The Shrine

This is an old-style poll, where I'd like everyone to list a game that they loved that people in this continent just barely played for one reason or another, be it limited production run, international-only release, buried in the Christmas rush, whatever. Just the games that either didn't make it or didn't do very well but you think that anyone who likes a game like that would just love it.

I have a few to list myself:

1) Panzer Dragoon Saga - I think everyone's heard this one by now. One of my fav RPGs but they only made about 10,000 copies after the Saturn died, so no one played it. Download it if you can

2) Sin and Punishment - for those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a Treasure N64 on-rails shooter (like the classic Star Fox games) that kicks all kind of ass. Intense action (what Treasure game isn't?) and with the two types of guns, lots of strategy in what to use when. If you have a chance to get your hands on it, get it.

3) Radiant Silvergun - yes, another Treasure game, but this is the best shooter (not FPS) ever made. Only Ikaruga can compare, but this one is deeper. Again, if you ever liked any shooting game (R-Type, Einhander, etc.), this one will blow you away. It's that damned good. What other shooter had your ships weapons level up? Six different guns to use at any time? INSANE action? Just amazing.

4) Beyond Good and Evil - again, I've talked about this one a lot, but it's easily one of my fav next-gen games and what I think all "interactive movie" games should be like. It's not perfect (short and easy) but it's an excellent ride. Anyone can get this for $15 or less right now and you'd only be doing yourself a favour if you did.

Um. I tend to be a bit of a mainstream whore...but I'll list some that others may not have played.

Guardian Heroes (Saturn) - Best Final-Fight style beat em' up I've ever played. Players can level up, sort of like an RPG. Multiple branching paths and different endings depending on which way you go, but the game can be finished in an hour or two, so it's totally possible to see them all. I liked this one a lot.

Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon (Super Nintendo) - A wonderful puzzler, possibly my favorite action-puzzle game ever. Gameplay revolves around switching the position of two adjacent stack elements (sort of like Bejeweled), but unlike Bejeweled, which I personally think blows goats, you can make chains and combos. My friends and I in college decided there's literally no upper skill level limit to this game; the sky's the limit when it comes to ability. I used to watch two of my friends and my jaw would drop. It got rebranded/rereleased as Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64, and I think it was just as good, but I only played it once.

Gundam Wars (Famicom) - I haven't actually seen a game in this genre even in forever - think Risk, or Axis and Allies, but electronic. You produce units and try to capture bases in a turn-based thing on a map, but if your Gundam unit meets your opponent's Gundam unit, the gameplay switches to realtime action while you and your opponent (can be CPU or human) battle with your respective Gundam models. Some were obviously better than others, and I remember hating it when my friend would build one super-Gundam-model that he'd obviously practiced a lot with and wipe out mass numbers of my cheaper, less advanced Gundams. It never came out in the U.S., but my friend had an actual Famicom, so we played it at his house. It's somewhat similar to an RTS but much bigger in scale, and it did switch to a turn-based system outside of combat. Had some very neat features. If you and your friend fought in a space location, there would be no gravity to consider, while if you fought in atmosphere or on the surface of a planet, there would be.

Those are the only ones I can think of at present.

4) Beyond Good and Evil - again, I've talked about this one a lot, but it's easily one of my fav next-gen games and what I think all "interactive movie" games should be like. It's not perfect (short and easy) but it's an excellent ride. Anyone can get this for $15 or less right now and you'd only be doing yourself a favour if you did.

A lot of us have played or own this game. I personally quite enjoyed it. One of the best third party games of the generation.



Anyways, three words: SHADOW HEARTS: COVENANT

This is easily one of the best RPG's I have ever played. Though I recommend playing the first Shadow Hearts as well to get a feel for the characters and setting before jumping into this masterpiece. I recommend this game to anyone here.


Other games I could mention are: Civilization III: Conquests, Faxanadu, Baten Kaitos, and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stone, but I know others here have played those or other games in the series.

Baten Kaitos very much impressed me, I am currently playing through it a second time. It has a slow starting (like Xenogears) but picks right up, it offers one of the most original and fun battle systems I have ever seen in a game.

