Most people wretch at the thought of Beyond the Beyond, which was the first RPG released for the Playstation. Being a masochist, I rather enjoyed the game. It was as generic as an RPG can get, but for some reason it was entertaining to me. 16-bit-esque graphics, storyline and dialogue aside, one of the biggest complaints about this game was the staggering rate of random battles - sometimes you could literally take two steps and be thrown into a confrontation. The combat system was confusing too. The game boasted something that was called the "Active Playing System", which basically tried to incorporate precise button presses to initiate critical hits, counters and stronger spells by your party. Unfortunately the system seemed completely random, which caused most people(myself included) to simply mash buttons when their party members performed an action.
The game was hard, too. I got to the last fight, but I don't think I ever beat it.
Beyond the Beyond also has the rather infamous distinction of being almost universally panned by professional game critics, culminating with the Official Playstation Magazine giving it a 0.5 out of 5, which I believe is still the lowest rating they've ever given a game. Ouch.
I'll probably say this anytime someone brings up overlooked classics, but
Was amazingly fun and just the right level of difficulty to be epic for its time. The only sad thing about it was the fact that it was plastered onto the Street Fighter name even though it had nothing to do with the series.
Actually, I rather enjoyed the game. It was as generic as an RPG can get, but for some reason it was entertaining to me. Storyline and dialogue aside, one of the biggest complaints about this game was the staggering rate of random battles - sometimes you could literally take two steps and be thrown into a confrontation. The combat system was confusing too. The game boasted something that was called the "Active Battle Engine" or something, which basically tried to incorporate precise button presses to initiate critical hits, counters and stronger spells by your party. Unfortunately the system seemed completely random, which caused most people(myself included) to simply mash buttons when their party members performed an action.
The game was hard, too. I got to the last fight, but I don't think I ever beat it.
I thought I was alone! I don't know why, but I really enjoy this game. Like, even when I play through it, I will be going "this is such a shitty game, oh my god this is horrible" and yet I still enjoy it.
Except for that whole "lulz let's put your fighter under a Curse for the first half of the game, that should be fun right!?"
I'll probably say this anytime someone brings up overlooked classics, but
Was amazingly fun and just the right level of difficulty to be epic for its time. The only sad thing about it was the fact that it was plastered onto the Street Fighter name even though it had nothing to do with the series.
Indeed, it's not even a bad game really, just really really fuckin hard and complicated. Way too complicated than any NES game has any right to be. Has about as many controls as some modern games when ya get down to it.
That said it was well polished control wise once you learn them, and while some enemy layout was bullshit, what game didn't have that during the NES days.
I finally took the time to look into Street Fighter 2010. Apparently it was another product of wacky localization by Capcom USA. In Japan, the main character and story have no links to Street Fighter whatsoever. It is assumed that Capcom USA made the alterations in order to sell more copies by linking it to the original Street Fighter, which had just hit the arcades in the US a couple of years prior.
But the game itself was totally awesome... in my opinion at least. It was definitely a challenging action platformer, with some pretty good music for its time. I think it was the first game that, as a kid, I felt genuinely proud for having beaten. The next being the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose Technodrome level was just plain unfair.
And indeed as you said, the controls were extremely complicated... but once you got used to them, you ended up with an array of possible attacks that really had no other parallel on the NES. I can think of 8 different types of attacks off the bat that you could do with just the D-Pad and the A & B buttons, and there were probably more that I'm forgetting. Once you mastered the controls, it really felt like you were in total control of your ability to win or lose at the game, and it all depended on how well you reacted with the (at that time, massive) amount of potential attacks at your disposal.
The ones I can remember are:
* Forward Punch (fast and far reaching but weak, straight ahead)
* Forward Kick (strong, but not far reaching and arc'd around you... which was both good and bad depending on what you were aiming for)
* Forward strong punch (if you did two forward kicks, you'd start doing strong punches which also arc'd but after going much further distance)
* Upward punch (again, fast and far, straight up)
* Jumping attack (Also a strong attack, but hard to connect properly and slow: only one attack per jump)
* Backflip attack (could strike downwards below you if timed just right at the apex of your backflip)
* Backflip shield attack (the backflip acted as a Guile-esque attack, but again had to be timed just right or you'd get hit instead of the enemy)
* Back shield attack (With the back shield, turning around suddenly could save you from a close up attack with your own counterattack)
* Wall attacks (you could climb most walls and attack from them)
The backflips were the most dramatic, and I remember having a blast figuring out how to time them just right to pull off the shield attack or downward strike. It really was a pretty forward thinking game for its time in terms of the flexibility of attacks it provided.
