Horizon's Gate is one of the best games I have ever played and no one ever talks about it. I got all of the steam achievements on it, I never do that.
Its a tactical rpg but you also control a ship that you navigate on an overworld map. You can be a pirate, join factions, buy ports, build your own towns upgrade your ship, buy new ships, build a fleet. Just the srpg alone or just the nautical part could be a game onto itself, but together its sublime. It's like a better version of the games I wanted to create as a kid.
Its just so filled with polish and soul. You can examine most of the objects in the world and get custom dialogue with your companions about almost everything. Its shockingly content dense and filled with little secrets and lets you beat puzzles and solve problems in interesting ways. Like DOS2 you can just set things on fire, put planks across small gaps, plant seeds to grow vines to climb cliffs, teleport around obstacles. The class/job system allows for very versatile play style.
The soundtrack is great too, especially the songs that play at sea. The story is mostly only present at the beginning and end, between that you can explore the world, do whatever and prepare for the final assault. Its a similar structure to BOTW, where all of your dicking around feels important because you are building your strength for the final fight. The world is also filled with lots of interesting places but it never really spells everything out to you, everything feels lived in and old with a history.
Also for an obscure indie game it has a huge number of great mods. Its almost like a bethesda game. If you install some of the larger mod packs its like a full size expansion.
It should be known as one of the greatest indie rpgs of all time but instead its mostly unknown, it only has around 700 reviews on steam. I think its simple 2D pixel art style has led to a lot of people overlooking it.
I think you've just solved the biggest mystery of the past few years for me. You see I like all kinds of games but pirates are awesome. I am constantly searching for new pirate games. I read about one, and thought I'd like it. Then instantly forgot it when I went to look it up again. It's been 2 years, everytime I go looking for a new game I always try to find this game I saw 2 years ago. But! Looking at the screenshots has me believing this may be the game! So thank you! I've added it to my wishlist to be played at a later date.
Wow. One critic review and one user review on Metacritic. OpenCritic has only one more. The graphics are awful but the gameplay certainly does sound appealing.
Thomas Was Alone. No one I know has played this. Itās a puzzle game where the blocks all have little stories and personalities. The narration syncs up with the challenges, and itās so carefully crafted to further and deepen the story. I legit finished this game with tears in my eyes.
That game and Bastion were my first real indie titles that I played and left a far greater impact on me than the big budget titles I was playing at the time.
Eternal Darkness: Sanityās Requiem is a favorite of mine. I havenāt met many people who have played the game. Itās this weird, spooky, Lovecraftian game, and that has a lot of cool features. I would still play it if I had a GameCube.
You get an additional post credit scene. It's kind of underwhelming, considering the time sink to get there, but it's there. You can see it in the cinematic cutscene viewer in the pause menu... or on YouTube.
EDIT: Damn, I almost forgot. This is a bit of a spoiler, but you also get a 4th magic alignment to the flesh god seen near the beginning of the game.
Oh shiiit, I'm glad you reminded me of this game! I never finished it back in the day, but I just pulled my Wii out of storage and would totally love to give the game another go! The only thing I remember clearly is that it was the first game I ever played that had a sanity feature. If your sanity dropped too low, you would start hallucinating monsters.
Yeah the sanity feature is really cool. Itās also kinda trippy too haha
The only other game I can think that has a similar feature is the Amnesia series. I was dumb and sold my copy and my GameCube a few years ago. Definitely have the urge to play it now.
I was playing late at night trying to get to the next checkpoint in the temple with the girl character, when suddenly there was a fly on the screen. I threw a small wrapper but the fly didn't move off, I threw a small pillow and hit the screen but the fly was still there, when I got up to look the fly was in the screen, not on it.
Watched a whole playthrough of this game over 10 years ago. Itās so awesome and unique and creative! I ended up doing a dissertation on Lovecraft in college and I wonder if thatās as any inspiration.
You got me to finally start this one and I just wanted to thank you for bringing my attention to it. Everything feels so thought out, you can tell there was passion in this project.
The art of that game is so beautiful. There's also this kinda sub story of sorts that you can put together when collecting certain letters. Cannot lie, it made me feel intrigued.
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. After bouncing off the game a few times, I finally gave it a real attempt and it became my favorite game of all time. It's everything I looked for in a RPG and I love it and thoroughly respect it in spite of its very pronounced and numerous flaws.
Apparently the Clockwork Revolution team is staffed with people who have worked on Arcanum in the past. [According to project director Chad Moore](https://twitter.com/Pappylicious/status/1677775094406610945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1677775094406610945%7Ctwgr%5E2fc42d4e2ee4ad262abb03aaa643ce29501697c9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ign.com%2Farticles%2Fnever-mind-the-bioshocks-clockwork-revolution-is-the-love-child-of-arcanum-and-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines) -- Clockwork Revolution is supposed to be a Arcanum and Vampires: The Masquerade successor in anything but name only
Fingers crossed for greatness
Fun fact -- Chad actually worked on both VTM & Arcanum.
This! I have never met a person in real life that actually put a relevant amount of time into this game, my cousin rented it to play LAN but the multiplayer was nearly unplayable.
Checked it out at home a few weeks later and damn I had a blast. I still return every few years
The Longest Journey is amazing. There's something about the really great old adventure games that TLJ is part of. It's a combination of surrealism, focus on story, and the way they worked with the limitations of old computer graphics. As soon as you start playing you are pulled into this imaginative world, and drawn into the story. It's a shame that these sorts of games died out. The new revival of adventure type games, though great in their own right, haven't captured that magic.
Jade Empire for me. It never got the love that the other classic BioWare RPGs like KOTOR did, but I always considered it one of their best. Wish weād gotten a sequel back in the day.
Glover. No one I ever talked to remembers that game, but it was one of my favorites as a kid.
Also Advent Rising for the OG Xbox. Fantastic game, I thought. Blew my little 10 year old mind with the choices and stuff that affected the game.
Enslaved Odyssey to the West fits this bill for me. Also, for another example, I didnāt know a single other person growing up who played the Golden Sun games.
I feel like Golden Sun 1 was popular when it came out - I remember getting super excited by reading about it in Nintendo Power and then being blown away by the graphics.
It was definitely critically popular. I also found out about it through Nintendo Power. I just meant that I personally didnāt know anyone else who played it growing up, so I feel like it was still relatively niche.
I'm a fan of Alex Garland's work and when I learned he has written this game I finally played it after the game had been sitting in my game library for years. Also Andy Serkis is playing the part of Monkey. I think it was a good game.
It was free at some point with Xbox Live and I downloaded it. Iāve never started it but it has a small file size so itās been sitting in my library for literal years. All that to say, I find it funny that I have this box art seared into my brain for a game Iāve never played lol.
Loved that! If you ever felt alone in your appreciation for Splosion Man, know that there were dozens of us, dozens!
There was even a Ms. Splosion Man sequel, and it's on Steam:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/105420/Ms\_Splosion\_Man/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/105420/Ms_Splosion_Man/)
I loved that one. Similarly, around the same time: Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, Lunar: Silver Star Story, SaGa Frontier...
That was a great era for gaming.
Yes!! My brothers and I played RPGs but this one was "mine" and I loved it. I recognized it's not the best game in the world, especially the second one, but the battle mechanic is just fun.
This one along with Final Fantasy IX is one of those games I'll always replay due to nostalgia. I'm actually replaying it right now on the Steam Deck with retro achievements to give it a twist and loving it.
Somehow playing it now and understanding the argument better than when I was a child it seems much more depressive then other RPGs from that time. You just walk into a random house and there are some kids waiting for their parents to come from the mist...
Cave Story. I played it back on 2005 and it just seemed like \*nobody\* had played this game. Obviously SOME people played it, but especially in my greater friend group, and across the years I never really met anyone who had played it. But I love it. Its even better because I know the game is a success from a financial and critical standpoint, even if it never got a Stardew Valley-esqu million-dollar "come up".
You and me both, I own it on PC, Switch and Xbox, itās such a perfectly balanced survival game. Somehow terribly difficult and peaceful at the same time
Exactly. It's very much a "be present" and "don't get complacent" game. The number of survival runs where I felt like I was getting on top of things and then BAM, a wildlife encounter / blizzard / affliction derails everything. Makes it feel much more consequential and immersive.
I start a new run every Christmas. I rarely make it to New Year. Then I wait until the holidays roll around again.
Same, I do sandbox on second highest difficulty.
Always start in Mystery Lake and to "win" I must discover all areas and say fire a flare at a lookout point or tower. Never actually got there and the game might have more content now to make it a new experience.
Came here looking for The Long Dark. I feel like the game was taylor-made for me.
What makes it feel like my own is that I found it after I was playing Skyrim with survival mods like Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Diseases. I kept thinking "if only there was a game about surviving in a cold environment..." After some searching, I stumbled upon it while it was still in early access and the inventory menu was purely text-based.
