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Less popular games you think are must-plays
- Thread starter Angst
- Start date
I thought The Beginner's Guide was brilliant but I also could relate to the story and themes in that game maybe more than some others.
I feel like Jagged Alliance 1/2 aren't talked about enough as far as great games from the past.
I feel like Jagged Alliance 1/2 aren't talked about enough as far as great games from the past.
It's like Snatcher and Policenauts. The characters channel that cyberpunk feel, and the music is crazy.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
It's a cop-story or rather an Ex-cop story, it opens like a thriller, your former cop partner (the good cop, I assume) betrayed you over unknown circumstances a couple of years ago and shortly vanished. Now you're retired as a cop and live your life as a door-to-door salesman, Kyle Hyde is the name to be clear, and the next stop is Hotel Dusk which is found by the county road on somewhere in Nevada. As you might suspect what happened back then when Kyle was in the force was too personal to let go and in reality his whereabouts is a cover for picking up clues as to where his former friend Bradley went, but as it turns out there's more than meets the eye to this rundown Motel, and some people there have peculiar connections that seem all too relevant; all to coincidental to the ghost which Kyle's chasing. In a hotel where rooms have titles, Kyle gets room 215, aka "Wish" and not long after settling in, it becomes clear to Kyle that there's something of a mystery to the Hotel and its vacants, which might just give him the answers he's been longing for.
I describe this like the synopsis to a book because that is literally what this is--
You hold the DS on the side when you play it, and the game is built to a T around this playstyle, from solving puzzles, investigating the nooks and crannys of the hotel and NPCs talking in response to Kyle's snoopy looks of the top screen on the bottom-screen. The game even utilizes the Nintendo DS hardware in ways you never would've anticipated, sometimes even seemingly does things with the hardware you wouldn't think would be possible. In reality, it's the storytelling that's the true draw of the game with some of the most believable characters both in motivations and background but even just the way they talk to each other. It was fortunate to be handled by a true Japanese novelist Rika Suzuki and translated by some of the best NoA employees available at the time. Unfortunately the tale of the game's success or lack thereof is indirectly related to the fact that its developer went bankrupt 2-3 years later after its sequel Last Window: The Secret of Cape west released.
Ghost Trick
Shu Takumi's second masterpiece. The man created Ace Attorney and directed, wrote and planned all the first three games from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, to Trials & Tribulations. This, a new concept of gameplay, feels like the collective experience and talent he had built up over the course of those 3 games served as a new IP and seemingly created in a state of creative bliss. The game scored excellently even for sites like IGN yet either due to its namesake, release-timing or unrecognizable gameplay style the game simply didn't appeal to enough people and in fact, it tanked so bad I've heard Capcom internally labeled Shu Takumi as the "failure of the year" among leads or something crazy like that.
Trace Memory
I get chills when I think of this game.
Some might be in the know. (Not a twist, not horror, but the unfortunate horrors of real (fictional) life in the Post-WW2 lives of the late 1940s)
Trace Memory AKA Another Code is an adventure game that IIRC lauched alongside the DS, with point-&-click controls, pixel hunting and a good deal of dialogue exchanges and while plotting has flaws the writing is generally just as great as it is in the spiritual successor of this CING-adventure: Hotel Dusk.
Transformers: Autobots/Decepticons DS.
This is a special one actually. It's fully voice-acted, Keith David as the police-car-guy who is your mentor. An Original story, GTA-style missions & free-roaming, player-avatar, steal-scan cars. It's a little... flat in terms of game-design but I spent HOURS in it, and it brought the Michael Bay awesomeness of 2007 almost fully realized to a little DS.
Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen
The mechanics are just... mmmh! The mission design and story-campaign lets it down, but the gameplay loop itself is actually not too bad.
We have similar taste :) I can also recommend the sequel to Hotel Dusk, Last Window: The Secret of Cape West.
Other than that, I recommend Snatcher for Sega CD. Played it for the first time a couple of months ago and it definitely aged well.
Slay The Spire is FTL meets Dominion (deckbuilder card game), and is way better than Hearthstone's Dungeon Run. I've owned the game for less than a week but have 54 hours of play time. Still in Early Access, but incredibly polished.
Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason.
Launched with a mess of technical bugs, that now can be easily brute forced thankfully.
Bit of an odd-duck horror FPS thing. But it's absolutely chock full of very inventive scenario design. Really worth a look.
