Support NeoGAF

[Vitten]

My favourite "unknown" nostalgia kicks. ( which I guess almost everyone here know)


The original Shadowgate.. soooo many fun ways of killing yourself.

You never forget your first RPG don't you ?

Master Of Magic.. such an enjoyable and incredibly addicting game. Did they ever make a sequel ?

Faxanadu. Its tunes will forever haunt my mind and though the graphics are horribly dated, I still think the art looks great.

 

[Koren]

Unirally, Ristar, Soulblazer, Solar jetman, Tirian, League bowling... Suddenly, I feel a bit older...

A fabulous game on SNES : The firemen...

A thought also for Silent Service, and MGT, my first two games besides pong-like machines.

 

[Gattsu25]

None of these are that niche...but they immediatelycome to mind

Zaxxon
Zool (I hated every minute of this game...but played it heavily nonetheless) Genny Version!!!!!
Decap Attack
Space Quest series (not the most popular adventure series, but my fave)
Star Wars Dark Forces
Viewpoint
Mega Turrican
Fantasy Zone 1 and 2
RmutherfuckingType for the Master System

 

[vitaflo]

None of these are that niche...but they immediatelycome to mind

RmutherfuckingType for the Master System

Word. +1

 

[Stinkles]

 

[scissorfight]

RmutherfuckingType for the Master System

Hell yes, I was gonna post this but I figured it was too popular. Was this game the shit or what? I remember it getting pretty difficult around stage 6 or 7, too.

 

[Zaphod]

My favourite "unknown" nostalgia kicks. ( which I guess almost everyone here know)


The original Shadowgate.. soooo many fun ways of killing yourself.

Master Of Magic.. such an enjoyable and incredibly addicting game. Did they ever make a sequel ?

Faxanadu. Its tunes will forever haunt my mind and though the graphics are horribly dated, I still think the art looks great.

That pretty much covers it for me too.

 

[COCKLES]

Theatre Europe on C64

Chemical Warhead attacks on opposing troops? The US military would love it! :lol

 

[haunts]

 

[Farmboy]

King's Valley 2 +1. Heck, pretty much all of Konami's stuff for the good ol' MSX was brilliant. Personal faves:

Penguin Adventure

Maze of Galious

 

[Parallax Scroll]

The Escape Velocity trilogy on Macintosh. I spent countless hours both going through the single-player game and creating mods for this.

RoboWar, also on Macintosh. You would create a robot (choosing between a few basic weapon and armor types), then program all of the robot's AI routines in the game's custom programming language. You'd have to write everything yourself, including movement patterns, enemy tracking, firing, and avoiding obstacles. Then you'd put your robot in an arena with a robot created by another player, watch them duke it out, and see whose AI was superior.

Trade Wars 2002. I used to play this over a direct 2400bps modem connection.

 

[Mashing]

North and South motherfuckers, North and South.

 

[GitarooMan]

Faxanadu. Its tunes will forever haunt my mind and though the graphics are horribly dated, I still think the art looks great.

Hell yes, I love Faxanadu. Just reading that puts the tunes back in my head. Remember your mantra....

 

[Spazbiohaz]

Death Race

Pesterminator

 

[argon]

NES
-----
karnov
deadly towers
gunsmoke
legacy of the wizard
shadowgate / deja vu
legendary wings

Atari 800XL
-------------
pitstop
lode runner's rescue
jumpman jr
krazy antics
krazy shootout
gridrunner
river raid

PC
---
4d boxing (YEAH!!)

 

[Ponn]

There was this one game that had a weird name and I can't remember it for the life of me. I can't even remember if it was SNES or NES but it was three ships that were robots, one was a human like robot, one was a tiger or something and one was a bird or falcon and they combined into one and the name of that one uber robot was actually the name of the game. It was very power rangerish but it had a cool sci fi feel to the game and was surprisingly really fun. I just can't remember the name and my friends think i'm crazy making it up.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Long live CBS games!

K-Razy Shoot Out:

Mountain King:

Also...


Reactor:

Necormancer:

Time Bandit:

Oids:

Dungeon Master:

To be fair, these last three were extremely well-known among the Atari/Amiga community-- but virtually unknown to the NES players of the day. Computer gaming was soooo much better than consoles inthis era.

 

[Grug]

PC
---
4d boxing (YEAH!!)

