/v/ - Video Games

Vidya Gaems

Index Catalog Archive Bottom Refresh
+
-
Options
Subject
Message

Max message length: 12000

files

Max file size: 32.00 MB

Total max file size: 50.00 MB

Max files: 5

Supported file types: GIF, JPG, PNG, WebM, OGG, and more

E-mail
Password

(used to delete files and posts)

Misc

Remember to follow the Rules

The backup domains are located at 8chan.se and 8chan.cc. TOR access can be found here, or you can access the TOR portal from the clearnet at Redchannit 3.0 (Temporarily Dead).

Ghost Screen
Celebrating its fifth anniversary all September


8chan.moe is a hobby project with no affiliation whatsoever to the administration of any other "8chan" site, past or present.

Reminder that 8chan.se exists, and feel free to check out our friends at: Comics, Anime, Weekly Shonen Jump, /b/ but with /v/ elements, Official 8chan server: mumble.8ch.moe:64738

(21.13 KB 316x315 Mizzurna_Falls_cover_art.jpg)


(4.73 MB 2400x1350 garage_bad_dream_adventure.png)

(41.13 KB 255x260 Hellnight.jpg)

Most Obscure Game >(You) Personally Know Anonymous 05/30/2025 (Fri) 01:56:23 Id: 1eef7b No. 1416920
There are countless strange games out in the ether, most of them lost to time but a good portion saved by virtue of autistic retards the world over. Titles you've probably tossed your glance past at Gamestop or Best Buy years maybe even decades ago, or scrolled past without a second thought through a Steam sale at -95% off. Myabandonware has a ton of them, and whatever you might think of GoG they at least seem intent of picking up whatever old or forgotten games they can get their hands on to re-release for modern audiences. I watch a lot of Youtube channels and (((video essays))) about obscure games, so I'm no stranger to a lot of them: Mizzurna Falls (proto-Deadly Premonition), E.V.O.: Search for Eden (proto-Spore), Garage: Bad Dream Adventure (proto-Jap/Slavjank?), Hellnight (proto... Resident Evil 3, sort of?), and countless others. They all seem to shine a little bit more of a light on the thought process of early game devs, or help to elucidate how trends and concepts have shifted and changed over the years, adapting to changing technology and the ever shifting target of what makes a game "good" or even "successful." If nothing else, it's fun to see how the seeds of future classics were present years before their release in some odd off-the-wall title probably forgotten by most. Inevitably, though, there are always more games yet to be unearthed, titles yet to be revealed to the masses, whether they're old 3DO or Dreamcast titles never localized, limited-run PC games from companies who had their lives cut short, or simply some odd concept that managed to fly under the radar for decades after release. You can only play so many games in one lifetime, and honestly the best way to learn about truly unique or obscure things is by word of mouth. Which is why I ask you... What is the most obscure game you know of?
(30.58 MB ARIA_2_3.swf)

Maybe the best game I can offer as an "obscure" title would be Metropolismania, a fun little city-builder for the PS2. It essentially plays like an on-the-ground Sim City where you're tasked with building roads, laying down houses and businesses, and also socializing with the populace of the town you're building to get more contacts and references for things like shops, schools, parks, etc. to build while finding out what everyone is desiring in certain areas. It's definitely a product of its time -- cities don't get too big (only a few thousand people at the most) a lot of the mechanics reflect that (you call your contacts with a cell phone, you mark down roads with a piece of chalk, new residents and contracts are reviewed and checked off through a little checkbook) and despite being localized a ton of the dialogue and conversations are full of broken English and sort of nonsensical discussions. Decently fun, pretty charming and relaxing, and ultimately run of the mill save for being able to have cavemen and aliens move into your cities in later levels, not to mention a fucking cult overtaking your city less than halfway through the game. Besides those bits though, it's a fun game that's not too difficult but isn't very popular since I haven't ever once heard another person mention it anywhere. There was a sequel made but apparently it wasn't received exceptionally well. All I know about it is it's got a bit more of an anime style to the characters and environments, but ultimately it looks like more of the same. Never played it myself but interestingly, it seems to have more detailed building designs and ultimately a more polished UI, so I'm not entirely sure why it didn't succeed where the less-polished first one did?
(400.30 KB 480x640 holy titanic tuna.png)

(102.44 KB 795x661 Shyna_artwork.png)

(232.23 KB 1000x1261 Silhouette_mirage_ad_i_think.jpg)

