I know it's mostly pointless to start threads like this because they inevitably get filled up with people recommending stuff like STALKER and Arcanum as being overlooked, little known gems. But let's try to post some games that you really rarely hear or see get recommended. Also try to keep it to talking about games you yourself have played instead of posting some youtube video of some faggot talking about top 10 underrated games.
Miasmata. I think one reason this game might get overlooked by people who otherwise may be interested in it, is because it tends to get lumped in with other "open world survival crafting" games on stores like Steam. The cheap Unity asset store look it has probably doesn't help matters, but the visual ugliness is easy to ignore once the game gets a grip on you.
The game is open world and survival based, but it has a clear, linear story to follow, with a real ending, and all the crafting is in service of advancing the story. It's really a survival horror game, where there is a single enemy that stalks you throughout the game, ala nemesis from Resident Evil 3. Nights in the game are pitch black, and the game also has a momentum system where running down hills can cause you to build up speed to the point that you can trip and fall, leading to situations where you are desperately running from a monster while tumbling down hills in near total darkness.
It also has a cool mapping system based on triangulating your position in the world based on landmarks.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/223510/Miasmata/
Qasir al-Wasat. Very strange stealth game, with a setting inspired by Arabian fantasy, alchemy, sacred geometry. If you've read some Borges, you will have a sense of what the setting is like.
The twist on the stealth gameplay is that you play as a creature that is wholly invisible. You can walk right in front of enemies and they will not see you, but they can hear you. You will also become visible to enemies when you move through water, or when you get covered in blood after killing an enemy (which can be averted if you instead kill them through poison, which is available only in very limited quantities).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2960 ... l_Edition/
We have a Steam curator now. You should be following it. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44994899-RPGHQ/
Games that are actually really overlooked
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agentorange
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rusty_shackleford
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Seven: Days Long Gone.
I guess it's sorta like an isometric/birds-eye-view doosex/thief, the opening area/tutorial is really subpar and turned me away twice. I've never seen anyone discussing it, released with a big "meh" and then quickly forgotten. It's not an RPG despite advertising itself as such. If you like stealth games, give it a try. Has very good controls, probably some of the best for birds-eye-view style games.
Recent reviews mention issues launching it(has mostly negative), but I didn't have any issues.
I'm not even a fan of stealth games and I enjoy it.
Also, I bought it for about a quarter.
I guess it's sorta like an isometric/birds-eye-view doosex/thief, the opening area/tutorial is really subpar and turned me away twice. I've never seen anyone discussing it, released with a big "meh" and then quickly forgotten. It's not an RPG despite advertising itself as such. If you like stealth games, give it a try. Has very good controls, probably some of the best for birds-eye-view style games.
Recent reviews mention issues launching it(has mostly negative), but I didn't have any issues.
I'm not even a fan of stealth games and I enjoy it.
Also, I bought it for about a quarter.
Severence: Blade of Darkness. Recently got a re-release but was abandonware up until that point. Characters are unfinished except for the knight, making him the best option objectively. Decently challenging and combos never feel janky. Some weapons have specific combos that are a bit OP but those stop working eventually.
-Humbaba
-Humbaba
Cthulhu Saves the World is a pretty good one. Zeboyd shouldn't be obscure, but no one ever knows their games when I bring them up. Their entire catalogue is pretty good. They are a two man team that makes JRPGs.
I wouldn't know. If I could actually name such a game, it wouldn't be overlooked, now would it?
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Val the Moofia Boss
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Vantage Master
It's a tactics game/SRPG where you play as a master who summons monsters (called Natials) and tries to slay the enemy master. The game looks aesthetically gorgeous.
After each battle, you loot a totem off of the enemy summoner that allows you to summon a new type of monster. There are some peculiar looking monster designs. For example, you can get a totem that is a ship-in-a-bottle, which is used to summon a winged fishbowl Natial. Cool designs.
You can be a wolfman who summons fishbowl monsters and cleaves wizards with his claymore!