The problem with this sort of question is that I tend to be involved with communities of hard-core gamers - who are more likely to be familiar with the games that "nobody played". It completely skews my perception, since I don't track the sales figures or such to know that people are generally ignoring them.

That said, offhand I'd say System Shock 2 (PC), Planescape: Torment (PC) and Persona 2:EP.

Tortolia wrote:The problem with this sort of question is that I tend to be involved with communities of hard-core gamers - who are more likely to be familiar with the games that "nobody played". It completely skews my perception, since I don't track the sales figures or such to know that people are generally ignoring them.

That said, offhand I'd say System Shock 2 (PC), Planescape: Torment (PC) and Persona 2:EP.

Yeah, I think that a lot of us have been more involved with the "nobody played" idea, but in different ways, which is why it would be interesting to see what each person comes up with.

Mental wrote:Um. I tend to be a bit of a mainstream whore...but I'll list some that others may not have played.

Guardian Heroes (Saturn) - Best Final-Fight style beat em' up I've ever played. Players can level up, sort of like an RPG. Multiple branching paths and different endings depending on which way you go, but the game can be finished in an hour or two, so it's totally possible to see them all. I liked this one a lot.

Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon (Super Nintendo) - A wonderful puzzler, possibly my favorite action-puzzle game ever. Gameplay revolves around switching the position of two adjacent stack elements (sort of like Bejeweled), but unlike Bejeweled, which I personally think blows goats, you can make chains and combos. My friends and I in college decided there's literally no upper skill level limit to this game; the sky's the limit when it comes to ability. I used to watch two of my friends and my jaw would drop. It got rebranded/rereleased as Pokemon Puzzle League for the N64, and I think it was just as good, but I only played it once.

Gundam Wars (Famicom) - I haven't actually seen a game in this genre even in forever - think Risk, or Axis and Allies, but electronic. You produce units and try to capture bases in a turn-based thing on a map, but if your Gundam unit meets your opponent's Gundam unit, the gameplay switches to realtime action while you and your opponent (can be CPU or human) battle with your respective Gundam models. Some were obviously better than others, and I remember hating it when my friend would build one super-Gundam-model that he'd obviously practiced a lot with and wipe out mass numbers of my cheaper, less advanced Gundams. It never came out in the U.S., but my friend had an actual Famicom, so we played it at his house. It's somewhat similar to an RTS but much bigger in scale, and it did switch to a turn-based system outside of combat. Had some very neat features. If you and your friend fought in a space location, there would be no gravity to consider, while if you fought in atmosphere or on the surface of a planet, there would be.

Those are the only ones I can think of at present.

Tetris Attack / Pokemon Puzzle League is my fav puzzler of all time, but I'm not so sure it's a "no one played it". It was released on three different systems and sold pretty OK from what I know.

And yeah, Guardian Heroes is great.

For me the gem that a lot of people seem to have missed is The Guardian Legend (NES). Such a fun game, good dificulty curve, just cant go wrong with it.

I second the System Shock 2. Best marriage of a RPG and FPS, with an in-depth story parsed together with voice diaries of the former shipmates. You could set a voice diary on play as you explore the ship. Great music, too.

(To my knowledge Radiant Silvergun is super super rare. One can sell it on Ebay for $300.)

I'm still inclined to give Deus Ex the FPS/RPG crown over System Shock 2, but they're both so damn good.

God, I still need to try out Deus Ex. I'm hoping that the price would come down on the console versions.

I've heard the console ports were iffy at best. Should still be relatively easy to find a Game of the Year edition of the PC version.

M'k'n'zy wrote:For me the gem that a lot of people seem to have missed is The Guardian Legend (NES). Such a fun game, good dificulty curve, just cant go wrong with it.

Hmmmm, that's one I'll have to look into, first I need to get a good controller for my latest PC, all I have is a keyboard and mouse =P

Zeus wrote:This is an old-style poll, where I'd like everyone to list a game that they loved that people in this continent just barely played for one reason or another, be it limited production run, international-only release, buried in the Christmas rush, whatever. Just the games that either didn't make it or didn't do very well but you think that anyone who likes a game like that would just love it.

