Hidden Gems

Rockofan96

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what games from any system, would you consider a hidden gem? Me personally, I would think Tomba 1 and 2 are one of the hidden gems of PlayStation one.

sleve_mcdichael

@Rockofan96 what constitutes a hidden gem in 2024? There's lots of lists. You can find lists aggregated by critics or you can find lists aggregated by public opinion but the whole idea is, of course, subjective.

Uniracers on SNES felt like a cool new find back in the day, but you've probably heard of it by now.

thelostsoul

While I agree the term "Hidden Gem" is a bit overused nowadays, don't forget that not everyone knows every game yet. It's also a simple term to describe the intention, which everyone understands. But to be honest, I have seen so many games being marked as Hidden Gem titles, which are common in my opinion. But that's just my opinion.

A few years back I started a post for exactly this topic. It has a few hundred replies with great suggestions (including by me ;-) ), so you might find something there: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17047/share-your-hidden-gems-and-insider-tips

On the Playstation 1, I consider some of these as a Hidden Gem or at least not that commonly known, but that comes from the perspective of me being an Europe player:

Kyuutenkai Fantastic Pinball: Japan only pinball
Incredible Crisis: levels consist of crazy minigames
Ghost in the Shell: third person action
Psychic Force: unusual fighting game
Bushido Blade: unusual fighting game
Tall - Infinity: platform action puzzle
Silhouette Mirage: action platformer by Treasure

windg

A cool psx game, that isn't very well known is the Mizzurna Falls. It never left Japan, but 2 translation patches are available. Game takes inspiration from an old, amazing, Tv series, "Twin Peaks".

Rockofan96

@thelostsoul Really? I didn’t noticed that, I’m sorry.

hawkes_84

@windg I learnt about this game semi recently and was kinda excited to play it but was a bit disappointed. Think I should have managed my expectations

Efriim

Because I just beat the windows version and loved it, it is on my mind.
Xanadu Next, originally an Nokia NGage game released in japan 2005, by Falcom whom also brought us Ys series and Dragon Slayer.

Loved the game, not sure differences in the windows and ngage version, id be surprised if there is an english translation for ngage. I barely handled an ngage when my friend had one, and it does seem kinda surprising that the handheld back then could run that game.

There is an open source symbian os/ngage emulator out there, recently released on Google Playstore.

Anyways that is my hidden gem of the day. If you like classic/midretro Ys check out Xanadu Next.