Games that were ahead of their time?

[diet_orange]

What are some games that were ambitious but largely forgotten about by the passage of time?

https://imgur.com/o2ZafF4

One that I always thought was rather interesting was Atari/Midway's APB. You play a on-duty cop catching various perps set against a very large world and a time limit

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Strife was definitely ahead of its time.

An FPS/RPG hybrid with stealth elements and multiple story paths that could be enjoyed even by the most casual of gamers (largely because it was based off the Doom engine, unlike the incredibly complicated control systems of previous efforts like Ultima Underworld and System Shock). It really does hold up to this day, but it was a commercial failure because it came out at a time where people ONLY cared about graphics. Such a tragedy.

 

[Tonberry]

"OMG, it's like playing a CGI movie!!!"
-some Japanese guy, 1995

 

[LouieBee]

To it's detriment, I would say Shenmue. I only say that though since the concepts it attempted were only fully realised by franchies which succeeded it - Ryu Ga Gotoku being the obvious one but eventually GTA and Red Dead Redemption got similar praise for their attention to detail, besides having depth in the amount of distractions that stopped you progressing further in the main storyline.

 

[jon2]

Bumpy Trot/Steambot Chronicles

https://retrogametalk.com/repository/ps2-iso/steambot-chronicles-usa/

It is a plot driven yet open world, mech-customizing while being "The Sims" kind of game...

It tried to be everything it wanted to be, and it did those things well enough

Hard to find a later console game that squished many genres into a single serving and still do it well...

 

[Scotty]

Probably "Alone in the Dark" (Specifically, the 1992 original). It kickstarted the survival horror genre a whole 4 years before "Resident Evil" copied it.

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

Jurassic Park Trespasser, to the point Half-Life 2 raising the bar credits the source engines existence to Valve having the opportunity to learn from dinosaur island game's mistakes:

And Phantasy Star Online for being the first and arguable only viable international console MMO... Until the PS4/Xbox One generation gave us ports of various PC MMO's:

 

[Clippy]

Driving in an open world that's fully 3D in 1989? Whoa mama. Unfortunately, with it being 1989 everything was made of maybe 15 flatshaded polygons and the framerate was just barely above glacial but it was impressive from a technical perspective nonetheless. I don't think the concept was truly realized and pulled off in a playable fashion until Midtown Madness though I could be wrong on that.

 

[diet_orange]

View attachment 91866
Driving in an open world that's fully 3D in 1989? Whoa mama. Unfortunately, with it being 1989 everything was made of maybe 15 flatshaded polygons and the framerate was just barely above glacial but it was impressive from a technical perspective nonetheless. I don't think the concept was truly realized and pulled off in a playable fashion until Midtown Madness though I could be wrong on that.

Hard Drivin' came out roughly the same year and while it's more limited, it's no less impressive

Love me some early polygonal games

 

[Bakuma1997]

Dragon Quest iv, specifically the NES original, the animations there makes you wonder if you are playing a NES cart or a Homebrew

 

[diet_orange]

Here's one, Nintendo's Wild Gunman from 1974. Super ambitious light gun game that was basically the progenitor for all FMV games

Speaking of FMV games, there's also Thayer's Quest. Developed by Rick Dyer (co-creator of Dragon's Lair), it attempted to be a full blown interactive adventure and was also going to be the launch title for an ill-fated Laserdisc game system. Unfortunately the company ran out of money before it could happen

 

[throughdarkness]

Daggerfall was/is pretty insane.

 

[Pinballbuzzbro]

Top Banana and Big Bang on the Acorn Archimedes predated the modern Cruelty Squad era of surreal intentionally garish indie games made by experimental musicians 30 years before it became commonplace

 

[NEETandTidy]

Alone in the Dark (1992) always comes to mind.

 

[KenShjIN]

Mega-lo-mania ( Amiga ) Early RTS with a tech tree
Red Faction
Deus Ex
Half Life
Crysis
System Shock
Original X-com
Elite 1984 for thr BBC micro
Daggerfall
Descent
Ultima Underworld
Hunter ( Amiga ) 1991 kinda open world game with helicopters,boats,bikes,cars etc.

 

[diet_orange]

Elite 1984 for thr BBC micro

Frontier: Elite II still looks gorgeous even to this day

 

[Stare best girl]

 

[moonbits]

Hmm...

What are some games that were ambitious but largely forgotten about by the passage of time?

Virtual Hylide on the SEGA Saturn was a ridiculously ambitions game for it's hardware/time. A procedurally generated open world RPG that you could share the codes with friends so they could play your world.

It was super clunky and not very good in the end but they tried something.

 

[Mechablade-X]

For a Super Nintendo game that came out very late in the system's life, unheard of at the time.

 

[Esidemoken]

I will say that Chrono Trigger, but specifically for two mechanics, that you can see the enemies and decide to face them or not (no random encounters) and that the fights do not change screen.
It may seem common in 3D RPGs but I've noticed that in 2D RPGs you find one or the other mechanic but rarely both together.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Definitely Jumping Flash. Too bad it disappeared, had so much potential as a franchise...

 

[diet_orange]

Definitely Jumping Flash. Too bad it disappeared, had so much potential as a franchise...

I bought it second hand for cheap and I'll definitely agree! Just oozing with personality. I think the only time where it kind of played it's hand was in the pyramid sections in the second stage where you have to deal with the tank controls and no strafing

 

[Mitochondria]

Someone already mentioned PSO, but I'm going to say specifically the first Phantasy Star mainline game. Phantasy Star was SEGA's first JRPG, and at the time, Medieval Fantasy was common for JRPGs which made PS stand out more with it's Sci-Fi Fantasy setting. It was also one of the first few games to feature a female protagonist. The graphics, story and complexity of it's gameplay were highly praised and seen as ahead of it's time plus their competitors. Several of it's staff's career were launched thanks to it's success. Rieko Kodama directed the 4th game, considered one of the greatest JRPG, later working as a producer for Skies of Arcadia (another highly praised JRPG). Yuji Naka worked on the 2nd game as a programmer, alongside Rieko (was the 2nd game's artist), going on to serve as producer for Phantasy Star Online. Naoto Ohshima went on to create Sonic the Hedgehog while collaborating with Yuji Naka to work on several of the Sonic games.

It's a shame how the IP fell off and SEGA can't even grace it with a remaster or any new mainline games. They can't even be bothered to port the other Phantasy Star games like Universe or 0. Don't even get me started on that walking corpse, New Genesis, that tarnished the IP's name. It's sad to see an IP with such rich and amazing history get mistreated like this.

 

[solnK!]

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:18 AM

 

[UnDubious]

How is Dark Cloud ahead of its time? It's a pretty generic 3D action RPG and the town building thing had been done in other RPGs.