Extremely Weird And Obscure Games

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

Little Samson and The Guardian Legend are two I really like.
Holy Diver is another, but it's difficulty might turn some people off.
Everyone knows NES Batman, but I feel like the sequel Return of the Joker deserves more love.
Maybe not the most obscure, but I think Mighty Final Fight is a super underrated Beat Em Up too.

 

[Dyne]

An obscure one I like is Conflict.
Its a turn based strategy game. We used to rent it all the time because my dad really liked it.

 

[BjornSmallpeen]

I personally don't think of Blaster Master as obscure

yeah we live in an age of post-obscurity as well, where anyone can know every detail of every niche hobby with minimal effort. But there were lots of games I didn't know about or have until I was an adult with an emulation machine, and I find that very rarely are the first entries to the most popular franchises the best games of this console is really what I meant.

 

[Tonberry]

Does Shatterhand still count?
If so I pick Shatterhand, love that shit.

 

[thumbsdown]

I don't really think they're obscure, but my favs are prolly Banana Prince and Mitsume Ga Tooru (there's way more for sure, but those are special)

Post automatically merged: Nov 7, 2025

I also love this chinese bootleg which is a backport of Link's Awakening, but not really lmao (not in the Repo, you can find it on The Archive.org): https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Feng_Yin_Dao

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

yeah we live in an age of post-obscurity as well, where anyone can know every detail of every niche hobby with minimal effort. But there were lots of games I didn't know about or have until I was an adult with an emulation machine, and I find that very rarely are the first entries to the most popular franchises the best games of this console is really what I meant.

Yeah, it's hard to list truly obscure games now that the NES and other console libraries are so well known and documented online. I take the question myself more to mean "good games that need more love"

 

[Deleted member 58254]

felix the cat

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

felix the cat

I know it's not the same game but...

HET

 

[Deleted member 58254]

I know it's not the same game but...

HET

that version is fun to speedrun

 

[Zerpina]

Monster Party...

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with it. I love how weird it actually is, even for obscure Japanese to English NES games, and I hate how cheap it is. But that's standard fare for NES games

 

[Luxfin]

I love but I suck at it.

 

[χKai]

Obscure you say

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

Possibly Little Samson (1992) because he is very similar to Rockman/Mega Man and that is reflected in its game system and also apart from playing with Little Samson also play with the Dragon, Golem and Mouse that will help you a lot throughout the stages that come later.

 

[qw90700]

"Obscure" doesn't matter because the game may be very popular but you may never have heard it so here have my favourite NES games list instead lol:

Your favorite NES/Famicom game

What is your favorite NES/Famicom game? my favorites are:

retrogametalk.com

 

[otogirisou]

splatterworld

 

[BjornSmallpeen]

Cool, looks like I have some stuff to try out. I'll report back after I get a chance to try some.

edit:

Loved Kickle Cubicle, very addictive.
Jackal is nice, although feels like I want to be able to fire regular gun in all directions.
The Battle of Olympus is ... not my type of game. I could maybe have more patience for a game likle that if the controls felt good.

 

[Mr. SyS]

Bootleg ports once modders get a hold of them. Ports like Sonic 1, Donkey Kong Country, Pokemon Yellow, and Super Mario World.

 

[BjornSmallpeen]

I tried Willow. I want to like games like this but I just don't have the patience for it. It should just start you off with the sword and skip the whole thing where you have to walk through town. Every person you have to talk to does the same repetitive sequence to initiate the conversation and has the same audio, and then you're just mashing as hard as you can to make the text go and it won't go. Not for me.

 

[SeventhSon]

I tried Willow. I want to like games like this but I just don't have the patience for it. It should just start you off with the sword and skip the whole thing where you have to walk through town. Every person you have to talk to does the same repetitive sequence to initiate the conversation and has the same audio, and then you're just mashing as hard as you can to make the text go and it won't go. Not for me.

When I played Willow, I drew a map of the entire game on graph paper.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Could that one qualifies as obscure?

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I don’t have much to contribute here, but I can vouch for the Bonk’s Adventure port to the NES! It’s really good, and I even liked my time with it more than PC Genjin. Both I played via emulation. Made officially by Hudson, obviously.

Another gem seems to be Dragon Buster II. It’s a Famicom exclusive (so it seems) and is an overhead dungeon crawler where you have arrows that ricochet off diagonal walls, similar to the laser ability in Kirby’s Adventure. Using just this to start, you explore vast dungeons for treasure and loot. It’s a sequel to the Dragon Buster arcade game, which itself is fun, but that’s more a side scrolling action game with RPG elements. That also got a Famicom port. Both of these games come from Namco under their Namcot home label.

 

[NeonKnights]

'Dragon Fighter" ドラゴンファイター
I had this in my childhood NES cartridge library. It was genuinely amazing with great gameplay and superb BGM. It was one of my favorites back then, though as a kid I could never get past the water level. I never knew anyone else who had this and never heard anyone talking about it. Now it's worth more than it's weight in gold probably.

 

[Blue Buddha]

The NES is an interesting console to me in the context of Nintendo's broader hardware catalog because it's a system that is almost entirely carried by the strength of its third party output, with the core in-house Nintendo lineup being on the weaker side as a whole (or at least, pales in comparison to a later SNES incarnation). Rather than get sidetracked by detailing beloved Konami/Capcom/Tecmo classics you've most likely played already, I'll rattle off some of my favorite lesser known offerings for the system:

Faxanadu - Not sure if this game is that obscure but it's certainly not something that makes NES GOAT shortlists even though it curbstomps most comparable games on the system. Absolutely worth playing through.
Crystallis - OP already mentioned this one but I'll reinforce it, quite possibly the best RPG available for the system, exploring the game's world stays exciting for most of its run and there's always some cool arcane secret to discover.
Dragon Fighter - Sidescroller/shooter game, essentially a better version of Altered Beast in its concept and general gameplay.
Gimmick! - Very novel cutsey platformer in which your attack is also your best movement tool. A regular playthrough is easy enough, but the game expects you to fully understand how to utilize the player character's star projectile to their advantage in order to reach hidden bonus areas and unlock the game's true ending.
Gargoyle's Quest II - Fantastic sidescroller stapled onto a bog standard, half-formed RPG that adds nothing to the experience. This isn't enough to drag the game down by much, and the core game is definitely worth a look regardless.

 

[MajesticSiN]

 

[Isegrim]

I'm not sure how obscure it means to be...maybe I mentioned this before in an old post...

Konami Wai Wai World 1 is one of my absolute favorite NES title...maybe tied with Castlevania 3 (Japan version). This game was a legendary title whispered among gamers in my country during the NES era. Konami Man, Konami Lady, Goemon, Goonies (Mikey Walsh), King Kong, Simon Belmont, Gradius, Moai, Fuuma and Twin Bee...team up against a big bad from Contra. It was just like Captain N. I got into the Goemon series as well as Getsu Fuuma Den because of this game's influence. And considering two of the characters originally came from american movies makes it truly unique among crossover titles.

This is one of the most difficult games I ever played (on an actual famicom) and only cleared it once.

You need two controllers with the d-pads side by side to play this one.