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Show me the rarest/most obscure games in your physical games collection
- Thread starter malyse
- Start date
Is Killer 7 rare? Last time I updated my collection on Price Charts it was sitting under $20
There's always a few on ebay for €800 or something but I never see them sell, so I don't think the demand is very high tbh.
And here's a couple more that I already have pics of, some C64 stuff I bought this year:
They're not crazy rare or anything but probably not well known here.
They're not crazy rare or anything but probably not well known here.
Original Prey on steam is a rare thing indeed.
As for the PSP game, it's called 'Hilton Ultimate Team Play' and it's a non-public officially licensed PSP game developed exclusively for Hilton Garden Inn Hotel staff to train them.
in the late 2000s I got heavily into collecting famicom carts.
they were super cheap then on ebay, you could get bundles of games and I'd order a bunch just to see what they were like.
even though I sold off doubles etc over the years I still have about 200 or so, some of which are incredibly obscure even today.
here are 3 that seem to have rocketed up in price over time due to scarcity
Battletoads - for some reason this has always been rare (geddit) in Japan
Captain Saver aka Power Blade 2 - I remember reading about how some Western people started buying this up as it was much cheaper than the NES version, probably pushed up the price
Crisis Force - amazing Konami shmup that never made it out of Japan, one of those few games that's actually worth the money
edit: just remembered I have promo copies of Nier for both PS3 and 360, not expensive but they must be pretty rare
they were super cheap then on ebay, you could get bundles of games and I'd order a bunch just to see what they were like.
even though I sold off doubles etc over the years I still have about 200 or so, some of which are incredibly obscure even today.
here are 3 that seem to have rocketed up in price over time due to scarcity
Battletoads - for some reason this has always been rare (geddit) in Japan
Captain Saver aka Power Blade 2 - I remember reading about how some Western people started buying this up as it was much cheaper than the NES version, probably pushed up the price
Crisis Force - amazing Konami shmup that never made it out of Japan, one of those few games that's actually worth the money
edit: just remembered I have promo copies of Nier for both PS3 and 360, not expensive but they must be pretty rare
I think these are pretty rare. They're stored away in various places, so I'd have to go digging.
Drakengard 3 Collectors Edition
Ni no Kuni Wizard Edition
DJMax Technika Tune Limited Edition
The House in Fata Morgana Vita LE
The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince
Persona 4 Golden Solid Gold Premium Edition
Probably a few others that I'm forgetting.
Drakengard 3 Collectors Edition
Ni no Kuni Wizard Edition
DJMax Technika Tune Limited Edition
The House in Fata Morgana Vita LE
The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince
Persona 4 Golden Solid Gold Premium Edition
Probably a few others that I'm forgetting.
My $200 & up club of games. Snow Brothers complete is my rarest and most expensive at $600.
Edit: Oh and these, the Shadow Tower is factory sealed.
Edit: Oh and these, the Shadow Tower is factory sealed.
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I don't know how rare they are considered to be really but I have a lot of PlayStation 1 and 2 promo discs from a time when I used to manage a game shop
Cool. I used to own almost all that stuff up until a few years ago. Now I only have Kolibri left from those.My $200 & up club of games. Snow Brothers complete is my rarest and most expensive at $600.
Complete in box Chrono Trigger. All the maps and even the special Chronic Trigger branded inserts to buy Nintendo Power.
I guess the GameCube version is? I'm sure it saw a major price fall following the PC re-release.
Snatcher - MEGA CD (PAL)
Shining Force 3 - SEGA Saturn
Suikoden 5 - PS2
Shadow Hearts 1 and 2: Covenant - PS2
Hell Night (First person survival horror game by Atlus, published by Konami) - PS1
Elminage - PSP
Count me in that club. Got a cool art card with it.
Shining Force 3 - SEGA Saturn
Suikoden 5 - PS2
Shadow Hearts 1 and 2: Covenant - PS2
Hell Night (First person survival horror game by Atlus, published by Konami) - PS1
Elminage - PSP
Count me in that club. Got a cool art card with it.
Nothing extremely rare or obscure that I can think of but these are probably some of the harder to find ones.
