Really Obscure RPGs

[Jedi Master Radek]

Chicago 1930 - tactical RPG (real time) in mafia-infested prohibition era. Fresh setting.

Spoiler

I remember playing this and enjoying it when the game came out. Gameplay is similar to Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood. I think there were some problems when aiming enemies? It was wonky? Not sure.
Graphics are amazing in this!

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Ever heard of Arcangel? One of my friends found an old copy on the bus, saw the pics on the back and thought he'd give it to me. I've never even played it, but it seems fairly obscure to me

 

[Lord_Potato]

This game looks like X-Com. But is it an RPG, strategy with RP elements or a pure strategy?

 

[PulsatingBrain]

It's an RPG

 

[thesheeep]

Ever heard of Arcangel? One of my friends found an old copy on the bus

I must have been riding the wrong buses all my life.

 

[Lagi]

...I remember some old, very obscure Polish strategy game, a bit similar to Warlords, HoMM or Age of Wonders. Anyway, there was this change from the usual formula, that your treasury was located in your capitol city. You did not have a magic credit card to pay for buildings and recruitment in other cities - you either had to fund it from locally levied taxes, or move the gold from your capitol to the city you wanted to develop. Ofcourse, such a convoy could be assaulted and money stolen. So you had to assign strong army units to travel with the cash. Propably in the long run it would become extremally tedious, but first time I encountered this I thought: it's a great idea! It made you actually care about your supply lines.

Clash ?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Clash ?

Yes! That was the one! Thank you for reminding me.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Ok, in the last days I haven't been playing any obscure title (too busy with Elex, which starts nice and I have high hopes for this one), so I will just post here the next group of obscure RPGs I found in the depths of the internet.

1. Scent of War I: Damn Those Demons (1996) - a fugly little game with a interesting plot (you try to stop civil war caused by a secretive force using racial tensions and hatreds) and a developed character creation (10 races, 10 classes, you create a party of 5).

Spoiler

A menu-town:

Character creation:

A clue!

2. Corum 1 (1997): aRPG from Korea. Seems a bit similar to Dink Smallwood (the world is created from interconnected screens). Your weapon skills improve by using.

Spoiler

The game:

Character sheet:

3. Zanzarah: the Hidden Portal (2003) - aRPG about a girl in fairyland.

Spoiler

4. The Warrior's Tale (2006) - a fan-made tribute to Bard's Tale.

Spoiler

Hmmm... I'm feeling we're scraping the barrell here.

 

[V_K]

IIRC, Zanzarah is more of a pokemon-style game than RPG.
Haven't even heard about Scent of War, respect! The screenshots look somewhat intriguing. I wonder if you can run it on a modern PC tho.

 

[Parsifarka]

Zanzarah can be bought for 0,69€ in Steam right now (90% discount). I saw the trailer and was unable to understand what was going on the combat phase, looked like some weird kind of Q3A with zero gravity. So I just got my copy; I had to find out.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Hmmm... I'm feeling we're scraping the barrell here.

But things just start getting interesting.

Revival of a Myth: Lazenca (영혼기병 라젠카 / 1999). Yet to play this one, but...

Spoiler

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I don't see many people make mention of Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. It was some mid '90s action RPG that had a fun atmosphere/setting, believe it took place in the World of Aden. Anyways, it didn't have traditional RPG stuff and the way your character gained power was by drinking nectar potions or some shit. The majority of the enemies in the game are all insects too with the occasional cannibal. The insects were also sentient and could talk and had places in society. It's a great game to do psychedelics to.

 

[Big Wrangle]

Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall.

I recall having tried this game briefly way back, but was kind of confused and later on forgot about it entirely. Thanks for reminding me of it, maybe I'll play it for real this time.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

There's also ShadowFlare for you Diablo clone lovers out there. I played it for a few hours back in the day thanks to the magic of pirating shit, it was kind of enjoyable and had some cool looking animations. It didn't have the charm that Divine Divinity did and felt much more generic, but fanatics of the genre may be able to like it.

Here's a video of it in action:

 

[Blonsky]

Enemy Infestation

Real time combat and slow character movement but interesting game.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Wow, some really obscure titles here. Seems like there are countless RPGs I've never heard about. Some of them cannot even be found on mobygames, which tries to collect knowledge about every possible title ever published...