Quoted for the uber fucking truth.

Such a satisfying boxing game, it really felt like you were caving someone head in when you connected with those hook shots.

Way ahead of its time.

 

[91fairladyz]

Flashback

Kid Chameleon

 

[CarlosX360]

Borrowed this from a friend and thought the whole idea behing switching from fighting on the floor to upside-down on the ceiling was amazing. Really made me love the aspect of switching back and forth for certain enemies or "puzzles" you had to solve by fighting both ways. You could practically go on any ceiling. Plus, I remember loving the side-scrolling action it provided.

Same here, I borrowed from a friend, and I loved it. In fact, I've been looking for a copy of it for many, many, MANY years.

 

[Kintaco]

I second Clash at Demondhead, great game. I don't even remember if someone loan me the game or if I rented it from the local video rental store, but I loved it.

I also loved the Flashback series (or is it Out of this World series or is it even a series?).

Flashback

 

[aparisi2274]

 

[jdforge]

Hammerin' Harry - The Arcade Verson. I was in love with this one. I remember the voice sample '" Let's get Hammerin'!!!" i think...

OMFG - I played this to death - What a game. They said "LETS GET BUSY!!"


Other games I loved


SNOW BROS - 2 Player Arcade Action HEAVEN

And ofcourse New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands and the gorgeous TOKI !!

 

[GitarooMan]

Battle of Olympus is another great game, I only beat it once, if I remember it was really difficult. This thread is pumping me up for the Generation NEX I've got coming (ironically it will probably arrive on the same day as the X360)

 

[Kintaco]

Battle of Olympus did rock hard, but not as hard as Clash at Demondhead. God bless mom and pop rental stores.

 

[jgkspsx]

Arcade:
Pooyan! (Pig archer mom taking down wolves after her babies. One of Konami's very best.)

Tandy CoCo:
Ghana Bwana (it's a proto-action adventure game that's like a vertical-scrolling Pitfall! Deeply awesome game)
Pegasus and the Phantom Riders (a Steve Bjork clone of the horses from Joust II in Joust 1. It's above Balloon Fight as my favorite Joust clone)
Buzzard Bait (another great CoCo Joust clone)

Atari ST:
Mouse Trap (puzzle/platform/arcade game, extremely memorable art and use of Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk"; featured proto-stealth gameplay)
Airball (bizarre platformer in which you, as an inflated bouncing ball, had to bounce around a haunted mansion (periodically filling up on air) to find the spellbook that would turn you back into a human. Strong Crystal Castles influence.)
Iridium (top-scrolling shooter. Felt a bit like Zaxxon, IIRC. The Iridion games possibly reference its title, but they're not nearly as good.)
And, hey, if Ignatz can do it I can too: Time Bandits. I liked it more than Gauntlet.

PC:
Crystal Caves (unfairly forgotten, extremely great Apogee platformer. Easily as good as any Duke Nukem.)
Captain Comic (OK, I hated this, because I got stuck, time after time. Was there a way to beat the first level?!)
Commander Keen (Not unknown, but forgotten by almost all, and it's better than most Marios to my tastes)

 

[Pudding Tame]

My first mech game, and it rocked!

 

[ghibli99]

My first mech game, and it rocked!

I was just going to mention this one. This is better known as Assault Suits Leynos or Cybernator series on the other systems. Some of the worst box art and title logos ever. The cartridge also came with a BLACK AND WHITE label. How's that for low-budget? This game was hard... probably the hardest game on the system at the time, and probably for many years afterwards. They should've given you a real medal for beating this one. Enemy explosions would damage you. The controls were sluggish. The graphics weren't all that great. BUT, it had good music, awesome cinemas, and one of the best end sequences. The final song is top-notch for its time.

 

[Philia]

Faria, obscure zelda style rpg. Zelda in battle type, although it takes you to a new screen, making it random as you walkabout.





Legend of the Ghost Lion, another old school female lead rpg besides Faria, taking Dragon Warrior's mechanics.




And finally, Maniac Mansion. Enough said. As I was searching more pictures of this, I saw that LucasArts developed more of these better versions for PC!

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Arcade:
Pooyan! (Pig archer mom taking down wolves after her babies. One of Konami's very best.)

Atari ST:
Mouse Trap (puzzle/platform/arcade game, extremely memorable art and use of Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk"; featured proto-stealth gameplay)

Wow, great choices!

