Let's Talk About Obscure RPGs

Let's talk about obscure rpgs. Have you played any?
Last year I played this game for SNES, Adventures of Hourai High

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It immediately reminded me of Final Fantasy VI with the NPC sprites, but it plays more like a Dragon Quest game. It's set in a Japanese high school where you choose your main character to be a boy or a girl and depending on which one you choose, it can affect starting points of your story. You solve mysteries that occur on campus and around town. The game has a cool ability system, where you acquire skills and stat boosts from joining different clubs. The game has a bunch of playable characters, probably too many in fact and unfortunately the game overall isn't good.

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The encounter rates are really high, it has some of the worst mini games I've ever played with the reticle of a carnival shooter moving like molasses, and the game has some glitches, the worst of which is when you attempt to revive a fallen party member in battle, the game crashes. I however still beat the game for some reason and had some enjoyment out of it, but I won't be playing it again.

Aside from this I played Sailor Moon Another Story, but I found it barely average overall due to some design and technical issues. Have you played any obscure rpgs?

Grim Dawn is a super SUPER good ARPG that I never see anyone talk about. I'm gonna play it again at some point after I finish my current backlog.

Live A Live is just amazing for a little game that came out in the early (as in, pre-FFVI and Chrono Trigger) days of the SNES.

Thinking about it I've also played a lot of RPGs that I don't know if they would count as obscure but like... I never see people on this forum talk about them.

Stuff like Fallout 1&2, Elder Scrolls I & II (Arena & Daggerfall), Planescape Torment etc.

Zork isn't an RPG, is it? That game is great. I guess it's more of like... a text based adventure game.

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Originally Posted by Pike

Grim Dawn is a super SUPER good ARPG that I never see anyone talk about. I'm gonna play it again at some point after I finish my current backlog.

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Grim Dawn which I believe is just being officially released right now, you mean?

Gothic 1 and 2 are the best RPGs that almost no one has played.

There was this game called Robotrek for SNES which allowed you to build robots that fought for you. It was kind of like the precursor to Pokemon but not as fun. Still fun though.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

There was this game called Robotrek for SNES which allowed you to build robots that fought for you. It was kind of like the precursor to Pokemon but not as fun. Still fun though.

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That was a fun game along with E.V.O. Enix released some interesting games on the SNES.

Not so much obscure as it is just forgotten...

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The original Jade Cocoon. Imagine if Studio Ghibli made a Pokemon game based off of Princess Mononoke or Spirit Away for the PS1. The game actually had a pretty good story and some fun if a bit basic gameplay. There wasn't much variety with monster types either and lord knows the VA work was cheesy but I actually enjoyed this game.

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Okage the Shadow King was such a trippy game, I still need to finish it but it's a pretty interesting if easily forgotten early PS2 RPG.

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This one bugs me because it's actually a Squaresoft RPG that did get a good release outside of Japan. It plays like a spiritual sequel to Brave Fencer Musashi with a cool action-RPG mechanic and has two protagonists with different stories. Its both fun and pretty dark at times as well. Speaking of which...

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Brave Fencer Musashi was one of the first fully 3D RP0Gs to be released on the PS1. While its age shows nowadays, the game is still funny and enjoyable minus Steamwood.

I was going to argue Threads of Fate's obscurity, but smurf no gamers I know outside of the net know what I'm talking about when I mention that game. I WANT THAT SEQUEL!

This would probably be my opportunity to gush about Shining Force, but I actually know quite a few people (on here at least) who are aware of it and enjoy it to some extent. But legitimately I think I only know of one person who knows about Dragon Force. So much fun that I put in like 10 hour sessions over the weekends during school and ended up burning out my Sega Saturn. It's kind of a strategy RPG but not like a normal strategy RPG. You choose between 8 different kingdoms, and have to lead your team to uniting the continent. Everyone has a different but similar story that all comes together in the end. And you play by taking your little generals in groups of up to 5 at a time to all the different points and castles littered throughout the map. When they encounter generals from other nations and other enemies on the maps or inside the buildings a battle ensues. And these. Are. Awesome. Each general can have up to 100 troops. So you can have a really quick little 100 vs 100 battle, with a rock paper scissors mechanic deeper than Fire Emblem. Mages beat zombies, monks beat dragons, archers beat harpies, cavalry beats soldiers. There's a ton of options. And quite a few strategic choices within each little skirmish. I was doofing around with an ISO of the game recently, getting ready to hack a Saturn memory card to by-pass the need to mod the console and unlock the ability to play imports and backups,; and just to test out the functionality of the ISO I booted it up in an emulator and lost another couple hours just having fun and reliving memories. It's all weird sounding and jittery in an emulator but still a golden game. Can't wait to play it again on a console after all these years..