>>1416920 Silhouette Mirage. A 2D action game made by Treasure studio for the Playstation and Sega Saturn (which I believe the head dev said is the superior version but the playstation version has an extra boss) what's weird is that this game feels more like an experiment of a new type of style. One of the main mechanics is shooting enemies that have different colors. Red being the Silhouettes and Blue being the Mirages. Don't worry though you have some benefits of shooting the enemies with the same color, most you can do is drain their levels down to refill your mana gauge (is what the game calls it). And of course being a Treasure game you can grab and throw enemies (they won't take any damage unless you hit them with an opposite color.) The game has a really big emphasis on positioning yourself on whether or not you need to deal damage now to proceed or focus on refilling your mana while you drain down the enemies levels. Not only that but you can fuck bosses over if you choose to drain their mana keeping them from using certain attacks. I think Treasure did a good job with the main character though, Shyna Nera Shyna. Her clothing does a good job at showing which color you're on when Treasure starts throwing shit at you. What's really weird is that nobody (and I mean the indie game scene in general) has attempted at this type of gameplay mechanic where positioning yourself is important. If you want to play this game I recommend playing the Sega Saturn version, not only that but somebody made a proper translation of the game. (I had gameplay footage but I deleted it to make space on my hard drive. Fuck my life I'm retarded.)
(18.36 KB 640x480 oekaki anon.png)

>>1416940 Uh, sure I guess. I don't know anything about that beyond it being a flash game and porn but definitely flash games fall into the more obscure category, especially since the entire platform itself doesn't even exist anymore. Which is really sad since flash itself sort of served as a budget console for a lot of people for like, its entire life (1995-2020, literally longer than almost any other console or platform in existence). On the positive side I've seen a lot of more famous flash games get re-released on iOS/Android/Steam, like Monster's Den or Burrito Bison... but that also means they've gone from a purely free experience to a purely paid product. So, not exactly the best outcome for the games that did survive that transition. >>1416992 Yeah, that's definitely a good example of a really obscure game. It's a Treasure game too and despite knowing about them I've never even heard someone talk about that title.
Test
(133.40 KB 256x256 LSD_Coverart.png)

>>1416920 Evo is a lot of fun. I think the most obscure games tend to be shitty games, because "hidden gems" like evo and LSD dream emulator tend to get discovered by the internet, and gain a following. That said LSD is probably the most obscure game I can think of that isn't garbage. Extremely limited japan only release, somehow managed to get rom dumped and put on the web. Probably came very close to vanishing from this world entirely. Very very unique and cool game. Inspired yume nikki I think.
(213.31 KB 640x480 672titlescreen.PNG)

Star Platinum, an eroge card game with a gorgeous CG work. Plays a bit like Poker, where you have to get points gathering sets of zodiac-themed cards in your hand.
Non European shitskin plebs will never understand...
>>1417252 Never played it but I've dumped oceans to its HCG when I was a kid.
(32.10 KB 300x424 300px-Gun_Metal_cover.jpg)

(29.43 KB 640x480 aug05b_3jKwS7s.jpg)

(23.06 KB 640x480 oct07b_dulRcVO.jpg)

I played this game about 10 years ago, only because it happened to be my friend's childhood game and he knew I liked old games and didn't care about graphics, otherwise I would have never heard of this gem. The game's gimmick is that you play as a giant robot that can transform into a plane with the press of a button. The maps are large, to accommodate for the plane form. You will usually turn into plane mode to go to the next area and shoot flying targets, while the robot form, I think has more powerful weapons, but I can't remember. Missions will be variations of defend city/ally to destroy enemy outposts/targets. Story is almost non-existent, music and graphics are forgettable, the only memorable thing is the gimmick, and how the game ended for me. It was not a very easy game, but I kept going at it, the final mission was to destroy the main bad guy's base, so I crushed it, only to find out that it wasn't the final mission, there was another one, where my allies only had only one city remaining and the enemy faction was mounting one last assault that could win them the war. This was after missions upon missions of successfully defending my ally basses and bringing genocide upon my enemies. So I manage to destroy the enemy ship, just as it finished destroying the ally city and got the "It's over! We've lost!" Game Over message. Motherfucker, I just destroyed the enemy capital ship! What happened to all the other bases?! Maybe I should have joined the enemy forces. So I decided to end the game there, and take that as my ending, both factions lost and I went my own way with my robot.
>>1417464 That last image is giving me some pretty strong Lost Planet vibes.
(118.54 KB 797x800 pickupexpress.jpeg)