What I remember about Mouse Trap was that the music just looped-- it never started or stopped with any action on the screen. Very disorienting. I don't remember a stealth aspect, but I remember a strong puzzle element. I can still hear that music in my head reading this.

 

[Kicko]

I've seen it mentioned already, but SHADOWGATE for NES was that shit back in the day. I have a lot of the tunes from that game engraved in my head. There was an N64 Shadowgate but I never got around to playing it.

Another sleeper was Todd's Adventure In Slime World for the Genesis. That game had the worst frame rate of all-time, but it didn't stop me and my friends from playing it to death. Nothing was more satisfying than finding a pool of water when your 2 seconds from dying because all of that KILLAR slime covering your body.

 

[jgkspsx]

I don't remember a stealth aspect, but I remember a strong puzzle element.

If the ogres (the green things with the big noses) saw you, you died. You had to time your movement to avoid eye contact. Really rudimentary, sure, but that is the basic stealth mechanic.

I wonder who wrote that game. It really meant a lot to me.

 

[Jiggy]

I'm too lazy to upload all the pics to Imageshack, but...


Tyrian - Best vertical-scrolling shooter that almost nobody played. Just a stunning number of levels and weapons that blows basically every other shooter out of the water, this game practically demands a re-release on DS because of the vertical screen orientation...

http://www.world-tree.150m.com/Tyrian/tyrscreench.jpg
http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/reviews/tyrian/savara.gif
http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/reviews/tyrian/

If you've never played it, do yourself a favor and pick up the shareware version. As long as you can actually run it anymore... I know I can't.


EVO: The Search For Eden - Yeah, it's got possibly the most wacky storyline in history, and one that's sure to tick off creationists and evolutionists alike, but snaps if it didn't make for a great game. There's nothing quite like going around eating insects with an amphibian who has shark fangs and a dinosaur fin, or all the other crazy stuff you could do in this title. And not to mention that it was actually a hard game. Don't see too many of those anymore, especially in titles with RPG elements.

http://www.ioffergames.com/gimg/604584-E.V.O.-The-Search-for-Eden.jpg
http://www.allrpg.com/games/evo/images/6.gif

 

[Bauer Action Hour]

Xexyz by Hudsonsoft for NES. It was an awesome sci-fi Mega Man style game w/ a lot more variation to it. My brother and I spent a bunch of time playing it. Good times.

 

[ghostlyjoe]

Never finished Terranigma...

Yessir!!! Solid platformer with some inspired twists.

Oh, a few of mine own classics:

1.) Rampart (NES) -- Not sure how well-known this was (there were multiple ports, no?), but I loved the NES version. Intense strategy gameplay.

2.) North & South (NES) -- Again, probably fairly well-known across platforms, but the NES version was my first (rudimentary) taste of real-time strategy, and the Risk-style overboard was cool, if not very challenging (there was just nothing else like it in those days).

3.) Cosmic Relief (C64) -- OK, so this game was pretty crappy, with some awkward control and subpar graphics even for its time. But it was personal introduction to Maniac Mansion-style adventure gaming. And it was packed with oddball humor and off-the-wall puzzles.

4.) 4th & Inches (C64) -- My first (and ... *cough* *cough* ... only) piece of pirated software, I got this from a buddy on an unmarked floppy (which also included a buggy version of Zaxxon!). The actual football mechanics were 5 or 6 steps behind Tecmo Bowl, but you fielded a full 11-man team and the game really had some fleshed-out playcalling, with multiple schemes on both offense and defense. Quirkiest part was the rosters. No NFL license, so instead the players had all these punny monikers (Willie Passe, Cody Katchit).

5.) AND (*fanfare*) Little Ninja Bros.!! -- Awesome game. Real-time battles, turn-based boss fights. Sweet RPG mechanics. Fun game that played like Final Fantasy with a quirkier art style and an action-oriented battle system. I loved it muy mucho!!

 

[shoplifter]

Pooyan! (Pig archer mom taking down wolves after her babies. One of Konami's very best.)

My favorite thing was that the item you used to knock out multiple wolves was a fucking HAM. :lol

 

[Parallax Scroll]

EVO: The Search For Eden

I was going to put that, but figured it wasn't unknown enough.

