Shining Force 3. Mostly cause it’s marooned on the Saturn but it’s so friggin good.
Perfect Dark. I didn’t have a sibling to play with, so I am eternally grateful to Rare for making computer-controlled bots in the multiplayer mode.
GUNZ The Duel - man that was just so much fun. Online guns and swords gladiator style battles in the most neat stages. I remember an old mansion with broken staircases and balconies, a train station with freight cargo all over the place, an actual roman colosseum, a beach with a grounded ship ashore.
Some people could do this thing called K-style or butterfly style where you slash your sword against walls or other objects which made you lift off the ground, and switch between your gun to shoot as you do so - it was a neat trick which I learned but definitely did not master.
So much fun though.
this game was such janky fun!
wall climbing with the swords was so awesome and i loved that the devs didn’t patch it they just embraced it
Squarez Deluxe.
I’ve been on a one-man promotion spree of that game for almost 20 years
It is now freeware, it’s available on DOSBox, and it is the best shape-packing game ever made - you cannot even debate me once you try it.
SCP:SL(SCP: Secret Laboratory Yes Steam Only
Edit:Fix Link and Grammer
Description/Opinion of the game
a multiplayer Game uses SCP stories, and inspired by SCP:CB(SCP: Containment Breach)/SCP:CB multiplayer, you play as chaos,Mtf,scps,d-bois and scientists. in this game it takes place in SITE-02, you can set nukes, etc.
The goal is you must survive. the group that survives (Foundation,Chaos,scp) will win. it also relies on community hosted servers.(the devs also host one)
it takes place in a non-cannon site-02.
its pretty fun to play ,and very good for VC, it feels designed for it.“Hide and go fuck yourself.“
It’s a relatively obscure PS1 game in the horror genre.
The main thing that made it relatively unique among the horror game of the PS1 era is its lack of action mechanics. It’s essentially a horror dungeon crawler without action mechanics. You can run away or sneak past the invincible enemy, or if you gain a companion, the enemy kills your companion allowing you to run away when caught.
Game mechanics and ending spoilers
Essentially, your companion is your extra life. Different companions also have different abilities. Different endings result from who your companion is, or not having any at the game ending.
Its mechanics is more akin to Clock Tower—first person point and click at certain rooms, while being a first-person dungeon crawler in most other areas.
From the wiki article:
The game uses a first-person perspective, very similar to first-person shooter games, only without any means of combat. Throughout the game, players must travel through different areas of The Mesh and beyond, and must solve puzzles to progress to the surface. The player encounters only one type of enemy, and that is the mutating monster called The Hybrid. The only possible way for players to survive is to run away. Any close contact with the enemy will result in the deaths of their companion (and finally themselves). Once the companions are attacked, they are killed off permanently.
It is pretty different from the other horror games from the PS1 era, which made it relatively disappointing for those expecting it to be similar to the likes of Resident Evil or even Silent Hill.
The Thief series. I LOVED the first one especially, Thief the Dark Project. Medieval (low magic fantasy?) stealth shooter. The more valuable you pick up directly translates to what you can buy as a load out for the next level so you’re encouraged to explore, though even the low level enemies can kick you ass so you have to be sneaky. Actually great stealth mechanics even for an old game. The world building is amazing, with it’s own lore, culture and slang. The plot of the games are also great.
The Kingdom of Loathing is a game I’ve played almost non-stop since about 2003. Web based and free, it’s based off of old text based games. But it’s fun. Really fun. And hilarious. The currency is meat. The classes are goofy. Saucerer? Disco bandit? Seal Clubber? A lot of games deal with things like power creep or inflation, or how the heck to get people to actually help pay for it. This game solves problems like these elegantly. The user base is fun and friendly and corporative, there’s always new stuff coming out to try, they do a holiday special every year, and all the pictures are crudely drawn stick figures.
