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Avynte
Jun 30, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

yellowcar posted:

As far as I know, my FPS hasn't dropped one bit when I played it. I heard that the one up on PSN is the EU version with the fixed framrate issues. So there you go.

That's great to hear, thank you! Can't wait to actually finish it this time.

e; for context

Odin Sphere
A beautiful side scrolling beat'em up, with a hefty dose of rpg and item management. Also: Cooking! :chef:

Avynte fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jul 12, 2012

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homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007


Bombastic
Sequel to the equally underrated PSX game Devil Dice. In my eyes, this is the only series that even comes close to the batshit insanity of multiplayer Bomberman. Its all about rolling dice around to create chains of upright pips. It doesn't sound like much, but its incredibly difficult to pull off when everything on screen is constantly exploding around you. The single player puzzle mode is pretty interesting, too, but way less hectic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi-1RcFqiqI
(fast forward to 2 minutes for fun times)

Discount Viscount
Jul 9, 2010

FIND THE FISH!

homeless snail posted:


Bombastic
Sequel to the equally underrated PSX game Devil Dice. In my eyes, this is the only series that even comes close to the batshit insanity of multiplayer Bomberman.

Chu Chu Rocket would like a word with you.

I have Bombastic and tried it out just a bit but haven't dug into it very far. It struck me as hitting that easy-to-learn, hard-to-master sweet spot for the various single player modes. Conceptually simple but balancing chaos with strategy quickly leads to complexity. One of these days I'll dig into it!

Sum Mors
Feb 21, 2008
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

What? A Castlevania? Yes. This is the second (playstation) attempt at a 3D Castlevania, and it was a great game that just didn't sell. You probably still have a good chance at finding it at a local game store in that pile of PS2 games in the bargain bin. Was it perfect? No, it has some flaws of course. But it was a huge step up from Lament of Innocence, and honestly deserved a sequel (if not in story, then in type of game) but never received.

Phalse
Aug 15, 2010
The Mojo King Bee stage on the Gitaroo Man Demo pissed me off so much I had to keep playing til I mastered it. I was pretty happy when I found it on sale at Best Buy ages ago. Every few months I give it a play.

Hanjuku Hero Tai 3D & Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Jin no Hanjuku Hero
An odd but fun RTS game by Square Enix. Manage your sprite troops as you forcefully bash them into enemy armies. When it's time to summon the Egg Monsters a pumpkin headed shaman chants while your troops shake their asses. Wish I could understand the story, but the sprites are fun to watch.

Here's game play of Hanjuku Hero 4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aspU_UCUsBo

Geop
Oct 26, 2007

Sum Mors posted:

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

What? A Castlevania? Yes. This is the second (playstation) attempt at a 3D Castlevania, and it was a great game that just didn't sell. You probably still have a good chance at finding it at a local game store in that pile of PS2 games in the bargain bin. Was it perfect? No, it has some flaws of course. But it was a huge step up from Lament of Innocence, and honestly deserved a sequel (if not in story, then in type of game) but never received.
I was actually going to post this. You could craft special weapons and stuff using materials from monsters. If I remember right, you had to use a particular way to kill 'em in order to get a part or component :buddy: Plus, its soundtrack is downright amazing. It had a pretty lousy story, but I loved its RPG elements.

Masa
Jun 20, 2003
Generic Newbie


Shadow of Destiny (or Shadow of Memories in Europe) is an adventure-ish game where you start out as a guy who repeatedly gets murdered. Each time you die, you get sent back in time to before it happened and you have to figure out how to stop it and eventually figure out who is responsible. You also end up traveling back in time to the middle ages and some time around the beginning of the 20th century. The story is pretty good, as far as game stories go.




