Extremely Weird And Obscure Games

[Mago]

I appreciate all responses tbc but I do feel like some of these are REALLY stretching the definition of obscure lol. I meant games even most big gamer nerds wouldn't know.

 

[Deleted member 7989]

I appreciate all responses tbc but I do feel like some of these are REALLY stretching the definition of obscure lol. I meant games even most big gamer nerds wouldn't know.

That's about the most obscure I know. You ever play Leisure Suit Larry 1 lol? definitely paved the way for Gaben to start not caring about what gets put on Steam these days lol.

 

[Samatonic Samatonic]

I remember a game on Xbox 360 that was obscure and innovative for me .

Anyone remember this ?

 

[Deleted member 7989]

I remember a game on Xbox 360 that was obscure and innovative for me .

Anyone remember this ?

I don't, but the cover looks fire. Have to check it out

 

[Samatonic Samatonic]

I don't, but the cover looks fire. Have to check it out

The main character could not die, like he gets chopped off, blown up, stuff like that and survives, each limb could be blown off and reused again.

Another game like this, though not quite similar, had similar mechanics .

 

[Deleted member 7989]

The main character could not die, like he gets chopped off, blown up, stuff like that and survives, each limb could be blown off and reused again.

Another game like this, though not quite similar, had similar mechanics .

Oh dude. This game is awesome. I got it for free over Xbox gold back in the day. People definitely have to try this one.

 

[Samatonic Samatonic]

Any other games you played on Xbox 360 or the Original ?

 

[Mago]

That's about the most obscure I know. You ever play Leisure Suit Larry 1 lol? definitely paved the way for Gaben to start not caring about what gets put on Steam these days lol.

Kill Switch I actually don't think ive heard of, so I wasn't meaning you when I posted that lol. I do think I remember there being an N64 game with a cover shooting mechanic though, I actually thought that was what you were talking about when I first glanced.

A Leisure Suit Larry is a classic series. Ive never played the first one though. I played a bit of Leather Goddesses of Phobos, I never got far though. Thats text based but an early sex comedy classic.

 

[Seigen]

Sacrifice.

Madalore did a nice review of it.

 

[Deleted member 7989]

Kill Switch I actually don't think ive heard of, so I wasn't meaning you when I posted that lol. I do think I remember there being an N64 game with a cover shooting mechanic though, I actually thought that was what you were talking about when I first glanced.

A Leisure Suit Larry is a classic series. Ive never played the first one though. I played a bit of Leather Goddesses of Phobos, I never got far though. Thats text based but an early sex comedy classic.

Oh, no offense meant. I was just trying to joke around. I'm a bit drunk tonight so

 

[Mago]

Oh, no offense meant. I was just trying to joke around. I'm a bit drunk tonight so

All good!

 

[CG4R12I4N]

Anyone who actually played this game would know how great the battle gameplay system is.

 

[NemissaFotia]

Hunter is definitely one that deserves more recognition. An open-world 3D action game where you can travel in vehicles such as boats, helicopters and jeeps and complete missions. On the Amiga. In 1991.

It's extremely impressive. I recommend giving it a try.

 

[thanonyx thanonyx]

Battle Arena Toshinden

It was the first 3D weapons based fighting game and it's really a shame that the series just fizzled out. After the 90s it just disappeared. It had one game on the Wii but it flopped HARD and it has almost nothing to do with the previous games. The first 3 games were really popular in the latter half of the 90s and it's a shame that the series is all but forgotten.

 

[Leon]

Phantasy star 2 innovated a few things that are used in rpg's today, namely the darker tone of the game was a first for the time.
Phantasy star 1 while archaic did innovate a couple of things with it's battle system but i forget what atm.

Dragon Slayer: Largely forgotten as one of the earliest action RPG series. There were spin-off games (Legend of Heroes series), with spin-offs to the spin-off (Trails series) that also got spin offs, but the original series has been mostly forgotten, mostly in favor of the Trails series.

Dragon slayer is often considered the first japanese action rpg, so it definitely deserves more credit.

 

[Mago]

View attachment 35341
Hunter is definitely one that deserves more recognition. An open-world 3D action game where you can travel in vehicles such as boats, helicopters and jeeps and complete missions. On the Amiga. In 1991.

