Discussion Forgotten Games

Álvaro de Campos

O nada que é tudo.
Mar 12, 2019
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A couple of games from my childhood that I think were pretty good.


There was this point-and-click adventure game series about a rabbit who, in the first game, goes to his grandfather's house and has to rescue him by finding a bunch of letters (literally, as in a, b, c, etc.) hidden around the house in order to open a coded door. The game ends with you launching a rocket into space. The second game has lower stakes, you just go to the market to find a bunch of fruit or something, I forget exactly.
Anyways I can't remember the name and it's probably impossible to find because I'm pretty sure they were Portuguese. That along with the Thinkin' Things Collections were my early childhood.

Also, I'd add N2O: Nitrous Oxide but have mentioned it in the Opinion - Your favourite games of all time thread and the YouTube videos of it seem to have quite a lot of views, although how much of that is due to the soundtrack I don't know.
 

FunnyJay

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Now for something completely different:

Fine Artist by Microsoft Kids!


A drawing program specifically made for kids for Windows 3.1.
You could draw, use stamps, learn how to make "3D" pictures (how to use perspective in pictures), and it was all wrapped as you were in a large building with multiple floors and filled with wacky details that you could click to see what happened.



 

FunnyJay

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Let's take a slightly less forgotten gem:

SHOGO: Mobile Armor Division





A first person shooter, were you travel both on foot and in large mechs. The game is heavily inspired by animes.

You play as Sanjuro, a commander in the United Corporate Authority, tasked with protecting an important planet against a terrorist organization, The Fallen, and the various corporations that are fighting for control of the planet.
Sanjuro's brother, his best friend and girlfriend died some time before the game in the conflict.

The game is over-the-top violent, as in each person explodes and turns into large blood splatters. It can also be quite unforgiving at times, since enemies can score critical hits on you, and the game isn't above spawning enemies behind you in corridors you have already cleared.

The game also has a branching narrative at one point, which affects the final part of the last act, and leads to completely different areas and enemies.
Quite advanced for it's time in that way.

The game is still available today!

 
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Cacher

Cacher

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I played and finished Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting [Enhanced Edition] yesterday. Wrote about it in the rating thread but I thought maybe I should put it here as well.

For the main premise, you can watch the trailer:

It is a standard point-and-click game where players explore the hidden compound inside Cold Winter Farm, solve puzzles and read journals on the way, and ultimately find out what was really happening in this place. Gameplay-wise, to be frank, nothing special. What really surprised me is the story. What seems a cliché story was turned into something way more twisted than I expected. It also portrays several interesting characters just by audio clips and journals.

Yesterday I couldn't stop playing it aside from eat and toilet breaks. Put 7 hours into it and needed to refer to guides as there are no guidance on some puzzles. For its asking price, the story alone is more than worth it even though it left some questions unaswered. If you want a slightly spooky game (just slightly) to play in October, this is the one.

 

Panda Pedinte

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Sep 20, 2018
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So I was browsing around YT and one of the recommended videos was about a game I played a lot on my PSOne.

Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring.

It was a 3D fighting game originally released for arcade and ported to Playstation and the biggest selling point were the FFVII characters present in the game. The best part about it wasn't the fighting game there was also a dungeon crawler mode! But my copy was in Japanese so I didn't have any idea about was going on lol.

 
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Cacher

Cacher

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So I was browsing around YT and one of the recommended videos was about a game I played a lot on my PSOne.

Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring.

It was a 3D fighting game originally released for arcade and ported to Playstation and the biggest selling point were the FFVII characters present in the game. The best part about it wasn't the fighting game there was also a dungeon crawler mode! But my copy was in Japanese so I didn't have any idea about was going on lol.
I fadedly remember reading someone on another forum mentioning this game. Very interesting to know there was a dungeon crawler mode. Let's see if I can find a copy in the future to try it out!
 
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FunnyJay

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Time for another old classic from my childhood!

It's....... Major Stryker!!!!





A classic shareware shoot-em-up from Apogee Software. My brother got this on a shareware collection floppy disk back in the early 90's.
It features some basic EGA graphics, awesome gameplay and a wonderful soundtrack made by Bobby Prince!

