Future cop os actually a successor to the genesis and ps1 "strike" games (nuclear strike. Jungle strike. Desert strike). Which I always thot contributed to the difficulty
Princess Maker 2 got an updated re-release on Steam in 2016 called Princess Maker 2 Refine and it's actually getting another re-release with completely redrawn art from the original creator called Princess Maker 2 Regeneration in July for the game's 30th anniversary.
And it's being pointlessly censored on #Kusony systems! (Before someone points out that, "Ehrm, akchwuawy, it's 'SONY', you dummy!" - go onto your search engine of choice and look-up #Kusony. )
Just some info. Heard new version. The redone art one. The Sony version will be censored. And 2 endings cut. So better to get a different version or switch if you can.
@@zid9611 All versions are censored. The original game has nudity in it and the remake doesn't. Just stick to the original, it's not a game that needed to be "remade".
It's worth mentioning that Princess Maker 2 was developed by none other than Gainax, who for a time had a fairly successful game and software development division in addition to its more well-known animation division behind Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gurren Lagann, etc.
@@st1ka It feels like one of those concepts that an indie dev could very much iron out and perfect. Feels like there's a lot more potential there even beyond Kingdom Grandprix! :)
To be fair, if I remember it well, the father apparently couldn't have children, and his greatest desire was to raise a kid, so the gods honour him with one!
@@FourthIdentity-gu2zk I guess nowadays he would raise a ton of red flags xD So you are male? Single? I'm sorry but you don't qualify for adoption at this moment.
@@__So___So__ that's less of a personal issue these days and more about the state of women in modern america who "fight for women's rights" when they already have them all and don't understand the difference between boyfriend and marriage material
Probably been mentioned, but "For Whom the Frog Tolls/Croaks" is actually the base game that the same developer used to make Link's Awakening. According to the story, he decided to try and port Link to the Past to the GB using it as a base, then got more friends at Nintendo in on it, and eventually they accidentally had half of a real game on their hands that they had to then convince their bosses to let them complete. Several characters from it also appear in Link's Awakening as extras / callouts to the earlier game.
Continuing on with the video, I had a friend who reviewed Chaos Seed and loved it. And at some point I played the PS2 version of Maken X (pronounced Maken Shao in Japanese, apparently). I don't think I finished it, but I definitely got pretty far in.
Uhhh....visually I totally buy your story, but... I'm really surprised that Norman of @GamingHistorian never ran across that, which makes me question that one. Gonna have to dive down the rabbit hole now...
@@TopShelfTheology From the second paragraph of the wiki page: "Development began as an effort to port the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game A Link to the Past to the Game Boy, developed after-hours by Nintendo staff." More on this in the "Development" section. A little sparse and on the dry side, but pretty much this. The off-beat nature of the development cycle is supposedly also why we see Yoshi, Princess Peach, Goombas, and Kirby make cameo appearances way outside their usual series.
Future Cop L.A.P.D. PC version *is* my childhood. It was also the first MOBA, or more accurately the Precinct Assault game mode was a MOBA-style before that term was a thing. If you can get the game I recommend the PC version though because it has a lot of optimisations, some updated graphics, and even a whole new map for PA called La Cantina, which to me was the best of them all (aside the secret comedy one).
It definitely doesn't fit the term MOBA - it's sort of in a similar spirit though, I suppose. The first true MOBA style game was the Starcraft 1 custom game "Aeon of Strife", which went on to inspire the WC3 map DotA, and so on and so forth.
Stars! (1995) was an early space-based 4X game that used Windows dialogues for everything. It came with an enormous tome of a manual. It's like 200 pages of worth of tables, data, and explanation of the mechanics. It's kind of abandonware now, with a freely available download and a set of working serial numbers people can use. (It has asynchronous multiplayer, and each person needs their own key.)
I purchased that game way back when it was new! If you can get past the total lack of graphics it's a very deep game with some features modern games don't have. I played the crap out of it and was sad when the under development sequel just... faded away.
@@st1ka I loved Stars!, and it's also got a retro-clone copy made by my buddy Ekolis nowadays! The clone isn't exactly the same, but it's pretty close. Stars! had some really unique mechanics... some of which you needed to actually do math to figure out how to use right. :D Like the stealth system... it's based on % reduction of enemy sensor ranges. But while hard capped at 98%... getting to 98% stealth is nearly impossible. Why? because stealth isn't additive... it's divisive. you start at 100% visible... unless you're a Super Stealth race. Then you start at 50%. At 50% enemy detection of your ships is half normal. So if a sensor lists 100Ly... it'll detect a ship with 50% stealth at up 50 ly only. So, and this is something Stars! does with several things, not just cloaking, the divisive stacking works like so: Start at 100%. Reduce by modifier 1. for this example I'll use the Super Stealth race bonus: 50%. So now visibility is 50%. Let's put on two regular cloaking devices each with 30%. 50 - 30% = 35 35 - 30% = 24.5% visibility Which means you're now 75% cloaked and functionally reduces enemy sensor range to 1/4 what it would normally be. Unless they have penetrating scanners. Cloaking is less effective then. A similar mechanic exists for weapon accuracy, but the way the game explains it in-game is kinda backwards. Also, accuracy has both bonuses and penalties applied to it, so the math is a lot more complicated.
There's also, besides a Race Editor, almost anything you could think of. It doesn't describe what your race is, but because *it does not* it allows you to fill it in as you go. Want to play as a race of holographic people that exist solely on space stations and don't have physical bodies? Go right ahead! The AI is fairly rudimentary; it works off of what it knows now and tries to set itself up for a better position in the future, but doesn't take advantage of anything their specific race provides. STARS! is also *barely* compatible with windows 8, and will require some juryrigging to effectively work. I had endless hours of fun playing as a space catapult race; the whole goal is to collect rocks to take home, load them into the expensive orbital trebuchet, and then *fire them at maximum warp at enemies.* I'd strip-mine planets no matter whos they were before using the same rocks stolen from "worthless" barren planets and smashing them into planets. Here's where it becomes funnest; the different minerals cause different reactions in the atmosphere. Green Rocks make Radiation, Red makes Temp. By figuring out what your enemies are least tolerant to you can then bombard them with minerals to *make their planet uninhabitable for them.* I do not think that this is a war crime; but it *aught to be.* Not only do you invent your own race in STARS!, but you can *invent your own war crimes.*
I just subscribed because of this video. What a great collection of well-executed, unique gameplay ideas and analysis. I live for this type of games and they are precious few.