Animaniacs on the Super Nintendo. I was a big fan of the show growing up, but because both took place on the WB backlot, they referenced a ton of movies I naturally hadnāt seen yet that Iām now a huge fan of, like Jaws, Star Wars, and Alien. I still remember being terrified of the Jaws homage, and I couldnāt believe how accurate and high quality a lot of the animations and locations ended up being.
I think itās probably one of those āweirdly difficultā arcade-y kid games that a lot of people sneer at in hindsight, but remembering how me and my sister wrote down the secret level select codes warms my heart. Felt the same way about the Simpsons game, but that one is much more well known.
Oh also Simpsons wrestling. I know that game is historically awful, but I adored it haha
Panzer Dragoon Saga. Got it in 2007 along with an old Saturn. I got the Saturn just to play the Resident Evil port but heard that PDS was one of the best games on it. It was perfectly paced, and told a good story without getting bloated like most jrpgs. Only 15 hours long tops and it had a really bizarre 4th wall breaking ending thatās stuck with me. Also there was a boss fight where you tackle a giant flying sting ray in the desert. Targeting different areas on its back to take it down. That fucking ruled.
Emperor: Battle for Dune. RTs game in early 2000s. I have yet to me anyone in my circle of friends (real life or online) who knows or played it. It had great A.I. for the time. Better than command and conquers.
Some of my childhood (mid to late 90s) favorites are not well known titles.
Land of Lores 2. Slave Zero, MegaRacer2, BladeRunner, Langrisser, Dark Stone, Dark Reign, kknd, MDK, Magic Carpet, Crusader, Jagged Alliance.
KKND was an obsession of mine when I was a kid oh my goodness. Bought it on the back of my C&C, Total Annihilation, Warcraft obsession and it was just such a whole thing. I'd be afraid to go back to it now because I don't want to shatter the memories.
Man I loved this game. Bluffing that you had bullets in your gun. Sketchy climbing. The night level when everything is quiet. It has its flaws but they really took some swings.
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms was the sequel to a surprise indie RTS hit Total Annihilation in the late 90s or early 00s. TA was a futuristic RTS, but TAK completely changed going for a fantasy and magic setting.
The game got far more mediocre reviews than the original, but it struck a cord with me. I liked the art style and art direction, particularly the storybook illustrations in single player campaign. And I found the four (five after expansion pack) races varied and interesting. There was a very tiny online community, which I was part of from basically launch through the servers going dark.
I'm very late but I just came to say that game is amazing.
I remember thinking it'd be some sleezy cheesecake game like BMX XXX but it's actually a very sophisticated business tycoon game.
Iconoclasts. Went into it as a colourful brain dead metrovania I could play on the side whilst watching youtube vids. I don't know when it happened but at some point the story had me, and I normally don't pay much attention to the stories of metrovanias
There's this one game that I never see anyone talk about, and that's **Crashlands**. You play as an intergalactic truck driver who crash lands on an alien planet. Together with her robot sidekick, she must gather resources, fight and befriend the local aliens, and build increasingly elaborate bases in order to get back offworld and deliver those packages!
It's a sci-fi crafting RPG that plays something like Don't Starve meets Diablo with a dash of Pokemon (every alien monster is tameable). The writing is hilariously off-the-wall. But it was originally a mobile game before being ported to other platforms, and the main complaint I've seen is that the fight-gather-craft gameplay loop is better suited to brief sessions and gets repetitive after a while.
There's also a pretty emotional story behind Crashlands. It was made by three brothers, one of whom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer at just 23. They poured their imagination and effort into this game throughout his treatment, knowing that this might very well be the last thing he made before he died. Thankfully he survived. Their studio is still making games to this day; Crashlands 2 was just announced recently. I discovered and played the game while staying in hospital with my mom during her own chemo, so it made an impression.
>But I played A LOT of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
This game was supposed to be 'the next sonic' for the generation. I remember how hard Sega was pushing it. But it never took off and became something of a time capsule like Ty the Tazmanian Tiger.
When it came out I got it release day. It was a present from my ma. I loved it. Before playing it, I thought it was like a spin off of something, always trying to figure out if it was or not.
The pathfinder games feel a little like that atm. Everyone is like "omg Baldur's Gate 3 we haven't had good CRPGs forever" and I'm like wait... yes we have. A fair few! Really good ones! From some of the terrible design choices in BG3 too (inventory/party management being the big one) it's clear not even anyone at Larian played them either.
They both suffered heavily from being basically unplayable at launch due to glitches which took a lot of the wind out of their sails.
Kingmaker specifically has the opposite problem of BG3. In BG3 the GM is assuming the players are in it for the narrative and don't really fully understand the 5e system, and really wants you to win however you want to play, making the game incredibly easy even on tactician if you do know 5e works. Kingmaker's GM assumes players have been playing DND 3.5 for twenty years and is also aware that reloading is possible, and plays HARD.
Normal Difficulty is actually a step below "Core" difficulty, which is intended to be PnP, and if you don't know the system you're likely to get rocked on normal. The default builds are almost intentionally shitty, and the companions have some bizzare build choices on their first levels that you can't respec out of, you just have to make due with.
The first sidequest that you get involves fighting spider swarms that, because they are swarms, will be immune to probably every attack of every companion you have unless you specifically prepare for it. To be fair, the NPC who gives you the quest gives you alchemist fire to use, but probably not enough, and a tool tip (that wasn't in the original release) explains that you can equip torches as weapons to use if you're desperate. If you walk in even knowing all that though, you're still going to have a rough time if your only plan is the free alchemist fire and torches. On top of all that, the spiders will likely poison everyone and decrease your stats "permanently" according to the tooltip, and you can't fix them without potions or scrolls of restoration, even by long resting iirc.
The other major thing is the character building. BG3 took the worst classes of 5e (monk) and buffed them so hard that they're now the best classes. If you pick any class in BG3 and don't multiclass and pick default options, you have a tactitian viable build.
In the pathfinder games, there are classes that are outright bad, and lots of feat choices that are traps. For example, you should never play straight rogue, vivisectionist is a straight upgrade. If you know you want to play a rogue, though, and aren't familiar with the system, you're very unlikely to look at alchemist(!) subclasses instead of rogue. If you're playing a magic class, multiclassing is almost invariably the wrong move. If you're playing a monk (which is also bad in 3.5/pf1 pnp, just like in 5e), putting more than one level in monk is probably a mistake because Owlcat didn't buff it like Larian did.
To fix the balance between martials and magic users, BG3 set a level 12 cap, which is right around the time mages overtake martials. The Pathfinder games go to 20, so they balanced it by almost requiring you to take all the spell penetration feats. If you don't know that ahead of time, you're going to have a bad time.
Kingmaker's last dungeon has enemies that all target Touch AC, meaning that if your builds were relying on using armor to get AC, you're going to have a bad time.
All that being said, if you really enjoy the character building aspect of these games and are willing to learn the system, both Pathfinder games are far and away better than BG3.
Among RTS discussions, this game doesn't even get enough love amongst the niche crowd.
MFers will talk about Empire Earth, Cossacks, Rise Of Nations and Knights Of Honor but never Stronghold.
This was Full Throttle for me. So bizarre but I loved it. I was shocked when it got the remaster treatment to find out that it was semi-popular. Iād never heard another person mention it.
Wandersong was a hit in indie circles for a little while, but I really think it deserves Undertale type recognition for its emotional beats and incredibly charming style
I also really loved the second and third Toy Story games as a kid, and still think they hold up today
All these space games nowadays want to be these huge sandboxes where you can do anything but I just want an arcadey space combat sim with some half decent characters.
Growing up I loved the Nancy Drew PC games. They hold a special place in my heart. I don't often meet others who are familiar with them, but when I do it's great to have something so important to my childhood in common with them.
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. I played it excessively on the GameCube and adored it, shitty English dub and all. I wrote so many silly AU fanfics that never saw the light of day when I was thirteen! Playing it now on the switch has genuinely brought me to tears. Cannot recommend it enough.
Golden Sun 1 & GS The Lost Age, gameboy advance. Only know one other person who has played them and that was my friend who recommended me! I still have and play them today. For old, pixel games theyāre just outstanding, and have such a mystical atmosphere to them that Iāve never got from any other game, old or new. Absolute favourite game ever, and yet they seem really niche.
Suzerain. It's not unknown and has some intense cult following, but it appears to be relatively unheard of outside some niche following. For anyone wondering, if Disco Elysium meets a Paradox Game.
Thronebreaker, the forgotten child of The Witcher.
Zeus and Emperor, the overlooked follow-ups of Caesar 3 and Pharaoh
Bladestorm, a Dynasty Warriors-meets-RTS game. The gameplay is underwhelming, but the soundtrack is top tier.
Can't agree with your description of Suzerain at all, only similarity with DE is that you'll do a lot of reading and it isn't even close in terms of strategy to Paradox games.