Not including some STG arcade PCBs then I would say that Harmful Park would be it. Don't know if it's actually rare or just super expensive these days. Bought it brand new back in 02 if I remember correctly.
Oh yeah sold Path of Radiance for about £250. That was another I used to have.
Link: Faces of Evil on CDi is another I still have after so many years. Haunting Ground is another I had since it came out, really good game.
Fatal Frame 5 on Wii U (Limited Edition).
Rodea Sky Soldier on Wii U/Wii.
The list goes on and on.
Link: Faces of Evil on CDi is another I still have after so many years. Haunting Ground is another I had since it came out, really good game.
Fatal Frame 5 on Wii U (Limited Edition).
Rodea Sky Soldier on Wii U/Wii.
The list goes on and on.
There's a real difference between "rarest" and "most obscure" - rare might be well known, while obscure could be easily found but nobody here has heard of it.
Anyway, the most obscure game I own, possibly, by the standards of this board, needs some introduction.
This game is the product of a legendary collaboration. In 1987, Nintendo and Square paired their developers together to create a team. With Gunpei Yokoi (designer of the Game Boy) in the producer's chair, design was co-handled by Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy) and Yoshio Sakamoto (creator of Metroid). The art was done by Takashi Tokita, who would then continue on to do art for Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. The musical composition was handled by Nobuo Uematsu.
What is this game, you might ask? How the heck does such a game with a pedigree like this qualify as obscure?
The title of this game might surprise you. I've placed the reveal in the spoiler below along with a few more details, for those who want to take a guess before they see.
The game is Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, or Miho Nakayama's Heartbeat High School.
This game is a very, very early dating sim. It uses the likeness of popular Japanese idol Miho Nakayama, around whom the plot circulates. The game was incredibly difficult, as not only did you have to choose dialogue options, but also your facial expression when you spoke - a mismatch between what you said and your expression could result in a game over. There were real-world phone numbers you could call to get messages from the characters to help you advance, and if you got the reached the ending then you could take your game to a Disk Fax kiosk and get mailed a reward from Nintendo, with a much nicer reward for seeing the true ending. Of course, very few people managed this as in 1987 you couldn't just look the right answers up online, and the number of choice permutations available made it resistant to brute-forcing. A secret of this type couldn't be done today - dataminers and the internet preclude it. Well, mostly... I do try and do this anyway in my own dev work. This game was pretty influential in shaping the dating sim genre, so its obscurity is pretty sad!
Another obscurity from a legendary designer is this one:
Knight Move, from Tetris creator Alexi Pajitnov, is in the tradition of Tetris in that it's very simple but well-designed. Each level is a grid of some sort, and you have to move a knight to each spot on the grid without ever hitting the same tile twice. Nintendo published this but for some reason it never left Japan.
Anyway I have a bunch of other weirdo games that definitely qualify as obscure but the time required to explain each of them is more than I'm willing to put in right now - hopefully though this post has taught you a little bit about a few weirdo titles nobody ever talks about.
Anyway, the most obscure game I own, possibly, by the standards of this board, needs some introduction.
This game is the product of a legendary collaboration. In 1987, Nintendo and Square paired their developers together to create a team. With Gunpei Yokoi (designer of the Game Boy) in the producer's chair, design was co-handled by Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy) and Yoshio Sakamoto (creator of Metroid). The art was done by Takashi Tokita, who would then continue on to do art for Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. The musical composition was handled by Nobuo Uematsu.
What is this game, you might ask? How the heck does such a game with a pedigree like this qualify as obscure?
The title of this game might surprise you. I've placed the reveal in the spoiler below along with a few more details, for those who want to take a guess before they see.
The game is Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, or Miho Nakayama's Heartbeat High School.