Was Dragon Force the game with the immortals and the Dragon Knight who literally turned into a Dragon in battle to smurf people up? I vaguely remember a friend having a pretty nifty SRPG on the Saturn with those elements.

Talking about Dragon Force reminded me.

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A pretty neat Mecha SRPG on the PS1 brought to you by the defunct Working Designs in their heyday. The game involved kingdoms fighting over ancient mechs that acted like Knights and your character got one of the two former civilization ending Mechs and goes on a journey to unite the various kingdoms. Depending on party choices you could wind up with different allies and the game had multiple endings. It was hard as balls too because less than halfway through the game, they introduce these special mechs who specilaize in killing the pilots and they can decimate a unit quickly. After that, the difficulty spike was all over the damn place and I honestly got myself set up in a final battle with the main villain that I honestly believed was unwinnable. It may have been the bad ending path I got but I can barely remember. I think this game is on PSN now, so I should pick it up again along with Vandal Hearts.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Was Dragon Force the game with the immortals and the Dragon Knight who literally turned into a Dragon in battle to smurf people up? I vaguely remember a friend having a pretty nifty SRPG on the Saturn with those elements.

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None of that stuff rings a bell, but it sounds awesome lol Dragon Force was about some generic good vs evil gods, and the 8 playable characters are the chosen leaders, and not only do they have to unite the continent, they have to defeat the evil god that's regaining its power. Not really immortals, and I don't recall anyone getting the ability to turn into a dragon. Though they can unleash some pretty ridiculous spells onto the battle field

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Generic anime stills for cut-scenes, that were rather endearing to me at the time, and I still adore their cheese

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The kinda primitive but functional map view where you tell troops to go on paths to take over towns and castles and whatnot

And then there are the things the game is known for...

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The massive melee battles of 100 vs 100 (though you generally only start out with 10 or 20 at a time)

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Not the same game. I'm thinking of Mysteria: The Realms of Lore, better known in the West as Blazing Heroes.

Ohh, I had that game too, but it disappeared shortly after I beat it the first time and I forgot all about it. I don't recall the story or the dragon thing. I just remember it played a lot like Shining Force at the time lol Hm, now that I'll be hacking my Saturn, maybe I should re-acquire it. Or maybe it's just plain cheap on Amazon..

Anachronox is a hilarious game that has an imaginative world and story.

Your party members consists of a sentient robot from when you were a kid, a stripper assassin, a luchador wrestler superhero, and a planet that shrunk itself down so it can follow you and has taken the idea of democracy so far that they must have a planet wide vote for every minor decision.

I don't know a single person on here who has played Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. My attempts to extol its greatness have always fell on deaf ears.

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

I don't know a single person on here who has played Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. My attempts to extol its greatness have always fell on deaf ears.

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I have it, it's just not very high in my priority list for my backlog. I actually still have a playthrough of Tales of Symphonia, Majora's Mask, and Skies of Arcadia standing in the way of my Gamecube backlog. Luckily I busted out the Wii recently so I may finally get around to finishing some of these games.

My girlfriend waxes fondly of it from time to time, but I've never experienced it. We haven't gotten around to reacquiring it again for her yet. but it'll probably happen

There's a nice little RPG I bought for PS3 called Resonance of Fate. I don't hear it spoken about very often but I don't know if you'd class it as obscure. Either way it was a lot of fun with an interesting battle system and a different take on the world map.

I loved the characters' personalities in Resonance of Fate

There's also Mugen Souls and Mugen Souls Z, a pair of PS3 JRPGs thatare beyond shameless fanservice games. Good music and voice-acting though and fun enough combat I'd say.

I wouldn't call them good games, while Baten Kaitos is one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. I'm just bringing them up because they're pretty obscure and I fondly remember how otaku baity they were.

All you need to know is the sequel has a mechanic called Fetish Pose and that's the ideal way to defeat enemies. They each have a different kink you have to exploit.