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They seem pretty mainstream for strategy games now, but Paradox Interactive games as a whole used to be pretty cult, with a reputation for high learning curves and making a whole string of games that could be considered diamonds in the rough (after numerous patches and expansion packs). I remember back around the EU3 days and earlier, with some of the later Europa engine games, how their forums had (and still have) a really strong, but weird, community, fostered by their games being unfinished, buggy pieces of poo poo on release that you HAD to visit the forums for to get the absolutely necessary patches. Not to mention the games letting you live out whatever weird, obscure, ultra-nationalist or ultra-ideological fantasies you may have that drew in an audience of...unique people.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 17:52 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:34 |
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Pong
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 18:21 |
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Naval Ops Warship Gunner 2 An obscure and relatively rare PS2 game, it's basically a SHMUP with fully-customizable warships. Features include a huge array of tech trees, secret items and a rank system that rewards you with unlockables for doing well, an absolutely absurd storyline with 3 diverging paths, new game+ with additional enemy fleets and even more unlockables to find, and lots of fun extras. You start off with WW2-era ships and equipment and work your way up to crazy poo poo like nuclear missiles, lasers, and giant Kamehameha wave cannon that splits the ocean (like, actually split it, no joke). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDi943rGnE Metal Wolf Chaos A third-person mech driving game that almost no one has ever heard about, released exclusively in Japan with full (and relatively well-done) english voice acting on the first Xbox. Metal Wolf Chaos is the single most insanely patriotic game ever created, the story centering around the president of these great and free united states of america, donning a small mech suit, having to fight against his treacherous freedom-hating vice-president that tried to usurp the good president in a coup d'etat (he too is in a mech suit). Did I mention this was developped by From Software? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Genl242_ZU8 If you want to procure these fine games, Naval Ops Warship Gunner 2 and Metal Wolf Chaos are both available on Amazon. But be prepared to pay full price for the former, and between 170-200 dollars for the latter!
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 18:26 |
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Sadly, nobody ever remembers the Valis series. That series defined my childhood man, and is probably the biggest reason I'm always saddened by the dearth of female protagonists. "oh my big manly space marine sots alienz" bitch Yuko killed the lord of darkness in single combat! And R.A.D! Greatest mecha game ever made and nobody even remembers it!
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 19:31 |
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Terranigma is an ARPG for the SNES that was released everywhere but North America. The gist is that you play a kid who lives in peaceful village underground in a hollow version of the Earth, and it's your job to awaken the rest of the planet. First you bring back all plant-life, then the birds, then the rest of the animal kingdom, and then humanity. After that you can help the towns and cities of the world expand as well as explore the many hidden side areas. Unlike most JRPG heroes your guy wields a spear and he can talk. The translation (like every Japanese-to-English game back then) is mediocre, the magic system is useless, the difficulty spikes severely in places (Bloody Mary), some of your allies are really obnoxious, the plot gets really hard to follow in the middle, and I wouldn't play without a strategy guide. That said this game is in the same league as other SNES RPGs like FF6 and Chrono Trigger. The story has a real sense of scope in how you progress, and the mood is strong with a feeling of sad wonder. The game really incites you to help NPCs out even if the reward is lousy. The game is also unrelentingly depressing. Many of the friends you make meet unfortunate ends, but the biggest punch is reserved for the ending. After everything you go through, you find out that the world you saved is a world you were never a part of. In the playable epilogue you go back to your peaceful village and enjoy one last sunny day before you, your village, and all your friends disappear forever. The great soundtrack hammers it home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAyNuQDNSAUin Inspector Gesicht fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 14, 2014 |
# ? Jun 14, 2014 19:33 |
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Inspector Gesicht posted:
How does this compare to Soul Blazer? I'm playing through it right now but I've read people say if you like Soul Blazer to play Terranigma after.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 19:54 |
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Len posted:How does this compare to Soul Blazer? I'm playing through it right now but I've read people say if you like Soul Blazer to play Terranigma after. It's a lot more refined than Soul Blazer. If you want to play the whole (largely unrelated to each other) trilogy, I'd go in order (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma).