1) <b>Anything good on Saturn</b> - Seriously. The Saturn had a ton of fantastic games - the entire Panzer series, Dragon Force, Guardian Heroes, Shining Force III, Radiant Silvergun, Vampire Savior, NiGHTS, etc. - that no one in this country played because nobody had a Saturn.

2) <b>Anything good on Dreamcast besides Soul Calibur, NFL2K, and PSO</b> - Before the PS2 came out, the DC was king, and those two games were the kings of the DC - but as soon as the PS2 came out, it was all over for the DC, and so basically every good game that came out after that - Shenmue (II), Jet Grind Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Armada, etc. - nobody else played.

3) <b>Anything good on Gamecube that's not a Nintendo first-party title</b> - I seriously doubt that anybody but die-hard gamers are picking up non-Nintendo games for the DC, when there are some damn good ones out there - Eternal Darkness, MGS: Twin Snakes, Monkey Ball, etc.

4) <b>Tobal 2</b> - Great 3D fighter for the PSX, fantastic graphics/control/gameplay for its time, never came out here because not enough people bought Tobal No. 1. Too bad for them.

That's all I've got off the top of my head - I'm sure I could think of more if I scoured my collection.

People talking about Deus Ex wrote:a) God, I still need to try out Deus Ex. I'm hoping that the price would come down on the console versions.

b) I've heard the console ports were iffy at best. Should still be relatively easy to find a Game of the Year edition of the PC version.

a) I checked on big two (EB and Gamespot) for the heck of it - Deus Ex for PS2 is $14.99 new, and I couldn't find Invisible War new (which I paid $20 for a while back) but used copies were all under $10. Sine, I'm not sure how much cheaper they can get without someone paying <i>you</i> to take the games!

b) Invisible War wasn't horrible on Xbox. The control/framerate take a while to get used to (I had to keep adjusting the sensitivity all over the place), but overall I liked it.

Well, it's no secret, I absolutely love Skies of Arcadia, one of my alltime favourite games, I do think a lot of people have played it here though; seeing as how we are all RPG fans (unless things have changed).

I own a Saturn, but it is a system I never played very much, I only bought a handful of games for it.

Fate Stay Night (Typemoon, PC, Japan) - Quite possibly the only good PC 'game' that was ever made from Japan. Okay, so it really was more like a book than a game, though I really doubt anyone have the guts to make a game as hard as FSN's battles are meant to be since they're meant to be difficult even with 5 miracles that only occur once in a millenium going off at the same time.

Terranigma (Enix, SNES) - Didn't get ported to the US allegedly due to religious symbolism, but you can get the British version. I think this will always be known as 'the game that was better than Chrono Trigger that no one ever played'.

Arcana (?, SNES) - While not particularly a good game, there are very few RPGs that manage to make the hero actually important without making him the one man army. This is one of the few if not only RPG that establishes a sense of urgency, as when you're dumped on floor 11 of a dungeon without the rest of your party gone for the rest of the game, you better head up and stop the evil whatever from being revived as opposed to go back to town and take your time doing any number of insignificant activity in light of the world about to be destroyed.

Don Wang wrote:Terranigma (Enix, SNES) - Didn't get ported to the US allegedly due to religious symbolism, but you can get the British version.

How? Every time I've seen Terranigma offered on eBay or whatever, it's always been a PAL version. Are there workarounds for that?

I do have a ROM of the game, but I don't have a gamepad for my iBook and I hate playing with the keyboard (I tried). Besides, I'd rather own the game if I'm going to play it anyway.

Agent 57 wrote:

Don Wang wrote:Terranigma (Enix, SNES) - Didn't get ported to the US allegedly due to religious symbolism, but you can get the British version.

How? Every time I've seen Terranigma offered on eBay or whatever, it's always been a PAL version. Are there workarounds for that?