Legend of Legaia. It’s a JRPG from the PS1 golden era, but it had a relatively small launch and basically zero marketing. It was completely overshadowed by other games like FFVII and Legend of Dragoon. It has a sort of cult classic following now. The story starts off as a fairly basic “world is awful, kid gets a magic weapon to beat the big evil thing” type of plot, but has a surprising amount of twists and turns.
The combat system is interesting, and hasn’t really been replicated since. You string together a series of small attacks, to make larger super combos.
Fair warning, the US release is significantly harder than the JP and EU versions. For some reason, the devs multiplied all the enemy stats by 1.25, and slashed their exp/gold drop rates by 50% for the US release. So you need to grind twice as long to be properly geared/leveled, and the grinding is 25% more difficult.
When videogame rentals were a thing, developers often intentionally made games unreasonably hard to spur repeat rentals or purchases. My money is on that.
Even the EU version is dozens of hours long for a casual play through. The game is surprisingly long for only being one disc; They didn’t use a bunch of pre-rendered cutscenes like many of the bigger games did. Those pre-rendered cutscenes take up a lot of disc space, and are why games like Legend of Dragoon and FFVII have multiple discs.
Kinda cheating, since this game (hell, entire series; linking my fave entry) has kind of a cult following in Central/Eastern Europe.
The video looked cool but for the picture they had to go with the Pixar face??
Tactics Ogre. I see people drop Final Fantasy Tactics as the greatest tactics game of all time. Then you always see Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Disgaea after. People sleep on Tactics Ogre. It’s a mechanically superior game to all of the mentioned. It’s story is equally as good as FFT. I think the graphics are better. It’s a challenging game from the start. FFT was created with the Tactics Ogre director and lead artist to be a more accessible version of TO. People see 90s golden era Final Fantasy and automatically put FFT on a pedestal. TO is like Undertaker stalking AJ Styles ready to obliterate whatever is in its way.
I think this was the game I rented once as a kid and never saw again but pops up as a memory every so often and I could never remember the name… Gonna check it out again.
Try it. It’s a fantastic game. I think the newest version that came out on Steam is the way to go but a lot of people still recommend the PSP Version if you wanna emulate it. Or you can go all the way back to the SNES version. I don’t think there’s a bad version of the game but there are definitely better versions of the game.
I’ve played Tactics Ogre after I’ve read some accounts of it being described as FFT’s spiritual successor, but I must admit I never finished it–not because of the gameplay which is suprisingly deep for its time, but because of my own perfectionism. I didn’t let myself just play the game without any guides or overthinking, instead went full “I want the perfect gamesave”.|
But yes! what you said is true. FFT is a more accessible successor to Tactics Ogre.
Maximo! It’s a 3D hack and slash collectathon. It’s based on the Ghosts and Goblins games. There was a sequel that fell a little short of expectations (got rid of the really fun hub worlds). They were going to do a third game but Capcom canceled it.
Dark Fall 1 & 2 (specifically not 3)
couple of my favorite point and click adventures, and I’ve played a lot
Cyber Empires (PC), Shadowrun (Genesis), Betrayal at Krondor (PC).
Oh man I haven’t thought of Cyber Empires in so long. I remember tunneling through walls so my missile bots could obliterate the enemy base.
Shadowrun for Genesis was amazing! Ahead of its time. The way it semi randomly generated jobs for you to do was pretty unique. Like Bethesda radiant quests, but decades earlier and better. I really enjoyed rising up from the weakest street runner to someone with enough reputation to skip the line at the expensive club.
The leveling system was also pretty advanced for Genesis.
Also the cyberspace hacking was wacky and fun.
Betrayal at Krondor was amazing. Masterfully written, with fun riddles, and that music chef’s kiss
Strife - last commercial release (at least until a recent retro game using it) of the Doom Engine. Picked it up for £3.50 or something about '97.
Think Hexen but plot, charming pixel-comic art, and some potentially frustrating boss fights and rpg lite elements.
Lots of fun, and does interesting stuff. I quote the voice acting quite a lot, but no one notices.