Two mentions for me that I haven't seen in the thread yet:
Crystalis: A pretty fun Action RPG for the NES that has pretty good music. I seem to remember it requiring a little grinding but it was still excellent.
Soul Blazer: A great action RPG for the SNES with a fairly interesting concept behind it---releasing souls by defeating particular groups of enemies. And since your character can talk to anything every soul, even a flower's, can be significant.
I might put Soul Blazer on my favorite games of all time list. There is just something so pure and satisfying in destroying monster lairs and releasing people in the overworld. I wish they'd make just one modern with that kind of mechanic.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
Two mentions for me that I haven't seen in the thread yet:
Crystalis: A pretty fun Action RPG for the NES that has pretty good music. I seem to remember it requiring a little grinding but it was still excellent.
Crystalis was mentioned in the OP! And is a totally awesome classic. If I recall, the main guy didn't bother using no wussy boats when he needed to cross the ocean; he rode a dolphin. Now there is a dude with style.
And Street Fighter 2010; yeah, I admit that I played the hell out of it. There's still time for Capcom to make it canon! C'mon, alternate Ken costume!
Anyone ever play a SNES game called Strike Gunner: STG? I only played it once, but it left an impression on me. Vertical shooter, you could pick one special weapon for every stage from a big list of neat specials; but once you used a particular one, you could never pick it again. Save the homing missiles for later, or use it for this stage? Such a dilemma!
I was also going to suggest Zombies Ate My Neighbors!, but apparently that is a pretty good cult classic that might not be considered overlooked.....
The metric for overlooked is always going to be weird because I suppose amongst certain communities things that are considered classics aren't even known in others.
The two I mentioned are things I rarely hear mentioned at the places I read about video games, but I guess other people might be using another metric to determine what is and what is not?
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
Released as part of the Growlanser Generations two-pack in the US, this is definitely the better game.
It cost Working Designs their company, but they went out with a bang.
Rocket Ranger! Which may be more well known than I realized, since it wasn't just an Amiga game like I thought.
What a game. Alternate-history World War 2. Manage spies. Fly a moon rock powered rocket-pack. Attack nazis in pyramids, or BF109s, or zeppelins! Or miscalculate / read your decoder wheel wrong, and watch as your rocket pack sputters out over the atlantic and you fall to your death. Box with nazi guards! Build a spacecraft.
I'm watching that whole youtube video. It's been way too long since I played this game. Forgot how awesome the music and sound effects are, though they're actually a bit tame for Amiga-fare.
Crystalis: A pretty fun Action RPG for the NES that has pretty good music. I seem to remember it requiring a little grinding but it was still excellent.
Yeah - Crystalis is the shit, but I don't think it's overlooked. I've beaten that game several times.
I finally took the time to look into Street Fighter 2010. Apparently it was another product of wacky localization by Capcom USA. In Japan, the main character and story have no links to Street Fighter whatsoever.
Yes, but it was still made by Capcom and still published and advertised as a Street Fighter game, even in Japan. While these days sequels may just end up being polished-and-bigger versions of their originals changing the mechanics and even genres with further games was pretty common place back then. Just look at Sonic Spinball, or the Ghosts 'n Goblins take on The Incredible Machine (wish that got a Western release).
Let's not forget the poster child for overlooked classics, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (and if you just posted a picture without any text then you're a dick, it's impossible to Ctrl-F pictures ;-)).
Squad based combat before it became popular... which of course meant the game flopped terribly and nearly killed Looking Glass Studios right there and then. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be in front.
It's quite flagrantly built on the Mega Man 2 engine -- somehow reverse-engineered -- and features build-your-own-hero gameplay. Heads, bodies, and weapons are combined to create a monstrosity used to play an otherwise standard platformer. Eventually you build a team of monstrosities to tackle the levels.