Me 3 seconds before video start: ''Yeah right, ive been playing videogames for the past 33 years Me after a min of the video: ''.......................what the actual f*ck?'' LOL nice list my man.
Rescue: The Embassy Mission was one of my first NES games when I was a kid. My father was a huge fan of it, one of the only video games he cared to play, and pushed it to the hardest difficulties. I have crazy fond memories of that game.
The engine for For the Frog the Bell Tolls was reused for Zelda: Link's Awakening. The combat system was reused for Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. Windows 3.x also had a number of games that used standard Windows widgets rather than a custom UI. For some reason, Epic -- yes, the Unreal and Fortnite people, then known as Epic MegaGames -- published a number of these, among them Castle of the Winds (a roguelike RPG set in ancient Scandinavia) and Dare to Dream and Palace of Deceit: The Dragon's Plight, two point-and-click adventures written by Cliff Bleszinski. The idea behind Windows and the Macintosh was originally that all programs would have the same user interface, meaning that once you learned one, the others became easier to use. These games for Mac and Windows tried to follow that principle.
I've been working with gaming media for over a decade, be it gaming journalism, video making and even teaching. And the fact that I knew less than 10% of these games amazes me! This video is amazing!
The Void sounds cool, but man, I would never remember all that stuff that the colors do/are for. Wetrix also looked really unique but I know I'd be terrible at it. Great video, man. There's some really interesting games in this one.
I played the heck out of Rescue: The Embassy Mission as a kid! One game that would fit on this list is Sigma Star Story for the GBA. It's an top-down RPG, but the random battles are all small Shmup stages! You collect different bullet types and effects in the RPG portion, and use them in every fight. I remember loving it, but the boss levels were brutal!
Rescue is essentially Infogrammes Hostages. Released for a slew of systems back in 1988. I played it on the Amiga where the stealth section had a really bitchin' guitar solo.
Whas looking for this comment, cause I have never heard of "Rescue TEM", but played Hostages on Atari ST/Amiga 500 as a kid. So I was a bit confused seing "Rescue". Wonder what the story is behind this is (like the namechange) Cheers.
Exactly, it is the same as Hostages (but Hostages has better graphics and sound on Amiga). And there is also Alcatraz (also on Amiga) which is very similiar, but in different setting.
Had to make sure the superior Amiga version was mentioned! It got ported to pretty much every 8-bit and 16-bit platform, the number of ports in itself is impressive. Amiga version was 1988, NES version 1990.
I just found me someone new to subscribe to. Your selection of games, your script, your accent, everything, it is all entertaining. Most importantly, the games you selected are top notch and there's even a couple of them that I'd not played. Thank you for the recommendations. I will be watching more of your vids. 👍 Edit: I was reading an article a few years back that there was a DX version of For the Frog the bell Tolls in development. Did that ever come to fruition? A colour version of that game would be amazing! That's one of the few in your list that I've played to completion.
It wasn’t fully translated until after the snes was solidly a retro console, I think? Apparently translating it was a huge pain as it’s full of spiritual concepts and metaphors and suchlike, if I remember reading about it correctly from years ago now.
I always look forward to your videos because I always find some really obscure game I've never seen. Not the same old hidden gems list games. Great research and great accent.
I appreciate that you respect your audience and realize that most people who like “hidden gem” videos have seen them all and you don’t repeat the same games as everyone else. You even assume we know about Mischief Makers already. Which is cool.
There's a definitive version of Maken called Maken Shao, only came out on the PS2 in the EU & JP regions. It adds quite a bit of stuff like an arranged soundtrack, a third-person mode, and some of gameplay adjustments. I'm pretty sure it also got a bunch of additional cutscenes and a new translation, so the story is slightly less batshit insane lol.
The new translation is more akin to censorship to appease European sensibilities (being told you're going to descend into neo-nazism right when the first signs were getting visible isn't the easiest to take I guess)
You blew my mind with Future Cop LAPD. I used to play that game so much as a kid. I remember it being so much fun but didn’t really remember why. That was a great nostalgia trip 😌
Saw Minerva the Giant Fairy in the Thumbnail, and knew I had to click on the video =D I miss the old Raizing 8 games--they were funny arcade experiences to watch and play seemingly .
Great tips! We need more people highlighting the unique ones from all the clones :D "Rescue: The Embassy Mission" is originally known as "Hostages"... i played the hell out of the Amiga version as a kid, loved it's brooding severe atmosphere and can only recommend it over the NES version (even tho its technically pretty impressive on the NES)
Hope that the Zeno Clash series gets mentioned here. Perhaps Wuppo, Cool Cool Toon, Kya: Dark Lineage, some Amanita Design games and Cookie Cutter too.
UA-cam usually gives me videos on my home tab and this video pop up. First 5 minutes, I like your accent but also love the excitement in it too so I am subscribing. Also can the thumbnail got me clicking on the video too. These games I never played before and also intrigued to play them too. Thanks 🙏
In this house we respect the thumbnail grind. If it makes more people learn about games they would’ve otherwise never heard of, by clicking on a video they would’ve otherwise never clicked on, it’s worth it. Don’t hate the player, hate the game
Birthright is really just the evolution of Defender of the Crown from NES (and the previous iterations on other platforms). Pinball Quest was a banger back in the day also. Some seriously obscure games on here though, nice work!