(108.80 KB 400x570 billy_blade.jpeg)

>Pickup express Got it when I was 5 along with the phantom menace on VHS. I played it and didn't understand what to do. >Billy blade Action platformer that came with a pack of piroger. Most memorable thing is my neighbour saying "No one cares about billy gay(bög)".
(35.09 KB 256x310 SubmarineTITANS_orig.jpg)

(22.84 KB 640x400 helious_2.png)

(138.92 KB 594x600 sony-playstation-rat-attack.jpg)

(89.93 KB 616x353 capsule_616x353.jpg)

>>1416920 My turn Helious is a puzzle game about learning how to disable the sticky key on windows and figuring out the cryptic message made (supposedly) by real world aliens Rat Attack is basically Chu Chu Rocket but fighting on the side of the cats Tony Tough is an extremely worse version of Sam and Max Hit the Road, but I keep being reminded of this game because 1) it's the only Italian developed game that ever comes to my mind and 2) the protagonist is one of the wimpiest main characters I've ever seen, even worse than that nerd from that one SNES game.
(15.49 KB 256x254 Vib-Ribbon.jpg)

(123.56 KB 256x363 Mojib-Ribbon_Coverart.png)

(263.05 KB 264x375 Vib-Ripple_Cover.png)

I was originally going to start with "Most of you probably already knows about vib-ribbon..." However, I just learned that it was only released in the PAL and Japanese regions. It's probably one of the earliest, easily accessible, rhythm games that let's you use custom music (the game itself is absolutely tiny and can be entirely loaded into the PS1 RAM, allowing you to swap the game disk out for music CDs) However, from what I've seen of gameplay vids, the technology isn't really there to keep up with the beat of most music tracks. What's however, even less known, is that the game had two sequels: Mojib-Ribbon and Vib-Ripple. There is also a surprising amount of vib-ribbon porn on rule34, I expected something like 3 or 4 pictures, not over 400 pics.
>>1418288 That looks cool, what's it about? >>1418533 >Helious That looks frustratingly familiar. I want to say I have played it before but it might just be the look of it and how similar the look of other early PC games looked, like Commander Keen and Zoombinis. Lots of vibrant colors, gradients, weirdly smooth pre-rendered 3D models... That was a really weird time aesthetically speaking. >>1418833 Never knew they made sequels to Vib-Ribbon, then again it was really niche even back when it came out. >over 400 pics. Not enough.
>>1423348 An old ass RTS game which it's niche is you are commanding submarines under water as far I remember. It had 3 factions 2 humans fucking each other up and your secrit ayylmaos. Shit you not I played that game 3 to 5 religiously I loved that so much I even recreated some of the submarines with the lego I had and played them as I would on PC.
back when artsy types used to make good games and when the go to platform for pc games was big fish games not steam its a game where you have artists renovate the place, to get more inspiration to get better art pieces to get more money to get better facilities to get more artists to get more of this cycle you can have a maximum of 20 artsits with 10 art pieces each, and each artpiece needs to actually attract a buyer. sometimes you cant be choosy with how much you sell it for. you can also "inspire" artists by forcing them to date. but only once and shouldnt be wasted. I really like some of the art pieces. they are really pretty. there was photography, painting, sculpting, singing and theatrics. this game actually thought me that photography and painting both can be artsy in their own right.
(26.85 KB 288x334 Tonerebellion.jpg)

genuinely believe this game gave me brain damage as a kid
>>1416920 >Jennifer's Quest 1&2 Some dude made a few jrpgs for his daughter and put them on his barebones website sometime. I found them around 2000. Lost the EXEs and haven't been able to find them since. Not related to the degenerate stuff found on https://megagames.com/freeware/jennifers-quest-i-ii It was the first jrpg I played, so I can't say much about how it compares to others, but I hate the ui system. Kinda miss the times when gems could be found just laying around on the internet for free.
>>1451261 I don't know what exactly I'm looking at but it looks pretty fucking cool
(214.33 KB 762x600 1376387056760.jpg)

Microsoft Manic Marbles PC Demo/Trial 1996 There's almost no information about it anymore.
Remembered another game that I've seen talked about pretty much nowhere, hsx (aka hypersonic.xtreme) man I wish games still did really stupid stylized names like they used to. Basically an F-Zero clone but decently fun with some designs pretty close to Star Wars and the former. The music was serviceable and the gameplay was decent but what really made it stand out was the fact the game came with a track editor, which was pretty insane for a console game from 2002. Evidently it got pretty mixed reviews but I remember it fondly for the creative fun it offered. Also based on the IGN review from close to its release, it apparently released at $9.99. Probably why my parents got it for me back then.
(179.56 KB 1280x720 maxresdefault.jpg)