This game makes you ask the tough questions. Do you want the boat body, or the jetpack? Is it cooler to have a robot head or a dragon? Do pencils or baseballs hurt more?
It's the source of my old long-standing forum avatar, UGLY:
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Not enough people played this game, it's pure 2D beat em up joy.
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It's not a remake, so much as it is a sequel, and not a very good one.
Ho ho ho ho ho!
Most people wretch at the thought of Beyond the Beyond, which was the first RPG released for the Playstation. Being a masochist, I rather enjoyed the game. It was as generic as an RPG can get, but for some reason it was entertaining to me. 16-bit-esque graphics, storyline and dialogue aside, one of the biggest complaints about this game was the staggering rate of random battles - sometimes you could literally take two steps and be thrown into a confrontation. The combat system was confusing too. The game boasted something that was called the "Active Playing System", which basically tried to incorporate precise button presses to initiate critical hits, counters and stronger spells by your party. Unfortunately the system seemed completely random, which caused most people(myself included) to simply mash buttons when their party members performed an action.
The game was hard, too. I got to the last fight, but I don't think I ever beat it.
Beyond the Beyond also has the rather infamous distinction of being almost universally panned by professional game critics, culminating with the Official Playstation Magazine giving it a 0.5 out of 5, which I believe is still the lowest rating they've ever given a game. Ouch.
Was amazingly fun and just the right level of difficulty to be epic for its time. The only sad thing about it was the fact that it was plastered onto the Street Fighter name even though it had nothing to do with the series.
Except for that whole "lulz let's put your fighter under a Curse for the first half of the game, that should be fun right!?"
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Indeed, it's not even a bad game really, just really really fuckin hard and complicated. Way too complicated than any NES game has any right to be. Has about as many controls as some modern games when ya get down to it.
That said it was well polished control wise once you learn them, and while some enemy layout was bullshit, what game didn't have that during the NES days.
Handmade Jewelry by me on EtsyGames for sale
Me on Twitch!
Handmade Jewelry by me on EtsyGames for sale
Me on Twitch!
And indeed as you said, the controls were extremely complicated... but once you got used to them, you ended up with an array of possible attacks that really had no other parallel on the NES. I can think of 8 different types of attacks off the bat that you could do with just the D-Pad and the A & B buttons, and there were probably more that I'm forgetting. Once you mastered the controls, it really felt like you were in total control of your ability to win or lose at the game, and it all depended on how well you reacted with the (at that time, massive) amount of potential attacks at your disposal.
The ones I can remember are:
* Forward Punch (fast and far reaching but weak, straight ahead)
* Forward Kick (strong, but not far reaching and arc'd around you... which was both good and bad depending on what you were aiming for)
* Forward strong punch (if you did two forward kicks, you'd start doing strong punches which also arc'd but after going much further distance)
* Upward punch (again, fast and far, straight up)
* Jumping attack (Also a strong attack, but hard to connect properly and slow: only one attack per jump)
* Backflip attack (could strike downwards below you if timed just right at the apex of your backflip)
* Backflip shield attack (the backflip acted as a Guile-esque attack, but again had to be timed just right or you'd get hit instead of the enemy)
* Back shield attack (With the back shield, turning around suddenly could save you from a close up attack with your own counterattack)
* Wall attacks (you could climb most walls and attack from them)
The backflips were the most dramatic, and I remember having a blast figuring out how to time them just right to pull off the shield attack or downward strike. It really was a pretty forward thinking game for its time in terms of the flexibility of attacks it provided.
Crystalis: A pretty fun Action RPG for the NES that has pretty good music. I seem to remember it requiring a little grinding but it was still excellent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hpnFgHc_PM&feature=related
Soul Blazer: A great action RPG for the SNES with a fairly interesting concept behind it---releasing souls by defeating particular groups of enemies. And since your character can talk to anything every soul, even a flower's, can be significant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xBjmlcJdbY&feature=PlayList&p=BC4456135BD162F7&index=7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cbh2s5nZI0
I loved that game. So fucking much. Also Illusion of Gaia.