The battles take place on a hex grid which allows for more interesting movement options. There is no stat or equipment micromanagement and no sidequests; the game is very focused on just getting you to the fun part of the battles. Battles are about 15-30 minutes long, so the game avoids the tedium and frustration that plagues other tactics games/SRPGs.
There are 30 battles and the game took me about 22 hours to complete it. Strangely, there is a world map but the entire game takes place on one of the four continents. The final battle takes place in a desert on a landbridge to the second continent. That being said, the game did not outstay its welcome.
The gameplay has a lot of depth to it. Natials can be one of four elements and there are type disadvantages. Water beats Fire. Fire beats Heaven. Heaven beats Earth. Earth beats Water. Earth elements tend to be slow but have high defenses and are good for digging in and entrenching a position. Heaven units can fly over terrain and are good for capturing distant positions like ley lines, or flanking. Water Natials usually move slowly over land but way faster over water. Your master can summon a magic spell that can raise or lower the water level, enabling your water units to travel further (or to landlock an enemy master's navy). There is also elevation, so you can have archer units that stand on top of hills and shoot further, while units down below can try to block line of sight by hiding behind pillars, and so on.
The game is quite hard. There is a so-called "easy mode" but it is still nonetheless quite hard. I would strongly recommend playing the game on easy.
Also had one of the most memorable challenges I've experienced in a game. Late in the story, there is a map where you start at the bottom of a hill with only one leyline to summon monsters, and you have to defeat the enemy master who starts on top of the hill (massive elevation advantage, his units have far more range going downhill while my units' range are halved by going uphill), and he has lots of leylines up there. At several points I thought I was doomed, but I persevered and managed to turn the tide and triumph. Was very satisfying.
After every 4 battles, there is a 40 second cutscene which I presume is the plot happening, but the cutscenes aren't translated (except for the last one), so don't play this for the story.
There is some fantastic music too!
The game is free to download from Falcom's website.
It's a tactics game/SRPG where you play as a master who summons monsters (called Natials) and tries to slay the enemy master. The game looks aesthetically gorgeous.
After each battle, you loot a totem off of the enemy summoner that allows you to summon a new type of monster. There are some peculiar looking monster designs. For example, you can get a totem that is a ship-in-a-bottle, which is used to summon a winged fishbowl Natial. Cool designs.
You can be a wolfman who summons fishbowl monsters and cleaves wizards with his claymore!
The battles take place on a hex grid which allows for more interesting movement options. There is no stat or equipment micromanagement and no sidequests; the game is very focused on just getting you to the fun part of the battles. Battles are about 15-30 minutes long, so the game avoids the tedium and frustration that plagues other tactics games/SRPGs.
There are 30 battles and the game took me about 22 hours to complete it. Strangely, there is a world map but the entire game takes place on one of the four continents. The final battle takes place in a desert on a landbridge to the second continent. That being said, the game did not outstay its welcome.
The gameplay has a lot of depth to it. Natials can be one of four elements and there are type disadvantages. Water beats Fire. Fire beats Heaven. Heaven beats Earth. Earth beats Water. Earth elements tend to be slow but have high defenses and are good for digging in and entrenching a position. Heaven units can fly over terrain and are good for capturing distant positions like ley lines, or flanking. Water Natials usually move slowly over land but way faster over water. Your master can summon a magic spell that can raise or lower the water level, enabling your water units to travel further (or to landlock an enemy master's navy). There is also elevation, so you can have archer units that stand on top of hills and shoot further, while units down below can try to block line of sight by hiding behind pillars, and so on.
The game is quite hard. There is a so-called "easy mode" but it is still nonetheless quite hard. I would strongly recommend playing the game on easy.
Also had one of the most memorable challenges I've experienced in a game. Late in the story, there is a map where you start at the bottom of a hill with only one leyline to summon monsters, and you have to defeat the enemy master who starts on top of the hill (massive elevation advantage, his units have far more range going downhill while my units' range are halved by going uphill), and he has lots of leylines up there. At several points I thought I was doomed, but I persevered and managed to turn the tide and triumph. Was very satisfying.
