Good games that didn't sell well or went under the radar.

BacardiBreezer

My life is a chip in your pile. Ante up!

Location: NE Ohio

Joined: Aug 16 2010

Lagoon, SNES

auriplane

Joined: Sep 06 2008

I love how laconic we responders all are. Well, I too am too lazy to explain, but I'll post a pile of name droppings for you all to see. List making time!!

Zeliard!!
Goblins 3!
Fury of the Furries!
Another World!
Wagan Paradise!
SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu Goddess of Destiny!!
Summon Night Craftsword Monogatari Hajimari no Ishi!
Paradroid!!
Screwbreaker!!
Pitfall 2 :D
Coryoon!
Wizball!!
Loom!
Clock Tower :o
Bahamut Lagoon!!

Okay, I'm done :-)

auriplane

Joined: Sep 06 2008

jit said

THIS is what I think of your thread

Well, I never!

VizardAnshin

Joined: Oct 08 2008

Dragon Force

Console: Sega Saturn

Year: 1996

Publisher: Working Designs

Developer: Sega

Plot: Choose to be one of 8 monarchs, with numerous battles and generals as you attempt to take over the continent of Legendra. Battles can include up to 200 troops involved in real-time combat. With several different classes of troops, this game involves the elements of a full blown strategy game with those of a classical RPG.

Why It's Under-Rated: Simply because many probably haven't heard of it. It was on a doomed system, and it's a real shame, because this is possibly the most addictive Strategy/RPG ever made. Period. The only downside is that by the end, you have more generals than you know what to do with. But, that aside, this game will eat away your time like no other game ever could. It's also one of the only multiple-scenario game I've played where I've beaten every scenario. I even completed Junon's twice, because her story was so cool.

karathrow

Joined: Oct 26 2010

What is screwbreaker? is it related to drill dozer? It sounds familiar. Also clocktower scared the piss out of me. At least whichever one was on the SNES.

The only SaGa games I ever played was the original gameboy ones. I've heard good things about summon night.

Loom is also one I've been meaning to try. I love the old lucasarts games.

Frogma

Joined: Jun 25 2008

Trog

Trog! plays somewhat like a Pac-Man clone. The player assumes the role of Rex, Bloop, Spike, or Gwen, small T-Rex dinosaurs (with Styracosaurus-like heads) in the land of "Og", home to the one-eyed cavemen known as the "Trog". Players must pick up all colored eggs lying around the map as the cavemen wander around, attempting to capture and eat them. Luckily, there are plenty of power-ups to help finish the level. Aside from a standard punch attack, these include red flowers that increase the player's speed, ice cubes that freeze all on-screen Trogs and pineapples, which turn the character into a full-grown T-Rex that can temporarily eat his enemies. The multiplayer mode consists of two to four dinos on the same screen competing to get all of his/her same-colored eggs first, and players can either attack or protect each other (though power-ups indiscriminately hurt anyone that's in the way regardless). Unlike Pac-Man, however, the dinos can attack without requiring a power-up, and the mazes are much more open. In fact, in many stages there are no walls at all, so the characters can travel off the edge of the grid-like islands and plunge into the sea if they're not careful. The Trogs can be one-hit punched, to the side of the head, as they approach the screen edge resulting in them diving into the sea, with bonus points rewarded to the player.

The original arcade prototype of Trog! consisted of a strategy puzzle type game which consisted of the player assuming the role of a hand which would lay bones to guide their corresponding dinosaur in the right path, however this idea was heavily panned during testing. In addition the button to lay the bones in the game field was a complete joke which was taken up a notch when a tester allegedly defaced one of the cabinets to add an R which would make the bone button into a completely suggestive joke. Due to the poor reception, Bally/Midway considered canning the game altogether, but the game was given a second chance for two reasons. The first one was because Jack Haeger (the game's creator) spent so much of the budget on the clay animation, and the second reason was because one of the testers suggested to make it into a Pac-Man like game.

natenmn

I haven't had a chance to trim my hedges recently. Thanks for visiting anyway...