I played The Void the minute it premiered and I was mind blown. Between that and other art films I watched at the time those immediately shaped my mind frame for the next years of my life.
Long live the queen, while having a considerable number of choices, is ultimately a lot more like a VN or generously a limited adventure game than a simulator. Not that that is a bad thing, I quite like it. Still, people will compare VNs to more statistical sims like Tokimemo or Princess Maker and I feel the need to point out the difference.
Those who seek wisdom are the only ones deserving of being called adults/mature, in my humble opinion. The world is full of immature adolescents of almost all ages, partly because our societal system is sick, and tries to hinder real maturity, which is a deliberate ploy by the rulers against ordinary people. Anyone who points this out is setting himself/herself up for being ridiculed as a CT, also part of the deliberate ploy. Those not mature enough to think enough critically for themselves, yet mature enough to listen to the mature critics and doubt the societal system, will most likely be caught up by belief in far fetched, illogical CO CT, also set up as part of the deliberate ploy by the rulers, which ploy underpins most of human civilized society. Sometimes games may allow you some respite from these disturbing facts of our world, yet also set up the danger of you losing touch with this reality, in favour of the much over simplified games of pure fiction, until you reach the stage of nausea of the addictive extra illusion this sucks you into. Sometimes a few uneasily absorbing yet philosophically challenging games are exactly what is needed for you to start waking up and doubt the illusion overlay of actual reality, the same as you doubt the deliberately deceptive illusions in the game.
Oh my god, I remember playing 'Rescue: The Embassy Mission' at a friends place when we were kids. We had no idea how to properly play that game and failed again and again.^^'
Yeah I had it on NES. A cool thing was if you turned away fast enough when the enemies were in front of you they couldn't shoot you. The bad thing was that if you did everything correct you got got the bad ending and if you messed up and failed you got the good ending. They messed up programming the endings on the NES version. I still enjoyed it though.
6:01 - Futurecop LAPD, I still have it for both the Mac & PC (both version came on the one disk)! I remember playing it on my Bondi Blue iMac using 2 USB keyboards (and 2 headphones via the front audio ports!). Sadly the game benefits from having multiple keypresses (you can fire primary & secondary weapons at the same time). Sadly the keyboards couldn't recognise multiple simultaneous keypresses on the iMac so it wasn't as manic as on the PC !
I used to have future cop lad on pc back when I was a kid and I was OBSESSED with that game mode. It was the only thing I would play in that game. Thank you for mentioning it! Now I gotta find and play it again...
that softball fighting paper mario game for PSX is what i'd call a hidden gem. Only a few talk about it, and im definitely gonna give it a shot before i forget it exists again!
Wow man, that is well and truly a 0% clickbait title for real. Very well done, and thanks for making content like this Also special thanks for reminding me about Power Quest, such precious childhood memories
Hell yeah Pinball Quest. Picked that up cheap on a whim about twenty years back and fell in love with it. Been meaning to play it again after tryin' out the Pinball Spire demo too, which is also worth a shot.
There was an anime pinball game that was just like pinball quest but with gacha elements and waifus, and it was VERYGOOD it was a modern take on pinball quest but the game got shut down just recently 😭
@@DanielNouser-ti8ro Remember the name perchance? Wouldn't mind lookin' that up anyway. Also; another similar sorta game but in a block-breaker style's Wizorb. Tis over a decade old by now i'm pretty sure but is a damn good'un.
when you mentioned birthright i got reminded of a game i used to play as a kid. it is called "Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown" the game had a lot of stuff like archery, turn based combat, jousting, politics, army and territory management. quite unique for me back then
Princess Maker 2 was amazing. I would love to see a Princess Maker done today. Also there were a BUNCH of D&D games in the late 80's and early 90's that were all fairly different from each other. Glad to see one of them made it here!
interesting enough as another poster stated there is a full remake of Princess Maker 2 being done by the original team due for release next month and its even going to be released on steam so hopefully this will spark a new drive to get games 3-5 actually localized.
This is the first of your videos I've seen, so I don't know if you've covered it before, but a game I used to play when I was Robopit for the PS1 (1996), and I LOVED this game when I was a kid. I've never really seen another game do something similar since
Thanks for introducing us to the Super Cop special mode. I wonder if it'll ever have it's own meta like Smash Bros. Obviously, not as big as that scene, but a small online cult of players would be nice.
The reason early Macintosh Games look like this is because of system limitations. Early Mac OS accelerated certain graphic functions by running them from a system ROM, and obviously these system functions were... cursor drawing, window drawing, drag and drop, etc... so if you used the OS elements your game would go faster than if you ignored those elements and tried to code the game from scratch. Also many games did not dreamt of playing full scale because redrawing the screen was veeeery slow (unless you used the system functions)
Amazing video bro🔥🔥🔥 Those games are actually unique and bizzare unlike in other videos from other dudes covering "obscure" games that turns out being basically normal ass games😭😭 Just subbed and gonna check out more of your videos🙏
Kingdom Grandprix is clearly a spinoff of Dimahoo which is in my top ten arcade games. I had no idea those characters got re-used for another title. Thanks for sharing!
Another great video, St1ka! Thanks again! I'll certainly try some of these. Also, I played Princess Maker 2, it's pretty engrossing. Though I tried to make a generalist princess and she was clobbered in the first dungeon I sent her to. Not doing that mistake again. I thought it really didn't need the fanservice, but hey, this was Gainax. The fanservice is relatively tame, considering everything. Plus the graphics are (mostly) great, and the music is pretty good too.
that was a fun list. I'm adding some to my Wishlist. I've only played Rescue for the NES ... I was too young and didn't understand why the game was so short. but it was fun. the music and gameplay stay with me to this day. ... I'm subscribing
Nice selection, there're really interesting ones i never even heard of. When you mentioned The Void i immediately recalled having played it after so many years, that's how unique it is 🤣. Also Maken X is such an unheard game, i found it by chance a few years ago while getting Dreamcast backups online. I have a free region autoboot CD burnt and the ISO saved on my computer... just in case, you never know with abandon ware.