It's extremely impressive. I recommend giving it a try.

Been wanting to play this! I'm not sure how similar they are but theres another Amiga game from 1989 called Midwinter thats open world and has vehicles. Its first person though.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

Phantasy star 2 innovated a few things that are used in rpg's today, namely the darker tone of the game was a first for the time.
Phantasy star 1 while archaic did innovate a couple of things with it's battle system but i forget what atm.

Dragon slayer is often considered the first japanese action rpg, so it definitely deserves more credit.

I need to play the first two Phantasy Stars, I only played the fourth. I'm not sure what you mean by the darker tone being a first for the time though? I know there were several earlier Jrpgs with a darker tone at the time, I havent played them but there was Last Armageddon, Digan no Maseki, and La place no ma.

 

[Leon]

Been wanting to play this! I'm not sure how similar they are but theres another Amiga game from 1989 called Midwinter thats open world and has vehicles. Its first person though.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

I need to play the first two Phantasy Stars, I only played the fourth. I'm not sure what you mean by the darker tone being a first for the time though? I know there were several earlier Jrpgs with a darker tone at the time, I havent played them but there was Last Armageddon, Digan no Maseki, and La place no ma.

I may be misremembering but i also forgot sweet home as well.
Though it did innovate a few things other than that, though i guess in a way it was innovative for the us with it's darker tone as those games were never released outside of japan i think.

 

[Deleted member 7989]

Honestly I feel like games such as LSD Dream Emulator paved the way for these new indie titles coming out with funky, stylized graphics and such.

 

[Mago]

I may be misremembering but i also forgot sweet home as well.
Though it did innovate a few things other than that, though i guess in a way it was innovative for the us with it's darker tone as those games were never released outside of japan i think.

Yeah true we didn't get the darker JRPGs at the time, at least I don't think. Sweet Home was too graphic for an NES release over here. There were some dark Wrpgs at the time like Ultima 5 and Wasteland though.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2025

Honestly I feel like games such as LSD Dream Emulator paved the way for these new indie titles coming out with funky, stylized graphics and such.

LSD I definitely think has been influential, or maybe Osamu Sato in general. Eastern Minds is a classic as well. Synergy was also doing weird fascinating art games around that time, though I don't think they're as well known.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Dragon's Dream: perhaps the very first online RPG game on console ever created (predating Phantasy Star Online by three years).

Psycho Soldier for being the first game featuring a vocalised song

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

This goes for Saturn too.

What do you think made these systems get so many crazy, new, and weird games?

Me personally, I think it was CD’s. The fact that print costs were so low meant devs didn’t need to sell so many copies to make a profit. This generation may have been the peak of WEIRD because of it.


And thank god for that.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Production costs has been lessen that gives the game devs enough budget to experiment and explore new mechanics and ideas.

 

[Glimbo]

The ability to create full 3D worlds was new and people wanted to experiment with the new possibilities. Production being cheap also helped since losses wouldn't be too great.

 

[MasterEn]

This goes for Saturn too.

What do you think made these systems get so many crazy, new, and weird games?

Me personally, I think it was CD’s. The fact that print costs were so low meant devs didn’t need to sell so many copies to make a profit. This generation may have been the peak of WEIRD because of it.


And thank god for that.

in addition to cds being cheaper, they also had vastly more storage space. 650 mbs to up to 800 mbs depending on the specific type in question.

 

[sun0wl]

Not an expert by any means, and my game history lore is rusty, but:
I agree and would add that in general, it just cost a lot less in terms of money and man hours to produce the average game back then.

Particularly for the PlayStation, I think it also saw a lot of these risky/out-there ventures due to the relative ease of development for the PS1 via the dev kit that allowed development on a PC (compared to the reportedly hellish programming difficulties the Saturn's architecture presented, and the difficulty of just getting a just getting green light from Nintendo for N64 development lol). According to wikipedia, people even made commercial games with Net Yaroze, which was substantially cheaper than the $15k dev kit console.

Indeed, along with the largest library, the PS1 may well have had had the widest variety of weird games of the generation for these reasons. (See: this ongoing thread lol) Perhaps some devs were more inclined to take risks with small investments. And companies flush with cash like Square seem to have just went nuts (much to the benefit of my childhood in gaming).