The Madeline point and click games from the 90s.
(193.62 KB 1280x720 ACONCAGUAS.jpg)

Aconcagua, cool game meant to pander the south american market that in the end never left JAPAN. Was fantranslated a few years ago.
>>1504974 Necroing the thread but I just want to say I really do like the look of it. This is what I think of when someone says "low-poly PS1 graphics." Maybe it's the snow that really seals the deal for me, idk.
>>1504974 >snow >south america Is it about Uruguayans committing cannibalism?
(70.25 KB 960x720 majinwar-the-evil-secret_6.jpg)

(18.05 KB 474x355 OIP.webp)

Bad RPGMaker fetish games. I'm talking ones that don't even have CGs, all the "porn" is text and dialogue, and the gameplay was genuinely awful from every perspective imaginable. I've forgotten their names and I'm not going to say them if anyone asks but I can probably find them if need be. Otherwise it's probably some obscure flash games or some shit from forever ago. Majinwar is a pretty obscure game now, I liked it and it's sequel a lot. One game I played as a kid was one of the Dracula games on PC. I think it was Dracula Resurrection. Rage of Mages 2 was decent I guess. Played a bunch of RTSes (mostly demos but did occasionally get some as birthday presents) as a kid, and pretty much all of them are lost to time. One of the more prominent ones I remembered was Empire Earth 1 and 2, those were great.
It's a pretty fun open world game set underwater, complete with cheesy FMV cutscenes. You can't buy it anymore though not even on gog.
>>1710067 >cheesy Full Market Value cutscenes What did he mean by this?
(129.16 KB 680x537 I don't know.png)

>>1504974 I read that an Anaconda first and spent a while figuring out what snowy mountains had to do with a bigass snake. >Bad RPGMaker fetish games. Barring the fetish aspect there's like a million RPGmaker games that are really unique in their design and execution. A ton of let's plays I've watched really display the range of creativity some people have with such a simple engine. >>1710067 Is it still available online, either as a dump or even secondhand?
>>1710531 I forgot to quote >>1709824 for the second part of my post, oops.
(680.55 KB 512x512 Cyber Org (Japan).png)

(1.16 MB 1317x1080 Cyber Org 002.png)

(1.03 MB 1317x1080 Cyber Org 003.png)

(1.56 MB 1317x1080 Cyber Org 004.png)

(21.59 MB 664x540 boss.webm)