Location: United States

Joined: Jul 17 2009

Holy crap... Trog was an amazing game.

karathrow

Joined: Oct 26 2010

Oh real funny whoever changed the thread title.

Pasto

Eat your Pasta ! ! !

Joined: Mar 25 2009

Shenmue , simply one of the best game ever made & probably the most underrated.

BTW I'm back <3

yoshistrings

ヨッシー

Location: trapped in an egg

Joined: Oct 29 2007

That reminds me a lot of FF tactics.

karathrow

Joined: Oct 26 2010

Pasto said

Consolle had Sonic , Pc had HIM

Jazz Jackrabbit was the shit.

Also Alexander Brandon did the music for it (same guy who did Deus Ex/Unreal music)

:D

Dave

trve kvlt

Location: Ohio

Joined: May 22 2011

Threads of Fate was awesome, but no one ever mentions it...

auriplane

Joined: Sep 06 2008

karathrow said

To everyone else:
Aww come on guys I may actually obtain some of these games if I know why they are compelling. Do more like Vizards/Mine please!

Okay, since I'm going to be up all night anyway, I'll type up a bunch of stuff to pass the time :-) It'll be a lot though, so I won't feel bad if you skip over it (i.e., "tl;dr").

auriplane said

I love how laconic we responders all are. Well, I too am too lazy to explain, but I'll post a pile of name droppings for you all to see. List making time!!

Zeliard!!

Zeliard!! Er, wait. I already said that.

Zeliard was originally a PC88 game, in the style of Y's 3 or Zelda 2. (It reminds me more of Y's, but people generally compare it to Zelda 2 for some reason--maybe the name?) It's an action RPG where you gain levels, learn spells, gain new abilities and items, etc. It's a little grindy, mainly for gold rather than exp, but they increased the gold drops for the English version to make up for that.

So, what's interesting about it? Well, I love the music, and for an Y's style game, it's just really well done, IMO. The plot is cheesy (I'll describe that in a moment), but I love it anyway. What sets it apart, though, are the dungeons. There's eight, and you do have to do them roughly in order, but each one is a labyrinth. They all wrap around, and the mazes get progressively harder to solve, until by the final two, you'll have some major trouble getting through without drawing maps.

The plot is a generic shi no hai story ("Ashes of Death"--evil rain falling from the sky and turning people to stone, though shi no hai describes the nuclear fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Radioactive "ash" fell through the air, and when it landed on people's skin, they couldn't wash it off...). The cheesy villain, 邪神 (the "evil god" / dark lord) sent magical rain pouring down, destroying the countryside, then turned the princess to stone. The hero, Duke Garland, has to go and defeat the dark lord and rescue the princess. It's the sort of plot that would get a game mocked in 2011, but I still like it :-D

You can see the intro story here:

http://zeliardgame.tripod.com/index.html

Goblins 3!

So, there's three Goblins games. (Actually, more now, but there WERE only three for a long time, and I've only played the first three.) They're a French series of point-and-click adventure games. I don't like the first one quite so much, but 2 and 3 are *excellent*. The best way to describe them is "wacky". The puzzles are a bit nonsensical, which can get old, but the games are also extremely amusing, and the characters are awesome.

The Goblins series have a weird naming convention. The first game is Gobliiins, with three i's, because you control three characters. The second one, with Winkle and Fingus, is named Gobliins. I mean, just look at these characters (assuming this hotlink works):

The third one is just Goblins 3, because there's a single main character, and he swaps out companions as he goes. Goblins 3 is the best of the series IMO, with some truly excellent jazzy music by Charles Callet, an amazing French VGM composer who does not get enough attention. The characters are great in 3, too. You start out with Blount, the main character, and his companion Chump, a retarded parrot. I mean, Chump and Blount? I don't think I've ever played a game with better character names.

Here's my favorite tune from Gobliiins 3, which Rex and I should totally cover, on account of how French he is.

Fury of the Furries!