After World War III, Earth is attacked by an alien species called the Kretons. Major Harrison Stryker, a WWIII veteran is dispatched to three planets in the Kreton's home system to attack them on their own turf.

Fun fact, I believe Stryker was supposed to either be related to Duke Nukem, or Commander Keen. Can't quite remember which of them it was.

It was released as freeware back in 2006 and can still be downloaded from 3D Realms webpage:
Major Stryker - 3D Realms - Firepower Matters

And apparently, it has also been released on Steam! (That was more than what I knew before checking today!!!)

 

FunnyJay

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It's...... The Clue!






An adventure / strategic heist game from 1994. You play as a poor aspiring burglar that arrives in London during the early 1950's. You need to find prospective targets for heists, investigate the area to see the comings and goings, buy tools for the heist, recruit accomplices to help with the breaking in and the getaway driving, buy cars to lose the cops with and so on.

A major part of the game plays like an point and click adventure game where you choose where to go next and what to do, but when you start to plan a heist, the game switches to a top down strategic interface.
Here, you control each member of the heist crew one by one. You walk around in paused real time. Each time you interact with an object, the interaction time is added as well. Any patrolling guards can be seen moving around "in real time" when the clock is running.

When you switch crew members, the timer is reset and you start from zero with that person, while all the other members of the crew act out their parts of the planned heist.
Then when it is time to execute the plan, it's time to see if it actually works or if you're discovered by something you missed or didn't plan for.
Followed by getaway chases, fencing the goods and hopefully, living the good life with the spoils.

It's a really neat concept that I haven't seen much of since. Heists are of course always cool, but I especially like the planning system where you control each member individually to make the perfect plan.



Apparently, it's been made open source and there's a project to keep it running on modern machines.
The Clue! Open Source Project

Haven't tried that version myself.
 
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Cacher

Cacher

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Are you ready for anime games?

Aoi Umi no Tristia and Aoi Sora no Neosphere , developed and published by Kogado Studio.




Gotta be honest with you, this is one of my favorite series when I was young. Gameplay is like the Atelier series without monster fighting and heavily focusing on time and town management. You play as Nanoca Flanca, a young but prestigious inventor, who is assigned to save dying cities. Daily tasks involved studying raw materials, inventing receipts for crafting, crafting items, selling said items to stores and completing tasks given by NPC so as to advance the main story. The city will continue populating during the whole process, thereby opening new areas and new materials for further inventions. The whole gameplay loop is very addictive and I remember myself playing the game for the whole day.

I remember the game has a very strict requirement on triggering story event. To achieve the true ending, the tasks must be completed before certain dates, so following a guide is basically mandatory. The main story is full-blown lesibian comedy mixed with some dark and sad moments. Retrospectively speaking, I am not certain if this game is suitable for kids as there are tons of revealing cut-ins. :face-with-stuck-out-tongue-and-winking-eye: Actually, upon research, the game was rated for age 15 or above by CERO.

The series actually has four games, but I have only played the first two starring Nanoca. Seems like the remaining two are changed into dungeon crawlers. Maybe I will check them out one day.

Unfortunately, they are never localized into English. The whole series is available digitally on DLsite. If you are able to read Japanese, I would definitely recommend picking them up as they are currently on sale. The two games are also available in Chinese (which are the versions I played), but they are probably impossible to be found now.


As I said before, I mainly played Japanese and Taiwanese games when I was a kid, and most of them are anime games. So please bear with me on these upcoming anime posts. I will try to add some western games into the mix. :baseballblob:
 
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Cacher

Cacher

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I love the art style, we really missed out on a huge part of gaming history seeing those.
The illustrator is Eeji Komatsu. He is still a rather prominent artist in the field.
Twitter (NSFW)



I remember playing this game a lot back when I was 8-9 years old. Was one of my first game that I played on a computer.
I wish Ubisoft can make more titles like this. I like their smaller titles like Child of Light.
 
Last edited:

ExistentialThought

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Are you ready for anime games?

Aoi Umi no Tristia and Aoi Sora no Neosphere , developed and published by Kogado Studio.
Oh wow, really tempted to pick up the first one from dlsite. It is on sale until mid-May and I would get an additional 300 yen off since I do not have an account there. I should think about it since I am not sure how finicky the game would be on Win10.