Dai Senryaku VII: Exceed
I admit that I've only played the Xbox version, but the two are supposed to be mostly the same.
This is a turn-based strategy game with real-world military equipment from several countries. The map is hex-based, and generally you go around capturing cities, and try to capture the enemy's capital (I think, it's been a long time since I played it). A big part of the strategy is keeping your army supplied, as all of your units have a limited amount of ammo and fuel, and you have to bring along supply trucks or resupply them in your captured cities. Using artillery to soften up enemy units is also a very important part of the game.

knox
Oct 28, 2004

SOCOM: US NAVY SEALS was my first multiplayer console experience, along with the mic my first multiplayer interaction. Gameplay seems super slow by today's Call of Duty fast and furious respawn fest, but SOCOM is still my favorite shooter. An intimate small community where players and clans had "home" servers and everyone knew each other.

The sequel and others after sucked.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Masa posted:



Shadow of Destiny (or Shadow of Memories in Europe) is an adventure-ish game where you start out as a guy who repeatedly gets murdered. Each time you die, you get sent back in time to before it happened and you have to figure out how to stop it and eventually figure out who is responsible. You also end up traveling back in time to the middle ages and some time around the beginning of the 20th century. The story is pretty good, as far as game stories go.

If the premise sounds interesting but you don't want to or can't track down a copy, there is an excellent LP of it on The LP Archive.

quote:


Dai Senryaku VII: Exceed
I admit that I've only played the Xbox version, but the two are supposed to be mostly the same.
This is a turn-based strategy game with real-world military equipment from several countries. The map is hex-based, and generally you go around capturing cities, and try to capture the enemy's capital (I think, it's been a long time since I played it). A big part of the strategy is keeping your army supplied, as all of your units have a limited amount of ammo and fuel, and you have to bring along supply trucks or resupply them in your captured cities. Using artillery to soften up enemy units is also a very important part of the game.

The difference between the PS2 and 360 versions is that the PS2 basically contains what we would today consider to be DLC mission packs. It added some extra maps and that's about it. Still a quality game though, I enjoy my copy to this day.

Pornographic Memory
Dec 17, 2008

Dan Didio posted:

Ring of Red

Essentially a clusmy portmanteau of Valkyria Chronicles and Steel Batallion, Ring of Red was a cult classic in the making whose audience never showed up to the party.

Overly prolonged, grueling tactical battles where giant walking tanks blew the poo poo out of each other in a surprisingly politically aware but no less poorly translated or written alternate history scenario.

Probably one of the more unique pedecessos to Steel Batallion out there.

Ring of Red :allears:

Even in spite of the poor translation and silly alt-history, or because of it, I really loved it. Nazi Germany develops combat mechs in the last days of World War II, complete with altered stock footage of German soldiers with giant robots trudging by in the background. It doesn't turn the tables, but the other countries rush to imitate them. Also Japan doesn't surrender after the atomic bombs, instead forcing the Allies, including the USSR, to launch a land invasion. Thus Japan is invaded and becomes alt-history Korea, complete with alt-Korean War, and the game revolves around a possible Second Japan War between North and South. It even includes former Nazis as main characters, working as technical advisors a la Wernher von Braun and others (clearly the writers were familiar with Operation Paperclip). For some reason the "good guys'" infantrymen are equipped with German-style helmets and bolt action rifles - I'm not entirely sure if the developers figured it'd be natural for ex-Axis allies to stick together or they didn't realize the Germans were the bad guys, but whatever.

What I really love about it, is the way it portrays mechs (called AFWs since every mecha franchise has to have its own name, though at least Armored Fighting Walker makes sense unlike some more exotic names). They are not agile at all, they can't fly or anything, and most of them don't even have arms. They are literally just tanks on legs. Except worse because they overheat after like, two minutes of combat (the game's excuse for making battles time limited). Many of them even have designs clearly cribbed from WWII tanks (your light scout mechs, for example, look like M3/M5 Stuarts or Panzer II tanks). They also have infantry squads attached to them, who despite their fragility, are almost as important as the mechs. A mech stripped of its infantry support is going to get loving shredded, because while AFWs load their guns fairly slowly, infantry are constantly shooting and taking potshots, and they almost all have some sort of special ability. Battles mostly revolve around cycling your infantry between the forward echelon, where they can fight and use certain abilities, or the rear where they are safe, and can recharge forward abilities and use other rear ones, and managing the distance between your mech and the enemy (different types of mechs have ranges they fight best at), and firing your main gun and using special abilities on the mech.

