Obscure Video Games

[Maypews]

Though I eventually came to the grim realisation that I like the idea of playing video games much more than I actually like playing them, I once spent a lot of time scouring databases and the internet for rarities that looked cool. Here are a few interesting ones.

Gaball Screen
Gaball Screen is an exploration "game" where you play as a flying shoe. Seriously. This one's pretty bizarre and outlandish, essentially just being a sandbox where you gawk at the aesthetics. Ostensibly it was some sort of advertisement for a really popular JPop singer named Tetsuya Komuro, but I know little about this fellow to be honest. If you like LSD Dream Emulator, definitely give this one a look. I had a good time with it and it doesn't take very long to get through. Scratches the same itch for sure.




Segagaga
Segagaga was a satirical JRPG made in the dying days of the Sega Dreamcast. Put together on a shoestring budget by a small team and released a mere two days before the ill-fated Dreamcast would be discontinued, it's an exceedingly meta JRPG where you play essentially as Sega and must fight against NotSony in order to save Sega's console division. It also has a quite adorable 90s art style.

This one I sadly have not played as it has never been translated to English. Indeed this title has garnered a fairly infamous reputation in the Dreamcast homebrew scene due to how it chews up and spits out translation projects. Believe the issue was something to do with the font rather than the dialog itself. However it seems like we're finally getting one, after just last year it had seemed like an eternal never ever a new translation project sprung up and started making great strides, with a video now existing on YouTube of a fully translated chapter 1 and the Dreamcast-Talk thread indicates that the process has been moving smoothly ever since.



Slap Happy Rhythm Busters
Slap Happy Rhythm Busters is a 2000 PS1 game with beautiful cel-shaded visuals that haven't aged a day, almost looking like Jet Set Radio's long lost cousin in this respect. The game provides an interesting approach to the 2d Fighter genre, attempting to implement Rhythm mechanics into the gameplay and basing special moves upon your ability to time said inputs. It's a fun little romp, though it perhaps lacks a bit in replayability due to it's nature of being so lost to time in an age before online multiplayer had become a thing.


N.U.D.E
Alright, so get this; what if we took Seaman, but made the mutant fish thing into a cute anime girl instead. That's N.U.D.E. Oh.. and it released exclusively for the original Xbox. The core gameplay loop seems to be essentially that you are training the robot waifu into completing various tasks and things like that. Yeah so I don't think this one is very playable in English either, but I find the fact that it released on the Xbox of all things incredibly bizarre (as if the game itself wasn't already).


I think I'll leave this post here for now, but I do plan on adding more to it in the future. Feel free to share your own obscurities here!

[StylusNine]

There were two games I vividly recall coming installed by default on Windows XP Plus Edition: Hyperbowl and Labyrinth Plus Edition. Both were my first real exposure to PC games in the early 2000s, back when "family computers" were still seemingly the norm for recreational purposes.

Hyperbowl is a bowling game where, rather than flinging the bowling ball from a fixed position, you directly steer and navigate it through a series of courses with the mouse. The original Plus! Edition release only had two courses—Pins of Rome and Classic—but later versions (available on Android, Steam, etc.) made on the Unity Engine feature a litany of additional courses that increase its replayability.



Labyrinth Plus! Edition is a game where you navigate a ball through a 3D maze in the form of a table, which you actually tilt to move the ball. The aim is to collect the gems on the course, avoid the holes, and reach the end of the course in the shortest time you can. Unfortunately, it was never officially re-released for modern systems like Hyperbowl was, so you'll have a harder time getting access to a playable version of it.



Additionally, Labyrinth Plus has a solid OST, with unique tracks for each type of course (determined by the skybox and table skin). The "Classic, "Electronic", "Hedge", and "Billiard" world themes were amongst my favourite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utoeE7I ... A1&index=1

[herzblutnord]

My grandfather was a gamer, When i was little he would pirate games and then also put them on floppys and CDs for me.
i have no idea what most of these games were called because the files were just named stuff like
GAME.exe or SHOOT.exe or stuff like that xD

a few of them i later found again, but some are lost forever, even on gaming forums i can ask people about it and nobody will know them. so basically i grew up playing some pretty obscure games i think.

my grandma still has a lot of his CDs i think, i should go and check them out at some point maybe, maybe ill find smth rare or super obscure on there!

[capstasher]

a few of them i later found again, but some are lost forever, even on gaming forums i can ask people about it and nobody will know them. so basically i grew up playing some pretty obscure games i think.

Lost media first uploaded to Deluoode?

[Blond]

a few of them i later found again, but some are lost forever, even on gaming forums i can ask people about it and nobody will know them. so basically i grew up playing some pretty obscure games i think.

Lost media first uploaded to Deluoode?

Hop on it, guys.

[Ragnarok]

Doubtful it's as obscure as the games posted thus far, but has anyone else played Evergrace for the PS2?



It's an ARPG with 2 playable characters, whose storylines you play separately but happen simultaneously. You can switch between characters/storylines at any save point or play one story through before switching to the other. You'll need to complete both storylines to beat the game.

The game doesn't have character levels, instead you upgrade their equipment. The equipment does run out of durability as you use it and you'll need to either repair or upgrade it to restore durability. There's also a stamina system for skill usage. It can be a challenging game if you go into a boss fight unprepared, but if you're keeping up on upgrades and learning the monster attack patterns and their elemental weaknesses, it's not so bad.

My favorite thing about the game is the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. I got the game as a kid from a pawn shop and the plot completely escaped me, but I just really loved the music and how empty the world was (one of the things people tend to dislike about it). The empty world seemed to fit the theme so I've always thought that the lonely feeling was intentional. Realistically though it may have been due to budget cuts and time constraints. The game was originally developed for the PS1 but the devs were too ambitious; after about half of the game was completed, they decided to release it on the PS2 as with the more powerful hardware they could actually realize their vision. However, this meant re-creating almost everything from the ground up. Despite the mixed reception and low sales, it actually seems to have a cult following and there was even a prequel released called Forever Kingdom. I've never played the prequel but it's in my backlog!

[rileymross]

Hotel Dusk and the sequel were always my very favorite games. Ever since the DS the state of Adventure games in general really hasn't been too good.