 

[WasabiKing]

and this (Apple IIgs version)

Diving rocked, weight lifting was fun, and bull riding was hard as hell

My favorite was Wings of Fury on Apple II and PC. It was all about beating down the Japanese in World War II, dogfighting, sinking ships, and shooting down soldiers with my machine gun :lol

 

[GitarooMan]

Diving rocked, weight lifting was fun, and bull riding was hard as hell

Yeah, the cliff diving was the best part of World Games. There was this funky music playing and you had to adjust for the wind etc, something strangely addicting about it. I also liked the log rolling.

 

[chaostrophy]

Blades of Vengeance. It was a side-scrolling hack and slasher on the Genesis with fun 2P co-op play and light RPG elements. Had a cool dark fantasy art style too. I haven't seen it mentioned by anyone in years.

 

[BuckRobotron]

B.C.s Quest for Tires (ColecoVision version)

-- This was great looking in the day, and varied in gameplay. Sort of like a supercharged Jungle Hunt with the variety of stages.

Miner 2049er (ColecoVision)

-- Now this title not unknown, but what usually is not stated is that the Coleco version had bragging rights of 2 extra stages IIRC than other contemporary versions. Trying to one-up the competition with exclusive extras is old school as well...

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

Magic of Scherezade was one of my favorites for the NES and I kept waiting for a sequel but my hopes are still being dashed.

 

[djtiesto]

Wow, I'm really impressed with some of the selections in this thread - Power Blade, Metal Storm, SoulBlazer, Kickle Cubicle, Ghost Lion, Kid Chameleon, EVO... and to see the first post have a picture of Traysia in it! Wow!

I'd like to add: Live A Live (though it may not be too unknown because it IS Squaresoft), Miracle Warriors (SMS), Mighty Bomb Jack (NES), Wrecking Crew (NES), E.G.G. (DC), Dynowarz (NES), Target Earth (Genesis), Ranger-X, Dragon Crystal (Game Gear), Warrior of Rome (Genesis), Warsong (Genesis), Exile (Turbo Duo), Brain Lord (SNES), and Dragon View (SNES).

 

[artful_dodger]

Not completely unknown but a classic for sure.

 

[Owed T'Alex]

I was wondering what folks thought of this game

 

[J2 Cool]

Flashback

Great choice! Anyway, for me, it would be Street Fighter 2010. Nostalgia overload for me when I play this game. I used to think it had great production values, awesome bosses, but was just really hard. I believe it had slightly lower production values than I originally believed now though. Bosses are still very good though, and the game's challenging as hell today still. Apparently though, everyone else hates it :lol So goes the way of nostalgiac games introduced to a young mind.

Also, Top Gun!

 

[Ophiel]

I used to love playing shatterhand on the nes or something i don't remember if it was unkown or not.

dammit rusty you made me remember Clash At Demonhead.I got stuck at the end.Without knowing what to do.And the same thing happened with Bionic Commando at the end when the soldier tells you to jump or something.Hitler won in my game.

 

[Ghengis Cohen]

I used to love playing shatterhand on the nes or something i don't remember if it was unkown or not.

Shatterhand was awesome. His sunglassed look is getting ripped off right now in frame City Killer.

 

[FlyinJ]

Bilestoad. Awesome hackfest with blood splurting everywhere.

And of course

Worst control scheme ever- but what a game at the time.

Lords of Chaos, a great tactical game by the guys who made Xcom. Summoning bats and dragons to fight against another player in hotseat was so much fun. One of the best Amiga games created.

 

[CarlosX360]

Played both.....

I thought that the first game was a tad bit on the artistic side. But other than that, my memory's vague. I do remember playing the game, though.

And, the second game, my cousin owns it. For its time, it was okay, by today's standard, its going to drive away people than pulling them in. Good game design, though.

Great choice! Anyway, for me, it would be Street Fighter 2010. Nostalgia overload for me when I play this game. I used to think it had great production values, awesome bosses, but was just really hard. I believe it had slightly lower production values than I originally believed now though. Bosses are still very good though, and the game's challenging as hell today still. Apparently though, everyone else hates it :lol So goes the way of nostalgiac games introduced to a young mind.

Also, Top Gun!

I own both of these games. Great, Great games. Especially SF2010. I even remember EGM doing a small piece on it, I thought "WTF? Street Fighter on NES!?" Hahaha....It even had a SFII image to occupy the piece. :lol