Really Obscure RPGs

[CryptRat]

Perihelion is a fairly decent game, and not only because of the art and atmosphere. It's very inspired by the Gold Box games. The combat UI is weaker, as well as the inventory management UI, but you're not flooded with items so that's bearable. It's also linear to a ridiculous extent. However combat is good and puzzles are good too and despite their linearity I think the dungeons are not that bad, and overall the game is fun.

I have more difficulties playing The screamer, especially because I'm so bad at fighting its action combat system, coupled with permadeath I don't think I ever managed to get past the second floor. The atmosphere is great though'.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Perihelion: Obscure Post-Apocalyptic eastern-european RPG for the Amiga. Intriguing visuals.

The Screamer: Japanese cyberpunk rpg for the PC-88, released in 1986. Recently translated by codexians

Perihelion shows what you can achieve with basic graphics (resolution, colors) if you have good art direction. It looks great even today (propably even better on static pictures than in real game). I heard the game itself is nothing special but the visuals are really memorable.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Ok, time for our daily obscure RPG update. What did I find today?

Amulets & Armor - 1st person action RPG from 1997 - the game sold poorly when it was released (barely 100 copies?), but recently it has been rereleased and you can get it legally for free! http://amuletsandarmor.com/download.htm

Enjoy!

Spoiler

DeathKeep - 1st person dungeon crawler from 1996, made by SSI and based on AD&D system, kind of forgotten. Perhaps for the best?

Spoiler

Lost Valley - another freeware title. Looks kinda charming. Maybe I'll give it a try soon. Sorry for the quality of the screenshot, I guess the resolution does not get any better.

Spoiler

Alien shooter: Vengence - hack&slash (shoot&burn?) in science fiction setting, where you kill, duh, aliens. Gore!

Spoiler

Hard Truck: Apocalypse - no list of obscure RPGs would be complete without Russian shovelware, so here it comes: truck simulator meets Fallout! Or perhaps the best answer to the age-old question why Mad Max did not drive a truck.

Spoiler

 

[Kron]

Alien shooter: Vengence

I'm not sure Alien Shooter is full-on obscure.

It's kind of fun though, if you're in the mood for some violent and very mindless "twin stick" shooter game featuring huge hordes of aliens; it's got a decent variety of guns and gun types (pistols, shotguns, smgs, rifles, miniguns, explosives, energy) and a progression of stats, skills and armor.

Don't expect something really deep, but brainless entertainment fueled by the game's metal/rock music kicking in with the action.

 

[Fowyr]

DeathKeep - 1st person dungeon crawler from 1996, made by SSI and based on AD&D system, kind of forgotten. Perhaps for the best?

It was slow as fuck, ugly even for my taste and I remember some problems with attacking monsters. Played it for not very long and it was on the old computer.

Speaking of somewhat rare games, check this:

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/warwizard.107700/

 

[Lord_Potato]

DeathKeep - 1st person dungeon crawler from 1996, made by SSI and based on AD&D system, kind of forgotten. Perhaps for the best?

It was slow as fuck, ugly even for my taste and I remember some problems with attacking monsters. Played it for not very long and it was on the old computer.

Speaking of somewhat rare games, check this:

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/warwizard.107700/

Yeah, I've seen WarWizard on some old games site. Looks interesting but from your thread I understand it's a pain in the ass to run it. Plus, there is the question if the game deserves the price of a painful ass...

 

[FuckLiefeldGiveMeChew]

Here are some obscure classics:

Superhero League of Hoboken: A very complex, challenging, hilarious R.P.G. and adventure game with the unique style of Steve Meretsky but not his love of dead ends.

Anachronox: Horribly buggy and unfinished, but still fucking wonderful, with a unique style, great settings, hilarious jokes, wonderful characters, just perfect.

Half Minute Hero 1 and 2: R.P.G.s that change the gameplay in a unique and grand way: You only have half a minute to complete each quest. It keeps you in a state of constant excitement and paranoia, in a way no other R.P.G. can achieve.

Dark Half: Obscure Japanese only game where you play two characters working against each other: An evil God trying to kill everyone and steal his soul, and a Paladin working to stop him. Varied, complex, challenging, thoughtful and unique.

Metal max Returns: You get tanks and blow up everything and it is fucking awesome.

Cthulhu Saves the World: Funny and creative R.P.G. where you play the evil monster that wants to destroy the world.

Mother: Perhaps not as obscure now, after the Mother 3 debacle but this is the strangest game series. Its surreal atmosphere, style, humor and characters make up for the gameplay flaws.

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals: Fun game that distinguishes itself by telling the part of the story that most stories gloss over: When the hero gets the girl, instead of saying "they all lived happy ever after," that is only halfway through the story. Its villains are also introduced in a great way at the end/

Live a Live: A great game about playing through a variety of time periods.

Seiken Densetsu 3: Obscure sequel to Secret of Mana with better combat and story. Falls apart at the end when it mostly involves fighting overpowered bosses, but until then it is a great game.

 

[SCO]

Man, none of those are obscure. I personally played 8 out the 11 and know about 10 out of the 11. Here, for any game to be obscure, much less a rpg, it must be something lost to the eons of freeware or from a dead and unpopular platform or from a country that had no worldwide distribution and wasn't translated (or recently was).

 

[Lord_Potato]

Here are some obscure classics:

Superhero League of Hoboken: A very complex, challenging, hilarious R.P.G. and adventure game with the unique style of Steve Meretsky but not his love of dead ends.

Anachronox: Horribly buggy and unfinished, but still fucking wonderful, with a unique style, great settings, hilarious jokes, wonderful characters, just perfect.

Half Minute Hero 1 and 2: R.P.G.s that change the gameplay in a unique and grand way: You only have half a minute to complete each quest. It keeps you in a state of constant excitement and paranoia, in a way no other R.P.G. can achieve.

Dark Half: Obscure Japanese only game where you play two characters working against each other: An evil God trying to kill everyone and steal his soul, and a Paladin working to stop him. Varied, complex, challenging, thoughtful and unique.

Metal max Returns: You get tanks and blow up everything and it is fucking awesome.

Cthulhu Saves the World: Funny and creative R.P.G. where you play the evil monster that wants to destroy the world.

Mother: Perhaps not as obscure now, after the Mother 3 debacle but this is the strangest game series. Its surreal atmosphere, style, humor and characters make up for the gameplay flaws.

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals: Fun game that distinguishes itself by telling the part of the story that most stories gloss over: When the hero gets the girl, instead of saying "they all lived happy ever after," that is only halfway through the story. Its villains are also introduced in a great way at the end/

Live a Live: A great game about playing through a variety of time periods.

Seiken Densetsu 3: Obscure sequel to Secret of Mana with better combat and story. Falls apart at the end when it mostly involves fighting overpowered bosses, but until then it is a great game.

Ok, let's have some screenshots to present those games. With one exception though: Anachronox is not an obscure game. At least not on the Codex. It actually occupies 47th place on the list of 50 best RPGs in history (until 2012). http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpg-codexs-top-50-crpgs-results-and-reviews.89680/

And it's also sold on GOG.

So, let's see the obscure ones:

Superhero League of Hoboken - one of the earliest superhero RPGs.

Spoiler

Half Minute Hero - interesting premise, strange visuals

Spoiler

Dark Half - there seems to be an English version. Maybe unofficial translation?

Spoiler

Metal Max Returns - JRPG with tanks!

Spoiler

Cthulhu Saves the World - I finished this one. It's actually pretty hilarious. Plus it has a very welcome mechanism for a jRPG: a limited number of random encounters.

Spoiler

Mother - hmmm... I have my doubts about jRPGs and the art style is one of the lesser ones...

Spoiler

Lufia 2

Spoiler

Live a live

Spoiler

Seiken Densetsu 3

Spoiler

 

[ghostdog]

These are all mostly well known games. The snes translation scene has been going strong for years. Mother 3 just recently got a translation and an actual English release, but it's practically legendary and Earthbound (mother 2) is one of the most well known snes games.
As SCO said this is da codex.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Perihelion: Obscure Post-Apocalyptic eastern-european RPG for the Amiga. Intriguing visuals.

Perihelion shows what you can achieve with basic graphics (resolution, colors) if you have good art direction. It looks great even today (propably even better on static pictures than in real game). I heard the game itself is nothing special but the visuals are really memorable.

This reminds me of the Speedball 2 art style even if it's a different genre.

 

[Reapa]

Demons Age just got released and it's very obscure and will stay obscure because it's garbage.

 

[Grauken]

I think we've gone from obscure to just small fish


obscure >> Enchantasy - Quest for the Eternal Grimoire
in countless HumbleBundles >> Cthulhu Saves the World

if you want a lesser known but actually great jRPG, go with Phantasmaburbia, Mother/Earthbound-like that is quite long and pretty good

 

[Grauken]

Never heard about this one http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/last-armageddon/

though Japanese PC RPGs are obscure in general due to the limited exposure of these platforms in the west and mostly being in Japanese

 

[CryptRat]

Never heard about this one http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/last-armageddon/

though Japanese PC RPGs are obscure in general due to the limited exposure of these platforms in the west and mostly being in Japanese

There's a fan-translation of the NES version.

It has a very cool post-apo setting and atmosphere, and you alternate between 2 parties of monsters which evolve as they gain levels. Besides exploring the open world is very fun at first. But overall the game is not that good, the combat is meh, and the dungeons are empty (monsters don't even drop items, only money).

 

[newtmonkey]

Last Armageddon on MSX (and I assume PC9X) is godly (well, the package is). Two manuals, clamshell case, massive fold-out map. The game is loved in Japan, dunno about NES version, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean it is good (after all more people in Japan love Dragon Quest 1 more than they love their fathers).

I wanted to post a picture of the glory of Last Armageddon, but suddenly Codex is weird about the media button for image. ;_;

 

[Lord_Potato]

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen,

allow me to present you another set of RPGs unknown to the wide public!

Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars - was any of the previous games made by studio from Serbia and Montenegro? Now we are able to fill this void. Our Southern Slavic friends prepared an action RPG in which you fight through hordes of enemies with two characters: a warrior (actually looks like a barbarian) and a lady rogue.

Spoiler

Cybermercs: Soldiers of the 22nd Century - starved for another science fiction Diablo clone? I'm sure you are. Plus, it seems to have really shitty graphics.

Spoiler

ETROM: The Astral Essence - an action RPG in a moderately fresh setting, in which distopian sf meets gothic influences. So, lasers and demonology.

Spoiler

Joan of Arc: Wars and Warriors - a mix of RPG, action and strategy. Liberate France from the English oppressors!

Spoiler

Loki: Heroes of Mythology - one of the early games made by Cyanide. You journey through Greek, Egyptian, Aztec mythologic realms to defeat an evil god.

Spoiler

Mortalus: the Quest for Immortality - ok, this is actually obscure as fuck. I did not manage to find a lot of info on this one. Seems to be a hybrid of RPG and adventure game.

Spoiler

Swashbucklers: Blue vs Grey - action RPG in another fresh and rarely used setting: America civil war. You play as a cowboy/pirate who earns his living by breaking the continental blocade of the Confederacy imposed by the armies of the Union. But you can join both sides. The game takes place both on land and sea.

Spoiler

 

[Brancaleone]

This reminds me of the Speedball 2 art style even if it's a different genre.

Quite a few Psygnosis games had an art style similar to that of the Bitmap Brothers'.

 

[ghostdog]

I just found this thread with some more pearls, some of them, like Omega Syndrome, completely unavailable:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/ten-computer-rpgs-you’ve-never-heard-of.99368/

IIRC Omega Syndrome is actually developed by long time codex resident Davaris , maybe you can bug him for where to get a copy. It has a very interesting premise.


Actually, searching the codex can yield some pretty obscure stuff:


Golden Land: Russian TB rpg

Madman! Ultima inspired rpg by DrDungeon

 

[Baron Dupek]

Wish I could try that Golden Land game, can't find it anywhere, even in places where I usually go to find obscure stuff...
Don't care how bad or boring it is, just try some...

 

[Lord_Potato]

Actually, searching the codex can yield some pretty obscure stuff:


Golden Land: Russian TB rpg

Yeah, it's really painful to see screenshots from Golden Land, when there seems to be no way to get this game. It looks great. I heard it's mediocre, but stil would love to try it!

 

[Goblino]

I've barely read the thread, let's face it most of these games probably suck major ass, but would the Shadow Tower and King's Field series qualify as obscure rpgs around here? Been fucking around with the Shadow Tower games since I started playing Ultima Underworld lately and I think they're pretty dope. It's really nice to get a look at the lineage behind the Souls games.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I've barely read the thread, let's face it most of these games probably suck major ass, but would the Shadow Tower and King's Field series qualify as obscure rpgs around here? Been fucking around with the Shadow Tower games since I started playing Ultima Underworld lately and I think they're pretty dope. It's really nice to get a look at the lineage behind the Souls games.

Well, I know almost nothing about console games, but I heard about King's Field games. They can be emulated on PC, right?

And Shadow Tower has it's topic in Crappy Games Wiki :D

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

would the Shadow Tower and King's Field series qualify as obscure rpgs around here

Not really. This place has a lot of KF/ST/From Software fans.

And Shadow Tower has it's topic in Crappy Games Wiki :D

TBH it stops being 'crappy' once you get into it (just like with the rest of From Software games).

And BTW, I've already posted about Cybermercs.

 

[fantadomat]

Has anyone here played Grotesque Tactics 1 and 2? It is pretty fun turn based rpg with some dark humour in it. I don't know if it is obscure,but i haven't seen much talk about it here.