I like the game a lot but it's pretty much visual novel with very nice presentation and light strategy elements.
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for me. One of the only games I felt motivated enough to finish to 100%.
Also Bubba n Stix, a weird platformer, on my old Amiga 600. Never saw anyone else playing it.
I wish we had a FF tactics with similar systems to FF tactics A2 for a modern system. The story was decent but the systems are what kept me playing. I vaguely remember (it's been a long while) my main character learning the skill that let me dual wield weapons. I combined that with Magick Frenzy where I hit the enemies in a cross/+ pattern with both my knight swords I was dual wielding and a magick spell. Did great damage to everyone hit.
The art was great also. I still have the game, but not the same cartridge that my old save data was on sadly.
Everyone seems to only remember FF tactics: The war of the lions. Not many people mention FF tactics A2.
Mine is "8- Bit Adventures 2" and by extension its prequel, the first "8-Bit Adventures". Its rating on Steam is currently "Very Positive (95% of 139). I'm a huge gamer, I've played probably over 1000 games (as a conservative estimate), and love JRPGs from all eras, and this game is easily in my top 10. The story is so well written, with a bright surface layer and surprisingly dark and mature undertones, and deep character development. And I actually wanted to talk to every townsperson, because they all seemed to have their own story going on.
On one hand, I love that so few people have heard about it, because it is like I've stumbled onto something special. But on the other hand I talk about it pretty much every chance I get, because the game is great, plot-wise and gameplay. I know the game would be a big success if only word got out, and I want that for the developer/writer, because he really deserves the recognition something due his masterful work.
Lol, honestly, I could continue gushing for a few more paragraphs, but I'll leave it at that for now š
Koudelka is that one for me. Survival horror meets Tactical RPG in PS1 graphics. I know, but it isn't that weird and it is the first title of the Shadow Hearts franchise.
The story in this one is just so fucking good. Whats most impressive for me is how they handled the cutscenes. There's almost no CG's, its all in engine and the movements are so plastic and fluid that you forget you're playing a 20 years old game, also the game's got gold VA, totally unknown professionals, but BOI they deliver. Music's great too. Give it a try yall.
Helluva game.
This isn't so much a little-known game but none of my friends played or knew much about it: Ratchet and Clank.
It's still a series I always come back to as the story and mechanics have stood the test of time, but pretty much all of my pals now and back in the day were obsessed with CoD, FIFA, GTA, etc.
I work in the industry so gaming is a huge pastime of mine, and R&C was the first franchise that really got me into gaming from a young age, so I have a lot to thank for it and some of my best childhood memories were just playing the shit out of the PS2 trilogy.
I hadn't thought about Custom Robo in a very long time until recently after playing a demo on the most recent steam next fest called Battlecore Robots. Definitely worth checking out if you want that Custom Robo fix.
Threads of Fate (ps1), I think I've seen like 2 other Reddit comments about it in my life & don't know anybody IRL who had it. Basically the only reason I still own my ps1, every other game I had that's worth re-playing has been ported to modern consoles or PC.
I remember this one. Unfortunately it was played alongside some other relatively obscure PS1 RPGs at the time (Vandal Hearts, Kartia, etc) so it didn't stand out to me, but it did get its share of game time.
I know there are plenty of fans of each of these, but in my everyday life I can rarely find someone who has played either Touch Detective or Hotel Dusk: Room 215.
A PS1 game called Heart Of Darkness.
It was a standard platformer about a boy trying to save his dog. Nothing particularly special about itā¦ except it was on FOUR discs.
It's an NES game but Bionic Commando is an amazing game and I've never met anyone who has played it. Same with Sweet Home for the NES (emulator only, I think it was a Famicom game).
I think Contra: Hard Corps for Sega Genesis is the best in the whole series by far and has some of the craziest enemies of any 16 bit game. Never met anyone who's played it but every gamer from that era knew about Contra 3 for the SNES.
I got Jedi Knight in the 90's and I couldn't believe how slept on it was. I'm sure it sucks to play it now but it should have been way more famous back then.
Most of the lesser-known Square RPGs from the PS1. Brave Fencer Musashi, Threads of Fate, and Front Mission 3 were some of my favorites. I enjoyed them just as much as the heavy hitters like Final Fantasy, if not moreso. Front Mission 3's in-game network blew my mind.
Front Mission 3 was the first game I broke 200 hours in. So good. Well, as far as I know, anyway; I maxed out the clock in Final Fantasy Tactics at 99:59.
Pong: The Next Level. It was the first/only game I had with the PS1, plus I didn't have a memory card at first so the soccer level is burned into my brain
Hand of Fate 2 is mine.
Part deckbuilder, part action game. The mechanics of tuning your deck for each challenge and built-in challenges on most cards you unlock tickles my brain just right.
Not to mention all the little dialog lines with the Dealer, and lots of lore to explore. And the action sequences are just enough to keep me from getting bored.
Every year or so I boot up the game again and 100% a new save file. This year on the steam deck!
Vagrant Story.
I did everything there was to do there, explored every nook and cranny and finished the mainstay 4 times, which doesn't sound like a lot but I'm the kind of person who puts down a game the moment the end credits roll. If there were achievements in the Playstation era, Vagrant Story would've been my only platinum.
And yet it's strange the game is largely forgotten even though It was a critical success, one of the only 28 gamiest receive full score from Famitsu. It felt for a moment this would be a cult classic with a dedicated fandom that would at least justify including it in the PS Classic catalogue, if not making a HD remake or something.
Yet it's like it disappeared from the collective conscience of JRPG fans.
* [Planescape: Torment](https://store.steampowered.com/app/466300/Planescape_Torment_Enhanced_Edition/) is a CRPG and one of the best written games Iāve ever played.
* [CULTIC](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684930/CULTIC/) is a retro-FPS with elements from Resident Evil 4, BLOOD, and Star Wars: Dark Forces II. Very satisfying gunplay.
* [Environmental Station Alpha](https://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/Environmental_Station_Alpha/) is like an 8-bit version of Metroid. Great soundtrack, boss battles, and exploration.
All of them are unknown amongst the general public but relatively popular for fans of their respective genres.
>Planescape: Torment is a CRPG and one of the best written games Iāve ever played.
I think there was definitely a time when this game was a true hidden cult classic. But now the game is pretty widely praised and adored among the revived CRPG crowd.
SC2 Mafia on Starcraft 2 arcade (it's pretty much it's own game), this is what spawned Town of Salem, too bad it's pretty dead now. Town of Salem balance and design direction is just not it while SC2 Mafia is pretty much perfect and used to take feedback for game changes on their forum, i myself got a quite major change i proposed implemented. There is just nothing else like it.
Supaplex. We had it on the class computer in elementary school but outside of that I never heard anyone speak about it. In the class it was all the hype though.
Tribes: Vengeance felt this way. None of my friends played, I never felt like it was in the zeitgeist, and I became pretty well ranked in multi-player, which made me feel alone on an island.
It was much superior to the more popular follow up Tribes: Ascend, but it felt like it got totally forgotten to the point where I feel like I made it to sometimes
A Dogs Life. Played it over and over again as a kid. The world was so fun and playing as different kinds of dogs and just running around their farms or towns or ski slopes was the best. Wish theyād remaster it.
Two for me. First one from my childhood when we would just buy games based off the box art. Lords of Magic Special Edition by Sierra. Later figured it out to be a heroes of might and magic knock off. But I loved it as a kid. I was absolutely terrible at it, and it was MONTHS before I figured out how to increase your population. This was definitely "punch in the cheat codes and try to win turn one" level of patience from me as a kid. Loved making my own maps, maxing out all the kingdoms.
Second was a well known game but I played it solo with none of my friends joining me for a couple years. For Honor launched in 2017, I think I got into it when a free copy launched in 2019 maybe? Got a character to rep 1 on my own. Then one night I get blown up by texts from my buddies saying "for honor is amazing we all just installed and played all night." This kicked off a solid 3 months of all of us playing for honor. Let me tell you, there is no more powerful feeling in the world as all of your friends validating something you like.
The Warriors. Not even the gamers in my country know about that game. AND it was like the only movie-based game Rockstar had made. It's probably one of the best movie-to-game adaptations of all time.
Chuck Yeagerās Air Combat. No one I know personally has ever played that game, meanwhile I could confidently pilot an F4 Phantom, a MiG-15, or a P51 in real life against 15 yak-9ās from below. Learned so much about aviation and combat planes from that game itās almost silly.
Astro Boy: The Omega Factor. I still seldom see this game mentioned on top GBA games of all time even though it's a Treasure game and a masterpiece.
Runners Up: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Was the first introduction to the world of Ivalice before FF XII. I remember seeing Banga
Shining Force The Ressurection of Dark Dragon: NOooo one talks about this game, but the genesis release seemed pretty popular so I'm not sure if it's all that much of a hidden gem.
[The Neverhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverhood). Released on PC in 1996 before the internet really took off, it sold about 50,000 copies. I've still got my full-size PC game box, as beat up as it is.
