A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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Too Human
The development of it made the game not live up to it's hype, but it was still a really playable ARPG.
I really enjoyed the control scheme too which used two joysticks for combat, instead of the buttons, the idea was to put less stress on the player over long gaming sessions and I think they got very close to that. It's a shame no other games followed that control scheme
I was obsessed with this game when it came out. Rented it from Gamefly for 360 and immediately fell in love with the twin stick combat. Had a good loot system too from what I remember. I really want to go back and play it again now.
I haven’t played in years, maybe over a decade at this point, but I used to play a shit ton of the absolutely terrible Anarchy Online. I never got very far, I never really understood much, but I liked playing it for some reason.
Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, and Fear Effect: Sedna
I played the first two way after release on PS Now and the picked up the third on sale for $2. Sure, they have reputations that range from so-so to war crime but I think Hunted is a diamond in the rough and find ORC and Sedna to be the perfect games to play after another one is a huge disappointment.
its playerbase fell off so hard, but i still really liked nickelodeon all star brawl. hopefully a sequel comes out sometime
I used to log in to armorgames.com to play shitty browser flash games occasionally. There was one "mmo" game called Rise of Mythos. It was a deck building collectible card game. I would play it for a few days then forget about it for 6 months. Over time I had a cool deck from years of occasionally logging in, never spent money on it though. Then one day I logged in and it was gone. I would have paid some money to keep it around.
Armor games was so great. I forgot what the games were called but I used to play one set in WW1 and it’s sequel set in WW2 all the time. There were 3 lanes and different troop types you could send in
Aranock-Online; Still available, but nothing like its earlier days, predictably.
Azure Dreams. A PS1 Konami game that mixes elements of RPGs, roguelikes, dating sims, and creature collectors.
I've never known anyone else IRL who's heard of it, but it's always been at the top of my favorite games list.
I have so many fond memories of the game, but I keep forgetting the name. Thank you for the reminder, maybe this time I'll remember to try and emulate it.
Glad I could help jog your memory!
If you're looking for a modern (only in the sense that it released in the past decade) game heavily inspired by Azure Dreams, check out Dungeon Dreams on Steam. It's an RPG Maker love letter to Azure Dreams.
Heyy, very cool! Thanks for the recommendation! I gotta keep this one in mind, after I get through Fear&Hunger. It's pretty brutal, but god I love the pixel art.
Gallop Racer (psx)
It's about racing and breeding horses.
"Newer" titles of the series (ps2) also had the element of raising/training the horses.
The collab with G1 Jockey on the PS3 also had those obstacle course racing included.
My dad loved betting on horses (he got it from his father), and loved the game.
It was simple game of racing horses with some fine details mixed in (when to gallop, correct positioning and timing, and etc.)
The best thing about the series is that the list of horses are already laid out, so you know which ones are the strong ones in a particular course except for the secret horses that you only get through winning particular races in a particular order throughout the horse's career.
The endgame though is through breeding the horses, which is another element of euphoria when winning the genetic lottery.
Sometimes when I miss it, I just play it on my phone (through an emulator) and it's always been a fun experience.
Shepherd's Crossing 2, for the DS. I've put a truly ridiculous number of hours into it over the years, and keep coming back.
It's not popular in the farm sims because a key part is butchering your meat animals so you can feed your dogs.
Russian Fishing 4. I’m not an IRL angler whatsoever but I love games that lean hard into real gear and simulation (as much as possible in a video game).
Rf4 just has a good chunk of content and feels good. The other fishing games out there are a joke in comparison IMO.
It’s unpopular because of grinds and the fish spawning, but I chalk it up to real life …sometimes, the day isn’t yours right?
I would say Rebel Galaxy and especially Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw, which reminds me of Wing Commander: Privateer for the "Good game with little recognition".
For the "Objectively bad but I still love it" type, Lichdom: Battlemage and Technomancer are deeply flawed but wonderfully fun gems that require you to ignore some pretty big problems to find your enjoyment in them. Same with DarkStar One and the Starpoint Gemini series.
If you like the toy soldiers idea you may want to check out HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed.
That's a good one I played it quite a bit!
I’ll take it “unpopular” as in, literally dead and not “not liked”… but mine would be Obsidian Conflict. I have a 24/7 server that runs on my server just for the sake that once every few months a random player can join it.
I love all the community mods and spent sometime years ago scraping every map I found online for it.
Tomba! on the first playstation. The first game is better than the second, but both are very fun platformers, maybe metroidvania in a way? Since there's some backtracking as you gain new stuff and abilities.
A possibly not very known title from the PSP that's totally worth the time: Kenka Bancho. There's only 1 in the series that was localized in english, which is the one I played and enjoyed it a lot. You're a high school japanese student on a quest to be the ultimate high school badass.
Neither is mediocre, they're possibly just "hidden gems", really.
Shadow Man. It was definitely shit, but I played it for so many hours. The mood and the scale of it was incredible, but the controls and gameplay were sorely lacking. Even so, I found it incredibly immersive.