Obscure game recommendation thread

bobcat987

Don't know if it's especially obscure, but The Guardian Legend on the NES was a pretty cool game that none of my friends at the time were familiar with. It was a strange mix of vertical shooter and open world adventure that somehow worked more often than not. Imagine Legend of Zelda, but the dungeons are shooter levels.

meleu

@bobcat987 said in Obscure game recommendation thread:

The Guardian Legend

haha. Pretty unique game indeed. I didn't know it.

And it has cheevos: http://retroachievements.org/Game/1726

ainmosni

I'm loving all these posts, I now have a long list of games I've never played or even heard of that I will try when I'm in the mood for a new game.

pjft

If you'd be open to ZX Spectrum recommendations added to the lot, I'd have a few.

Super Stuntman is a nice arcade car shooting game, kind of reminiscent of Spy Hunter. ZX Spectrum.
Target Renegade on the ZX Spectrum. This is the definitive co-op brawler for the system.
Special Delivery on the ZX Spectrum. Kind of a Santa simulator, but very arcade-y.
Parasol Stars on the TG16. A sequel to the sequel to Bubble Bobble.
Rodland for the arcade. A two player co-op in the vein of Bubble Bobble or Snow Bros.
Tumblepop for the arcade. A two player co-op in the vein of Bubble Bobble or Snow Bros, but with a ghostbusters-like vibe/mechanic.

These are the ones off the top of my head!

Happy Sunday.

A2ra3L

Probably not so much obscure but possibly games that people wouldn't look at if they didn't know.

Super International Cricket: Super Nintendo
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Still, I think, the best cricket game around. I spent hours playing this with my cousin and I don't like cricket :p
The controls are well setup and intuitive, the graphics are fairly standard snes and you get to pick fielders up by the head with the hand of god when you rearrange the field. It's also hilarious when you catch the batsman in the head with the ball and watch them pass out in a little window.

Cybernator: Super Nintendo
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One of my favourites of all time. Being a massive Robotech fan the design of this game appealed to me from the start. Big Mechs, Big guns, fast action.
You can kill/maim/destroy just about everything, there are even tiny people running around for scale. There are different weapons to collect and an upgrade system. I never got very far but used level codes to check out later levels and they get pretty hectic.

The graphics are nice and the gameplay is about as good as it gets for platform shooters. Protip: If you clear the first level without shooting anything except the boss and not dying you get a fully upgraded napalm cannon. Yours to keep for the rest of the game. Handy for level 2 ;)

And last for today

The Firemen: also Super Nintendo

[This game was amazing. When you have had enough of shooting people/zombies/robots for a bit. Go shoot some fire with a hose. You have many different types of fire to look out for. There are large flames that you spray head on. Small mat like fires that blanket the floor that require you you aim your hose at your feet, embers that fly around the air and moving fires that can start more fires if you don't get them quick.

Clear the levels with the help of your buddy that can open doors and rescue injured people while you take care of business and watch for the backdraft if you accidentally smash a window in an enclosed room.

The graphics have a nice jrpg style to them and the smoke effects look great.

I also found an Amiga game today called Dalek Attack. I havn't played it yet but it looks pretty cool. A Doctor Who platformer with 3 Doctors to choose from (2, 4 and 7) I thought I should add it here so others can look at it too

pjft

@A2ra3L I'm going to check out The Firemen, even if just because my oldest son loves firemen, so it should be a fun one to try out.

EctoOne

I never was into Sportsgames but one game got my attention when i was young.
Track Meet for the Gameboy. It's an Track & Field clone. The obscure thing about it are the crazy opponents you have to compete with. Like a Ninja or Fakir riding a carpet.
Skip to minute 14 in the video to see another special.

Omnija

GBA
-Car Battler Joe

-CIMA - The Enemy

-Lady Sia (The art.. so well done)

GBC
-Hands of Time

-Samurai Kid

-Toki Tori (Figured id mention this one for those with little kids)

-Azure Dreams (the psx version was mentioned above, figured nobody knew about the gbc)

GB
-Avenging Spirit

-Cave Noire

-Mole Mania

pjft

@Omnija Toki Tori is a really nice puzzler.