This game is a very, very early dating sim. It uses the likeness of popular Japanese idol Miho Nakayama, around whom the plot circulates. The game was incredibly difficult, as not only did you have to choose dialogue options, but also your facial expression when you spoke - a mismatch between what you said and your expression could result in a game over. There were real-world phone numbers you could call to get messages from the characters to help you advance, and if you got the reached the ending then you could take your game to a Disk Fax kiosk and get mailed a reward from Nintendo, with a much nicer reward for seeing the true ending. Of course, very few people managed this as in 1987 you couldn't just look the right answers up online, and the number of choice permutations available made it resistant to brute-forcing. A secret of this type couldn't be done today - dataminers and the internet preclude it. Well, mostly... I do try and do this anyway in my own dev work. This game was pretty influential in shaping the dating sim genre, so its obscurity is pretty sad!
Another obscurity from a legendary designer is this one:
Knight Move, from Tetris creator Alexi Pajitnov, is in the tradition of Tetris in that it's very simple but well-designed. Each level is a grid of some sort, and you have to move a knight to each spot on the grid without ever hitting the same tile twice. Nintendo published this but for some reason it never left Japan.
Anyway I have a bunch of other weirdo games that definitely qualify as obscure but the time required to explain each of them is more than I'm willing to put in right now - hopefully though this post has taught you a little bit about a few weirdo titles nobody ever talks about.
I can't be bothered to drag out my old stuff for photos, but there's more likely than not quite a few rarities and obscurities in there.
I'll post this one, which isn't too old at all. But I bet not many people actually have this one:
The game didn't light the world on fire. But I actually enjoy it. Combat is fun enough and the music is great. This physical package also came with a very nice Roger Dean inspired dynamic theme that is still in my rotation of favorite PS4 themes.
I'll post this one, which isn't too old at all. But I bet not many people actually have this one:
The game didn't light the world on fire. But I actually enjoy it. Combat is fun enough and the music is great. This physical package also came with a very nice Roger Dean inspired dynamic theme that is still in my rotation of favorite PS4 themes.
There's a real difference between "rarest" and "most obscure" - rare might be well known, while obscure could be easily found but nobody here has heard of it.
Anyway, the most obscure game I own, possibly, by the standards of this board, needs some introduction.
This game is the product of a legendary collaboration. In 1987, Nintendo and Square paired their developers together to create a team. With Gunpei Yokoi (designer of the Game Boy) in the producer's chair, design was co-handled by Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy) and Yoshio Sakamoto (creator of Metroid). The art was done by Takashi Tokita, who would then continue on to do art for Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. The musical composition was handled by Nobuo Uematsu.
What is this game, you might ask? How the heck does such a game with a pedigree like this qualify as obscure?
The title of this game might surprise you. I've placed the reveal in the spoiler below along with a few more details, for those who want to take a guess before they see.
The game is Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, or Miho Nakayama's Heartbeat High School.
This game is a very, very early dating sim. It uses the likeness of popular Japanese idol Miho Nakayama, around whom the plot circulates. The game was incredibly difficult, as not only did you have to choose dialogue options, but also your facial expression when you spoke - a mismatch between what you said and your expression could result in a game over. There were real-world phone numbers you could call to get messages from the characters to help you advance, and if you got the reached the ending then you could take your game to a Disk Fax kiosk and get mailed a reward from Nintendo, with a much nicer reward for seeing the true ending. Of course, very few people managed this as in 1987 you couldn't just look the right answers up online, and the number of choice permutations available made it resistant to brute-forcing. A secret of this type couldn't be done today - dataminers and the internet preclude it. Well, mostly... I do try and do this anyway in my own dev work. This game was pretty influential in shaping the dating sim genre, so its obscurity is pretty sad!
Another obscurity from a legendary designer is this one:
Knight Move, from Tetris creator Alexi Pajitnov, is in the tradition of Tetris in that it's very simple but well-designed. Each level is a grid of some sort, and you have to move a knight to each spot on the grid without ever hitting the same tile twice. Nintendo published this but for some reason it never left Japan.
Anyway I have a bunch of other weirdo games that definitely qualify as obscure but the time required to explain each of them is more than I'm willing to put in right now - hopefully though this post has taught you a little bit about a few weirdo titles nobody ever talks about.
Yeah, this kind of stuff is not that rare but still obscure, and very neat because of the developer pedigree. That's part of the reason I like owning games like Devil World on Famicom (Miyamoto) and Girl's Garden on SG-1000 (Naka).