I typed way too many words about that, but if you're a World War II or alt-history nerd it's a pretty awesome SRPG.

Spintzel
Dec 31, 2007

Distractions makes it better when ya take up the ENTIRE ROAD
I'm going to recommend Warship Gunner 2 (or any of the games in the series really). Basically you control your own battleship/submarine/cruiser/carrier/orbital death machine and fight your way through a ridiculous story that is an alternate reality WW2. You'll start off with basic weapons of the era but as you race through the tech tree you'll end up from modern day jets to gigantic flamethrowers to rave inducing laser cannons. Also the game takes itself serious at parts that make no sense whatsoever (at one point you need to cross the pacific into the atlantic so you barge through and blow the Panama canal the gently caress up). Also WW2:

BillyJoeBob
Feb 7, 2010

Anal-retentive, overly loquacious weapons scientist.

Spintzel posted:

I'm going to recommend Warship Gunner 2 (or any of the games in the series really). Basically you control your own battleship/submarine/cruiser/carrier/orbital death machine and fight your way through a ridiculous story that is an alternate reality WW2. You'll start off with basic weapons of the era but as you race through the tech tree you'll end up from modern day jets to gigantic flamethrowers to rave inducing laser cannons. Also the game takes itself serious at parts that make no sense whatsoever (at one point you need to cross the pacific into the atlantic so you barge through and blow the Panama canal the gently caress up). Also WW2:


Don't forget fighting bosses that are far far bigger than anything you can ever build, like a battleship with rocket engines on the back, a gigantic aircraft carrier that when blown up sheds its decks and becomes a battleship and my favorite, a ship with a huge drill on the front and saw blades on the sides.

Edit: VVV Whoops I was actually thinking of the one from Naval Ops: Commander which had one drill.

BillyJoeBob fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Jul 12, 2012

dis astranagant
Dec 14, 2006

It's 2 drills and you can actually make that one. Shame the psp port makes the mission where you fight 3 of them basically impossible.

Blisster
Mar 10, 2010

What you are listening to are musicians performing psychedelic music under the influence of a mind altering chemical called...


An arena based fighter where you play a giant monster! Buildings are both climbable and destructible, and you can pick up debris or puny human vehicles to use as weapons. You could also grab your enemies and toss them through a skyscraper or into another monster. The maps often had gimmicks like triggerable floods or volcanoes.

My favourite character was the Soviet built robot with homing missiles and giant claws, but there were some other fun ones, like a giant mantis that could fly around, a power-rangers style robot with a grappling rocket fist, a huge eyeball that fired electricity and an ancient Mayan god who tore off his own head to use as a weapon.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the menu is a drive-in theatre screen! Here's a video with the opening cinematic and some gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW1DAZbOuTk You could have up to 4 players though, if I remember correctly, which made things a lot more hectic.

Blisster fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jul 12, 2012

Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022
The NBA Street Series is a series of Basketball games I've never heard people talk about, yet it is probably one of the most fun sports games I have played along with SSX Tricky ad NFL Blitz, especially NBA Street Vol. 2. In these games you play a 3 v 3 team and would be given a goal besides getting the ball in the in the basket and it was to be as stylish as possible before you did with a bevy of moves. When you racked up a crapload of points and they would add to a gamebreaker meter, which was like a super move where you get a free point and your opponents lose one. The styling added a level of risk to the gameplay in that you couldn't just mess around like some moron or else you would risk dropping the ball and giving it away to the opposing team. Vol. 2 is what I consider to be the best one due to the amount of NBA Legends you could get, original ballers were cool, you could stock gamebreakers get a lv. 2 gamebreaker and wreck the game, and THREE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF MICHAEL JORDAN, effectively giving you a whole team of MJs. I played this game a lot when I was younger and bought a copy recently and it is still fun.

extremebuff
Jun 20, 2010

Does Shinobi count?


This game had a decently interesting story but the combat required good reflexes and precision, also the game was super hard as loving balls.

And super hard was an actual difficulty level in the game. And they were not loving kidding.

