What is your favorite obscure retro game?

[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.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

 

[diet_orange]

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.

Apparently it's quite valuable these days from what I've heard. Not to Little Samson levels, but close

I'll toss in a pair; Legend Of Kage and Demon Sword. Really like the jumping even though you can go crazy high as well as climb

 

[shadowcat]

I used to play these all the time on my family's NES as a kid.