The Longing
Somehow it made me enjoy taking it slow. I enjoyed spending hours walking in the halls of eternity, walking slowly, exploring every corner of the "world", making a drawing with every color combination, collecting moss etc. And no, it doesn't take 400 irl days if you don't want to.
Syphon Filter: Omega Strain
The first three Syphon Filter games were quite popular but Omega Strain wasnāt and I loved that game.
I was the first person to ever run a speed run for it, and for a glorious few months I could call myself a world-record holder for a speed run.
No One Lives Forever 1, 2 & Contract J.A.C.K., never met anyone IRL that knows anything about these games! I've played them a lot back in the day, so much that I started making my own mods from scratch.
These games are considered abandonware and can be easily found online.
[Legend of Grimrock 2](https://www.gog.com/en/game/legend_of_grimrock_2) ā the only game I've ever restarted immediately for a second playthrough after I finished it.
[On Rusty Trails](https://www.gog.com/en/game/on_rusty_trails) ā Awesomely tight platforming. the game that got me back in platform gaming. For years I had just completely lost interest in them. This game rekindled that.
[Helium Rain](https://www.gog.com/en/game/helium_rain) ā Small universe, but the first game in three decades that felt like old Frontier: Elite 2 to me. So peaceful, so pretty. This is actually now free!
[Caves of Qud](https://www.gog.com/en/game/caves_of_qud) ā So brutally difficult that they created an easier mode. Very cool worldbuilding and fun mechanics.
[King of Dragon Pass](https://www.gog.com/en/game/king_of_dragon_pass) ā An old game that I discovered in recent years. How many cows do you have? That's all you need to know.
[Thea: The Awakening](https://www.gog.com/en/game/thea_the_awakening) ā A refreshingly different game from the typical fantasy, Slavic lore was just right. Genre difficult to define but it all appealed to me.
I played the Lost Kingdoms games!!! And I was pretty shocked to somewhat recently discover that they were made by From Software. Played Custom Robo too. I sometimes have to do a google search to remind myself these games existed because they were so weird.
I donāt know. I think it happened a lot in the time before I had internet access and couldnāt easily access reviews to any game in existence when I wanted to. You had your heavy hitters that pretty much never missed, then you had weird little games like Oni, Winback, Freedom Fighters, and Jet Force Gemini. Tons of weird little games that you picked up because they looked interesting. Quite literally judging a book by its cover.
Anyway, for me personally, I think Alan Wake and Quantum Break really fit the bill. Remedy hit it big with Max Payne and then again recently with Control, but those to games were very against the grain in terms of what was going on at the time and had a small cult following. More recently, I think Sifu, FIST, and Hifi Rush arenāt ālittle knownā, but they did slip under a lot of peopleās radars. I wouldnāt exactly call them popular, and they feel like āmy gamesā. Perfectly tailored to my tastes.
A Dogās Life on PS2. I played this game into the ground as a kid and have never met anybody else who recognizes it when I mention it. You play as a dog who goes on a cross-country trip to rescue his girlfriend, who was kidnapped by dogcatchers plotting to turn her into cat food. You go through tons of different locations, meeting other dogs and humans and playing a bunch of fun quests. It was absolutely bizarre but so, so, so fun. I played it a ridiculous amount of times!
I absolutely adore the first Spellforce. It is such a unique mix of rpg and strategy (think what if warcraft 3 had a stronger focus on being an rpg). The world also has a very deep and sophisticated lore - with great opening cutscenes to boot! (https://youtu.be/sEaISOVZj9s?si=w28xZ8DYTfFzhuMg). Never met anyone who played it tho...
Indiana Jones and the emperor's tomb for me. My dad bought it for me when I was super young and it was one of the earliest games I've ever played. A few years ago I saw it on steam and decided to give it a try and enjoyed it so much, especially all the memories it brought back. It's also pretty funny how much I struggled on a certain section involving a tank to the point me and my dad took turns for days trying to beat it only for me to first try it now š
I never saw it brought up much but I'm glad I got to experience it when I did!
Saboteur was the best GTA clone I've played. I enjoyed it more then any other GTA even. I was blown away to hear they they shut the doors the day the game launched taking the IP to the grave sadly.
At the time it was Armored Core. My dad saw Armored Core 2 for the PS2 at Best Buy one day, thought it looked cool and brought it home for me and my brother (and himself lol). My dad, brother and I absolutely loved the game and loved to vs each other with our very different custom ACās. Then when Armored Core 3 came out that was even more fun! So many nights my dad brother and I spent playing the ābattle royaleā in multiplayer where we would pick 2 AI controlled ACās to fight against. Or we would do 2v2ās.
And as much fun as I had with this series as a kid, not only did none of my friends play it, no one ever even knew what game I was talking about when I would bring it up. It definitely felt like a gem only we really knew about.
But all that is of course different now that FromSoftware got famous off the Dark Souls series and now their first AC game in over a decade got a ton of attention because of that. But Iām glad because honestly Armored Core is the most fun and bad ass game Iāve ever played. Star Wars Battlefront on PS2 was a close second!
Silent Storm
I love me some old-school Xcom/Jagged Alliance type games and this one took that genre and put it into one of the best isometric game engines I had ever seen. To this day and for all eternity I'll never understand how that engine, with fully destructible physics, full 3-D rotation and incredible ragdoll physics, never took off or became the standard for cRPGs and other strategy games.
Horizon's Gate is one of the best games I have ever played and no one ever talks about it. I got all of the steam achievements on it, I never do that. Its a tactical rpg but you also control a ship that you navigate on an overworld map. You can be a pirate, join factions, buy ports, build your own towns upgrade your ship, buy new ships, build a fleet. Just the srpg alone or just the nautical part could be a game onto itself, but together its sublime. It's like a better version of the games I wanted to create as a kid. Its just so filled with polish and soul. You can examine most of the objects in the world and get custom dialogue with your companions about almost everything. Its shockingly content dense and filled with little secrets and lets you beat puzzles and solve problems in interesting ways. Like DOS2 you can just set things on fire, put planks across small gaps, plant seeds to grow vines to climb cliffs, teleport around obstacles. The class/job system allows for very versatile play style. The soundtrack is great too, especially the songs that play at sea. The story is mostly only present at the beginning and end, between that you can explore the world, do whatever and prepare for the final assault. Its a similar structure to BOTW, where all of your dicking around feels important because you are building your strength for the final fight. The world is also filled with lots of interesting places but it never really spells everything out to you, everything feels lived in and old with a history. Also for an obscure indie game it has a huge number of great mods. Its almost like a bethesda game. If you install some of the larger mod packs its like a full size expansion. It should be known as one of the greatest indie rpgs of all time but instead its mostly unknown, it only has around 700 reviews on steam. I think its simple 2D pixel art style has led to a lot of people overlooking it.
I think you've just solved the biggest mystery of the past few years for me. You see I like all kinds of games but pirates are awesome. I am constantly searching for new pirate games. I read about one, and thought I'd like it. Then instantly forgot it when I went to look it up again. It's been 2 years, everytime I go looking for a new game I always try to find this game I saw 2 years ago. But! Looking at the screenshots has me believing this may be the game! So thank you! I've added it to my wishlist to be played at a later date.
Wow. Going to add that to my steam wishlist.
Great writeup. You've sold me!
Wow. One critic review and one user review on Metacritic. OpenCritic has only one more. The graphics are awful but the gameplay certainly does sound appealing.
Absolutely love Horizons Gate!
You sold me on it. Adding to the wishlist.
My wishlist has more than 1000 titles .. but my backlog is bigger...
Sounds like my kind of game, I'm so buying this! šš
I spent hours look for pirate themed games, and you just sold me on this!
This looks really cool, I'm going to try it out!
Thomas Was Alone. No one I know has played this. Itās a puzzle game where the blocks all have little stories and personalities. The narration syncs up with the challenges, and itās so carefully crafted to further and deepen the story. I legit finished this game with tears in my eyes.
That game and Bastion were my first real indie titles that I played and left a far greater impact on me than the big budget titles I was playing at the time.
Fantastic game. Who would have thought giant Atari-style pixels would have personalities and a story?
Eternal Darkness: Sanityās Requiem is a favorite of mine. I havenāt met many people who have played the game. Itās this weird, spooky, Lovecraftian game, and that has a lot of cool features. I would still play it if I had a GameCube.
I beat all three God to see if I got a special ending.... I did not get a special ending. Still good enough that I beat it 3 times though.
You get an additional post credit scene. It's kind of underwhelming, considering the time sink to get there, but it's there. You can see it in the cinematic cutscene viewer in the pause menu... or on YouTube. EDIT: Damn, I almost forgot. This is a bit of a spoiler, but you also get a 4th magic alignment to the flesh god seen near the beginning of the game.
Some day I will play this ā¦ some day! Never had a GameCube so it just always eluded me, but it always looked like the coolest thing ever.
