Games

Full Spectrum Warrior.

A real time, over-the-shoulder, squad management tactical game.

Imagine Brothers In Arms style tactical command and contextual actions from AI squad members, mixed with a modern setting, mixed with pulling the player out of actually doing any shooting and putting them entirely in the role of command, and give it high lethality and a requirement to save all friendly wounded AI squad members (wounded ones have to be carried back to a medical tent).

Really unique couple of games that nobody has iterated on.

Nobody ever brings up Strife even when talking about old shooters as it is. Strife is, by far, the best Doom engine game that exists.

Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future on Dreamcast

Loco-Roco for the PSP. As a game developer, I consider this to be the pinnacle of game development. It is completely original, uses only two buttons, super intuitive, yet your drawn into it and want to play for hours. It makes me sad that few have heard of it.

Toy Story on the sega genesis (and snes) is a close second. It is actually a bit of a hot mess, each level is a completely different style of gameplay. But it is super rewarding to fight your way through to the end. And it showcases so many different styles of gameplay.

The Secret World. Not a flawless game, but the world building is awesome

Awesomenauts. The coolest 2D platforming MOBA. The gameplay is super fun and has a surprising amount of depth. Unfortunetly the devs have almost abandoned it and the playerbase is small (still active tho) but it's still one of my favorite games ever.

MDK. Sure, it was arguably "popular" when it launched, but is largely forgotten in videogame lore. There's not even talks of a remake.

Oh boy. I played General Chaos for the Sega Genesis religiously when I was younger.

This is an easy one:

Jump Ultimate Stars for DS, it is not only my favorite game for the console, it might as well be my favorite game ever.

To be fair I would not say it is like nobody plays it at all, but certainly it is on the low radar and this game would have been lower on the radar if it wasn't for piracy and because thank God the DS is retrocompatible.

Hotel Dusk 1 and 2 gets a honorable mention as well.

Micro machines was beautiful. The closest I've got to reliving the pure mayhem was probably Mashed (I think) for Xbox.

I was surprised that I haven't heard more about Returnal, because it's a really good game. It's difficult sure, but so are lots of popular games. It has great music, really fun gameplay and mechanics, and an interesting story with cool vibes. I thought it would get repetitive after a while due to the death mechanic but in actuality it honestly was addicting to play.

Similarly I don't hear nearly enough about Control despite it being a phenomenal game, but I do at least hear more about Control than Returnal.

Patapon 1-3 on the psp. It's been so long since I played it but I still say the little beats when I'm doing idle tasks. Pon-pon-pata-pon

Furi, A boss rush gamers wet dream. Trims the fat of an action hack/slash game. Simple combat to understand and hard to master. The soundtrack simply slaps too with an electronic symphony backing your carnage as you tear apart the bosses. I highly recommend checking in out as it frequently goes on sale for quite cheap.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. I played it a decade ago on iOS, loved it, and thought it was never going to see a modern release again.

I'm thrilled to see its recent release on the Switch and PC because it truly deserves a try if you like a good story and time traveling based puzzles.

Unicycle for the SNES.

One Finger Death Punch

Simple, but surprisingly addictive stickman fighting game. Although the title is a lie because you probably need two fingers to play it. I think this was the first game I went for 100% achievements.

Apparently it has a sequel which I didn't know about. Both are on sale for pretty much pocket change now too.

The Thief and Tenchu series need more love.

I used to consider Thief/Tenchu/Hitman to be the core stealth games but currently only Hitman is still being made :/

Custom Robo on the GameCube. It's an arena combat game with little digital robots that you fit different parts to. The story and characters were super cheesy, but it was such a great game.

We definitely need a new one on the switch. With all the characters in the latest Smash Bros I was hoping we'd get a Ray model, but nope, just a trophy.

Favorite obscure game?
Panther for Commodore 64 - The music is awesome!

Rez for Dreamcast/PS2 - not everyone talks about this game but the audience is a lot larger now than it was back when it came out for the Dreamcast and PS2 now that Rez Infinite is available in almost every current platform including the PSVR2.

I would’ve also said Another World (aka Out of this World) for the PC and SNES. But this game is also not-too-obscure like Rez. There are articles about it & the creation, re-released in almost every platform including the PS Vita, spiritual successors, copycats, and so on.

Rocket Slime is awesome!!!! I played this when it came out and I feel like no one has played this game. This game needed a multiplayer aspect or downloadable bosses to extend this game.