Another European game. Actually, another French game! This one got made into Pac-Attack, which got a massively inferior SNES port. Accept no substitutes, play only the original! Don't worry, it's not about "furries". It's the second outing of a bunch of fuzzballs that Kalisto named "furries". The first was a puzzle game that I recommend NOT playing, and I can't even remember its name. But this game is truly excellent.

First, listen to ANY song from this game. So chill. Here's my favorite:

Holy crow! I'd play this game just to hear this track, if the gameplay consisted of bashing your head against a wooden plank with nails in it.

Anyway, this is a puzzle/platformer. You switch characters as you go, and pass through these little dotted fields that add/remove characters. Each furry has different capabilities, like swinging from a rope (which wraps around terrain!), or shooting, or eating through blocks. The physics are great, and the level design is really pretty great. My only complaint is that I played this NTSC, so when I play at the original PAL rate, it feels awfully slow. I prefer it at NTSC speed, even though that's "too fast"!

Another World!

This game got localized as "Out of This World" (do I capitalize "this" in a title?). It doesn't have much replay value, but it's a really interesting experience to go through at least once. It's sort of an interactive movie, which is why it doesn't have much replay value, but it FEELS like a game, and it certainly has a lot of ways to die. You'll feel like you're constantly breaking the rules or being clever when you figure out how to proceed, even though it's all scripted and there's really only one thing you can ever do. Also, the storytelling is fascinating--there's basically no words, yet there's a compelling plot on an alien world. You can get taken in by the setting alone.

This is one of the first games to use rotoscoping and polygon art. It was pretty innovative, and given how over-simplistic the 3D polygon art had to be in 1991, it was actually beautiful. You can tell the designer is an artist.

Another World is still sold for cheap. When I was little, I had it pirated. As an adult, I bought a copy :-)

Wagan Paradise!

This is part of the Wagan Land series. (Also called "Wagyan Land", but the official romanization is Wagan.) This is a kind of bizarre Japanese-only platforming series, which has puzzle-based boss battles and interstitials strewn throughout. I think these games were never translated is a lot of the puzzles are based on Japanese language (like playing しりとり, a Japanese word game). I think it could be translated, but it'd be difficult!

Anyway, this is not the first entry in the series. There were, um... five before it? Three on NES, and two on SNES, I believe. But this is where the series starts getting good. The earlier ones had kind of annoying gameplay, and the music wasn't so hot. Paradise, however, has a really amazing soundtrack--just grab the SPC files! It's full of great tunes. Just listen to this bassline:

http://www.gametabs.net/files/Duct.mp3

Also, the puzzles in WP are a little more interesting. On the older games, you'll play the same puzzles over and over, and it starts to get a little old. This game has a little repetition, but it has quite a few types of puzzles for boss battles (some of which don't require Japanese, but most do). What's really cool is you can skip story mode, and play the puzzles two-player and compete. The Japanese required isn't very hard, BTW, and it's all in kana, so if you're just learning, it's actually a good game to practice with! Just set your age really low at the beginning so it goes easy on you.

SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu Goddess of Destiny!!

This is a remake of the gameboy game released in the U.S. as Final Fantasy Legend 2. It's basically a VERY in-depth reworking of the original game, complete rebalanced, with tons of bonus material. Most of the bonus stuff is at the end, but a lot of "systems" (if you play RPGs, you know what I mean) got added which change the game as a whole. Also, it doesn't just have awesome remixes of the original tunes, it's also got a lot of new tunes! Some of them, like the awesome town song (異世界の地へ), incorporate the melody from the main theme, and some of them are entirely new songs. The original game was a bit lacking in boss music, and this game has like 3 new boss songs (I say "like" because I've forgotten if that's the right number), all of which are excellent. (I was a little disappointed with the remake of the final battle tune, though the battle itself is excellent.)

Sadly, like the remake of SaGa 1, it doesn't seem like there's going to be an official English release. But maybe there'll be a fan translation at some point...

Summon Night Craftsword Monogatari Hajimari no Ishi!