Special mention for weird unique games: the Zeno Clash series by ACE Team. A first-person beat 'em up series with a "stonepunk" aesthetic and zany, eccentric characters.
The Mac thing actually kinda makes sense, to me. It saves you development time, disk space, and memory if you just reuse what is already going to be loaded into memory, rather then programing your own GUI interface from scratch. I also kinda like the idea that you could load up something like notepad to write down something important or maybe a 3rd party program that helps you draw a map while the game is running.
really enjoyed this video. You have a strong accent which suggests that English is not your first language, but may I compliment you on your rich vocabulary? You are using some very sophisticated phrases absolutely perfectly. It is a pleasure to listen to your observations.
There are other games in the series but none of the others have been translated into English unfortunately. It's an amazing game though, especially if you get the uncensored version for some of the wilder endings, like going to hell and marrying Satan only to kill and replace him, or marrying a dragon ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
Please Consider Subscribing: ua-cam.com/users/st1ka
You can also find uncensored versions of my videos on Patreon: www.patreon.com/St1ka
Are you saying you're a huge fairy. Or what's up with that?
Future cop os actually a successor to the genesis and ps1 "strike" games (nuclear strike. Jungle strike. Desert strike). Which I always thot contributed to the difficulty
@@justincorber7528 lol
@@rcLdrcH Yep it was originally meant to be called "future strike"
@@st1ka 47:00 I think BJ is short for "Brain Jack". Probably influences either how hard it is to control or something like that.
Princess Maker 2 got an updated re-release on Steam in 2016 called Princess Maker 2 Refine and it's actually getting another re-release with completely redrawn art from the original creator called Princess Maker 2 Regeneration in July for the game's 30th anniversary.
And it's being pointlessly censored on #Kusony systems!
(Before someone points out that, "Ehrm, akchwuawy, it's 'SONY', you dummy!" - go onto your search engine of choice and look-up #Kusony. )
Just some info. Heard new version. The redone art one. The Sony version will be censored. And 2 endings cut. So better to get a different version or switch if you can.
I actually just pre-ordered the switch CE version the other day ^^
@@zid9611 All versions are censored. The original game has nudity in it and the remake doesn't. Just stick to the original, it's not a game that needed to be "remade".
Yeah uncensored version is best version.
It's worth mentioning that Princess Maker 2 was developed by none other than Gainax, who for a time had a fairly successful game and software development division in addition to its more well-known animation division behind Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gurren Lagann, etc.
Yep, they also helped make Alisia Dragoon
Let's not forget about Puchi Puri Yucie (or Petite Princess Yucie) where Cube (yes, the game's butler) is featured in the anime series.
Gun buster
Don't forget Xardion on the Super Famicom!
The character art really has that "Nadia: secret of blue water" style
The concept of turning a shmup into a racing game by having greater acceleration the higher up on the screen you are is sheer genius.
Right? I wanna play that so bad.
It's a really interesting idea though it is a bit gimmicky 😅
Kingdom Grandprix reminds me of Daimahoo, visually. I played that all the time at my local theater, until they got rid of the cabinet for some reason.
@@st1ka It feels like one of those concepts that an indie dev could very much iron out and perfect. Feels like there's a lot more potential there even beyond Kingdom Grandprix! :)
@@BloodwyrmWildheart It's from the same series, same developer as Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid too
"Thanks for risking your life saving the world! As a reward you get this 10 year old child you have to raise now! Good Luck!
Yep haha
To be fair, if I remember it well, the father apparently couldn't have children, and his greatest desire was to raise a kid, so the gods honour him with one!
Volcano Princess and Long Live The Queen! are nice spiritual Princess Maker succcessors.
Wetrix was my favourite N64 game, no questions. :D
Easier than adoption irl
@@FourthIdentity-gu2zk I guess nowadays he would raise a ton of red flags xD
So you are male? Single? I'm sorry but you don't qualify for adoption at this moment.
You are truly a man of culture, who has opened up my eyes to the unknown but fascinating alternative games that were unknown to many of us.
Glad I could help! :D
The only problem with Princess Maker 2 is that I always get sidetracked, and all my daughters end up as generals, heroines or heroic archmages.
I have the same issue haha
i'm very much an anti-feminist, but i likely would also raise combat capable daughters
@@cobrakingofeart I have a feeling you won't be raising any kids outside of videogames anyways
@@__So___So__ that's less of a personal issue these days and more about the state of women in modern america who "fight for women's rights" when they already have them all and don't understand the difference between boyfriend and marriage material
@@__So___So__wdym, he's currently in the process of making some with your mom
You unlocked the memory of me playing LAPD against my friend as a kid.
I'm happy to see Major Havoc get mentioned. Vector games are just something else.
Yep, I love Vector games
Have you seen how much a Vectrex costs these days!?
Major Havoc walked so NieR: Automata could climb up a ladder.
haha
I approve
Yes, I'm sure we've all enjoyed 2B's polygon count.
It does look like the hacking mini game! XD
Probably been mentioned, but "For Whom the Frog Tolls/Croaks" is actually the base game that the same developer used to make Link's Awakening. According to the story, he decided to try and port Link to the Past to the GB using it as a base, then got more friends at Nintendo in on it, and eventually they accidentally had half of a real game on their hands that they had to then convince their bosses to let them complete.
Several characters from it also appear in Link's Awakening as extras / callouts to the earlier game.
yep! I've heard about it. It's definitely cool to hear it :D
Continuing on with the video, I had a friend who reviewed Chaos Seed and loved it.
And at some point I played the PS2 version of Maken X (pronounced Maken Shao in Japanese, apparently). I don't think I finished it, but I definitely got pretty far in.