Basically you'd go around 16 static levels with static enemies as a ninja, and enemies would spawn as you run around.

Now the thing was, that for every enemy your sword killed, your sword's strength would be multiplied, all the way up to x8 or so for pretty crazy damage. So say a bunch of weak ninjas and a huge demon (oh yeah there's magic and demons and poo poo) spawn you can quickly dispatch of the ninjas while avoiding the big fucker's attacks and then hit him last with a lot of attack power.

The game had really catchy tunes, decent visuals, lots of blood, and it was just tons of fun. Except for the final boss he is a dick and he will ruin the game for you.

EDIT:
Really if by some lightning strike chance this lovely post inspires you to go out and find this game the final boss is one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had in 15 years of playing games. It is the one thing that has ever made me actually smash a controller to bits with my bare hands.

extremebuff fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jul 12, 2012

Toad King
Apr 23, 2008

Yeah, I'm the best


WinBack: Covert Operations was originally an N64 game that was later ported to the PS2 with extra features like no Superman 64 fog and voice acting. A pretty obvious cash-in on the Metal Gear Solid craze, but instead of stealth, WinBack is a good contender for the first use of cover-based shooting we've all come to love. But as the prototype, it's very unpolished, and I won't argue with anybody who replies to this and says the game is not good. The combat is kinda of repetitive and the voice acting is cheesy as all hell, but I still like the game. More games today need action rolling out of cover.

Bonus Voiceacting Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdI0Iamz1EQ

Rascyc
Jan 23, 2008

Dissatisfied Puppy
Nitpicking small stuff aside, this game's really glaring fault is that each battle takes an exctruatiangly long time. Each turn can take a couple of minutes and battles take dozens of turns. I can't remember how many hours it would take for each battle but it was definitely long and painful. It was really fun for awhile, but it wears out its welcome fast.

Still a pretty neat game to just look at for a bit. I'm really surprised nobody has LP'ed it.

DLC Inc
Jun 1, 2011



Urban Reign was a pretty rare 3D brawler that I used to own. You basically go through 100 "missions" of beating the poo poo out of people. It had an interesting counter and damage system that dedicated attacks to top, mid, or lower parts of the body. The last few missions are goddamn frustrating as gently caress, though it helped that you got a CPU partner in most of the stages.
There were maybe over 100 characters including Marshal Law and Paul Phoenix and some pretty fun multiplayer modes where you could also play against bots and smash faces with all sorts of horrid weapons.

Sum Mors
Feb 21, 2008

Geop posted:

I was actually going to post this. You could craft special weapons and stuff using materials from monsters. If I remember right, you had to use a particular way to kill 'em in order to get a part or component :buddy: Plus, its soundtrack is downright amazing. It had a pretty lousy story, but I loved its RPG elements.

I'm not sure killing them had to do with the drop, but most (if not all) of the best items had to be stolen. Enemy targets would turn purple for a short time and you could steal from them. It was a fantastic and well implemented system in the game. It included bosses, and they were only able to be stolen from after certain attacks.

rizuhbull
Mar 30, 2011

I'll be the first to mention non-exclusives (OP doesn't mention any limits), but these two games were played best on a PS2 and can still be found relatively cheap.

Freedom Fighters

An IO game using the Hitman 2 engine. It had this great mechanic of giving you the option to attack one of several locations, and depending on what you tackled first, would affect the other locations. A 'Zone' would have three levels essentially. Each level would have it's own contribution to the other levels that could be destroyed in whatever order you wanted. Helicopter giving you trouble? Go destroy it's landing pad first and then try that level again. No helicopter! Same goes for weapons, troops, etc. It was one of the first games I remember having rag-doll physics. Which back then, and coupled with it's multiplayer mode, was hilarious. Firing a rocket in the middle of your brother's squad in VS, watching their limp bodies scatter off 10 feet in the air is still one of the most satisfying things in gaming. Not only would your protagonist change his appearance the longer time went on to reflect how the war has taken it's toll, but your base would slowly grow with more troops and weapons to show you gaining strength. It also had some fantastic (albeit scripted) large scale destruction. Games just don't have this level of polish now-a-days.