I do have a ROM of the game, but I don't have a gamepad for my iBook and I hate playing with the keyboard (I tried). Besides, I'd rather own the game if I'm going to play it anyway.

You can get an SNES PAL converter for relatively cheap nowadays, as cheap as 3 or 4 dollars.

Also, yeah, Terranigma, I think a lot of us have played that game here as well. This is my favourite Super Nintendo game. I still get excited every time I play it.

The Seeker wrote:You can get an SNES PAL converter for relatively cheap nowadays, as cheap as 3 or 4 dollars.

Would you mind pointing out where one can get it that cheap? All the ones on eBay go for $20 to start, $29 Buy It Now.

Also, isn't there some sort of physical modification you need to make to an American SNES to get it to play games from other regions? Like a tab you have to break off inside the cartridge slot or something?

The Seeker wrote: Hmmmm, that's one I'll have to look into, first I need to get a good controller for my latest PC, all I have is a keyboard and mouse =P

Voila.

I've been using mine for months now and love it. Handles whatever I throw at it.

Agent 57 wrote:b) Invisible War wasn't horrible on Xbox. The control/framerate take a while to get used to (I had to keep adjusting the sensitivity all over the place), but overall I liked it.

Deus Ex was a PC game that was ported to consoles.

Invisible War was designed for XBox and ported to PC.

Quite a few people are still pissed that they over-consolized IW (universal ammo! bleh) simply to move more units.

I never played IW - when I tried, my computer was completely incapable of handling it (granted, that was before I tripled my RAM).

Definetly Tobal 2. It's a real shame we never got that one here, I would loved to have been able to actually tell what the hell was going on in the mazes. Fun game with a great fighting engine, too. Good one, Agent

The Seeker wrote:

M'k'n'zy wrote:For me the gem that a lot of people seem to have missed is The Guardian Legend (NES). Such a fun game, good dificulty curve, just cant go wrong with it.

Hmmmm, that's one I'll have to look into, first I need to get a good controller for my latest PC, all I have is a keyboard and mouse =P

I can't recomend it enough. To date I still play through it at least 2 timesa year.

Arcana (?, SNES) - While not particularly a good game, there are very few RPGs that manage to make the hero actually important without making him the one man army. This is one of the few if not only RPG that establishes a sense of urgency, as when you're dumped on floor 11 of a dungeon without the rest of your party gone for the rest of the game, you better head up and stop the evil whatever from being revived as opposed to go back to town and take your time doing any number of insignificant activity in light of the world about to be destroyed.

#%@#%, you complain about SMT encounter, and yet you talk about Arcana among all things.... The game is pretty much a classic dungeon crawl, had a horrid encounter rate and not to mention that pain in the arse ice dungeon.

The end part was pretty dumb, an old hero which is not mentioned in the entire game suddenly appear and weaken the boss.

Anyway, to add to the list of games listed here:

Persona 2: Innocent Sin/Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers. Both failed to appear on the Amercian market, and they have one of the better plots for RPGs released on the last gen of 32 bit systems.

Any RPG fans should like these 2, but sadly they never make it pass Sony.....

I don't say Arcana was good because it had dungeon crawilng. Getting the legendary 'giant sword' from an unnamed hero (maybe he was mentioned in the instruction booklet' is no more contrived than many other games out there.

Xbox- Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (Phantagram)

This one didn't make much of a splash, given it's limited release and unknown (Korean) developer. Best way of describing it would be Dynasty Warriors with some RTS thrown in. It came down to hack-and-slash mainly, but - and the comparrison is obvious - it's much better than Dynasty Warriors.

PS1- Intenational Track and Field (Konami)

I'm sure plenty of people played this, but I never recall any praise for it. It still stands as the best game of it's type even now... as long as you don't mind bloody, blistered fingers.

Xbox/PS2/GC- Gladius

Mythical arena fighting with either Norselike babe Ursula or sissy Romanesque Valens (and eventually both). Recruit tons of human fighters, dogs, bears, minotaurs, the undead, and more. Great artwork, too.