Whoops, I'm going a little heavy on the JP-only games here. I'll backpedal a bit! The first two Summon Night Craftsword Monogatari games were translated as "Summon Night: Swordcraft Story" (1 and 2). They're both really good games!! They've got "Tales of"-style side-view battles, and they're really fast paced and easy to get into. They're both pretty long games, but they FEEL like really quick games. You always feel like you're making really quick progress, never trudging through. I'm not sure what's responsible for that, but maybe it's how fast the battles go. They also have excellent music, especially the first one. (The second one is just as good compositionally, but the first makes more use of the original GB sound registers, so you get square wavey goodness and it comes out ahead.)

What really stands out about the SN games though is their dialogue. It's rare to find an RPG with well-written, entertaining dialogue, and this series is a great example of just that.

The third game is basically more of the same! (It's called Hajimari no Ishi, not 3, but it's the third game, so I'll just call it 3.) Like 2, it's lacking square wavey goodness, but the composition is excellent once again. I miss that square waviness, though, so I'm going to go with 1 for the best music. But 3 has the most entertaining story, I think, and it's also got several other things going for it: it expands on the fishing minigame from 2, which is a lot more fun and a lot less tedious in 3. It's also got a log-breaking minigame (it's more fun than it sounds!). It also adds a sixth weapon type (the first two only had 5), the bow, adding a pretty cool element of long-range combat. As you might expect, though, adding ranged combat to a melee game does break the game balance a bit, and once you craft a weapon with the "penetrate" ability, bows vastly outstrip the other five weapons. So that's kind of a minus, since it's game-breaking, but somehow it's kind of fun anyway :-)

3 is my favorite of the series despite that. ...I think I just love V.E.

Paradroid!!

This is an old C64 game. It's a nonlinear overhead-view exploration game of sorts, where you find your way through a large starship. Every droid you encounter has a number; you start out as droid 001. Higher-numbered droids are stronger, though they have different abilities, so sometimes a higher-numbered droid will be slower, but have more powerful weapons, or they'll be vulnerable to something but very fast, etc.

The gimmick is this: you don't just fight your way through. You can shoot at droids and clear out a floor, but your energy drains over time, and to survive, you have to take over other droids. You play what is essentially a "hacking" mini-game when you attempt to take over a droid, which gets progressively more difficult as you try to take over higher-numbered droids. (There's a droid 999, but be careful if you take it over, because you can't influence it for very long before it shorts you out!)

So you explore, blow stuff up, hack droids to take them over and gain new abilities, and find your way through the maze-like ship. It's a huge game, too! Unfortunately it has no music, though it has some cool ambiance. It's hard, but definitely recommended.

Screwbreaker!!

A.K.A. Drill Dozer

This is a really unique action/puzzle game from the creators of Pokemon. I can't really think of anything to compare it to, actually. Plus, the cartridge (it's a GBA game) has a built-in rumble pack, which is probably more appropiate for this game than any other rumble game I've played.

It's really fun, original/unique, doesn't take too long to play, pretty easy to complete, but challenging to 100%. Well, you seemed to know this game already, and I'm running out of steam, so I'll leave it at that.

Pitfall 2 :D

This is the original "metroidvania". Hailing from the foreign land of 1982, this game had an add-on chip to enable the Atari 2600 to do all the crazy stuff this game does. It's really pretty revolutionary. Pitfall 2 introduces the concepts of infinite lives with checkpoints, which later became a very common game mechanic; it also introduces the idea of a non-linear side-scrolling adventure/exploration game, with a big (for the time) world to explore. It's also the first game I can think of that adapted the music situationally (happy/upbeat when you pick up an item, normal if nothing has occurred lately, minor key/slow if you get hit and teleport back to a checkpoint). Heck, most games back then didn't even have music!

You explore the world, and have to find the three goals (I think they're two of your friends, and an item), and then you win. It's more primitive than a lot of games, but it paved the way for lots of really good games to come. If you know the path through, it's about five minutes long--significantly longer than that, if you don't. I recommend it!