Psi Ops: The Mindgate conspiracy

This is the game that did Star Wars: The Force Unleashed better than it did itself. It's an abomination not more people know of it. There's an actual puzzle section where you have to jump on top of a block of concrete, and fly yourself across a broken skybridge like you're god drat Magneto. You could also mind control snipers to make them jump off roof tops or unto furnaces. Not too mention the attention the detail in everything. Throw an enemy against a wall with your mind, it leaves a blood splatter. Suck the energy out of an enemy's head, their entire head pops. Electrocute an enemy, the rag-doll takes over and they flail around in a way not seen until GTA 4. Even in the flashbacks that act as a tutorial, your old comrade is seen with an afro. There's also a silly co-op mode, tons of unlockables including skins and a training room that lets you play with all the physics and powers. Plus it's Japanese cover is hilariously awesome.

El Estrago Bonito
Dec 17, 2010

Scout Finch Bitch

Bobnumerotres posted:

Does Shinobi count?


This game had a decently interesting story but the combat required good reflexes and precision, also the game was super hard as loving balls.

And super hard was an actual difficulty level in the game. And they were not loving kidding.

Basically you'd go around 16 static levels with static enemies as a ninja, and enemies would spawn as you run around.

Now the thing was, that for every enemy your sword killed, your sword's strength would be multiplied, all the way up to x8 or so for pretty crazy damage. So say a bunch of weak ninjas and a huge demon (oh yeah there's magic and demons and poo poo) spawn you can quickly dispatch of the ninjas while avoiding the big fucker's attacks and then hit him last with a lot of attack power.

The game had really catchy tunes, decent visuals, lots of blood, and it was just tons of fun. Except for the final boss he is a dick and he will ruin the game for you.

EDIT:
Really if by some lightning strike chance this lovely post inspires you to go out and find this game the final boss is one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had in 15 years of playing games. It is the one thing that has ever made me actually smash a controller to bits with my bare hands.

The sequel is just as hard too.

blackguy32
Oct 1, 2005

Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Toad King posted:



WinBack: Covert Operations was originally an N64 game that was later ported to the PS2 with extra features like no Superman 64 fog and voice acting. A pretty obvious cash-in on the Metal Gear Solid craze, but instead of stealth, WinBack is a good contender for the first use of cover-based shooting we've all come to love. But as the prototype, it's very unpolished, and I won't argue with anybody who replies to this and says the game is not good. The combat is kinda of repetitive and the voice acting is cheesy as all hell, but I still like the game. More games today need action rolling out of cover.

Bonus Voiceacting Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdI0Iamz1EQ

I had this for N64, and I had no idea that the game would be so loving long. I loved the game but I remember getting pissed off at that one part on the roof where you had to roll under the lasers.

It also had a crazy story that was pretty dumb in the end.

im a girl btw
Jan 15, 2004

MinibarMatchman posted:



Urban Reign was a pretty rare 3D brawler that I used to own. You basically go through 100 "missions" of beating the poo poo out of people. It had an interesting counter and damage system that dedicated attacks to top, mid, or lower parts of the body. The last few missions are goddamn frustrating as gently caress, though it helped that you got a CPU partner in most of the stages.
There were maybe over 100 characters including Marshal Law and Paul Phoenix and some pretty fun multiplayer modes where you could also play against bots and smash faces with all sorts of horrid weapons.

I've played many hours of this at a friend's place, it has a 4-player mode which is a whole lot of fun. You can do all vs all, 2 vs 2, you might be able to do 1 vs 3 as well but I can't remember.

Dr. Video Games 0031
Jul 17, 2004

Spintzel posted:

I'm going to recommend Warship Gunner 2 (or any of the games in the series really). Basically you control your own battleship/submarine/cruiser/carrier/orbital death machine and fight your way through a ridiculous story that is an alternate reality WW2. You'll start off with basic weapons of the era but as you race through the tech tree you'll end up from modern day jets to gigantic flamethrowers to rave inducing laser cannons. Also the game takes itself serious at parts that make no sense whatsoever (at one point you need to cross the pacific into the atlantic so you barge through and blow the Panama canal the gently caress up). Also WW2:


I was going to recommend this but then got lazy. Glad someone did, what a crazy game.