And the main character has a cameo in the game. I always felt that he had more to him, but never researched where he might be from.
Uhhh....visually I totally buy your story, but... I'm really surprised that Norman of @GamingHistorian never ran across that, which makes me question that one. Gonna have to dive down the rabbit hole now...
@@TopShelfTheology From the second paragraph of the wiki page:
"Development began as an effort to port the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game A Link to the Past to the Game Boy, developed after-hours by Nintendo staff."
More on this in the "Development" section.
A little sparse and on the dry side, but pretty much this. The off-beat nature of the development cycle is supposedly also why we see Yoshi, Princess Peach, Goombas, and Kirby make cameo appearances way outside their usual series.
Future Cop L.A.P.D. PC version *is* my childhood. It was also the first MOBA, or more accurately the Precinct Assault game mode was a MOBA-style before that term was a thing. If you can get the game I recommend the PC version though because it has a lot of optimisations, some updated graphics, and even a whole new map for PA called La Cantina, which to me was the best of them all (aside the secret comedy one).
whoa I did not know that! Thank you for that.
I played it on PlayStation and the weapons are also kinda crazy like k-9 missiles.
I loved the shield weapon!
It definitely doesn't fit the term MOBA - it's sort of in a similar spirit though, I suppose.
The first true MOBA style game was the Starcraft 1 custom game "Aeon of Strife", which went on to inspire the WC3 map DotA, and so on and so forth.
I think future cop lapd's moba-esque mode is based on herzog zwei which is arguably the first moba/proto-moba
Maaaaaan I loved Pinball Quest as a kid, my brother and I rented that over and over again to play!
Stars! (1995) was an early space-based 4X game that used Windows dialogues for everything. It came with an enormous tome of a manual. It's like 200 pages of worth of tables, data, and explanation of the mechanics. It's kind of abandonware now, with a freely available download and a set of working serial numbers people can use. (It has asynchronous multiplayer, and each person needs their own key.)
Oh wow yeah, I'd completely forgotten about this and I played it a ton!
Oh wow I gotta checck it out
I purchased that game way back when it was new! If you can get past the total lack of graphics it's a very deep game with some features modern games don't have. I played the crap out of it and was sad when the under development sequel just... faded away.
@@st1ka I loved Stars!, and it's also got a retro-clone copy made by my buddy Ekolis nowadays! The clone isn't exactly the same, but it's pretty close.
Stars! had some really unique mechanics... some of which you needed to actually do math to figure out how to use right. :D Like the stealth system... it's based on % reduction of enemy sensor ranges. But while hard capped at 98%... getting to 98% stealth is nearly impossible. Why? because stealth isn't additive... it's divisive. you start at 100% visible... unless you're a Super Stealth race. Then you start at 50%. At 50% enemy detection of your ships is half normal. So if a sensor lists 100Ly... it'll detect a ship with 50% stealth at up 50 ly only.
So, and this is something Stars! does with several things, not just cloaking, the divisive stacking works like so:
Start at 100%.
Reduce by modifier 1. for this example I'll use the Super Stealth race bonus: 50%.
So now visibility is 50%.
Let's put on two regular cloaking devices each with 30%.
50 - 30% = 35
35 - 30% = 24.5% visibility
Which means you're now 75% cloaked and functionally reduces enemy sensor range to 1/4 what it would normally be. Unless they have penetrating scanners. Cloaking is less effective then.
A similar mechanic exists for weapon accuracy, but the way the game explains it in-game is kinda backwards. Also, accuracy has both bonuses and penalties applied to it, so the math is a lot more complicated.
There's also, besides a Race Editor, almost anything you could think of. It doesn't describe what your race is, but because *it does not* it allows you to fill it in as you go. Want to play as a race of holographic people that exist solely on space stations and don't have physical bodies? Go right ahead! The AI is fairly rudimentary; it works off of what it knows now and tries to set itself up for a better position in the future, but doesn't take advantage of anything their specific race provides. STARS! is also *barely* compatible with windows 8, and will require some juryrigging to effectively work.
I had endless hours of fun playing as a space catapult race; the whole goal is to collect rocks to take home, load them into the expensive orbital trebuchet, and then *fire them at maximum warp at enemies.* I'd strip-mine planets no matter whos they were before using the same rocks stolen from "worthless" barren planets and smashing them into planets. Here's where it becomes funnest; the different minerals cause different reactions in the atmosphere. Green Rocks make Radiation, Red makes Temp. By figuring out what your enemies are least tolerant to you can then bombard them with minerals to *make their planet uninhabitable for them.* I do not think that this is a war crime; but it *aught to be.*
Not only do you invent your own race in STARS!, but you can *invent your own war crimes.*
I played so many of these games I just now realized I was a weird kid.
*cool kid you mean
Excellent video! Thank you for doing the Long-form ones, this is perfect for my attention span, and the subject matter is exactly what I'm here for.
I love how informative your channel is regarding all generations! I hope to see you do a video on the FM towns. You earned my sub!
I just subscribed because of this video. What a great collection of well-executed, unique gameplay ideas and analysis. I live for this type of games and they are precious few.
Thank you! Glad you liked it! :D
Me 3 seconds before video start: ''Yeah right, ive been playing videogames for the past 33 years
Me after a min of the video: ''.......................what the actual f*ck?'' LOL nice list my man.
Haha thank you
where is the thumbnail character from?
Kingdom grandprinx
Rescue: The Embassy Mission was one of my first NES games when I was a kid. My father was a huge fan of it, one of the only video games he cared to play, and pushed it to the hardest difficulties. I have crazy fond memories of that game.
The engine for For the Frog the Bell Tolls was reused for Zelda: Link's Awakening. The combat system was reused for Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.
Windows 3.x also had a number of games that used standard Windows widgets rather than a custom UI. For some reason, Epic -- yes, the Unreal and Fortnite people, then known as Epic MegaGames -- published a number of these, among them Castle of the Winds (a roguelike RPG set in ancient Scandinavia) and Dare to Dream and Palace of Deceit: The Dragon's Plight, two point-and-click adventures written by Cliff Bleszinski.