I really love the top down art style.
 
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Cacher

Cacher

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Oh wow, really tempted to pick up the first one from dlsite. It is on sale until mid-May and I would get an additional 300 yen off since I do not have an account there. I should think about it since I am not sure how finicky the game would be on Win10.

I really love the top down art style.
If you want a little more incentive, Nanoca is voiced by Ayako Kawasumi, more known by her performance as Saber from Fate series. Her performance is fantastic in these games.

Sadly I don't know how it runs on modern OS. I have cleared both games for a few times but not on Win10. Upon searching this page says it works but I am not sure how reliable they are.
 

ExistentialThought

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If you want a little more incentive, Nanoca is voiced by Ayako Kawasumi, more known by her performance as Saber from Fate series. Her performance is fantastic in these games.

Sadly I don't know how it runs on modern OS. I have cleared both games for a few times but not on Win10. Upon searching this page says it works but I am not sure how reliable they are.
Oh wow, that is crazy she voiced these games.

That page is helpful! I will see about picking it up soon to try, thank you again for point it out. :blobmorning2:
 
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FunnyJay

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Outwars!







Outwars is a third person shooter from 1998, where you play as a soldier in the war against an insect-like alien threat.
Yes, you guessed it, it's pretty much Starship Troopers, but in this game you have a jetpack!

Since you are outfitted with either a jetpack (or a jet-powered hangglider on some levels) all the levels have lots of verticality and a multitude of mission objectives to complete.
I loved the demo back in the day from a PC Gamer demo disc, and bought it in an old big box a couple of years later when I found it in a game shop (remember those???).

Personally, I always thought the parallels to Starship Troopers are really blatant (the aliens launch a sudden attack in the beginning, they are controlled by a brain-bug etc.) but that just made it so much cooler back in the day.

The graphics are not much to write home about, but the levels are really large, and encourage exploration.

And you can still play it today!

GOG has it available right now:

And it seems to be releasing on Steam in a couple of weeks:

"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
 
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Cacher

Cacher

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Outwars!

Outwars is a third person shooter from 1998, where you play as a soldier in the war against an insect-like alien threat.
Yes, you guessed it, it's pretty much Starship Troopers, but in this game you have a jetpack!

Since you are outfitted with either a jetpack (or a jet-powered hangglider on some levels) all the levels have lots of verticality and a multitude of mission objectives to complete.
I loved the demo back in the day from a PC Gamer demo disc, and bought it in an old big box a couple of years later when I found it in a game shop (remember those???).

Personally, I always thought the parallels to Starship Troopers are really blatant (the aliens launch a sudden attack in the beginning, they are controlled by a brain-bug etc.) but that just made it so much cooler back in the day.

The graphics are not much to write home about, but the levels are really large, and encourage exploration.

And you can still play it today!

GOG has it available right now:

And it seems to be releasing on Steam in a couple of weeks:

"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
The Earth Defense Force before Earth Defense Force lol. Looks pretty fun to play. Going to wait for the steam release.:baseballblob:
 

FunnyJay

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The Earth Defense Force before Earth Defense Force lol. Looks pretty fun to play. Going to wait for the steam release.:baseballblob:
I remember really liking it!
Now, I haven't personally played it for 20 years or so, but I still think it was really rad!
 
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Pommes

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It's...... The Clue!






An adventure / strategic heist game from 1994. You play as a poor aspiring burglar that arrives in London during the early 1950's. You need to find prospective targets for heists, investigate the area to see the comings and goings, buy tools for the heist, recruit accomplices to help with the breaking in and the getaway driving, buy cars to lose the cops with and so on.

A major part of the game plays like an point and click adventure game where you choose where to go next and what to do, but when you start to plan a heist, the game switches to a top down strategic interface.
Here, you control each member of the heist crew one by one. You walk around in paused real time. Each time you interact with an object, the interaction time is added as well. Any patrolling guards can be seen moving around "in real time" when the clock is running.