I feel like such an asshole for not keeping my boxes and manuals when I was a kid for SNES games. I have a 50+ SNES collection with the Mega Man X series and Final Fight series. Apparently Final Fight 3 and Mega Man X 3 are worth a decent chunk of change.
Lots of My physical PS1 and N64 collection Are lost, but my Saturn collection is decent. Have Japanese versions of Burning Rangers, Astal, Snatcher, Guardian Heroes among others.
Massive physical 6th generational collection with about a couple of hundred PS2 games, imports, GameCube, Xbox etc that are all complete. I'm happy I snagged lots of these games. Rule of Rose and Haunting Ground are apparently worth a few bucks.
Lots of My physical PS1 and N64 collection Are lost, but my Saturn collection is decent. Have Japanese versions of Burning Rangers, Astal, Snatcher, Guardian Heroes among others.
Massive physical 6th generational collection with about a couple of hundred PS2 games, imports, GameCube, Xbox etc that are all complete. I'm happy I snagged lots of these games. Rule of Rose and Haunting Ground are apparently worth a few bucks.
Not technically a game... and not gonna be in my collection for long as I've put it up for sale.
This Bushi Seiryuden by Game Freak.
I received this as a gift for doing translations for some clients of ours.
I've only played the opening hour because the battery is dead, but once I get it replaced, I'm looking forward to playing the whole thing.
I've never seen a copy of this in all my game scourings in Japan.
I received this as a gift for doing translations for some clients of ours.
I've only played the opening hour because the battery is dead, but once I get it replaced, I'm looking forward to playing the whole thing.
I've never seen a copy of this in all my game scourings in Japan.
These I think?
Devil Survivor is by no means obscure, but I think most people in Europe at least played the 3DS versions and not the original DS games that were never released here.
Knights in the Nightmare is rather more obscure and I sometimes wonder how many people, in the Netherlands at least, can say they own a copy. As you can see, I do.
Devil Survivor is by no means obscure, but I think most people in Europe at least played the 3DS versions and not the original DS games that were never released here.
Knights in the Nightmare is rather more obscure and I sometimes wonder how many people, in the Netherlands at least, can say they own a copy. As you can see, I do.
Skies of Arcadia: Legends - bought it for like $50 a year or two ago, now worth like $150 CIB.
Gotcha Force - ....well, I HAD this game until Dec. 2019 because I had to sell it to help have some money for Xmas shopping. I bought it at my local game store for like $10 in.....2014ish? I just remember a year or two later discovering it was going for $200+. Now...it goes for over $400 CIB.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on PS1 - DAMN IT, I HAD THIS IN THE MID 2000s FOR LIKE $20 THEN SOLD IT, WHY DIDN'T I HANG ONTO IT FREAKIN' $300 AAAAAAAAA
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - surprisingly one of the more rare PS3 games. Probably due to being Amazon exclusive & released in 2014.
Beatmania IIDX 16th Style Empress + Premium Best - I think the last Konami rhythm game released on PS2 & the last non-DDR Bemani console game to use a special controller (not counting the weird 360 & Wii Pop'n Music games). It seems to go for $150+ as it came out in 2009 & had a 2nd disc of a bunch of songs from the previous games.
Xenosaga Episode 3 - My friend realized he owned this & said he'd trade it for my Skies of Arcadia Legends copy once I was done. So not mine....yet.
Paper Mario TTYD - holy crap this is going for $100? Glad I still have my childhood copy.
Bangai-O - I was looking for this game for so damn long & finally found a copy a few months ago for $100.
some Japanese Rurouni Kenshin PS2 game - I dunno, it was like $3 at an used game store, who else was gonna buy it
Gitaroo Man - got this before the PSP version was a thing, one of those rare GameStop finds.
Snowboard Kids 2 - one of those games I rented as a kid but never saw again or talked about, finally found a copy at a game store a few months back. Just the cart, though.
