

• Depending on your definition of "obscure", Mini Ninjas and Quantum Conundrum could count too.

• Discworld II: A lovely point and click game. Although, I would recommend playing it only if you never read any of Terry Pratchett's books - I used to love this game as a kid when I didn't even know what the characters are saying (the wonders of being a foreigner), but as I got older and both learned English AND accustomed myself with the books, I realized that various characters are OOC and their designs don't match at all how I imagined them. Still a good game besides that though!

edited 21st Apr '15 10:14:33 PM by ZuTheSkunk

My ones that I like (they're not too obscure, but one could easily miss them):

• Kerbal Space Program
• Dwarf Fortress

Both have been known to have steep learning curves/cliffs, which makes them obscure since most games nowadays walk you though everything. They're Difficult, but Awesome if you know what you're doing.

Not that obscure (it's huge in Japan), but it's at best a cult classic in the US: The Yakuza series. I like to think of them as a grown-up Shenmue (grown both in terms of subject matter, character age, and polished game mechanics).

The Red Star: Fun action brawler/shooter for the PS 2 with an incredibly troubled development. I was crazy excited to find it on PSN, since I thought it was cancelled entirely after I played the demo. Apparently the demo came out in 2004, then the company went bankrupt. Three years later, the PS 2 version apparently came out under another publisher. Exciting!

Sorry to revive a dead topic, but Silhouette Mirage, a really good run and gun game by Treasure with an interesting attribute system to it. I wish M2 would port it to the Switch. Also, Densetsu No Stafy 2, the second game in the Starfy series, which are really good 2D Platformers that unfortunately didn't see a Western release until the last (and weakest) game in the series because Nintendo of America saw them as "too Japanese".

Edited by CookingCat on Jun 18th 2022 at 5:56:13 AM

AHatInTime: It's a very good platforming game that's worth taking a look at.

I would not call A Hat in Time obscure.

Perhaps the most obscure game in a somewhat well-know franchise, Medal of Honor: Infiltrator:

Plok. A game with great graphics and some very great music, and with the amusing gimmick of having the main character be able to throw his hands or legs to either attack enemies or open paths (Mind you, it came before Rayman). I'd very much like to play it, even though i've heard that it get bone-crushingly hard at one point.

Edited by Coock-atoo on Nov 4th 2023 at 9:24:32 AM

I basically play nothing but indie titles these days, and I guess those could as obscure.

Against the Storm has become my favorite colony builder in a huge tide of many, many, many games in that genre. I've also been playing a lot of Traveller's Rest recently, though that's still in early access.

And of course, one of my favorite city builders ever isn't an indie title, but is what I"d call obscure: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King. Still waiting for another game to really hit the same genre fusion that game did.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 4th 2023 at 1:28:24 AM

Copy Kitty, 2d side-scroller that's a bit of a run and gun with power combining as the main gimmick. Think Gunstar heroes with a pre-rendered art style that lets you make literally hundreds of weapons out of 3 you can collect at a time.

An obscure game that I'd recommend is Spooky Castle: The Adventures of Kid Mystic. I haven't seen anyone else who's played the game without actively looking for them and I'm not sure if there's a real "fandom" for it. This is a shame as it's a pretty good game in all honesty.

I will say that it's extremely difficult, and not always in the "difficult but fair" way, but still definitely worth a try.

It's a top-down action-adventure game where you play as a Wizard in a medieval fantasy setting. Tonally the game has an interesting combination of cartoonish humor while still feeling appropriate epic. Great soundtrack too.

Here's a pretty good overview of the game someone made:

Edited by Protagonist506 on Nov 4th 2023 at 4:41:13 AM

Huh, I thought it was pretty easy when I was younger. Shame is that it's one of those games I couldn't get to run after a certain point I time.

Another game I was a fan of probably not too far off then was Mythical Warriors: Battle for Eastland, which... probably isn't anything special so far as RTS games go? But its two factions were really distinct (even down to how their towers worked), and I liked that most (or at least a large part? It's been a long time) of the units were various mythical creatures. xD

Edit: seems they actually released kid mystic as freely playable in 2017, that's neat.

Edited by RainehDaze on Nov 4th 2023 at 11:50:01 AM

TIL of a cute Game Boy game called Spud's Adventure that is rarer and more expensive than the original Shantae.

Here's someone playing it. It's adorable.

EDIT: Oh wow, the game's story is actually pretty serious. Two characters die.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Nov 4th 2023 at 9:54:18 AM

Tokyo Xanadu is a neat game. A fun Action RPG about a bunch highschoolers dealing with otherworldly phenomena. Not exactly a creative premise but its character are easily the hallmark of the game and the combat is quite fun if somewhat slow. The ways you can get an S rank and the fun activities in between the combat segments can make it entertaining.