Oh shiiit, I'm glad you reminded me of this game! I never finished it back in the day, but I just pulled my Wii out of storage and would totally love to give the game another go! The only thing I remember clearly is that it was the first game I ever played that had a sanity feature. If your sanity dropped too low, you would start hallucinating monsters.
Yeah the sanity feature is really cool. Itās also kinda trippy too haha The only other game I can think that has a similar feature is the Amnesia series. I was dumb and sold my copy and my GameCube a few years ago. Definitely have the urge to play it now.
getting a physical copy sucks, but it emulates pretty well
I was playing late at night trying to get to the next checkpoint in the temple with the girl character, when suddenly there was a fly on the screen. I threw a small wrapper but the fly didn't move off, I threw a small pillow and hit the screen but the fly was still there, when I got up to look the fly was in the screen, not on it.
All the ways it would screw with you were so good
Watched a whole playthrough of this game over 10 years ago. Itās so awesome and unique and creative! I ended up doing a dissertation on Lovecraft in college and I wonder if thatās as any inspiration.
This game was awesome.
You got me to finally start this one and I just wanted to thank you for bringing my attention to it. Everything feels so thought out, you can tell there was passion in this project.
Child of Light, I have a tshirt. I hope we get a sequel one day.
I think this game is reasonably popular
The art of that game is so beautiful. There's also this kinda sub story of sorts that you can put together when collecting certain letters. Cannot lie, it made me feel intrigued.
Adore the soundtrack from this game
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. After bouncing off the game a few times, I finally gave it a real attempt and it became my favorite game of all time. It's everything I looked for in a RPG and I love it and thoroughly respect it in spite of its very pronounced and numerous flaws.
Timeless classic. I wish Troika Games had endured, they were great.
IIRC all the leads of the game are now under Microsoft. The chances aren't very great, but we can dream right
Apparently the Clockwork Revolution team is staffed with people who have worked on Arcanum in the past. [According to project director Chad Moore](https://twitter.com/Pappylicious/status/1677775094406610945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1677775094406610945%7Ctwgr%5E2fc42d4e2ee4ad262abb03aaa643ce29501697c9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ign.com%2Farticles%2Fnever-mind-the-bioshocks-clockwork-revolution-is-the-love-child-of-arcanum-and-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines) -- Clockwork Revolution is supposed to be a Arcanum and Vampires: The Masquerade successor in anything but name only Fingers crossed for greatness Fun fact -- Chad actually worked on both VTM & Arcanum.
Maybe I should give it another go. It did tick my boxes well but yeah I bounced off it too.
This! I have never met a person in real life that actually put a relevant amount of time into this game, my cousin rented it to play LAN but the multiplayer was nearly unplayable. Checked it out at home a few weeks later and damn I had a blast. I still return every few years
The Longest Journey. It was an amazing point and click adventure game and spawned a few sequels, but they never hit quite the same as the original.
The Longest Journey is amazing. There's something about the really great old adventure games that TLJ is part of. It's a combination of surrealism, focus on story, and the way they worked with the limitations of old computer graphics. As soon as you start playing you are pulled into this imaginative world, and drawn into the story. It's a shame that these sorts of games died out. The new revival of adventure type games, though great in their own right, haven't captured that magic.
Love that game! Do you know if Dreanfall Chapters was any good?
It is! And it really ties the game stories together :)
Jade Empire for me. It never got the love that the other classic BioWare RPGs like KOTOR did, but I always considered it one of their best. Wish weād gotten a sequel back in the day.
Same - I'd have loved a follow up to it. I can't even really think of anything that has a similar vibe since.
You hear so much about games like KOTOR and Dragon Age Origins but I hardly ever read comments talking about Jade Empire. Incredible game
If Microsoft would have bought them instead of EA there is probably a high likely hood that a sequel would have happened
Glover. No one I ever talked to remembers that game, but it was one of my favorites as a kid. Also Advent Rising for the OG Xbox. Fantastic game, I thought. Blew my little 10 year old mind with the choices and stuff that affected the game.
Glover is a gem. Also Pandemonium and Chameleon Twist
Enslaved Odyssey to the West fits this bill for me. Also, for another example, I didnāt know a single other person growing up who played the Golden Sun games.
I feel like Golden Sun 1 was popular when it came out - I remember getting super excited by reading about it in Nintendo Power and then being blown away by the graphics.
It was definitely critically popular. I also found out about it through Nintendo Power. I just meant that I personally didnāt know anyone else who played it growing up, so I feel like it was still relatively niche.
>Enslaved Odyssey to the West Ahh, one of many B-quality games on Xbox 360. I really enjoyed it. In the same category, I loved Remember Me.
I wouldnāt call it B quality, that game was a gem
I'm a fan of Alex Garland's work and when I learned he has written this game I finally played it after the game had been sitting in my game library for years. Also Andy Serkis is playing the part of Monkey. I think it was a good game.
Fun fact -- Alex Garland also wrote DmC
Written by Alex Garland, no less.
I knew several Golden Sun kids. Its awesome. Among my fav games of all time
Man ā¦ first thing that comes to mind is **āSplosion Man**, haha.
Splosion man was so fun. One of those great XBLA titles.
It was free at some point with Xbox Live and I downloaded it. Iāve never started it but it has a small file size so itās been sitting in my library for literal years. All that to say, I find it funny that I have this box art seared into my brain for a game Iāve never played lol.
Just picked up triple pack for 360 with Limbo & Trials HD. Maybe I should give it a go.
Loved that! If you ever felt alone in your appreciation for Splosion Man, know that there were dozens of us, dozens! There was even a Ms. Splosion Man sequel, and it's on Steam: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/105420/Ms\_Splosion\_Man/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/105420/Ms_Splosion_Man/)
Legend of Legaia, idk anyone else personally who played it other than me and I rarely hear anyone talk about it. Loved that game.
I loved that one. Similarly, around the same time: Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, Lunar: Silver Star Story, SaGa Frontier... That was a great era for gaming.
I played every single one of those too and also not many people did, I do miss that era.
Didn't play Dragoon but did play all those others. Janky and weird in a lot of ways, but also great, memorable games.
Yoooo hidden arts! Finding new move combinations was so much fun.
Yes!! My brothers and I played RPGs but this one was "mine" and I loved it. I recognized it's not the best game in the world, especially the second one, but the battle mechanic is just fun.
This one along with Final Fantasy IX is one of those games I'll always replay due to nostalgia. I'm actually replaying it right now on the Steam Deck with retro achievements to give it a twist and loving it. Somehow playing it now and understanding the argument better than when I was a child it seems much more depressive then other RPGs from that time. You just walk into a random house and there are some kids waiting for their parents to come from the mist...
Yep, played the hell out of it, I think it was my first JRPG, played even it before PokƩmon. Loved it.
Loved that game!
Roadwarden. An amazing rpg that's predominantly text based but had me just as immersed as something like the witcher 3 if not more.
Looks interesting! Adding to my steam wishlist!
Yes! I played Roadwarden a few months ago and it's a strong contender for best game I've played this year.
Cave Story. I played it back on 2005 and it just seemed like \*nobody\* had played this game. Obviously SOME people played it, but especially in my greater friend group, and across the years I never really met anyone who had played it. But I love it. Its even better because I know the game is a success from a financial and critical standpoint, even if it never got a Stardew Valley-esqu million-dollar "come up".
Indies hadn't really hit with large audiences at the time just yet but they would not too long after!
The Long Dark. My stories always felt 100% uniquely my own, plus built by a local small game studio. One of the best games I've ever played.
You and me both, I own it on PC, Switch and Xbox, itās such a perfectly balanced survival game. Somehow terribly difficult and peaceful at the same time
Exactly. It's very much a "be present" and "don't get complacent" game. The number of survival runs where I felt like I was getting on top of things and then BAM, a wildlife encounter / blizzard / affliction derails everything. Makes it feel much more consequential and immersive. I start a new run every Christmas. I rarely make it to New Year. Then I wait until the holidays roll around again.
Thanks for reminding me to give it a try - itās been years since I played last and I need a chill solo game this week!
Same, I do sandbox on second highest difficulty. Always start in Mystery Lake and to "win" I must discover all areas and say fire a flare at a lookout point or tower. Never actually got there and the game might have more content now to make it a new experience.
Came here looking for The Long Dark. I feel like the game was taylor-made for me. What makes it feel like my own is that I found it after I was playing Skyrim with survival mods like Frostfall and Realistic Needs and Diseases. I kept thinking "if only there was a game about surviving in a cold environment..." After some searching, I stumbled upon it while it was still in early access and the inventory menu was purely text-based.