Knights and Merchants

It is an awesome medieval RTS that you have to also manage your city economy efficiently, feed your population (AND the soldiers, even if they are miles away), manage the finite resources etc.

Check it out, along with this mod: https://www.kamremake.com/

Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 3 is the sequel to rocket slime. It’s a great series and mechanic.

I’m really surprised Viva Piñata has vanished, given the recent surge of chill farming games. It was unique, cool designs, universe, characters. It feels like it disappeared, maybe due to licensing or something.

Maybe more obscure would be something like Graal Online, which was an early MMO, UGC focused top down Zelda game. I played a bit for months. Similar story with Gunbound.

Guardian Heores for the Sega Saturn. Absolutely loved that game.

World in Conflict is mine. One of the best tactical RTSs that existed with stunning visuals. A nuke going off was one thing, but when your team decides to spend their support points at the same time on artillery, carpet bombing, and cluster bombs, it was a sight to behold.

Original War. A very unique RTS about American and Russians fighting over a precious resource billions years in the past. It has an interesting story with memorable characters and branching choices. The game still looks decent, especially the between missions cutscenes didn't age badly because of the style of presentation. One thing that's rather hit or miss is voice acting, at least in English. There are two campaigns so you get to see both sides, skirmish mode, map editor and quite a number of mods. Some interesting mechanics like vehicle and building customisation. You can build not only combat vehicles with various weapon systems but also utility vehicles like trucks to haul resources and cranes to help with construction. You can pick propulsion method, tracks/wheels, size and if it's manned or unmanned, and each choice has some upsides and downsides.

The thing that stands out the most is that it's the only rts I can think of where you actually care for the life of your soliders. Due to the setting, there's no way to recruit new people, so losing anyone hurts, and you will be grateful for unmanned vehicles, trained primates and others methods that reduce the risk to your soldiers.

Just a heads up there is a GBA and 3DS game in the Slime series, but the 2nd game on DS is the only one that made it to America. No idea if there are fan translations, but might be worth looking into.

Archon, it's a chess game with monsters instead of typical pieces, and they fight when you take a space. I played it on a Commodore 64.

Little big adventure 1 & 2

Way back when "addictinggames.com" was relevant, there was a game called Avalanche. The background music (dreams of above) was an absolute banger that still gets stuck in my head sometimes. Just a simple platformer, but for some reason it stuck with me, and I absolutely need to get on a computer and see if there is a playable version somewhere.

Ogre Battle 64 is mine. The n64 wasn't exactly known for rpgs but this had so many characters, a ton of depth and an intense story that I wish it was brought up more. This was my intro to a tactical rpgs and I felt like I went right into the deep end.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Made by I think 3 or 4 people. Solid space flight shooter with charm. It's just fun.

Skies of Arcadia. I was a big Final Fantasy fan growing up, especially the original PS era. After looking for similar games, I came across Skies of Arcadia. I never see people discuss this game outside of niche JRPG discussions. This is one of my favorite games of all time, I put it up there with Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, etc. The biggest flaw with the game is the excessive random encounters, which they toned down in the Legends edition for Gamecube.

Wait, I have to pick one? No way! So:

Loom (PC) It Came From The Desert (Amiga) Wings (Amiga) Amber: Journeys Beyond (PC and the first game to truly scare the shit out of me) I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (PC)

Off the top of my head :)

I love Rocket Slime! and Keeping with the Dragon Quest Theme...

I love the Dragon Quest Builders games.

To many people sleep on them because they think they are simply Minecraft games with a Dragon Quest skin. And yes, there are a lot of mechanics lifted straight from Minecraft, they have a story mode that is like a typical RPG, and most of the time you are building a living, thriving town to act as your base of opperations as you execute quests and complete the story's campaigns. I especially like the story in DQB2 because of the bromance you form with your partner, and how much it expands on the size and the scale of the first game, though I also like the first one because it's a lot more digestible for short bursts.

"Darkstar one" on Xbox 360. It was the only game that actually ran at 60FPS. when i eventually went to sell it (as i got it on PC) neither of the 2 game stores (GAME and CEX) would buy it off me as it didn't register on their system.

Now one that people probably know about, especially as it has a lot of HD re-releases, but when Okami came out, basically no-one knew it. A real shame, as it was a gem of a game.

The journeyman project series (1, 2 and 3) had a major impact on my childhood

Hogs of War for PS1.

It's probably the first 'Worms 3D' style game.