After every 4 battles, there is a 40 second cutscene which I presume is the plot happening, but the cutscenes aren't translated (except for the last one), so don't play this for the story.
There is some fantastic music too!
The game is free to download from Falcom's website.
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maidenhaver
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>iso stealthrusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ August 6th, 2023, 20:25Seven: Days Long Gone.
I guess it's sorta like an isometric/birds-eye-view doosex/thief, the opening area/tutorial is really subpar and turned me away twice. I've never seen anyone discussing it, released with a big "meh" and then quickly forgotten. It's not an RPG despite advertising itself as such. If you like stealth games, give it a try. Has very good controls, probably some of the best for birds-eye-view style games.
Recent reviews mention issues launching it(has mostly negative), but I didn't have any issues.
I'm not even a fan of stealth games and I enjoy it.
Also, I bought it for about a quarter.
So its Metal Gear?
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Vlajdimir Ermenović
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Jeff Minter games other than Tempest 2000. His lineup contains some of the loopiest and most deep-fried shooters out there, specifically Space Giraffe (2007).
I'm not talking about the shitty boring japanese npc "crazy" where you have gradius, but instead of spaceships you have naked gay men because hahaha so crazy, right? I mean these games are actually batshit insane.
TxK (2014) is a relatively tame sequel to Tempest 2000 which was cursed by being a PS vita exclusive, but it's great. Plays very well and has a lovely hypnotic style. It, Moose Life (2020), and Polybius (2017) (which was used in a Nine Inch Nails music video) are him in his comfort zone. I recommend them, even though they cannot match the batshit factor of Space Giraffe.
Gridrunner++ (2002) is another highlight of his lineup. Its 2009 sequel is just okay. The 80s computer original is standard old school fare, but it's fun to play.
I'm not talking about the shitty boring japanese npc "crazy" where you have gradius, but instead of spaceships you have naked gay men because hahaha so crazy, right? I mean these games are actually batshit insane.
TxK (2014) is a relatively tame sequel to Tempest 2000 which was cursed by being a PS vita exclusive, but it's great. Plays very well and has a lovely hypnotic style. It, Moose Life (2020), and Polybius (2017) (which was used in a Nine Inch Nails music video) are him in his comfort zone. I recommend them, even though they cannot match the batshit factor of Space Giraffe.
Gridrunner++ (2002) is another highlight of his lineup. Its 2009 sequel is just okay. The 80s computer original is standard old school fare, but it's fun to play.
-Rogue-lite with permadeath
-Simultaneous turn based combat
-Seven dueling schools
-You can kill anyone you meet
-Commit seppuku for fun and profit
A similar game to Shigatari is Legionary's Life.
Digital Reality and their various offshoots (such as Mithis Games) made a fair amount of interesting space strategy games that were fairly interesting experiments; the best of these are Hegemonia: Legions of Iron and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Hegemonia was basically this crazy ambitious space RTS inspired by Homeworld that has both 4X and some light RPG elements in it, while Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is a far more focused tactical space combat game that's still unrivaled in certain regards.
Both of them can be bought on GOG:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/haegemonia_gold_edition
https://www.gog.com/en/game/nexus_the_jupiter_incident
Both of them can be bought on GOG:
https://www.gog.com/en/game/haegemonia_gold_edition
https://www.gog.com/en/game/nexus_the_jupiter_incident
Need to play that one again. Was actually pretty hyped, but the maps were just too busy, very hard to actually look at let alone play it.rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ August 6th, 2023, 20:25Seven: Days Long Gone.
I guess it's sorta like an isometric/birds-eye-view doosex/thief, the opening area/tutorial is really subpar and turned me away twice. I've never seen anyone discussing it, released with a big "meh" and then quickly forgotten. It's not an RPG despite advertising itself as such. If you like stealth games, give it a try. Has very good controls, probably some of the best for birds-eye-view style games.
Recent reviews mention issues launching it(has mostly negative), but I didn't have any issues.
I'm not even a fan of stealth games and I enjoy it.
Also, I bought it for about a quarter.
My favorite NES game!