 

[Lord_Potato]

I don't see many people make mention of Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. It was some mid '90s action RPG that had a fun atmosphere/setting, believe it took place in the World of Aden. Anyways, it didn't have traditional RPG stuff and the way your character gained power was by drinking nectar potions or some shit. The majority of the enemies in the game are all insects too with the occasional cannibal. The insects were also sentient and could talk and had places in society. It's a great game to do psychedelics to.

Well, it's not really so strange, considering it's not very obscure (you can buy it on GOG) and not really an RPG (more like an action-adventure game, as opposed to the other game in the world of Aden, Thunderscape, which is a true RPG).

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I don't see many people make mention of Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall. It was some mid '90s action RPG that had a fun atmosphere/setting, believe it took place in the World of Aden. Anyways, it didn't have traditional RPG stuff and the way your character gained power was by drinking nectar potions or some shit. The majority of the enemies in the game are all insects too with the occasional cannibal. The insects were also sentient and could talk and had places in society. It's a great game to do psychedelics to.

Well, it's not really so strange, considering it's not very obscure (you can buy it on GOG) and not really an RPG (more like an action-adventure game, as opposed to the other game in the world of Aden, Thunderscape, which is a true RPG).

"Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall is a 1995 action-adventure role-playing video game by Strategic Simulations, Inc. It was re-released in 2013 on GOG.com."

 

[Lord_Potato]

Fair enough, but from what I read there are no experience points, levels, very few stats. So where is the RP factor in this game?

Anyway, time for the new collection of obscure titles. This time we really dive into most obscure regions.

Legends of Istanbul: Tulip Warriors (1996): the only Turkish cRPG I know of. It's basically their version of Realms of Arkania: you explore dungeons in 1st person perspective and fight tactical battles in isometric mode. Unfortunately, it's in Turkish only.

Spoiler

Stats:

Exploration:

Battle:

Bad Blood (1990) - post apocalyptic RPG in which you play one of the mutants that try to rebuild society. Unfortunately, humans try to stop you from it. So you, the mutant receive a mission to persuade humanity, that they should not hunt you down (or you can just kill all those smoothskins). An interesting change from the established Fallout story.

Spoiler

Inventory:

Talking to people:

Death. Death never changes.

Aztaka (2009) - a side scrolling action RPG in the fresh, Aztec setting.

Spoiler

Meeting people:

Inventory:

Boss battle:

World map:

I have to admit, the barrell we're scraping is really deep!

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Obscure indies that does not deserve more attention

 

[Lord_Potato]

Obscure indies that does not deserve more attention

Have more respect, man! Bad Blood was an Origin game produced by Warren Spector!

Plus it had a day-night cycle, npc schedules and quite a big world for exploration. All this in 1990!

 

[CryptRat]

1. Scent of War I: Damn Those Demons (1996) - a fugly little game with a interesting plot (you try to stop civil war caused by a secretive force using racial tensions and hatreds) and a developed character creation (10 races, 10 classes, you create a party of 5).

Spoiler

A menu-town:

Character creation:

A clue!

Is the game available somewhere? From here (2012) where only the demo is available :

This game was finished and released on Windows 95, and has since been released as freeware by the author. You can download a Windows XP compatible version from his website.

I can't find it but I'm not good at Internet.

The same guy uploaded more stuff, like this Treasures & Terrors 1 : The dragon's egg :

 

[Saduj]

Every time I've seen a screen shot from Bad Blood, I become enraged at the decision to waste so much of the screen with the bottle obviously being the most infuriating aspect.... I've never actually played the game.

Also, if anyone is super curious about the game Arcangel from post #278, the website Gamersgate sells it. In general, that's the first place you should look for old/obscure/shovelware type titles.

 

[aweigh]

What an unfortunate website name

 

[Lord_Potato]

Every time I've seen a screen shot from Bad Blood, I become enraged at the decision to waste so much of the screen with the bottle obviously being the most infuriating aspect.... I've never actually played the game.

I played the game of a couple of minutes today. The green bottle on the right is your hit points metter. If it gets empty , your character dies.