When you switch crew members, the timer is reset and you start from zero with that person, while all the other members of the crew act out their parts of the planned heist.
Then when it is time to execute the plan, it's time to see if it actually works or if you're discovered by something you missed or didn't plan for.
Followed by getaway chases, fencing the goods and hopefully, living the good life with the spoils.

It's a really neat concept that I haven't seen much of since. Heists are of course always cool, but I especially like the planning system where you control each member individually to make the perfect plan.



Apparently, it's been made open source and there's a project to keep it running on modern machines.
The Clue! Open Source Project

Haven't tried that version myself.
I loved this game.
When I listen to the music it sends me back to the 90s.
E.g. the music that was played during a running heist:

Or this track:

Ahh good times :blobmorning2:

Interesting tidbit about the developer (Neo Software): They later became Rockstar Vienna - a Rockstar support studio which was closed in 2006.
 

gabbo

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Drakan: Order of the Flame



The usual description of this was Tomb Raider with dragons, but that has more to do with Rynn being a busty female protagonist in a late 90s third person video game than it does with actual gameplay.
Drakan is 3rd person, yes, but it's more a hack and slash rpg lite than the 3rd person shooter puzzle game that Tomb Raider was (there are some puzzles to solve obviously, it is a 90s action game after all).

Rynn is off to find and avenge her brother who was captured when their village was overrun by Wartoks (orcs, basically) working for an evil baddy.
She has to team up and join an ancient order (through some story bits I won't spoil, but are played out nicely via cutscene and deal with the larger mythology of the Drakan world) with one of the last remaining dragons of that order Arokh.

So now you've got a mount, woop dee doo, right? He flies you into cut scenes, ain little arenas with not much else.
Noooooope. You dogfight other dragons in huge open areas AND he can basically fly you around the rest of the world, frying anything that moves (like the islands in that picture above), saving your swords/arrows for better use. Now mind you, he cant fly underground and you still have to hit various story beat checkpoints, but it's a lot easier when enemies are already sauteed when you do get there.


it did get a sequel, which, as I never owned a PS2, have only recently acquired and begun getting through via emulation, so i can't say much about.
I dream that Sony remembers they own this r sell it off because id love a remaster/more. This game however it becoming for me what Dino Crisis is for Jawmuncher and I'm okay with that
 

sk2k

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Somewhere else
Drakan: Order of the Flame



The usual description of this was Tomb Raider with dragons, but that has more to do with Rynn being a busty female protagonist in a late 90s third person video game than it does with actual gameplay.
Drakan is 3rd person, yes, but it's more a hack and slash rpg lite than the 3rd person shooter puzzle game that Tomb Raider was (there are some puzzles to solve obviously, it is a 90s action game after all).

Rynn is off to find and avenge her brother who was captured when their village was overrun by Wartoks (orcs, basically) working for an evil baddy.
She has to team up and join an ancient order (through some story bits I won't spoil, but are played out nicely via cutscene and deal with the larger mythology of the Drakan world) with one of the last remaining dragons of that order Arokh.

So now you've got a mount, woop dee doo, right? He flies you into cut scenes, ain little arenas with not much else.
Noooooope. You dogfight other dragons in huge open areas AND he can basically fly you around the rest of the world, frying anything that moves (like the islands in that picture above), saving your swords/arrows for better use. Now mind you, he cant fly underground and you still have to hit various story beat checkpoints, but it's a lot easier when enemies are already sauteed when you do get there.


it did get a sequel, which, as I never owned a PS2, have only recently acquired and begun getting through via emulation, so i can't say much about.
I dream that Sony remembers they own this r sell it off because id love a remaster/more. This game however it becoming for me what Dino Crisis is for Jawmuncher and I'm okay with that
I loved that game on PC. A official level edtor was also released.
 

gabbo

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I remember this being really hyped up by PC Gamer back in the day, but not reviewing so well when it was finally released? Never played it myself.
7s mostly from what I remember at the time.
It still has a community keeping it alive with editors and maps and me mentioning it every where :). One day i'll try my hand at the riot editor
 
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FunnyJay

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Pizza Tycoon aka Pizza Connection





Released around the same time as Transport Tycoon, this was definitely a favorite of mine as a child. The sheer wackyness of it all.
Choose your character (there are dozens and dozens to choose from), decide on a city to start in, buy or rent a location, decorate the restaurant with furniture and flooring, design your own pizzas, buy groceries, hire staff, open the pizza place for business and don't forget to buy some ads!