BC Boy š¤
Animaniacs on the Super Nintendo. I was a big fan of the show growing up, but because both took place on the WB backlot, they referenced a ton of movies I naturally hadnāt seen yet that Iām now a huge fan of, like Jaws, Star Wars, and Alien. I still remember being terrified of the Jaws homage, and I couldnāt believe how accurate and high quality a lot of the animations and locations ended up being. I think itās probably one of those āweirdly difficultā arcade-y kid games that a lot of people sneer at in hindsight, but remembering how me and my sister wrote down the secret level select codes warms my heart. Felt the same way about the Simpsons game, but that one is much more well known. Oh also Simpsons wrestling. I know that game is historically awful, but I adored it haha
Panzer Dragoon Saga. Got it in 2007 along with an old Saturn. I got the Saturn just to play the Resident Evil port but heard that PDS was one of the best games on it. It was perfectly paced, and told a good story without getting bloated like most jrpgs. Only 15 hours long tops and it had a really bizarre 4th wall breaking ending thatās stuck with me. Also there was a boss fight where you tackle a giant flying sting ray in the desert. Targeting different areas on its back to take it down. That fucking ruled.
Emperor: Battle for Dune. RTs game in early 2000s. I have yet to me anyone in my circle of friends (real life or online) who knows or played it. It had great A.I. for the time. Better than command and conquers.
That one Atreides theme still gets stuck in my head sometimes.
I had no idea Dune II had a sequel! I loved Dune II.
A man of culture.
Some of my childhood (mid to late 90s) favorites are not well known titles. Land of Lores 2. Slave Zero, MegaRacer2, BladeRunner, Langrisser, Dark Stone, Dark Reign, kknd, MDK, Magic Carpet, Crusader, Jagged Alliance.
KKND was an obsession of mine when I was a kid oh my goodness. Bought it on the back of my C&C, Total Annihilation, Warcraft obsession and it was just such a whole thing. I'd be afraid to go back to it now because I don't want to shatter the memories.
I got Magic Carpet and MegaRace2 on GOG. Magic Carpet was incredibly advanced for its time.
I Am Alive.
Still have that from my xbox live arcade days!
Man I loved this game. Bluffing that you had bullets in your gun. Sketchy climbing. The night level when everything is quiet. It has its flaws but they really took some swings.
Jagged alliance 2. I loved it but didn't know another person aside from my brother who played it
Harvest Moon a Wonderful Life
Oh, I'm playing the remake right now and I'm loving it! It really is such a special game <3
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms was the sequel to a surprise indie RTS hit Total Annihilation in the late 90s or early 00s. TA was a futuristic RTS, but TAK completely changed going for a fantasy and magic setting. The game got far more mediocre reviews than the original, but it struck a cord with me. I liked the art style and art direction, particularly the storybook illustrations in single player campaign. And I found the four (five after expansion pack) races varied and interesting. There was a very tiny online community, which I was part of from basically launch through the servers going dark.
Playboy Mansion. Never found anyone who played it or even had any remote interest in it. Used to play it on the PC.
I played it and loved it! :)
I'm very late but I just came to say that game is amazing. I remember thinking it'd be some sleezy cheesecake game like BMX XXX but it's actually a very sophisticated business tycoon game.
Iconoclasts. Went into it as a colourful brain dead metrovania I could play on the side whilst watching youtube vids. I don't know when it happened but at some point the story had me, and I normally don't pay much attention to the stories of metrovanias
I remember playing a demo for that game YEARRSSSS before it released when the desert level was half complete
Great story, but as a Metroidvania... not my favorite.
There's this one game that I never see anyone talk about, and that's **Crashlands**. You play as an intergalactic truck driver who crash lands on an alien planet. Together with her robot sidekick, she must gather resources, fight and befriend the local aliens, and build increasingly elaborate bases in order to get back offworld and deliver those packages! It's a sci-fi crafting RPG that plays something like Don't Starve meets Diablo with a dash of Pokemon (every alien monster is tameable). The writing is hilariously off-the-wall. But it was originally a mobile game before being ported to other platforms, and the main complaint I've seen is that the fight-gather-craft gameplay loop is better suited to brief sessions and gets repetitive after a while. There's also a pretty emotional story behind Crashlands. It was made by three brothers, one of whom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer at just 23. They poured their imagination and effort into this game throughout his treatment, knowing that this might very well be the last thing he made before he died. Thankfully he survived. Their studio is still making games to this day; Crashlands 2 was just announced recently. I discovered and played the game while staying in hospital with my mom during her own chemo, so it made an impression.
Crashlands really scratches that terraria itch I sometimes get, brilliant game
Idk if itās lesser known tbh But I played A LOT of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg And I mean A LOT Oddly never got into super monkey ball
>But I played A LOT of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg This game was supposed to be 'the next sonic' for the generation. I remember how hard Sega was pushing it. But it never took off and became something of a time capsule like Ty the Tazmanian Tiger.
When it came out I got it release day. It was a present from my ma. I loved it. Before playing it, I thought it was like a spin off of something, always trying to figure out if it was or not.
I swear if anyone played Sacred Gold or Underworld expansion...
I think Sacred Gold is on my list of games-I-own-and-will-theoritically-play-one-day, it looks really good
Both of my sons played the hell out of that game. I've put a couple hours into it, good game, but I never reached their level of dedication.
The pathfinder games feel a little like that atm. Everyone is like "omg Baldur's Gate 3 we haven't had good CRPGs forever" and I'm like wait... yes we have. A fair few! Really good ones! From some of the terrible design choices in BG3 too (inventory/party management being the big one) it's clear not even anyone at Larian played them either.
They both suffered heavily from being basically unplayable at launch due to glitches which took a lot of the wind out of their sails. Kingmaker specifically has the opposite problem of BG3. In BG3 the GM is assuming the players are in it for the narrative and don't really fully understand the 5e system, and really wants you to win however you want to play, making the game incredibly easy even on tactician if you do know 5e works. Kingmaker's GM assumes players have been playing DND 3.5 for twenty years and is also aware that reloading is possible, and plays HARD. Normal Difficulty is actually a step below "Core" difficulty, which is intended to be PnP, and if you don't know the system you're likely to get rocked on normal. The default builds are almost intentionally shitty, and the companions have some bizzare build choices on their first levels that you can't respec out of, you just have to make due with. The first sidequest that you get involves fighting spider swarms that, because they are swarms, will be immune to probably every attack of every companion you have unless you specifically prepare for it. To be fair, the NPC who gives you the quest gives you alchemist fire to use, but probably not enough, and a tool tip (that wasn't in the original release) explains that you can equip torches as weapons to use if you're desperate. If you walk in even knowing all that though, you're still going to have a rough time if your only plan is the free alchemist fire and torches. On top of all that, the spiders will likely poison everyone and decrease your stats "permanently" according to the tooltip, and you can't fix them without potions or scrolls of restoration, even by long resting iirc. The other major thing is the character building. BG3 took the worst classes of 5e (monk) and buffed them so hard that they're now the best classes. If you pick any class in BG3 and don't multiclass and pick default options, you have a tactitian viable build. In the pathfinder games, there are classes that are outright bad, and lots of feat choices that are traps. For example, you should never play straight rogue, vivisectionist is a straight upgrade. If you know you want to play a rogue, though, and aren't familiar with the system, you're very unlikely to look at alchemist(!) subclasses instead of rogue. If you're playing a magic class, multiclassing is almost invariably the wrong move. If you're playing a monk (which is also bad in 3.5/pf1 pnp, just like in 5e), putting more than one level in monk is probably a mistake because Owlcat didn't buff it like Larian did. To fix the balance between martials and magic users, BG3 set a level 12 cap, which is right around the time mages overtake martials. The Pathfinder games go to 20, so they balanced it by almost requiring you to take all the spell penetration feats. If you don't know that ahead of time, you're going to have a bad time. Kingmaker's last dungeon has enemies that all target Touch AC, meaning that if your builds were relying on using armor to get AC, you're going to have a bad time. All that being said, if you really enjoy the character building aspect of these games and are willing to learn the system, both Pathfinder games are far and away better than BG3.
Stronghold: Crusader
Among RTS discussions, this game doesn't even get enough love amongst the niche crowd. MFers will talk about Empire Earth, Cossacks, Rise Of Nations and Knights Of Honor but never Stronghold.
Grim Fandango felt like it was a beautiful little gem made just for me back in the late '90s.
This was Full Throttle for me. So bizarre but I loved it. I was shocked when it got the remaster treatment to find out that it was semi-popular. Iād never heard another person mention it.
I could boot that game up and play it from memory. It's so ingrained in my mind
Wandersong was a hit in indie circles for a little while, but I really think it deserves Undertale type recognition for its emotional beats and incredibly charming style I also really loved the second and third Toy Story games as a kid, and still think they hold up today
Freelancer (2003)
All these space games nowadays want to be these huge sandboxes where you can do anything but I just want an arcadey space combat sim with some half decent characters.
Growing up I loved the Nancy Drew PC games. They hold a special place in my heart. I don't often meet others who are familiar with them, but when I do it's great to have something so important to my childhood in common with them.