Your Moms Ahegao
Sep 3, 2008

Insect Princess



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F-_cyiQyew

The world of Mushihimesama is a wild, untainted one where large desertic areas abruptly change into lush forests, all inhabited by arthropods called Koujuu: such beasts are capable of surviving due to their hardened shells and, upon their deaths, leave them behind for vegetation to grow around them, in a natural cycle of life and death. However, their life force, called Levi-Sense, proved to be poisonous to the humans to the point of being named the Miasma; only sparse human settlements were allowed to survive, one of them being the Hoshifuri village, in exchange for the sacrifice of a 15-year-old girl every 200 years. However, the daughter of the royal family, Reco, is apparently the next in line after being given an ornate bracelet by a mysterious boy in Shinju Forest, where she lost herself at young age: by the day she turns 15, the Miasma contaminates the village.

In order to save her people, she enters Shinju Forest once more, riding the golden Koujuu beetle Kiniro (with which the golden bracelet grants a telepathic link) on a quest to meet the Koujuu god himself.


ESPgaluda



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_jaMYDvac0

Once upon a time, there was a peaceful kingdom named Shinra, ruled by a line of queens with supernatural powers. The current king, Jakou, decides to conduct a number of experiments to induce this power in his children as well as harness it for military purposes. Two of his children, Ageha and Tateha, are rescued from his grasp and taken into hiding by a man named Hiodoshi. Eventually, Jakou's forces track them down...

Both of these titles while originally released on PS2 have had various HD ports or sequels released on mobile markets or current consoles.

Geop
Oct 26, 2007

blackguy32 posted:

I had this for N64, and I had no idea that the game would be so loving long. I loved the game but I remember getting pissed off at that one part on the roof where you had to roll under the lasers.

It also had a crazy story that was pretty dumb in the end.
I loved this game for some reason, but two things immediately come to mind when I think of it:
1) Deceptively long
2) The bad guy had a fuschia trench-coat
3) Saying your teammates drop like flies is an understatement
4) loving ROOF LASERS :argh:

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

Seconding the recommendation of Warship Gunner 2 and Warship Commander. Two great games.

Also, I actually wrote an article about this elsewhere - recently, the 'long lost' missing link between Dark Souls and King's Field was translated. Shadow Tower Abyss.



You'll either need a beefy enough PC to emulate it, or a modded PS2, but you can find it pretty easily. As it's so old and forgotten (it wasn't even big in Japan, and faded quickly into obscurity), I personally figure it falls under the heading of 'abandonware'. You can find a download link in this article/review over at Indie Game Magazine.

It's faster and more accessible than King's Field, but still tough and all about careful resource management. It also introduced the whole soul-devouring progression mechanic that we later saw in Dark Souls.

The End
Apr 16, 2007

You're welcome.

rizuhbull posted:

I'll be the first to mention non-exclusives (OP doesn't mention any limits), but these two games were played best on a PS2 and can still be found relatively cheap.

Freedom Fighters

...

Psi Ops: The Mindgate conspiracy

...

Both of these are fantastic recommendations. Freedom Fighters is the best 'America gets invaded by Ruskies' game ever made, and it's still one of my favourite third person shooters.

Psi-Ops gets a little stupid towards the end, but when it came out, all the physics trickery was mindblowing (and pre Half Life 2 to boot). And it has a pretty neat song written for it by Cold.

Setzer Gabbiani
Oct 13, 2004



Rule of Rose is what happens when the Japanese work on an Alan Wake prototype except you're a little girl thrown into some insanely sick situations. With dog. Enjoy!

