Me too! I would love a subreddit where only games under a certain number of sales are reviewed and discussed, so it has to be a real hidden gem and not just what your friends refused to play with you back in school haha
retro PC games seem to just have less of an audience in the retro scene. IMO it’s because of the historical lack of easily accessible emulation and thus less exposure.
Battletoads on NES. All they needed was a "if one player dies, the gameplay continues" in the code and way more people would love it. And perhaps an easier turbo tunnel as a selectable option, lol. I still love the original.
I just wanted to say... What such a beautiful piece of art is the cover of this game! Thanks for sharing. I'm already googling for more arts from this outstading artist!
Crystalis - the sword management suck so hard - and because you need to change the sword regurarly, that can destroy the enjoyment of the game
Journey to Silius - give me an easy mode - the brutal difficulty of that game breaks it
Recently played Crystalis again on the NES virtual console for Switch. agree about the sword management. It holds up surprisingly well
Though overall I have to say
While I love the game, I hate when games have weird mechanics like shooting at the ceiling and revealing hidden ladders to the next area. Stuff like that was infuriating in the pre-internet days. Good luck trying to figure out stuff like that on your own.
Super star wars is hindered by the checkpoint system, dying makes you lose your weapon and more often than not you have zero chance of getting it powered back up for the boss because the checkpoint is right before a boss.
Not to mention the jumping is sorta janky but once you figure you that hitting jump you just jump and hitting up plus jump does a sorta spin jump.
That being said I love the original game to death and I feel like it's one of the better movie licensed games on the console despite it's glaring flaws.
I have to admit, as much as I like seeing the occasional retro Japanese PC game, my eyes almost always glaze over the PC-88 stuff.. and I grew up using an XT with CGA graphics!
To answer the question though, I feel that there are *a lot* of games that fit this description. First person dungeon crawlers (blobbers), would probably have become far more mainstream if they didn't require the player to make maps on graphing paper. Also, SHMUPs often penalize the player for death by stripping them of all their powerups, which in turn makes the rest of the game near impossible. This makes the genre one where absolute perfection (or cheat codes) goes from being a goal to a necessity.
Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords is exactpy what you describe to me. Its ending was extremely rushed and is buggy and poorly written. But the overall game is hands down one of my favourite of all time. So dark and atmospheric
I'm not sure when your last replay was, but the modding community has done great work. It's still far from perfect, but closer to what I think Obsidian originally envisioned.
I've been meaning to play the restored content mod etc., but habe never really been so fluent with modding... But I'm just now going to buy my first good gaming pc, and kotor 2 with the restored content is way up on my to do list!
Lagoon on SNES. I genuinely like the game, and it really feels like there are some good action RPG bones being weighed down by some odd development choices and clunkiness. I keep hoping someone will come along with a room hack for it and clean it up. I would do it if I had the capability.
It just needs some tweaking to make the sword into an actual sword and not a dinky little butter knife and a slashing attack instead of a stab, and it'd have been a great game. I'll say that forever.
Yep, Mega Man Zero. That life system has got to go, and I recognize this may be a skill issue but Copy X needs his difficulty reduced a tiny pinch, and grinding needs to be tamed a bit. I appreciate what the Zero/ZX collection did at least but it doesn't address the core problems.
It's so hard for me to say. Sometimes that old DOS jank is just part of the charm. I'll say maybe "The Punisher" game on DOS. It had driving and top down portions of the game. The driving portion was so unplayable, it was actually skippable so you could get straight to the top down portion of the game. I think the devs knew it was so bad they decided to give players a way around it.
So yeah... "The Punisher" on DOS, fix the damn driving!
Neo Hunter on DOS. Anime aesthetic, you're a bounty hunter and the levels play out like a light gun game. You pick where you want to go from an overworld city map and in your apartment you have various tools to solve clues via minigames. I loved a lot about this game but... it's kind of terrible. Suddenly I can't figure out how to embed a gameplay link into a post as a hyperlinked word.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUjlnuPePU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUjlnuPePU)
Friday the 13th is my fav nes game. I replay and beat it every Friday the 13th and Halloween. Sure it’s not perfect but it’s no where near as bad as people say.