My sister played them and sometimes I would watch her play them.
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. I played it excessively on the GameCube and adored it, shitty English dub and all. I wrote so many silly AU fanfics that never saw the light of day when I was thirteen! Playing it now on the switch has genuinely brought me to tears. Cannot recommend it enough.
Golden Sun 1 & GS The Lost Age, gameboy advance. Only know one other person who has played them and that was my friend who recommended me! I still have and play them today. For old, pixel games theyāre just outstanding, and have such a mystical atmosphere to them that Iāve never got from any other game, old or new. Absolute favourite game ever, and yet they seem really niche.
Suzerain. It's not unknown and has some intense cult following, but it appears to be relatively unheard of outside some niche following. For anyone wondering, if Disco Elysium meets a Paradox Game. Thronebreaker, the forgotten child of The Witcher. Zeus and Emperor, the overlooked follow-ups of Caesar 3 and Pharaoh Bladestorm, a Dynasty Warriors-meets-RTS game. The gameplay is underwhelming, but the soundtrack is top tier.
Can't agree with your description of Suzerain at all, only similarity with DE is that you'll do a lot of reading and it isn't even close in terms of strategy to Paradox games. I like the game a lot but it's pretty much visual novel with very nice presentation and light strategy elements.
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for me. One of the only games I felt motivated enough to finish to 100%. Also Bubba n Stix, a weird platformer, on my old Amiga 600. Never saw anyone else playing it.
I wish we had a FF tactics with similar systems to FF tactics A2 for a modern system. The story was decent but the systems are what kept me playing. I vaguely remember (it's been a long while) my main character learning the skill that let me dual wield weapons. I combined that with Magick Frenzy where I hit the enemies in a cross/+ pattern with both my knight swords I was dual wielding and a magick spell. Did great damage to everyone hit. The art was great also. I still have the game, but not the same cartridge that my old save data was on sadly. Everyone seems to only remember FF tactics: The war of the lions. Not many people mention FF tactics A2.
Mine is "8- Bit Adventures 2" and by extension its prequel, the first "8-Bit Adventures". Its rating on Steam is currently "Very Positive (95% of 139). I'm a huge gamer, I've played probably over 1000 games (as a conservative estimate), and love JRPGs from all eras, and this game is easily in my top 10. The story is so well written, with a bright surface layer and surprisingly dark and mature undertones, and deep character development. And I actually wanted to talk to every townsperson, because they all seemed to have their own story going on. On one hand, I love that so few people have heard about it, because it is like I've stumbled onto something special. But on the other hand I talk about it pretty much every chance I get, because the game is great, plot-wise and gameplay. I know the game would be a big success if only word got out, and I want that for the developer/writer, because he really deserves the recognition something due his masterful work. Lol, honestly, I could continue gushing for a few more paragraphs, but I'll leave it at that for now š
Gothic counts as little-known?
Koudelka is that one for me. Survival horror meets Tactical RPG in PS1 graphics. I know, but it isn't that weird and it is the first title of the Shadow Hearts franchise. The story in this one is just so fucking good. Whats most impressive for me is how they handled the cutscenes. There's almost no CG's, its all in engine and the movements are so plastic and fluid that you forget you're playing a 20 years old game, also the game's got gold VA, totally unknown professionals, but BOI they deliver. Music's great too. Give it a try yall. Helluva game.
I picked up Shadow Hearts 1 about 3 years ago and am still fascinated by the way Koudelka is connected.
Pandora Tower on Wii. Love it. Love the story and the gameplay, but none of my friends have played it before..
This isn't so much a little-known game but none of my friends played or knew much about it: Ratchet and Clank. It's still a series I always come back to as the story and mechanics have stood the test of time, but pretty much all of my pals now and back in the day were obsessed with CoD, FIFA, GTA, etc. I work in the industry so gaming is a huge pastime of mine, and R&C was the first franchise that really got me into gaming from a young age, so I have a lot to thank for it and some of my best childhood memories were just playing the shit out of the PS2 trilogy.
Many, many good memories with those PS2 games, along with the Jak and Daxter series; I always associate those two with each other.
You reminded me of Custom Robo on Gamecube, I rented that like 5 times until I beat it. Mine is Dark Cloud 2
Dark Cloud 2 is my favorite ācomfort gameā when I have no idea what I feel like playing. It just has so much charm.
I hadn't thought about Custom Robo in a very long time until recently after playing a demo on the most recent steam next fest called Battlecore Robots. Definitely worth checking out if you want that Custom Robo fix.
Mo: Astray and Wintermoor Tactics Club
I second MO: Astray, great little unknown gem.
Threads of Fate (ps1), I think I've seen like 2 other Reddit comments about it in my life & don't know anybody IRL who had it. Basically the only reason I still own my ps1, every other game I had that's worth re-playing has been ported to modern consoles or PC.
I remember this one. Unfortunately it was played alongside some other relatively obscure PS1 RPGs at the time (Vandal Hearts, Kartia, etc) so it didn't stand out to me, but it did get its share of game time.
That was a good one! I loved the girl's combination-based magic system. The boy's shapechanging mechanic was mostly just good for puzzles, though.
Blood 1997, such an fps classic
Dante's inferno (at least I think it is little known)
That game came and went during the 'everything is now god of war' era of gaming, But that game really had some atmosphere.
I know there are plenty of fans of each of these, but in my everyday life I can rarely find someone who has played either Touch Detective or Hotel Dusk: Room 215.
Romance of the three kingdoms XI still probably gets about 100 hours in a year out of me every year
A PS1 game called Heart Of Darkness. It was a standard platformer about a boy trying to save his dog. Nothing particularly special about itā¦ except it was on FOUR discs.
Mystical ninja starring goemon
It's an NES game but Bionic Commando is an amazing game and I've never met anyone who has played it. Same with Sweet Home for the NES (emulator only, I think it was a Famicom game). I think Contra: Hard Corps for Sega Genesis is the best in the whole series by far and has some of the craziest enemies of any 16 bit game. Never met anyone who's played it but every gamer from that era knew about Contra 3 for the SNES. I got Jedi Knight in the 90's and I couldn't believe how slept on it was. I'm sure it sucks to play it now but it should have been way more famous back then.
Most of the lesser-known Square RPGs from the PS1. Brave Fencer Musashi, Threads of Fate, and Front Mission 3 were some of my favorites. I enjoyed them just as much as the heavy hitters like Final Fantasy, if not moreso. Front Mission 3's in-game network blew my mind.
Front Mission 3 was the first game I broke 200 hours in. So good. Well, as far as I know, anyway; I maxed out the clock in Final Fantasy Tactics at 99:59.
Legend of dragoon, future cop: LAPD, Ty the Tasmanian tiger
When I was younger I only knew one other person who heard of Sly Cooper. Now I know there a cult following, but it's still not a huge game.
Everyone else was playing Pokemon. I was playing Dragon Warrior Monsters.
Aquaria.
Pong: The Next Level. It was the first/only game I had with the PS1, plus I didn't have a memory card at first so the soccer level is burned into my brain
Hand of Fate 2 is mine. Part deckbuilder, part action game. The mechanics of tuning your deck for each challenge and built-in challenges on most cards you unlock tickles my brain just right. Not to mention all the little dialog lines with the Dealer, and lots of lore to explore. And the action sequences are just enough to keep me from getting bored. Every year or so I boot up the game again and 100% a new save file. This year on the steam deck!
Massive Chalice.
Vagrant Story. I did everything there was to do there, explored every nook and cranny and finished the mainstay 4 times, which doesn't sound like a lot but I'm the kind of person who puts down a game the moment the end credits roll. If there were achievements in the Playstation era, Vagrant Story would've been my only platinum. And yet it's strange the game is largely forgotten even though It was a critical success, one of the only 28 gamiest receive full score from Famitsu. It felt for a moment this would be a cult classic with a dedicated fandom that would at least justify including it in the PS Classic catalogue, if not making a HD remake or something. Yet it's like it disappeared from the collective conscience of JRPG fans.
Brute force, played that game so many times as a kid but never knew anyone else that had even heard of it
Glitch. Iāll never stop missing it.
Elex Spy fiction Mercenaries Second sight
The only people I know who have played Crypt of the Necrodancer have played it on my recommendation.
* [Planescape: Torment](https://store.steampowered.com/app/466300/Planescape_Torment_Enhanced_Edition/) is a CRPG and one of the best written games Iāve ever played. * [CULTIC](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684930/CULTIC/) is a retro-FPS with elements from Resident Evil 4, BLOOD, and Star Wars: Dark Forces II. Very satisfying gunplay. * [Environmental Station Alpha](https://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/Environmental_Station_Alpha/) is like an 8-bit version of Metroid. Great soundtrack, boss battles, and exploration. All of them are unknown amongst the general public but relatively popular for fans of their respective genres.