Necrovision
Frantic shooter with a thin WWI veneer.
Launched with a mess of technical bugs, that now can be easily brute forced thankfully.
Bit of an odd-duck horror FPS thing. But it's absolutely chock full of very inventive scenario design. Really worth a look.
Necrovision
Frantic shooter with a thin WWI veneer.
I suppose it got more popularity since Automata released but I'm still going to say Nier: Gestalt.
My most obscure game I gotta prop up was the ps2 game Reign of Fire. Those human missions were a 10/10 where you would be in an armoured convoy and a bunch of dragons come down on you was the best.
This is also true, throw in the first one too.
My most obscure game I gotta prop up was the ps2 game Reign of Fire. Those human missions were a 10/10 where you would be in an armoured convoy and a bunch of dragons come down on you was the best.
I tried my damnest to enjoy this game, but i just couldnt....I think they just took the whole "super vague story" way too far...like, that works when you have a general idea of who you are and what you're doing.
Not when the entire world is completely foreign and you're on a non-linear quest.
The game itself was excellent though
Criminally underrated game. I feel like a lot of people looked over it because of its budget price or the fact that they don't care about Transformers but it's such a good game. The combat is incredibly tight and satisfying and the soundtrack, my god.
This. And Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Its basically one game.
Two timeless, unforgettable experiences.
Despite all the positive press, I feel like not many people have actually played Kentucky Route Zero, fingers crossed the console release gets it some more recognition. The game is bizarre and captivating in ways games rarely are. I'd recommend it to everyone, but especially to fans of David Lynch.
I also highly recommend The Norwood Suite for many of the same reasons, and it's even less popular than KRZ.
I also highly recommend The Norwood Suite for many of the same reasons, and it's even less popular than KRZ.
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Devil Daggers is an awesome, cheap FPS bullet hell game. It's something I absolutely recommend buying and just playing over the weekend. It's hard for me to put it down once I start playing. "Just one more run..."
As someone who is interested in the series but never gave it a decent shot, would it be worth playing 1&2+CD first or can I skip straight to 3?
Soul Sacrifice Delta.
An amazing hunter RPG set in an extremely well realized dark-fantasy-meets-fairytales world that emotionally wrecks you by the end of the prologue. Seriously the best lore I've perhaps ever seen in a game.
And it's composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. For the uninitiated, dude's worked on a few small projects like composing Chrono Trigger.
Why is it not known?
Because it's a Vita exclusive. About the only first party one left except Killzone and Uncharted GA, I reckon.
An amazing hunter RPG set in an extremely well realized dark-fantasy-meets-fairytales world that emotionally wrecks you by the end of the prologue. Seriously the best lore I've perhaps ever seen in a game.
And it's composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. For the uninitiated, dude's worked on a few small projects like composing Chrono Trigger.
Why is it not known?
Because it's a Vita exclusive. About the only first party one left except Killzone and Uncharted GA, I reckon.
I nominate Shadow Warrior 2
I bought it in July last year and played nothing else for three days while my girlfriend was on vacation with her parents. It was just so awesome, the protagonist is some really funny asshole and the gameplay is superb. The gory gameplay is awesome too. I recommend to play it on hard, for that special kick. One of my GOATs.
One of my favorite teasers of all time:
I bought it in July last year and played nothing else for three days while my girlfriend was on vacation with her parents. It was just so awesome, the protagonist is some really funny asshole and the gameplay is superb. The gory gameplay is awesome too. I recommend to play it on hard, for that special kick. One of my GOATs.
One of my favorite teasers of all time:
Alpha Protocol and Death to Spies, two criminally underrated stealth games. People were, understandably, put-off by the wonky controls but both games have some great stuff going on.
Alpha Protocol, in particular, is an absolute gem of a game! I really wish Sega someday decide to revive the IP.
Alpha Protocol, in particular, is an absolute gem of a game! I really wish Sega someday decide to revive the IP.
Absolutely Rain World. It's one of the greatest gaming experiences I've ever had. It has a ton of controversial design decisions, but everything comes together to create a work that is unmatched in all of gaming in terms of atmosphere, rawness, and thematic depth. Just such a freaking stellar game.
To quote myself from another thread (spoilers, but y'all weren't going to play it anyway, plus there's still a ton of amazing things to discover besides what I describe here):
I also want to highlight Porpentine's text adventure games: http://slimedaughter.com/games/
They're wonderful and seriously unique short marvels of writing, style, and ideas. She takes themes and concepts that no one else dares touch and mixes them in wondrous ways. Highly recommended.