Gotcha Force - ....well, I HAD this game until Dec. 2019 because I had to sell it to help have some money for Xmas shopping. I bought it at my local game store for like $10 in.....2014ish? I just remember a year or two later discovering it was going for $200+. Now...it goes for over $400 CIB.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure on PS1 - DAMN IT, I HAD THIS IN THE MID 2000s FOR LIKE $20 THEN SOLD IT, WHY DIDN'T I HANG ONTO IT FREAKIN' $300 AAAAAAAAA
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle - surprisingly one of the more rare PS3 games. Probably due to being Amazon exclusive & released in 2014.
Beatmania IIDX 16th Style Empress + Premium Best - I think the last Konami rhythm game released on PS2 & the last non-DDR Bemani console game to use a special controller (not counting the weird 360 & Wii Pop'n Music games). It seems to go for $150+ as it came out in 2009 & had a 2nd disc of a bunch of songs from the previous games.
Xenosaga Episode 3 - My friend realized he owned this & said he'd trade it for my Skies of Arcadia Legends copy once I was done. So not mine....yet.
Paper Mario TTYD - holy crap this is going for $100? Glad I still have my childhood copy.
Bangai-O - I was looking for this game for so damn long & finally found a copy a few months ago for $100.
some Japanese Rurouni Kenshin PS2 game - I dunno, it was like $3 at an used game store, who else was gonna buy it
Gitaroo Man - got this before the PSP version was a thing, one of those rare GameStop finds.
Snowboard Kids 2 - one of those games I rented as a kid but never saw again or talked about, finally found a copy at a game store a few months back. Just the cart, though.
It's nothing crazy but I imported an unopened copy of Front Mission 2 earlier this year, still has the little CD case sleeve and the art is gorgeous
mine would have to be shadow hearts 1&2 complete, plus the entire xenosage trilogy complete.
Used to have Lufia 1&2 along with Metal Warriors for SNES but i sold them on here couple years ago. Should have waited, shits worth so much this year.
Used to have Lufia 1&2 along with Metal Warriors for SNES but i sold them on here couple years ago. Should have waited, shits worth so much this year.
I don't really know. I grabbed these kind of at random because I know they go for way too much these days, which probably means rare. I dunno about obscure, though.
I was not going to include Paper Mario, but it's slowly getting there, I think. I guess most Nintendo games stuck on the GameCube are going to fit that bill with time, eh?
I believe Path of Radiance could net you a sizeable return right now on sale. £200+ right now on eBay
Bit of a cop out but I've got a few games from Limited Run that only had 5000 copies printed, which I have to imagine makes them "rarer" then basically most print runs destined to retail. But I suppose that's kinda the point.
(If I had managed to snatch up that Jak 1 collectors edition it would have been an SKU that only had 3000 copies printed, alas...)
(If I had managed to snatch up that Jak 1 collectors edition it would have been an SKU that only had 3000 copies printed, alas...)
Don't know how "rare" it would be considering it was bundled in a box of cereal, but I still have the disc for Chex Quest + 50 Free Hours of AOL. That's the only game I own that people are shocked I have a physical version of, considering it's been a free download for ages most people just assume that's where I played it at.
Yeah though with Devil World being featured in multiple modern Nintendo titles (Smash Bros, PiCTOBiTS, &c.) I think that one is less obscure than it once was. Same deal for The Mysterious Murasame Castle.
Some LRG PS4 releases, which are of course... limited. The U.S. Gravity Rush Remastered. That was dumb luck. I bought it as an afterthought for $20 about a week before everyone freaked out and started charging $150 for it. I think the PS4 Europe only release for Half Genie Hero is getting harder to find. I also ordered that on a whim.
My retro stuff is long gone, but at one point I had most of the ungodly expensive SHMUPS on the Saturn. Hyper Duel made me nervous as fuck to handle.
My retro stuff is long gone, but at one point I had most of the ungodly expensive SHMUPS on the Saturn. Hyper Duel made me nervous as fuck to handle.
I managed to get most of the typical high value stuff before their prices got completely ridiculous. Earthbound, Clayfighter: The Sculptor's Cut, Shantae, MUSHA, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Pokemon Box, Gotcha Force, Cubivore, etc. I can take pictures later.
I wouldn't be able to do most of this today.
I wouldn't be able to do most of this today.