Reposting this >>1681184 here because it's a more appropriate place and I didn't notice the thread before: Just taking some time to recommend Cyber Org on the PSX. This is one of the most obscure games I've ever seen, with hardly any info about it online, and literally zero info or guides on game mechanics, at least in English, which is a shame because this game is pretty fucking good. The game is in Japanese, but the interface and all the voice acting are in English, so you only miss out on things like e-mails and hints and the game is easily playable even if you don't know any Japanese. The game is a sci-fi dungeon crawler with action combat. You have a melee combo on square and a special weapon with triangle which is different for each character. The melee is free but the special weapon consumes the blue energy meter. The combat itself is simple and starts out easy, just run up to an enemy, hold R2 to lock on and stunlock them to death with your square combo, but as the game goes on the enemies start getting more aggressive and numerous and they do a lot of damage, and the combat becomes more about positioning and spatial awareness since your combo has a long recovery and an enemy attacking you from behind during your recovery can take half your health in one hit in later areas. But weirdly enough, the combat is not the central mechanic, that would be the resource management. This is an anti-hoarding game, forcing you to constantly make decisions on what items to pick up and what items to consume. You have three characters with limited inventory, 20 slots each, and you also have a box at save points that can hold 60 items. You can play one character at a time and switch characters when you're outside of a dungeon. Each character has a stamina bar (the yellow bar in the screenshots, called "GP" ingame) that constantly depletes, even when standing still, and when it reaches zero it starts to slowly damage your health and eventually kills you, so you're constantly under pressure while in dungeons. When you're playing a character, the other two will slowly regain stamina, but usually at a slower rate than you consume it, so you'll be under a stamina deficit unless you regularly consume medicines to restore it. Every medicine restores a little bit of stamina regardless of its effect, with the medicine refresh being a full refill, but all the drops are random and the refresh medicine is among the rarer ones. You usually have to complete multiple floors, sometimes a lot of them, before you find the exit to the dungeon and can switch characters or use the item box, so managing your resources is important, with stamina and inventory space being the two that force you to make decisions most often. Killing enemies and destroying things gives you something called Access Points (AP) which you spend when interacting with terminals. You need to use terminals to unlock doors, unlock the teleporter to the next floor, get the floor map, and a bunch of other things. You generally get way more AP than you need, so I'm guessing it's just there to prevent you from running past enemies, since you won't be able to use terminals unless you kill at least some enemies. Sometimes you will run into a dungeon that only a specific character can complete, and you'll be under extra pressure if that character happens to be the one who just did the previous dungeon and is tired. So far I've found three types of "barriers" for specific characters. When entering a room triggers an alarm and starts spawning infinite enemies, you're supposed to use T.J. (the blue guy) and use his stealth camo to sneak past that room (hold circle for a few seconds to activate it). Whenever there is a platform you can't jump high enough to reach, that's meant for Fosis (the purple bug guy) but you can also use a medicine jump. Finally if there is a strange wall that has a hit effect when you attack it, but doesn't break, you're supposed to use Gigante (the big green guy) to break it. These hard barriers are always on the first floor of a dungeon and that floor will always have an exit portal so you can get out and switch characters. I'm leaving that info here because I got stuck at those parts for a while. As weird as it sounds, I would recommend this game to people who enjoyed all the decision making with the inventory management in games like Resident Evil. The way you have to decide what to pick up, what to leave, what to consume and what to throw away feels kinda similar, you're constantly juggling resources to progress. It's not just what you need to consume to refill your bars, you also have to power up with drugs to keep up with the enemy power creep. It's a repetitive game, but it's one of those repetitive games where the constant pressure to move forward while juggling all your resources gets so addictive you don't really mind the repetition. Oh, and the game supports the dualshock and I would highly recommend using it over the dpad. This game has better camera control on the right stick than any PSX game I've played, it's even better than some PS2 games.
>>1710531 >Barring the fetish aspect there's like a million RPGmaker games that are really unique in their design and execution. These aren't your Yume Nikki's, LISA'S, or Corpse Parties. These are just really terribly made "J"RPGs. In every metric I can conceive of for a game, they are awful.
>>1416920 Play Little Magic. It's a remake of a JP exclusive SNES game where you push the object to the podium and reach the exit, very Sokoban-like in essence but with an interested timed explosive mechanic that you use to push the object around. The GBC version improves upon it in every way. It has a save feature, a better story mode, artstyle and music. 100 levels that slowly pick up in difficulty, introducing hazards and enemies. It even has a postgame with an unlockable character. There are barely any resources of this game online. It's the definition of a hidden gem.
(75.79 KB 640x652 Poypoy.jpg)

(52.96 KB 640x640 Unholy War.jpg)

(60.73 KB 490x500 Jade cocoon 1.jpg)

(18.05 KB 256x363 Jade cocoon 2.jpg)

I got a couple that I never see anyone mention. <PoyPoy >4 character comedy free for all >Object is to throw objects in the environment at each other >each character has unique gloves that let you use a unique skill when throwing the objects, like making it bounce or sliding along the ground <Unholy War >1v1 top down arena fighter >one team is all magic and monsters >the other team is technology and grunge >when a character is defeated, they are "dead" and you select a new character while your opponent has to stay as they are <Jade Cocoon 1 and 2 >Jade cocoon is pokemon but better >solid but has some dated aspects >There is a ps2 sequel >it's different in playstyle but has a fun gameplay loop >plot literally centers around the MC of the first game
>>1714123 Wow, I had totally memoryholed Jade Cocoon. I don't even remember anything about it besides that it was actually pretty (ironically) well remembered.
>>1714123 I actually replayed Jade Cocoon 1 for the first time in years and beat it this week. I meant to post about it in the Just Finished thread, but I kept getting interrupted. It felt a bit rushed at the end, but it holds up really well. I want to try the sequel, but I should take a break before I get burnt out on monster raising RPGs.
>>1714123 I played a shitload of Unholy War as a kid. I eventually got bored of it because the game got too easy, I remember coming up with strategies to win every 1v1 matchup and the map AI being retarded easy.
Goblin Commander and SLAI, neither of which were very good.
>>1709794 Funny enough, it's set in the same mountain range where that happened.


Forms
Delete
Report
Quick Reply