No but really, RoR falls into that special Japanese niche genre of kids-thrust-into-hosed-up-settings-survival-horror, sorta like Galerians, but no psychic powers. It relies a lot on being moody, claustrophobic, and just really goddamn uncomfortable. You're basically at the mercy of some really not-nice orphans taking refuge in a fittingly-creepy abandoned orphanage, appeasing them by finding gifts, learning their (hosed) backstories and current situation, exploring and taking in the decadence, all while pushing what the ESRB defined as an M in the US

You're also not going to find a copy under $50, so if you're wary on titles published by Atlus/not into survival-horror, you should probably fire PCSX2 up before any major decisions

Ineffiable
Feb 16, 2008

Some say that his politics are terrifying, and that he once punched a horse to the ground...


Rule of Rose is very very unique. I literally have never played anything like it. The story is really interesting and there's even a gigantic blog that helps puts it together; ruleofrosemysteries.com or something like that.


I am so drat lucky to have gotten my copy for $30.

Slight edit: Check your gamestops. I believe they still offer it for $20 used, the only trick is finding a copy. Play it, maybe beat it, if you don't like it, you can flip it for double on ebay.

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.
Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles


An Alice in Wonderland sort of story, where a young orphan and his friends are dragged into a surreal nightmarish world, and he has to go and find them, meeting weird and wonderful characters along the way.

It's similar to American McGee's Alice really, in tone and the look of the environments. It's worth a look, even though the platforming is pretty slippery.

testtubebaby
Apr 7, 2008

Where we're going,
we won't need eyes to see.


Pesky Splinter posted:

Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles


An Alice in Wonderland sort of story, where a young orphan and his friends are dragged into a surreal nightmarish world, and he has to go and find them, meeting weird and wonderful characters along the way.

It's similar to American McGee's Alice really, in tone and the look of the environments. It's worth a look, even though the platforming is pretty slippery.

Also available on Dreamcast if you prefer to play it via VGA.

Hackan Slash
May 31, 2007
Hit it until it's not a problem anymore

El Estrago Bonito posted:

The sequel is just as hard too.

This is false. In Nightshade you didn't have the Akujiki mechanic (At least until you unlock the shinobi character), so you can take your time with everything.

In Shinobi you had to kill everything NOW, and I think it was a better game because of it. Except for the bosses, who if they didn't cooperate you'd never be able to kill before you died.

As my contribution,Contra:Shattered Soldier. This wasn't the crappy-overhead Neo Contra, it was Hard Corps. with Bill and Lance. And it was glorious.

Ineffiable
Feb 16, 2008

Some say that his politics are terrifying, and that he once punched a horse to the ground...


zenintrude posted:

Also available on Dreamcast if you prefer to play it via VGA.

It's too bad that it was released in Pal-land. I'd love to have a copy of this game.

Farbtoner
May 17, 2011

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Action Tortoise posted:

Yeah the controls were rear end, but it was the closest thing to Megaman Legends.

I thought that the controls, while clunky, were OK for about 95% of the game but the arena fights (where you actually fight fellow trotmobiles that are roughly as strong as you instead of the usual brain-dead cannon fodder) were almost impossible because they could move and attack without the cumbersome controls in the way.

The design decision that really wrecked the game for me was how many health bars you had to juggle. Every one of your trotmobile's limbs had a health bar that depleted every time you used an attack, you had a fuel gauge, your own overall health...they made a nice big colorful world to explore and you spend most of the time making a beeline from fuel station to fuel station and avoiding fights so you don't break your arms and get stranded.

Steambot Chronicles had all the pieces of a much better game, it just had those few lingering bad design decisions (multiple loading screens in every city, playing metermaid, the tacked-on music game gimmick that was made worse by the generic songs) dragging it down the whole time. If it had been made a console generation later when the tools for open worlds were more readily available it could have really been something special.

Alteisen
Jun 4, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Spite posted:

I remember really enjoying a game called Extermination that came out very early in the console's life. You're a soldier in a base in Antarctica that's being infested by an alien type thing. It's like The Thing mixed with Resident Evil.
I'd bet it hasn't aged well at all, but I remember liking it 10 years ago.

Also, does the Fatal Frame series count as underrated? Because they are excellent games.

Hello fellow extermination fan.