Crystalis was mentioned in the OP! And is a totally awesome classic. If I recall, the main guy didn't bother using no wussy boats when he needed to cross the ocean; he rode a dolphin. Now there is a dude with style.
And Street Fighter 2010; yeah, I admit that I played the hell out of it. There's still time for Capcom to make it canon! C'mon, alternate Ken costume!
Anyone ever play a SNES game called Strike Gunner: STG? I only played it once, but it left an impression on me. Vertical shooter, you could pick one special weapon for every stage from a big list of neat specials; but once you used a particular one, you could never pick it again. Save the homing missiles for later, or use it for this stage? Such a dilemma!
I was also going to suggest Zombies Ate My Neighbors!, but apparently that is a pretty good cult classic that might not be considered overlooked.....
The two I mentioned are things I rarely hear mentioned at the places I read about video games, but I guess other people might be using another metric to determine what is and what is not?
Was Astal overlooked? So gorgeous back then, although I don't remember if the gameplay was much of anything.
dream a little dream or you could live a little dream
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Blade Runner Pc
Anyone play Lost Vikings on the sega?
Beetle Bug Racing n64
Popful Mail sega cd
http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=229218&p=8558833#post8558833
Released as part of the Growlanser Generations two-pack in the US, this is definitely the better game.
It cost Working Designs their company, but they went out with a bang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ranger
Rocket Ranger! Which may be more well known than I realized, since it wasn't just an Amiga game like I thought.
What a game. Alternate-history World War 2. Manage spies. Fly a moon rock powered rocket-pack. Attack nazis in pyramids, or BF109s, or zeppelins! Or miscalculate / read your decoder wheel wrong, and watch as your rocket pack sputters out over the atlantic and you fall to your death. Box with nazi guards! Build a spacecraft.
I'm watching that whole youtube video. It's been way too long since I played this game. Forgot how awesome the music and sound effects are, though they're actually a bit tame for Amiga-fare.
The day that region coding dies is not a day too soon.
Also fits the topic. It's a port of a Dreamcast FPS(lasher). Probably the best action game Atlus has ever done.
Such a fun FPS for the N64, but most people just hated it cause it wasn't Goldeneye
The original SPORE
I'm going to go ahead and say in a time when Tekken and MK dominated this franchise was an often
overlooked but fun fighter.
I've still only played about an hour into it. Maybe I'll pick it up again one day.
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Yeah - Crystalis is the shit, but I don't think it's overlooked. I've beaten that game several times.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_Fire
Then it should have! One of few good games on the 3DO, and one I wish they'd do a modern remake of (or at least just a port with network play)
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
YES YES!
Flight of the Bumblebee NEVER sounded as good.
edit: Bumblebee I mean
...and I will fight you on this. Overlooked at the time of release but not so much these days.
I mean, it was popular enough to spawn a sequel.
Squad based combat before it became popular... which of course meant the game flopped terribly and nearly killed Looking Glass Studios right there and then. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be in front.
So good. Not sure if they are overlooked cause I owned and loved both
But Illusion of Gaia was hard as shit. Though, as a child I didn't know you had to kill all the monsters in the room to get an upgrade.
How does it feel to be so wrong?
HOLY FUCKING MOTHER OF SHIT
OH MY MOTHERFUCKING MONKEY
I'VE BEEN TRYING TO RECALL THIS GAME'S NAME THE LAST 20 YEARS.
I wanted to mention this game in every single old games thread, but I never remembered its name.
Thanks man
EDIT: Sorry about the totp. Here's some content:
Cocoron! A game so overlooked that the only reliable information on it comes from Something Awful...including this Let's Play by a Keebler Elf
It's quite flagrantly built on the Mega Man 2 engine -- somehow reverse-engineered -- and features build-your-own-hero gameplay. Heads, bodies, and weapons are combined to create a monstrosity used to play an otherwise standard platformer. Eventually you build a team of monstrosities to tackle the levels.
This game makes you ask the tough questions. Do you want the boat body, or the jetpack? Is it cooler to have a robot head or a dragon? Do pencils or baseballs hurt more?
It's the source of my old long-standing forum avatar, UGLY: