Mine is Lady Sia for GBA. It’s just a platformer but I just love it played and completed more 20 times. Will probably speedrun it in future.
I really like the old PSP Patapon games. They’re catchy. After playing, I find myself humming the beat. The original creators are making a spiritual successor called Ratatan. Still not out yet, but I’m looking forward to playing it.
Was Patapon really obscure, though? I thought most of everyone with a PSP played it?
Gorillas.bas
my niece thinks Morrowind is retro
There are college graduates who are younger than Morrowind. Yeah, it’s fucking retro.
I don’t know how obscure this is. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong. illusion of gaia/illusion of time was one of my favourites growing up. It had a cool story, kind of a dystopia fantasy. I don’t think I ever actually finished it. Come to think of it, that might be a good idea to put on my list for this year.
I’m so happy and surprised to see you bring up IoG! I think the game qualifies as obscure these days since I never see it mentioned outside of SNES retro groups.
It’s my favourite story of any game on the SNES. For those who haven’t played it, it’s a coming of age story about a group of friends travelling together. What makes it so special to me is that although your character (Will) is the only one in the party who does any fighting (you’re not a typical RPG fighting party) your friends are still travelling through some dangerous situations with you. Outside of combat, your character is just another one of the group, albeit the main PoV character for the story.
I love it so much! The story was written by a woman science fiction writer, Mariko Ohara, which I think was pretty rare at the time. I didn’t learn this fact until recently and as a kid I never would’ve known but looking back at it, the game is so much the better for it. The characters just feel so much more like real people than I’m used to from games of that era. Even the Final Fantasy games of that era, as great as they are, have characters that feel more like cartoon characters than real teenagers.
I was going to bring up Soul Blazer, which i think is an earlier game in that series. it’s a very straightforward top down action rpg but i played it a lot.
The music in that game is an absolute banger:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CnP0Po665vU&pp=ygUYYWN0cmFpc2VyIGZpbGxtb3JlIHBpYW5v
Big Castlevania vibes
For me its screamer. It’s a pretty nice PC arcade racer with a great soundtrack. I still listen to it from time to time.