The idea behind Windows and the Macintosh was originally that all programs would have the same user interface, meaning that once you learned one, the others became easier to use. These games for Mac and Windows tried to follow that principle.
Oh I know some windows games did it too, but it was more common in Mac games ^^
I've been working with gaming media for over a decade, be it gaming journalism, video making and even teaching. And the fact that I knew less than 10% of these games amazes me! This video is amazing!
The Void sounds cool, but man, I would never remember all that stuff that the colors do/are for. Wetrix also looked really unique but I know I'd be terrible at it. Great video, man. There's some really interesting games in this one.
Oh the game let's you know at anytime thankfully
I wish more of these genre-combining elements would appear in contemporary games.
I played the heck out of Rescue: The Embassy Mission as a kid!
One game that would fit on this list is Sigma Star Story for the GBA. It's an top-down RPG, but the random battles are all small Shmup stages! You collect different bullet types and effects in the RPG portion, and use them in every fight. I remember loving it, but the boss levels were brutal!
Oh! I need to add Sigma Star Story to my excel file. It would be great entry
embassy mission was popular(as in widely spread) as F everyone who I knew played it or had played it. also known as hostages.
Rescue is essentially Infogrammes Hostages. Released for a slew of systems back in 1988. I played it on the Amiga where the stealth section had a really bitchin' guitar solo.
Absolute hammer game on the amiga. Played it a lot!
Makes sense! :D
Whas looking for this comment, cause I have never heard of "Rescue TEM", but played Hostages on Atari ST/Amiga 500 as a kid. So I was a bit confused seing "Rescue". Wonder what the story is behind this is (like the namechange)
Cheers.
Exactly, it is the same as Hostages (but Hostages has better graphics and sound on Amiga). And there is also Alcatraz (also on Amiga) which is very similiar, but in different setting.
Had to make sure the superior Amiga version was mentioned! It got ported to pretty much every 8-bit and 16-bit platform, the number of ports in itself is impressive. Amiga version was 1988, NES version 1990.
Nice compilation.
Kingdom Granprix looks insane.
It's a bit gimmicky but I like t! :D
Yep. It actually add a twist to your standard shoot 'em up games.
excellent excursus, bravo! Castle of Winds for Win 3.1 had a similar aesthetic to macintosh games, I played the heck out of it.
That Macintosh game thing is so fascinating, it feels like finding out about ancient civilizations lol
Right?! :D
They call them Macventures.
Believe it or not, it's what would eventually evolve into Halo.
I just found me someone new to subscribe to.
Your selection of games, your script, your accent, everything, it is all entertaining.
Most importantly, the games you selected are top notch and there's even a couple of them that I'd not played. Thank you for the recommendations.
I will be watching more of your vids. 👍
Edit:
I was reading an article a few years back that there was a DX version of For the Frog the bell Tolls in development. Did that ever come to fruition? A colour version of that game would be amazing! That's one of the few in your list that I've played to completion.
*FOR THE FROG THE BELL TOLLS* (Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru)! Awesome, St1ka!
Hehe thank you :D
Never even heard of Chaos Seed. I guess it was too weird for my local rental joint.
It wasn’t fully translated until after the snes was solidly a retro console, I think? Apparently translating it was a huge pain as it’s full of spiritual concepts and metaphors and suchlike, if I remember reading about it correctly from years ago now.
Your channel is super underrated dude, and I always look forward to your videos
Keep up the great work :]
Thank you! I try! :D
I always look forward to your videos because I always find some really obscure game I've never seen. Not the same old hidden gems list games. Great research and great accent.
I appreciate that you respect your audience and realize that most people who like “hidden gem” videos have seen them all and you don’t repeat the same games as everyone else. You even assume we know about Mischief Makers already. Which is cool.
There's a definitive version of Maken called Maken Shao, only came out on the PS2 in the EU & JP regions. It adds quite a bit of stuff like an arranged soundtrack, a third-person mode, and some of gameplay adjustments. I'm pretty sure it also got a bunch of additional cutscenes and a new translation, so the story is slightly less batshit insane lol.
Thanks
Yep I own the PS2 version, but the fact it's in third person makes it less unique imo ^^
The new translation is more akin to censorship to appease European sensibilities (being told you're going to descend into neo-nazism right when the first signs were getting visible isn't the easiest to take I guess)
You blew my mind with Future Cop LAPD. I used to play that game so much as a kid. I remember it being so much fun but didn’t really remember why. That was a great nostalgia trip 😌
Man I need to stalk you more, I loved the vibe in the Premiere chat. Awesome vid!
Glad you enjoyed it! :D
Saw Minerva the Giant Fairy in the Thumbnail, and knew I had to click on the video =D
I miss the old Raizing 8 games--they were funny arcade experiences to watch and play seemingly .
hell yeah, The Void shoutout!
I'm so glad I finally got to cover The Void
@@st1ka such a strange and unique game, i'm happy you covered it to show it to many more people! thankyou for this upload!
@@lil_thang It's always hard to cover obscure games that no one will click on. I have to think of how to package the video very carefully lol
Great tips! We need more people highlighting the unique ones from all the clones :D
"Rescue: The Embassy Mission" is originally known as "Hostages"... i played the hell out of the Amiga version as a kid, loved it's brooding severe atmosphere and can only recommend it over the NES version (even tho its technically pretty impressive on the NES)
Hope that the Zeno Clash series gets mentioned here. Perhaps Wuppo, Cool Cool Toon, Kya: Dark Lineage, some Amanita Design games and Cookie Cutter too.
Sadly no, but maybe in a future video
I played the hell out of Future Cop with my brother. It was hinted as Future Strike in a cgi in Nuclear Strike but the concept changed drastically.