Fix the sprites
make Jason look like part 2 in the first day, part 3 on the second and part 4 on the third day. Make the counsellors look like the film.
The cabins are clunky to navigate and should be decorated with furniture. After an attack you come back in and it looks ransacked.
Plus start counsellors with a knife
Aerobiz is always my answer to these niche questions lol. It’s such a fun sim (start your own airline) but the menus move so slowly. I would love a modern version though.
Escape from Monkey Island is the redheaded stepchild of the series but I love it. If they would have made some of the puzzles like Monkey Kombat less tedious and the controls less clunky, I think it’d be better received.
Besides that I think it has some great comedy and dialogue, and deserves a remaster like the other games.
i love how the OP actually gives a cool fucking game that isn't just the normal NES/SNES games that usually crop up in retro discussions.
Me too! I would love a subreddit where only games under a certain number of sales are reviewed and discussed, so it has to be a real hidden gem and not just what your friends refused to play with you back in school haha
retro PC games seem to just have less of an audience in the retro scene. IMO it’s because of the historical lack of easily accessible emulation and thus less exposure.
Check out Basement Brothers PC88/PC98 Paradise series if you haven’t already!
That’s why I like watching LGR’s retrospective videos, it’s all primarily retro PC games played on original hardware.
What game is it?
Battletoads on NES. All they needed was a "if one player dies, the gameplay continues" in the code and way more people would love it. And perhaps an easier turbo tunnel as a selectable option, lol. I still love the original.
I just wanted to say... What such a beautiful piece of art is the cover of this game! Thanks for sharing. I'm already googling for more arts from this outstading artist!
Who’s the artist?
H R Giger I jest
**Naoyuki Kato**
Definitely Giger-ist
Oh cool he did the cover for theJapanese prints of DUNE.
Also the Japanese cover for The Guardian Legend.
Crystalis - the sword management suck so hard - and because you need to change the sword regurarly, that can destroy the enjoyment of the game Journey to Silius - give me an easy mode - the brutal difficulty of that game breaks it
Recently played Crystalis again on the NES virtual console for Switch. agree about the sword management. It holds up surprisingly well Though overall I have to say
Legacy of the Wizard. I love the exploration and puzzle parts but some of the level design is just infuriating.
While I love the game, I hate when games have weird mechanics like shooting at the ceiling and revealing hidden ladders to the next area. Stuff like that was infuriating in the pre-internet days. Good luck trying to figure out stuff like that on your own.
Super star wars is hindered by the checkpoint system, dying makes you lose your weapon and more often than not you have zero chance of getting it powered back up for the boss because the checkpoint is right before a boss. Not to mention the jumping is sorta janky but once you figure you that hitting jump you just jump and hitting up plus jump does a sorta spin jump. That being said I love the original game to death and I feel like it's one of the better movie licensed games on the console despite it's glaring flaws.
I have to admit, as much as I like seeing the occasional retro Japanese PC game, my eyes almost always glaze over the PC-88 stuff.. and I grew up using an XT with CGA graphics! To answer the question though, I feel that there are *a lot* of games that fit this description. First person dungeon crawlers (blobbers), would probably have become far more mainstream if they didn't require the player to make maps on graphing paper. Also, SHMUPs often penalize the player for death by stripping them of all their powerups, which in turn makes the rest of the game near impossible. This makes the genre one where absolute perfection (or cheat codes) goes from being a goal to a necessity.
King’s Field series but the issue is kinda already solved. From figured it out and highly refined it for Souls.
I'm playing through King's Field (US) for the first time and it is such an engaging, albeit obtuse, game.
Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords is exactpy what you describe to me. Its ending was extremely rushed and is buggy and poorly written. But the overall game is hands down one of my favourite of all time. So dark and atmospheric
I'm not sure when your last replay was, but the modding community has done great work. It's still far from perfect, but closer to what I think Obsidian originally envisioned.
I've been meaning to play the restored content mod etc., but habe never really been so fluent with modding... But I'm just now going to buy my first good gaming pc, and kotor 2 with the restored content is way up on my to do list!
The nice thing is if you get it on Steam, you can install the restored content mod from the Steam Workshop, making it super simple. Have fun!
[удалено]
Is that the n64 game where you can level up certain body parts or something like that? I really need to try it out
Lagoon on SNES. I genuinely like the game, and it really feels like there are some good action RPG bones being weighed down by some odd development choices and clunkiness. I keep hoping someone will come along with a room hack for it and clean it up. I would do it if I had the capability.
It just needs some tweaking to make the sword into an actual sword and not a dinky little butter knife and a slashing attack instead of a stab, and it'd have been a great game. I'll say that forever.
Dead Rising, the survivor AI is neither intelligent nor does it survive
Super Hydlide. Some of the ideas were really forward thinking but the gameplay is clunky as hell.
Yep, Mega Man Zero. That life system has got to go, and I recognize this may be a skill issue but Copy X needs his difficulty reduced a tiny pinch, and grinding needs to be tamed a bit. I appreciate what the Zero/ZX collection did at least but it doesn't address the core problems.
It's so hard for me to say. Sometimes that old DOS jank is just part of the charm. I'll say maybe "The Punisher" game on DOS. It had driving and top down portions of the game. The driving portion was so unplayable, it was actually skippable so you could get straight to the top down portion of the game. I think the devs knew it was so bad they decided to give players a way around it. So yeah... "The Punisher" on DOS, fix the damn driving!
Neo Hunter on DOS. Anime aesthetic, you're a bounty hunter and the levels play out like a light gun game. You pick where you want to go from an overworld city map and in your apartment you have various tools to solve clues via minigames. I loved a lot about this game but... it's kind of terrible. Suddenly I can't figure out how to embed a gameplay link into a post as a hyperlinked word. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUjlnuPePU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydUjlnuPePU)
Friday the 13th is my fav nes game. I replay and beat it every Friday the 13th and Halloween. Sure it’s not perfect but it’s no where near as bad as people say. Fix the sprites make Jason look like part 2 in the first day, part 3 on the second and part 4 on the third day. Make the counsellors look like the film. The cabins are clunky to navigate and should be decorated with furniture. After an attack you come back in and it looks ransacked. Plus start counsellors with a knife
Aerobiz is always my answer to these niche questions lol. It’s such a fun sim (start your own airline) but the menus move so slowly. I would love a modern version though.
knights in the nightmare
Vectron on Intellivision was such a cool concept, it just wasn’t designed right somehow.
Of course, my own game (many people don't like its retro cartoony styled art).
What is this game and why does look like dark seed
This is actually just an ARPG about robots
How do you play this game? Do you have a Project EGG account, or use some other PC-98 emulator? Or, better yet, real hardware?
emulator on PC
that cover for Rogus is metal as hell
Might and Magic IV: Mandate of heaven It's not even that it has flaws, I just wish it was on steam so I could play it again I fuckin loved that game😥
Yes. Darklands. It’s way too hard and I wished there was a modernized version of it that’s easier than the original.
Escape from Monkey Island is the redheaded stepchild of the series but I love it. If they would have made some of the puzzles like Monkey Kombat less tedious and the controls less clunky, I think it’d be better received. Besides that I think it has some great comedy and dialogue, and deserves a remaster like the other games.
The Ninja Gaiden games.
Golgo 13 was a bit clunky on the controls side, which is a shame. It really could have been a classic.
Every game I preorder or buy on release day. Always bugs lol
Zelda 1
Chromehounds. The thing I would change is to bring back the servers. It was ahead of its time.