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 20:14 |
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Thinking hard about games nobody ever seems to remember, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is one of the first games that game to mind. Loved playing it as a kid. Pretty impressive technology wise too for it's age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVPyJuK2daM
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 20:15 |
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Len posted:How does this compare to Soul Blazer? I'm playing through it right now but I've read people say if you like Soul Blazer to play Terranigma after. I've never played more than 5 minutes of Soul Blazer but I do think it's worthwhile to try Illusion of Gaia before Terranigma. It has many of the same faults of Terranigma but the gameplay is really strong. It's a stripped-down ARPG with no grinding or inventory-management faffing and its dungeons are delightfully puzzle-like that I found far more satisfying than recent Zelda fare. Sadly you're restricted to only a dozen healing items in the entire game and it's extremely easy to miss collectibles so you'll need to refer to GameFaqs a lot. Also, half of the bosses will rape you up the bum with a sharp nobbly stick. Inspector Gesicht fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jun 14, 2014 |
# ? Jun 14, 2014 20:23 |
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Ddraig posted:Two Worlds was a loving amazing game and I would happily play it over Oblivion and even Skyrim. As much as I love Skyrim, I have always docked it points for this, mainly because Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III) had everything you listed (but the combat was worse). The landscape was quite varied (plains, forests, swamps, flat lava plains with no life of any kind for miles around, and much more), and the cities all had their own unique architecture (my favorite was the city of wizards where all the houses had been built a couple hundred feet up the sides of trees (maybe mushrooms; I can't remember) and you had to fly to go from building to building or even enter the city at all). It even had a weather system; at any moment it could start pouring down rain, or a dust or ash storm could kick up. A great touch was that during a dust or ash storm, any outdoors NPC would shield their faces with their arm until it stopped. I really wish Bethesda would start putting that kind of time and effort into that kind of thing again.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:01 |
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Bieeardo posted:I'd definitely agree with Shadowbane as a 'cult' MMO. It launched in a stripped-down state, suffered astonishing setbacks (like people finding the GM commands in the user client, or single guilds and alliances locking down entire servers), but people have been working doggedly at bringing a server emulator up to snuff for years. The reason I said Shadowbane and CoH is that they are the only MMO's I've ever player where people talked to me about them like people talk to you about Rocky Horror or Troll 2. CoH didn't just have players, it had loving evangelists. Inspector Gesicht posted:
This is why earlier I mentioned all the Quintet games for Super Nintendo, they are all really good but extremely under appreciated outside of devoted retro gamers.
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# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:27 |
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Here's a good one: Uniracers for the SNES. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CCmt8Q_ASI&t=64s This is a wholly unique 2-D racing game where you race unicycles over tracks full of twists, jumps, and loops. Doing stunts gives you speed boosts which are essential to winning. Uniracers was critically acclaimed and got a big hype piece in Nintendo Power. But then this happened: MobyGames posted:According to Mike Dailly who worked with DMA Design: Goddamn lawyers! Luckily, gamers nowadays have emulators and ROM sets.
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# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:05 |
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While I was searching Ebay for a Parappa the Rapper t-shirt, I came across a paper back book called "Parappa the Rapper 2" ISBN: 9785511892252 Just why the heck does a 158 page paperbook book published in 2012 called Parappa The Rapper 2 exist? Is this some kind of novelization about a rapping paper Dog? I almost want to buy this just to know what it is. I think this might just be a print out of Parappa the Rapper wikipedia articles? Whatever I think it's bizarre. crikster fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Jun 16, 2014 |
# ? Jun 16, 2014 08:58 |
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Ceyton posted:Here's a good one: Uniracers for the SNES. I rented that game all the time (It was Unirally everywhere else in the world) but I never know that happened to it. It's also fun to see old DMA/Rockstar games pop up too.
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# ? Jun 16, 2014 09:33 |
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iminay posted:Thinking hard about games nobody ever seems to remember, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is one of the first games that game to mind. Loved playing it as a kid. Pretty impressive technology wise too for it's age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVPyJuK2daM Everyone remembers it it's just awful.
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# ? Jun 16, 2014 09:40 |
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Orv posted:Everyone remembers it it's just awful. http://lparchive.org/Shogo-Mobile-Armor-Division/
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# ? Jun 16, 2014 10:43 |
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Live-a-Live on the SNES, at least for US audiences. It was never released outside of Japan so obviously it didn't sell well worldwide! Aside from maybe being a bit darker than expected from Nintendo in that time frame, I can't think of why it wasn't released. I thought it was a fun game to play with lots of variety in it that managed to mix a few different gameplay types together on top of the basic RPG style.
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# ? Jun 16, 2014 16:10 |
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Peguin-Kun Wars! I don't know much about it, except that it cam out on several systems. The mame version might be the standard. It's like dodge ball + table tennis.
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# ? Jun 17, 2014 17:06 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:34 |
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crikster posted:I think this might just be a print out of Parappa the Rapper wikipedia articles? Whatever I think it's bizarre. I looked the 'publisher' up. It's page-scraped Wikipedia articles, most of which won't have anything to do with Parappa. Orv posted:Everyone remembers it it's just awful. The best parts of Shogo were letting a boss blow himself up by trying to shoot at me through five stories of parking garage, somehow loading into an on-foot level in mobile armor mode (and subsequently one-shotting everything by brushing up against them), and waving a Captain Claw doll around.
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# ? Jun 17, 2014 17:25 |