Coryoon!

This is the best example of a subgenre sometimes referred to as Cute 'em Ups. It's an ADORABLE shooter, where you're a little dragon (Coryoon = 子竜, child of dragon) spitting out fire (or ice or lightning). It's actually extremely easy, as far as shooters go, but it's nonetheless entertaining. (And if you think a game like Gradius is hard, then this is probably the perfect difficulty for you, with a zillion 1ups in case you die anyway.) Very cute music, graphics, and sound. The bosses are pretty easy but still interesting enough to battle. Possibly my favorite shooter.

Wizball!!

This is a C64 classic. On reflection, it has some flaws, but it's probably my favorite C64 game of all time. Like Gradius, you collect power-ups, and progress a power-up meter to the right. Once you've got the power-up you want highlighted, you can select it and take it.

A flaw: The first two powerups (both show up on the first slot) are horizontal air control, and vertical air control. Until you get those, you're a bouncing ball, and can only change your horizontal speed when you hit the ground, and can't change your vertical speed at all (you're stuck flying in parabolae). This kind of sucks, but you get past this part of the game really fast, so you forget about it.

So, what's unique about this shooter? Well, it's not a rails shooter. It's a nonlinear exploration shooter! There's eight floors, though you can only get to three when you start out. You fly around, collecting power-ups, blowing stuff up for a bit, when you discover... The third power-up is cat! Now you have a catball, following around your wizball (that's you, a wizard, in a flying ball). You can control the cat ball separately, and both of you can shoot.

So, what's the goal here, then? There's little colored paint balls floating about. You shoot them, and they turn into falling droplets of their respective colors. You need to collect enough of the various colors paint to restore color to the world of wizball! You use your cat to collect the paint. Each level has three colors that it's missing, and so you have three goals. For example, you might just need to fill up the red bucket, because the goal is red. Or, you might have brown as a goal, in which case you need to partially fill all three buckets.

Once you get a target color, you're transported to a bonus level, which IS a rails shooter, and is pretty fun. (It had better be, since you have to do this 3 times per level, and there's 8 levels, so there's 24 rails shooter bonus stages!) You can get 1ups and such here, and after clearing a bonus level, you and cat temporarily exit your respective balls, and mix paint. (Then you can select one of the powerups to make permanent, so if you die, after about 8 or 9 bonus stages, you can start at full power!)

The levels get harder as you go, and there's some minor design flaws, but overall it's a classic. It's also got music by Martin Galway. Here's the title tune, one of the best VGM compositions I can remember:

Loom!

Speaking of music, here's a bit of an oddball game. Lucasarts, which mostly created really amusing point-and-click games, decided to make a really serious game, and its central concept is music. If you can get into this sort of game, it's a really memorable experience. If you're expecting Monkey Island, though, you might be disappointed.

Clock Tower :o

This game is scary as crap.

FLAMING DEATH BABY AHHHH FLAMING DEATH BABY

That's about all I can say.

Bahamut Lagoon!!

Blah blah tactics type game I am too tired to type more.

Too long, didn't type.

BooDoo

People

Location: Somerville, MA

Joined: Mar 24 2008

I'll outsource my answers by linking articles from GameSpite's "Most Underappreciated Games" compilation:

Zelda 2: Link's Adventure (NES)
Demon's Crest (SNES)
Deadly Premonition (360)
The World Ends With You (DS)

And +1 for Trog, I played the shit out of that game.

xuwawa

god of empty NES

Location: san antonio -ish

Joined: Apr 22 2009

I remember Out of this World/Another World. We rented it for SNES and couldn't get past the very beginning, finally getting so frustrated we quit trying. So a week later some friends were over, and looking through our games to find one to play, and pulled out that one all excited.
We'd forgotten to return it, and had it for a whole week past the 3 day rental period.
He started playing, and as soon as he got to the part we were stuck at (capsule crashes and guard dies, or capsule lands and guard has a random stroke, something like that) he bent down and picked up its gun. I swear, it wasn't even visible, I think he'd just read about the game and had an idea of what to do, for us it was just a random rental.