I played some of those (Princess Maker 2, Zombie Nation, Golgo 13, The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls, Counter Punc), fix title for me only plz 😂😂😂
Hehe :P
No you didn’t, just read the title. Jk 🤭
UA-cam usually gives me videos on my home tab and this video pop up. First 5 minutes, I like your accent but also love the excitement in it too so I am subscribing. Also can the thumbnail got me clicking on the video too. These games I never played before and also intrigued to play them too. Thanks 🙏
Haha thank you :D
In this house we respect the thumbnail grind. If it makes more people learn about games they would’ve otherwise never heard of, by clicking on a video they would’ve otherwise never clicked on, it’s worth it.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game
Thank you! haha
For the record, the gal in question is Nirvana the Huge Fairy
Gracias, YOU ARE A SUPER PLAYER!!! @@julianx2rl
Birthright is really just the evolution of Defender of the Crown from NES (and the previous iterations on other platforms).
Pinball Quest was a banger back in the day also.
Some seriously obscure games on here though, nice work!
What a great selection!
Thank you! :D
Props for actually recommending some pretty obscure games, most videos nowadays do not really deliver on that
Drink every time he says "this" stay sober challenge level: impossible.
I make the best drinking games!
I played The Void the minute it premiered and I was mind blown. Between that and other art films I watched at the time those immediately shaped my mind frame for the next years of my life.
If you like princess maker you may also like Long Live the Queen from 2013
Oh I've been meaning to play that
Long live the queen, while having a considerable number of choices, is ultimately a lot more like a VN or generously a limited adventure game than a simulator. Not that that is a bad thing, I quite like it. Still, people will compare VNs to more statistical sims like Tokimemo or Princess Maker and I feel the need to point out the difference.
thanks for the review Timmy
A bunch of those got me interested!
The void... oh man... this game is crazy... It´s not a game for adults, it´s a game for those that seek wisdom.
It's game that feels like it comes from a parallel universe
Seeing this video I remember playing the void in my teens. It was difficult to understand, so I never finished it.
Those who seek wisdom are the only ones deserving of being called adults/mature, in my humble opinion. The world is full of immature adolescents of almost all ages, partly because our societal system is sick, and tries to hinder real maturity, which is a deliberate ploy by the rulers against ordinary people. Anyone who points this out is setting himself/herself up for being ridiculed as a CT, also part of the deliberate ploy. Those not mature enough to think enough critically for themselves, yet mature enough to listen to the mature critics and doubt the societal system, will most likely be caught up by belief in far fetched, illogical CO CT, also set up as part of the deliberate ploy by the rulers, which ploy underpins most of human civilized society. Sometimes games may allow you some respite from these disturbing facts of our world, yet also set up the danger of you losing touch with this reality, in favour of the much over simplified games of pure fiction, until you reach the stage of nausea of the addictive extra illusion this sucks you into. Sometimes a few uneasily absorbing yet philosophically challenging games are exactly what is needed for you to start waking up and doubt the illusion overlay of actual reality, the same as you doubt the deliberately deceptive illusions in the game.
Oh my god, I remember playing 'Rescue: The Embassy Mission' at a friends place when we were kids. We had no idea how to properly play that game and failed again and again.^^'
You truly have an original point of view on this stuff. GREAT!!!! Keep on rockin' in the free world!
Bro. Good video. But I can’t stand your way of talking … why do you emphasise the words so weird?
It's my accent lol
@@st1ka but the emphasising of the words is really weird. Sorry. No hate bro. Really good vids, but I can only watch them muted 😰
Haha it's okay. It happens
Nice collection! I see that it was already pointed out that "Rescue" is actually the NES port of "Hostages" for the Amiga, Atari ST and C64.
Yeah I had it on NES. A cool thing was if you turned away fast enough when the enemies were in front of you they couldn't shoot you. The bad thing was that if you did everything correct you got got the bad ending and if you messed up and failed you got the good ending. They messed up programming the endings on the NES version. I still enjoyed it though.
Wow, I remember having a ball playing rescue mission on the NES back in the day. Forgot all about that game. Thanks for the memories.
Omg you brought some memories about the precinct mode in LAPD future cop, I remember playing it in MP with my brother, it was a lot of fun.
I remember playing Future Cop, Precinct assault. I couldn't remember the game, but thanks to you I can hunt it down again :D
best video about "games you don't know or top game list" I have seen in a while. The games seem really cool. 👍
first video from the channel but props for actually finding weird games. i thought id seen it all but some of these are real interesting
Oh believe me, I can go way weirder xD
6:01 - Futurecop LAPD, I still have it for both the Mac & PC (both version came on the one disk)! I remember playing it on my Bondi Blue iMac using 2 USB keyboards (and 2 headphones via the front audio ports!). Sadly the game benefits from having multiple keypresses (you can fire primary & secondary weapons at the same time). Sadly the keyboards couldn't recognise multiple simultaneous keypresses on the iMac so it wasn't as manic as on the PC !
I used to have future cop lad on pc back when I was a kid and I was OBSESSED with that game mode. It was the only thing I would play in that game. Thank you for mentioning it! Now I gotta find and play it again...
Rakugaki and Princess Maker mentioned? A man of culture. Instantly subbed.
that softball fighting paper mario game for PSX is what i'd call a hidden gem. Only a few talk about it, and im definitely gonna give it a shot before i forget it exists again!
Given how obscure you normally go with these, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how many of them are games I HAVE played before.
Great video. Several games to play now!
I learned a lot here, thank you. I definitely want to check out Chaos Seed and Princess Maker 2 :D
I remember hearing the name of the game Chaos Seed but didn't know much about. Looks awesome!
I don’t think Rescue: The Embasy Mission was launched in 1999 but still an amazing video!!🤘🏼 Subscribed!