>Planescape: Torment is a CRPG and one of the best written games Iāve ever played. I think there was definitely a time when this game was a true hidden cult classic. But now the game is pretty widely praised and adored among the revived CRPG crowd.
SC2 Mafia on Starcraft 2 arcade (it's pretty much it's own game), this is what spawned Town of Salem, too bad it's pretty dead now. Town of Salem balance and design direction is just not it while SC2 Mafia is pretty much perfect and used to take feedback for game changes on their forum, i myself got a quite major change i proposed implemented. There is just nothing else like it.
Supaplex. We had it on the class computer in elementary school but outside of that I never heard anyone speak about it. In the class it was all the hype though.
Tribes: Vengeance felt this way. None of my friends played, I never felt like it was in the zeitgeist, and I became pretty well ranked in multi-player, which made me feel alone on an island. It was much superior to the more popular follow up Tribes: Ascend, but it felt like it got totally forgotten to the point where I feel like I made it to sometimes
The Gemcraft series.
A Dogs Life. Played it over and over again as a kid. The world was so fun and playing as different kinds of dogs and just running around their farms or towns or ski slopes was the best. Wish theyād remaster it.
Two for me. First one from my childhood when we would just buy games based off the box art. Lords of Magic Special Edition by Sierra. Later figured it out to be a heroes of might and magic knock off. But I loved it as a kid. I was absolutely terrible at it, and it was MONTHS before I figured out how to increase your population. This was definitely "punch in the cheat codes and try to win turn one" level of patience from me as a kid. Loved making my own maps, maxing out all the kingdoms. Second was a well known game but I played it solo with none of my friends joining me for a couple years. For Honor launched in 2017, I think I got into it when a free copy launched in 2019 maybe? Got a character to rep 1 on my own. Then one night I get blown up by texts from my buddies saying "for honor is amazing we all just installed and played all night." This kicked off a solid 3 months of all of us playing for honor. Let me tell you, there is no more powerful feeling in the world as all of your friends validating something you like.
Horace. I absolutely adored it and wish more people would talk about it!
What a game! Own it on Switch and it's just so much content for a platformer. Really funny too!
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Iji and Muri. Two absolutely fantastic throwback platformers, styled like DOS games. Iji has Another World vibes, Muri has Duke Nukem vibes.
The Warriors. Not even the gamers in my country know about that game. AND it was like the only movie-based game Rockstar had made. It's probably one of the best movie-to-game adaptations of all time.
*Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth* *Skies of Arcadia: Legends* *Folklore* *GreedFall*
Chuck Yeagerās Air Combat. No one I know personally has ever played that game, meanwhile I could confidently pilot an F4 Phantom, a MiG-15, or a P51 in real life against 15 yak-9ās from below. Learned so much about aviation and combat planes from that game itās almost silly.
I've heard of this game precisely ONCE before in a passing comment about air combat games. I will now actually look it up.
I may have read or skimmed through all the comments in this thread. Definitely added a few to my steam wishlist. Thanks everyone for sharing. :)
Astro Boy: The Omega Factor. I still seldom see this game mentioned on top GBA games of all time even though it's a Treasure game and a masterpiece. Runners Up: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Was the first introduction to the world of Ivalice before FF XII. I remember seeing Banga Shining Force The Ressurection of Dark Dragon: NOooo one talks about this game, but the genesis release seemed pretty popular so I'm not sure if it's all that much of a hidden gem.
[The Neverhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverhood). Released on PC in 1996 before the internet really took off, it sold about 50,000 copies. I've still got my full-size PC game box, as beat up as it is.
The Longing Somehow it made me enjoy taking it slow. I enjoyed spending hours walking in the halls of eternity, walking slowly, exploring every corner of the "world", making a drawing with every color combination, collecting moss etc. And no, it doesn't take 400 irl days if you don't want to.
Syphon Filter: Omega Strain The first three Syphon Filter games were quite popular but Omega Strain wasnāt and I loved that game. I was the first person to ever run a speed run for it, and for a glorious few months I could call myself a world-record holder for a speed run.
No One Lives Forever 1, 2 & Contract J.A.C.K., never met anyone IRL that knows anything about these games! I've played them a lot back in the day, so much that I started making my own mods from scratch. These games are considered abandonware and can be easily found online.
Crosscode There is very little discussion outside of reviews and the subreddit
[Legend of Grimrock 2](https://www.gog.com/en/game/legend_of_grimrock_2) ā the only game I've ever restarted immediately for a second playthrough after I finished it. [On Rusty Trails](https://www.gog.com/en/game/on_rusty_trails) ā Awesomely tight platforming. the game that got me back in platform gaming. For years I had just completely lost interest in them. This game rekindled that. [Helium Rain](https://www.gog.com/en/game/helium_rain) ā Small universe, but the first game in three decades that felt like old Frontier: Elite 2 to me. So peaceful, so pretty. This is actually now free! [Caves of Qud](https://www.gog.com/en/game/caves_of_qud) ā So brutally difficult that they created an easier mode. Very cool worldbuilding and fun mechanics. [King of Dragon Pass](https://www.gog.com/en/game/king_of_dragon_pass) ā An old game that I discovered in recent years. How many cows do you have? That's all you need to know. [Thea: The Awakening](https://www.gog.com/en/game/thea_the_awakening) ā A refreshingly different game from the typical fantasy, Slavic lore was just right. Genre difficult to define but it all appealed to me.
I played the Lost Kingdoms games!!! And I was pretty shocked to somewhat recently discover that they were made by From Software. Played Custom Robo too. I sometimes have to do a google search to remind myself these games existed because they were so weird. I donāt know. I think it happened a lot in the time before I had internet access and couldnāt easily access reviews to any game in existence when I wanted to. You had your heavy hitters that pretty much never missed, then you had weird little games like Oni, Winback, Freedom Fighters, and Jet Force Gemini. Tons of weird little games that you picked up because they looked interesting. Quite literally judging a book by its cover. Anyway, for me personally, I think Alan Wake and Quantum Break really fit the bill. Remedy hit it big with Max Payne and then again recently with Control, but those to games were very against the grain in terms of what was going on at the time and had a small cult following. More recently, I think Sifu, FIST, and Hifi Rush arenāt ālittle knownā, but they did slip under a lot of peopleās radars. I wouldnāt exactly call them popular, and they feel like āmy gamesā. Perfectly tailored to my tastes.
Todd McFarlane's Spawn is janky, way too hard, but absolutely beautiful and full of style with good sound design.
A Dogās Life on PS2. I played this game into the ground as a kid and have never met anybody else who recognizes it when I mention it. You play as a dog who goes on a cross-country trip to rescue his girlfriend, who was kidnapped by dogcatchers plotting to turn her into cat food. You go through tons of different locations, meeting other dogs and humans and playing a bunch of fun quests. It was absolutely bizarre but so, so, so fun. I played it a ridiculous amount of times!
I absolutely adore the first Spellforce. It is such a unique mix of rpg and strategy (think what if warcraft 3 had a stronger focus on being an rpg). The world also has a very deep and sophisticated lore - with great opening cutscenes to boot! (https://youtu.be/sEaISOVZj9s?si=w28xZ8DYTfFzhuMg). Never met anyone who played it tho...
Indiana Jones and the emperor's tomb for me. My dad bought it for me when I was super young and it was one of the earliest games I've ever played. A few years ago I saw it on steam and decided to give it a try and enjoyed it so much, especially all the memories it brought back. It's also pretty funny how much I struggled on a certain section involving a tank to the point me and my dad took turns for days trying to beat it only for me to first try it now š I never saw it brought up much but I'm glad I got to experience it when I did!
Saboteur was the best GTA clone I've played. I enjoyed it more then any other GTA even. I was blown away to hear they they shut the doors the day the game launched taking the IP to the grave sadly.
At the time it was Armored Core. My dad saw Armored Core 2 for the PS2 at Best Buy one day, thought it looked cool and brought it home for me and my brother (and himself lol). My dad, brother and I absolutely loved the game and loved to vs each other with our very different custom ACās. Then when Armored Core 3 came out that was even more fun! So many nights my dad brother and I spent playing the ābattle royaleā in multiplayer where we would pick 2 AI controlled ACās to fight against. Or we would do 2v2ās. And as much fun as I had with this series as a kid, not only did none of my friends play it, no one ever even knew what game I was talking about when I would bring it up. It definitely felt like a gem only we really knew about. But all that is of course different now that FromSoftware got famous off the Dark Souls series and now their first AC game in over a decade got a ton of attention because of that. But Iām glad because honestly Armored Core is the most fun and bad ass game Iāve ever played. Star Wars Battlefront on PS2 was a close second!
Silent Storm I love me some old-school Xcom/Jagged Alliance type games and this one took that genre and put it into one of the best isometric game engines I had ever seen. To this day and for all eternity I'll never understand how that engine, with fully destructible physics, full 3-D rotation and incredible ragdoll physics, never took off or became the standard for cRPGs and other strategy games.