I tried to limit myself in my last post in order not to flood this thread with one long post but there are few other games that I would like to add to the list
Twilight Syndrome series is one of my favorite Japan only series developed by Human Entertainment. These are horror adventure games based around exploring spooky areas and paranormal activity. Their gameplay is middle ground between sound novels and survival horrors. Goichi Suda is listed as director of two first games (which in fact are one game split in two due to the development issues) but in fact he was more producer. Still he was director of Moonlight Syndrome, spinoff game to the Twilight Syndrome, that also served as first game in his Kill the Past series (it mainly consist of his games developed by Grasshopper Manufacture). Despite that Twilight Syndrome is overall important series for Japanese market and Suida51 is cult director, this series was never released outside Japan and never got fan translation. Series consist of following games:
- Twilight Syndrome: Tansakuhen
- Twilight Syndrome: Kyuumeihen
- Moonlight Syndrome
- Twilight Syndrome Saikai (this game has 3D graphics instead of 2D and continues main series story disregarding events of Moonlight Syndrome)
- Yuuyami Doori Tankentai (spiritual sequel to TS games made by Spike Co, Ltd after Human Entertainment went out of business)
I was always amazed how much games on PS1 were centered around preparing and serving food. This may not be as unusual game genre as in the 90s but still PS1 was one of first consoles that introduced such games. Titles that I know:
- Yakiniku Bugyou
- Manpuku!! Nabe Kazoku
- Yakitori Musume
- Charumera
- Ore no Ryouri
- Ramen Bashi
Dioramos is adventure/RPG board game, a genre that was completely absent on western market but it seems that it was quite popular in Japan in SNES and PS1 era. What is cool about Dioramos is it's aesthetics that remind me games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Hoshigami.
70s Robot Anime: Geppy-X is shmup that pretends to be super robot anime series from the 70s. It has really cool style where stages in the game are presented as if they were episodes of a fictitious episodic anime series named Geppy-X. Currently there is fan translation in the works.
Nemu Lu Mayu: Sleeping Cocoon is another super weird RPG from Japan. Some sources say that it combines elements of first person shooter and RPG in style of the King's Field series. It's hard to say by looking at the videos because this game looks to be very convoluted and psychodelic
There was a ton of different business simulation games on PS1, many of them were Theme Hospital ripoffs where instead of managing hospital player was managing fast food restaurants or convenience stores. But there were more untypical simulation games:
- SatelliTV (player takes role of TV producer, it was developed by Nippon Ichi Software)
- Free Talk Studio (player takes the role of radio DJ and choose different people to make interviews)
- Kyoto Maiko Monogatari (geisha simulation game)
- The Game Maker (video game company simulation)
- King of Producer (the same as above)
- Gamesoft wo Tsukurou - Let's be a Super Game Creator (another video game company simulator)
I hope that this post will be helpful