So yeah, that's how dumb I was at age 7.
Tried pirating it later for the PC but it had that patter/code matching protection and I didn't care enough.

On Topic, I'd say EVO: Search for Eden for SNES was a really good one, dunno how widespread that one got though.
Same with Trine for PC/PS3/X360, good action/puzzle platformer.

edit:
Yggdra Union and Tactics Ogre for GBA. TO is like FFtactics, and YU is ...not. Yggdra has you set up the battles but the actual fight is almost automatic, you just tell it aggressive/defensive and maybe pull out a special attack if you've got one. Still lotta fun though.

salmence100

Lightning Sticks!!

Location: Sweeny, Texas

Joined: Aug 05 2011

Black Sigil: Blade of the Exile (NDS)

This game kinda reminds me of chrono trigger, but its definitely not a clone.

It actually looks like a pretty old game but it isn't, and that's what I love about it. It has a old style mixed in with awesome music and characters.

N0Stars

Joined: May 22 2011

Incredible level design, outstanding art direction, hilarious dialogue, and some of the most memorable video game characters ever created.

I'm still waiting for the sequel (that will never happen)...

wayfaerer

"Embrace your dreams."

Location: The Lifestream

Joined: Apr 03 2011

B.O.B. for the SNES

possibly the greatest sidescroller next to mario bros. and jazz jackrabbit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOtU-CB2mqE

and then theres this... cool world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1oDlyFJC3k

and also... my childhood hero, yes. spawn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVT5fiW15SM&feature=related

Kabukibear

Happy Strumming!

Location: Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

Joined: Mar 22 2007

Rogue Galaxy

It had good reviews and sold well in Japan, but I've yet to meet a single person who's ever played it. Great music, colorful visuals, it is a fantastic game. The storyline is pretty much Star Wars meets Final Fantasy, but it's great.

Also Shadow of Destiny (Shadow of Memories)

If you're into uncovering an amazing story with a mix of mystery, murder, and TIME TRAVEL, this game is for you. Not a whole lot of actual action in this game, but the premise is awesome, where you are traveling back and forth in time, preventing your death by someone else who is trying to murder you. There are a ton of different endings depending on what you do (or don't!) and it's just a very cool game.

karathrow

Joined: Oct 26 2010

One really cool thing about rogue galaxy is you have to load once when the game starts up and then there are NO load screens ever. The graphics and FPS are incredibly smooth and the game is just packed with content. It's hard to believe the game was done on the PS2's hardware. Unfortunately some asshole stole my copy of the game.

Highly recommend it if you can get it.

Kabukibear

Happy Strumming!

Location: Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

Joined: Mar 22 2007

Probably about 40-60 hours if you're taking your time and doing side-quests, leveling up, and all that jazz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGrW_wL8mSI
but jesus god that song...AWFUL.

wayfaerer

"Embrace your dreams."

Location: The Lifestream

Joined: Apr 03 2011

sweetest jesus!

i forgot. the legendary predecessor to shadow of the colossus.

Ico

ps. theres a package released now for PS3 with Ico and SotC redone in HD. at EBGames for $40. We wants it, precious; we wants it!!

kage25130

Joined: Aug 02 2011

Strider, for the NES.

Also, Street Fighter 2010.

N0Stars

Joined: May 22 2011

Psychonauts II doesn't actually exist (although I wish it did), the box cover is just fan art. No plans for a sequel were ever officially announced, even though the first game ends in a cliffhanger.

The original Psychonauts is on the PS2, XBOX, PC, and more recently the XBOX360, thanks the wishes of a terminally ill child (http://www.1up.com/news/psychonauts-creator-demands-360-compat).

Seriously though, it's a awesome game. Everyone should play it.

Pasto

Eat your Pasta ! ! !

Joined: Mar 25 2009

Psychonauts was made by Tim FN Schaffer !
BTW : My Hero