The game was astounding, basically you're in this antartic base because they lost contact with it, the main guy you play is there to find the girlfriend of his best friend, as you progress you notice all this hosed up poo poo going on, this crazy infection, like the thing and the abyss combined at times.

What makes it awesome is the infection system, everytime you get hit you get infected a little, if it hits 100% you start to mutate and your health gets halved, there's a limited number of vaccines so its always tense, you don't wanna use it to early of course.

Main gun in the game was AWESOME, it had multiple modes of fire, shotgun, flamethrower, rocket launcher(if you found the 3 pieces) but you always had access to its default M16 setting.

Water was a big enemy, not only could it attack and raise the infection gauge but enemy encounter required you to make sure enemies didn't touch it, if they did they would mutate into more advanced versions making them twice as harder to kill.

The game had some backtracking but it did in a great way, you got to see just how horrible and badly the infection was spreading, old areas looked nothing like they used to.

It did horror and tension better than tons of modern day horror games, better than RE4 in my book, it proves that you can give the player full control as well as letting them defend themselves and still be scary as hell.

extremebuff
Jun 20, 2010

Hackan Slash posted:

In Shinobi you had to kill everything NOW, and I think it was a better game because of it. Except for the bosses, who if they didn't cooperate you'd never be able to kill before you died.

The thing that made the bosses hard most of the time were the minions. Going straight up against the boss meant dealing like no damage as well as losing a lot of points for the stage rank.

The reason the final boss is so loving annoying is not because he, by himself, is hard but because the minions shoot little poo poo fireballs at you that were hard to anticipate and whittled you down to nothing.

On hard/super hard if you were distracted/stunlocked by their attacks the Boss' main attacks ALL one-shot you.

Illegibly Eligible
Jul 21, 2009
I've played well over half of the games mentioned in this thread and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who enjoyed a lot of these lost classics. Does anyone remember grabbing a lone patrolman from around a corner and brutally crushing his head against the wall in The Mark of Kri? If not, do you remember this commercial?



This game was amazing in every way - the art and style, gameplay, storyline, mechanics... I could go on. It's a third-person action game that has an intuitive combo-based combat system which allows you to become a pinball of death. As you go you can even tear your opponents limb from limb in a frenetic blood bath and terrify their compatriots in the process :black101: There are multiple unique weapons with different playstyles, ranged combat with headshots, and a challenge area to unlock all kinds of bonus material if that's your thing.

But wait! There's more!

While the storyline and levels are linear, The Mark of Kri involves a fair amount of tactical thinking, stealth, making use of distractions, target prioritization, and even enlisting the help of a pet bird. That said, with so many different tools each level can be played in a multitude of different styles. Great for the "play it to beat it" type and the "100%'er" both. This was the first game I ever played that made me want to unlock bonus art.


Jade Cocoon 2 is another favorite, even though I never played the first game. I never got into the "grow your monster" games outside of this one. There's a turn-based combat system that's pretty in-depth and strategic with up to three of your monsters fighting in any single turn. As you breed your monsters over successive generations you can change their attacks, stats, and other attributes. There's a challenge arena, items to use both in and out of combat, an interesting storyline, side missions, and plenty of isometric maps for you to run around in.



Like Mark of Kri, this game has a very distinct style and though the map layouts themselves aren't anything special the environments create an amazing atmosphere as the game progresses. Jade Cocoon 2 has ties to Studio Ghibli via Katsuya Kondō for all you people that's relevant to... what ended up making me invest the $22 this (used) game cost was because I'd just seen Princess Mononoke about a week before and immediately recognized the artwork.

Toward the end this game might get a bit grindy for some. At times certain enemy configurations will PUNISH THE poo poo OUT OF YOU and potentially force a rebuild. The best way to avoid this is to use your brain and put a little thought into what roles you want your monsters to fill. Strategic team building is the key to this game.

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on the computer
Jan 4, 2012

Came here to post this, Psi-Ops is one of the best games I've ever played, and probably the best physics-based action game I've played. Everything about it was just fun, mainly due to mechanics that were polished and worked extremely well. As mentioned by The End, theme song is also baller as well.

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