I remember reading about Wetrix in magazines at the time. It intrigued me but I thought I'd be terrible at it, and I stand by that. 😂
This is an amazing list of games and I'm actually familiar with Major Havoc. One of my favorite games when I was little.
Wow man, that is well and truly a 0% clickbait title for real.
Very well done, and thanks for making content like this
Also special thanks for reminding me about Power Quest, such precious childhood memories
Thank you ^^
Hell yeah Pinball Quest. Picked that up cheap on a whim about twenty years back and fell in love with it. Been meaning to play it again after tryin' out the Pinball Spire demo too, which is also worth a shot.
There was an anime pinball game that was just like pinball quest but with gacha elements and waifus, and it was VERYGOOD it was a modern take on pinball quest but the game got shut down just recently 😭
@@DanielNouser-ti8ro Remember the name perchance? Wouldn't mind lookin' that up anyway. Also; another similar sorta game but in a block-breaker style's Wizorb. Tis over a decade old by now i'm pretty sure but is a damn good'un.
Game is super hard too
Amazing reviews man, thanks! Took a trip down memory road with Future Cop LAPD!
when you mentioned birthright i got reminded of a game i used to play as a kid. it is called "Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown" the game had a lot of stuff like archery, turn based combat, jousting, politics, army and territory management. quite unique for me back then
Princess Maker 2 was amazing. I would love to see a Princess Maker done today.
Also there were a BUNCH of D&D games in the late 80's and early 90's that were all fairly different from each other. Glad to see one of them made it here!
interesting enough as another poster stated there is a full remake of Princess Maker 2 being done by the original team due for release next month and its even going to be released on steam so hopefully this will spark a new drive to get games 3-5 actually localized.
May I recommend volcano princess. Haven't tried it yet tho
One I have tried tho is long live the queen
@@mercurioslevin1877 Princess Maker 5 is actually on Steam in English too... kind of...
It's funny because Princess Maker got a ton of sequels, but they either did not launch here, or got shoddy translations
This is the first of your videos I've seen, so I don't know if you've covered it before, but a game I used to play when I was Robopit for the PS1 (1996), and I LOVED this game when I was a kid. I've never really seen another game do something similar since
Thanks for introducing us to the Super Cop special mode. I wonder if it'll ever have it's own meta like Smash Bros. Obviously, not as big as that scene, but a small online cult of players would be nice.
Memory unlocked with Rescue The Embassy Mission! Played that as a kid.
I have that Pinball Quest and love it thank you for showing that game some retro gamers never talks about it
Not only have I played Wetrix, I have owned a copy for years!!! I LOVE it!!!!
Awwww yeah Gorgon's Alliance!
The one and only game based on my favorite AD&D setting!
The reason early Macintosh Games look like this is because of system limitations. Early Mac OS accelerated certain graphic functions by running them from a system ROM, and obviously these system functions were... cursor drawing, window drawing, drag and drop, etc... so if you used the OS elements your game would go faster than if you ignored those elements and tried to code the game from scratch. Also many games did not dreamt of playing full scale because redrawing the screen was veeeery slow (unless you used the system functions)
Amazing video bro🔥🔥🔥
Those games are actually unique and bizzare unlike in other videos from other dudes covering "obscure" games that turns out being basically normal ass games😭😭
Just subbed and gonna check out more of your videos🙏
Dude Wetrix was one of my favorite puzzle games of all time, especially on the N64! I really need to get one again, to play that and Blast Corps 🤘
Kingdom Grandprix is clearly a spinoff of Dimahoo which is in my top ten arcade games. I had no idea those characters got re-used for another title. Thanks for sharing!
dimahoo(2000) is clearly a spinoff of kingdom grandprix(1993)
Another great video, St1ka! Thanks again! I'll certainly try some of these. Also, I played Princess Maker 2, it's pretty engrossing. Though I tried to make a generalist princess and she was clobbered in the first dungeon I sent her to. Not doing that mistake again. I thought it really didn't need the fanservice, but hey, this was Gainax. The fanservice is relatively tame, considering everything. Plus the graphics are (mostly) great, and the music is pretty good too.
that was a fun list. I'm adding some to my Wishlist. I've only played Rescue for the NES ... I was too young and didn't understand why the game was so short. but it was fun. the music and gameplay stay with me to this day. ... I'm subscribing
I LOVED Future Cop LAPD. It was awesomely fun to play!
I never played Wetrix, but I remember seeing it in game shops all the time.
Nice selection, there're really interesting ones i never even heard of. When you mentioned The Void i immediately recalled having played it after so many years, that's how unique it is 🤣. Also Maken X is such an unheard game, i found it by chance a few years ago while getting Dreamcast backups online. I have a free region autoboot CD burnt and the ISO saved on my computer... just in case, you never know with abandon ware.
I remember playing LAPD with my best friend as a kid. We didn't forget it and still speak about it, loving memories ^^
I'm so here for this. Keep up the good work, St1ka!
Thank you i try ^^
Special mention for weird unique games: the Zeno Clash series by ACE Team. A first-person beat 'em up series with a "stonepunk" aesthetic and zany, eccentric characters.
The Mac thing actually kinda makes sense, to me. It saves you development time, disk space, and memory if you just reuse what is already going to be loaded into memory, rather then programing your own GUI interface from scratch.
I also kinda like the idea that you could load up something like notepad to write down something important or maybe a 3rd party program that helps you draw a map while the game is running.
really enjoyed this video. You have a strong accent which suggests that English is not your first language, but may I compliment you on your rich vocabulary? You are using some very sophisticated phrases absolutely perfectly. It is a pleasure to listen to your observations.
Thank you :D
Princess maker is one of my all time favourite games. I have sunk hundreds of hours into that thing. So good.
There are other games in the series but none of the others have been translated into English unfortunately. It's an amazing game though, especially if you get the uncensored version for some of the wilder endings, like going to hell and marrying Satan only to kill and replace him, or marrying a dragon ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧
Right? The way this series was treated in the west is criminal