That's not even mentioning all the other weird stuff you could do in the game:

  • Participate in pizza making contests
  • Work for the mob, delivering suitcases with questionable content
  • Buy weapons (or rather "ice cream") and go on nightly raids to destroy your competitors restaurants.
  • On the phone, call one of all the weird characters you can speak to, modeled after celebrities or other weirdos.
I can only begin to tell you how much joy this brought me as a kid, even though it was tough (if not nearly impossible) to actually manage to make some financial progress in the game. The difficulty was relentless, but I was content in just buying some weapons and wrecking restaurants, and designing some really awful pizzas to subject the customers to.

Replaying it today, you notice how clunky the interface is (standard for old DOS games) and again, how difficult it actually is to make any progress. But it still holds a special place in my heart.
:steam_pigblanket:

And.... It's still available for purchase:


 

FunnyJay

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Giants: Citizen Kabuto






A gang of weird aliens called the Meccs crash land on a distant planet. The immediately enlist the help of the native Smarties to try to repair their ship. The quickly discover that this planet is controlled by the hostile Sea Reapers and also inhabited by the gigantic giant Kabuto.
The Meccs utilize their jetpacks and explosive weapons to try to complete their missions, all while spouting very British humorous retorts.
But you also get to control one of the Sea Reapers, and the giant Kabuto himself.

It's a third person shooter / light real time strategy game! You traverse the gigantic maps, completing different objectives as you try to move the plot along. It's filled with weird humor and crazy characters.

My only gripe with the game is that the save system is a bit archaic, since I believe you cannot save mid-mission, and some of the levels are quite long and large.


And it's still available for purchase:
 

gabbo

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Giants: Citizen Kabuto






A gang of weird aliens called the Meccs crash land on a distant planet. The immediately enlist the help of the native Smarties to try to repair their ship. The quickly discover that this planet is controlled by the hostile Sea Reapers and also inhabited by the gigantic giant Kabuto.
The Meccs utilize their jetpacks and explosive weapons to try to complete their missions, all while spouting very British humorous retorts.
But you also get to control one of the Sea Reapers, and the giant Kabuto himself.

It's a third person shooter / light real time strategy game! You traverse the gigantic maps, completing different objectives as you try to move the plot along. It's filled with weird humor and crazy characters.

My only gripe with the game is that the save system is a bit archaic, since I believe you cannot save mid-mission, and some of the levels are quite long and large.


And it's still available for purchase:
Really wish the spiritual sequel had come to fruition when it hit the crowd-funding arena years back. The multiplayer is tons of fun if you can find people down the asymmetric nature
 

Wibblewozzer

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Planet Moon reminds me of a company like Twisted Pixel (or maybe Double Fine) where they had some really great concepts and were creative but their games always felt unpolished and not looked at by people outside the company to tell them things that should be improved.

But I still bought their stuff to support their craziness.
 

FunnyJay

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Today, let's talk about..... MDK








A 3D shooter/platformer where you play as Kurt, who intends to save the world from aliens who have invaded the earth with gigantic machines that are crawling through the countryside. Equipped with a special sniper-suit with a built-in infinite parachute, he parachutes down into each gigantic crawler, avoiding missiles and collecting equipment on the way.
After landing in each crawler, the level begins for real. These crawlers are each a gigantic level with some really imaginative layouts.
You have to run, slide, fly and parachute around to defeat all the enemies and find the way forward.
You get to use imaginative weapons like "The worlds most interesting bomb" and even travel by a snowboard on one level.

I think I read somewhere that this was one of the first games to utilize a zoomable sniper rifle, and it is quite integral to solving several puzzles.
The game only has 6 levels, but each level is really large and takes up to about an hour to complete.

It also has one of the weirdest endings I have ever seen in a game. A french music video, interspersed with actors acting out "scenes" from the game and the CGI bosses from the game playing music instruments.

It is still available for purchase today!