Oh.
Oh.
Sounds like I should play The Norwood Suite!
To quote myself from another thread (spoilers, but y'all weren't going to play it anyway, plus there's still a ton of amazing things to discover besides what I describe here):
One of my single-player highlights of this gen is the entire sequence starting from the incredible Memory Crypts (with its clanking bird-metal abominations and the soft-glowing green lightning echoing through the clouds) through The Leg and The Underhang (air thundering with static electricity, the path filled with Big Daddy Longlegs -- a lonely journey; the most hostile environment you can imagine; the literal and metaphorical peak of your quest), into the Memory Conflux (with its zero-g environments, hinting at the world's true nature), through Unfortunate Development (the most horrendous interpretation of "overgrowth" that gaming has ever seen; raw, dangerous, extremely thrilling), and then finally, in General Systems Bus, we pass through a living organic computer, its calculations performed on live cells, its thoughts raw physical structures, superimposed on our environment in a spell-binding and utterly engrossing spectacle... We are an alien in an alien world.
And then we meet Five Pebbles, and everything is turned on its head.
It's the most audacious twist I've ever seen. What starts out as a nature simulation is revealed to be a veritable buddhist science fiction epic. The struggle for survival becomes the struggle against existence.
It's a kind of ambition that I've rarely encountered anywhere; and the journey there is haunting, harrowing, rough and raw, filled with incredible emergent moments and memories. Myriads of games try to guide the player through a lonely quest into the unknown. In my opinion, Rain World is the one that best succeeds.
And then we meet Five Pebbles, and everything is turned on its head.
It's the most audacious twist I've ever seen. What starts out as a nature simulation is revealed to be a veritable buddhist science fiction epic. The struggle for survival becomes the struggle against existence.
It's a kind of ambition that I've rarely encountered anywhere; and the journey there is haunting, harrowing, rough and raw, filled with incredible emergent moments and memories. Myriads of games try to guide the player through a lonely quest into the unknown. In my opinion, Rain World is the one that best succeeds.
I also want to highlight Porpentine's text adventure games: http://slimedaughter.com/games/
They're wonderful and seriously unique short marvels of writing, style, and ideas. She takes themes and concepts that no one else dares touch and mixes them in wondrous ways. Highly recommended.
Oh.
Oh.
Sounds like I should play The Norwood Suite!
Transformers War and fall of cyber
great third person shooters with tight and fluid controls, cool artstyle, voice acting, sound effects.
Amazing multiplayer too
great third person shooters with tight and fluid controls, cool artstyle, voice acting, sound effects.
Amazing multiplayer too
Rymdkapsel (iOS, Android, PC, Mac, Linux, ... Vita lol)
Extremely chill and very much replayable imho.
Like Dungeon Keeper meets The Settlers meets ... Tetris, i guess?
You assign roles to your tiny minions - like collecting various resources, while continuously more difficult waves of enemies attack your abstract "space platform settlement city".
Valiant Hearts is an amazing game. Very clever, and very educational. I loved it.
Child of Light is also a good shout!
A lot of games i'd recommend have already been mentioned, games like
Valiant Hearts
Child of Light
Guns, Gore and Cannoli
Unfinished Swan
Tricky Towers
Valiant Hearts
Child of Light
Guns, Gore and Cannoli
Unfinished Swan
Tricky Towers
Breath of the wild.
Just kidding...
You guys need to play 428: Shibuya Scramble, a PSP live action visual novel kind of game. It will be released on Steam later this year.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648580/428_Shibuya_Scramble/
Just kidding...
You guys need to play 428: Shibuya Scramble, a PSP live action visual novel kind of game. It will be released on Steam later this year.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648580/428_Shibuya_Scramble/
I loved Gladius so much back in the day. I had it on Xbox and PS2 for some reason. Had a lot of fun playing co-op and using cheats to let my wolves use weapons and armor. Still makes me laugh when I remember my wolf with a giant shield on its back.
I also really liked this original Xbox exclusive game named Breakdown. It had a really awkward first-person hand-to-hand combat system, but I still found it satisfying. The story was pretty neat too. I feel like the game was really ahead of its time in terms of immersive first-person storytelling. Only real problem was the awful platforming segments that went on for way too long.