If we're going for gbc, I can recommend the two Tomb Raider games, which are nice platformers a la Prince of Persia.

Also on the GBA I've recently caught wind of Ninja Cop/Ninja Five-O which is a surprisingly competent shinobi-like platformer.

ZioDarkmage

So I know that Phantasy Star IV on Sega Genesis/MegaDrive really isn't that obscure, but it is what really got me into the RPG genre. But in the RPG vein, I would like to recomment Koudelka. It is an RPG set with a horror story.

Capeman

This is my kind of thread!

JJ Squakers MAME

Cliffhanger Edward Randy MAME

Pop'n Twinbee SNES

Bio Miracle Baby Upa NES

King of Demons SNES

Capeman

OoOops! Forgot a couple! I could do this all day...

Pulseman GENESIS

Worm War 1 ATARI

Magical Chase TURBOGRAFX

Blade Buster NES

Summer Carnival 92: Recca NES

Panic SEGA CD

R-Type Leo MAME

Ninja Baseball Bat Man MAME

Cosmo Gang SNES

UDb23

@Capeman R-type Leo ... cannot be really defined "obscure"; it's a very famous game ;-)

Capeman

@UDb23 I consider it kind of obscure since it never got a port anywhere else from the arcade, most people think of Super R-Type and R-type3 for SNES or sometimes the TG16 ports... Some people are surprised when they heard there was an R-Type game that you can only play in MAME, and just how kick ass it is!

UDb23

@Capeman I like it too and, jokes aside, I'm happy you mentioned it.
It's a good way to make it known to those people that never heard of, or never played, R-type games.

Capeman

Alot of us MAME-heads tend to forget that people new to MAME usually haven't had exposure to any of the really good "common" MAME gems...aside from the super obvious classics such as donkey kong and pacman of course.

Pull JJ Squackers or Ninja Baseball Bat Man out of your pocket and people look at it like the glowing suitcase from pulp fiction! hahaha!

Capeman

Everyone knows battletoads, but only MAME-heads know that one of the best ones was arcade only! BOOM!

Battletoads MAME

cyperghost

Obscure games?
Well let's call this ... Grand Theft Auto 0 - ASPHALT on CPC - I loved this game :)

Annother obscure one ... because shooting on humans is not okay, but killing aliens is - here it is SPACE Invasion (AKA Commando here are you killing humans). Now this makes me really laugh.... Hey these guys wear white jump suits - how gay :D

pjft

@Capeman R-Type Leo certainly deserves a mention. I was a big R-Type fan from the time of the ZX Spectrum, later on got a hold of R-Type 2, played Delta on the psx, but had never heard of Leo until recently.

I played it a bit once and blazed through the first level pretty much unscathed, only to then be demolished in the first part of the second stage :) Still, one to play again in the future.

I mentioned Sega Ninja in a separate thread, on MAME. I'm honestly not sure how famous it is, but I found it quite enjoyable. Think of it as Commando, but with a few mechanics on top.

I apologize for never posting videos - I'm on my phone :(

backstander

@Capeman
Thanks for the list!

I noticed that Blade Buster is a homebrew!
http://www.romhacking.net/homebrew/24/

Also Summer Carnival '92: Recca's Wikipedia page says that the original cartridge was only released in Japan and is quite rare (sells for around 20,000 yen now). It was re-released on the Virtual Console.

"Recca is described by shoot 'em up fans and reviewers as one of the toughest games in history. Although it is a little known game, Recca is one of the few games that pushed the hardware of the Famicom console. Recca worked around sprite limits of the Famicom hardware by showing sprites for effects like explosions every other frame (at 30fps instead of 60fps). One reason for its general obscurity is due to the fact that upon its release in 1992, focus was already on the Famicom's successor, the Super Famicom console."

"By using a rom hack or cheat code, the Sega logo appears and explodes, then the Nintendo logo appears. ('Sega' and 'Nintendo' are spelled with '?'s instead of 'e's.)"