What are your favorite games that you never see mentioned anywhere?

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During lockdown I played ECHO, which had been in my backlog for a few years after a stray recommendation I saw on MetaFilter. It was a surprisingly tight integration of beautiful and intriguing environmental/UI/sound design, gorgeous music, compelling yet minimalist storytelling (and voice acting), and a really strong gameplay loop of stealth, puzzle-solving, and the occasional panicky run-and-gun. Imagine my surprise when I read up on it after and learned it only sold a few thousand copies!

I strongly recommend playing it blind, but this trailer gives a good overview of the style and mechanics.

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The first Syndicate game is also awesome!

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Enderal.

~~I'll edit this later when I can post from my comp (mobile now) with the full pitch~~ as promised:

Enderal

Basically an indie dev crew broke skyrim down to its most basic assets, then rebuilt a completely new game using them. AND IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD. Completely new lore / game universe (has nothing at all to do with elder scrolls, tamriel, etc), new voice acting, terrain, music, you name it.

Steers away from common story tropes to the point that there isn't really an antagonist in the traditional sense - but it uses concepts, emotions, philosophies, etc as the driving force for the main story line and some of the larger quest chains.

This game is an absolute passion project by the devs, which is something we don't see often now-a-days.

Note: link above is to the version that uses Skyrim SE's assets (the 2016 re-release). If you have the original version of skyrim, use this link instead. If you own a different version of Skyrim, there might be a compatible version of Enderal here: https://sureai.net/games/enderal/

Fair warning: the children NPC voice acting is even worse than the kids in Skyrim. The TAI (toggle AI) command can shut them up without breaking them.

Fair warning 2: they redid combat. The OP shit in Skyrim, like the sneaky archer build, will get your ass beat to a pulp in Enderal. Make a save when you get to the point where you can spend some talent points, experiment with a few styles, and go from there.

Fair warning 3: It's built on Skyrim's assets, which means it has all of Skyrim's problems. Step on a basket full of cabbage just right; get launched into low orbit. Quest items clipping through the floor. Bounty that refuses to go away. Shit like that. Save frequently, and don't be afraid to use the command console to do things like magic in a lost item or force a broken quest to progress to the next stage.

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It's been on my wishlist for I don't even know how long

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The Witness. It might have had its moment but it feels like it's probably pretty forgotten at this point. It's a first person puzzle game where you're on an island ... and it's not Myst, Riven, or ... that other game that was a puzzle game where you were on an island? At least as far into it as I've played, it's pretty low stakes and there's very little in the way of videos or audio narration. It's spooky but in bright daylight. There's quite a lot of game there, too.

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Brave Fencer Musashi
Limbo
ReCore
The Way
Inside
Unravel
Cat Quest
Death Squared

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Gotcha Force for the GameCube slaps hard and I want another one so bad. I've only met 1 person who also played it back then. Ahhh fuck just talking about it makes me wanna download it now

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I always wanted to get this game when it came out but I only had a PS4 and no money...

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Star Tropics for the NES.

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Holy shit. I normally replay my copy through ScummVM. I knew there was a 3d remake in the works back in the day before the voice actor that played Ben died, but had no idea there was a remaster. Thanks for sharing.

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... Was I that person?

I evangelize Kenshi like the Holy Nation evangelizes Okran.

Also...!

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Still to this day I hum Black Sabbath when I drive fast or do any fancy weaving.

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Still no love for my babe Cubivore. Shit slaps

also Frolf. I miss the gamecube era

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https://old.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/vczi8d/someone_donated_cubivore_one_of_the_rarest/

Someone donated Cubivore, one of the rarest Gamecube games of all time, to the thrift store I work at. I got to take it home and play it for a night.

Non-japanese copies are rare. Only about 5,000 were released to western audiences.

Huh.

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I have brave fencer on ps1! Still play it sometimes. Sadly missing the ff bonus disc

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Also the comedic version, The Looker. I recommend it!

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Im surprised I missed this, I love this era of racing games. Gonna try to find a copy!

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Jump Ultimate Stars!

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I definitely enjoyed the original Syndicate. While I like the aesthetic and the music, it isn't an incredibly deep game, but I did like the thing. I could go for playing the thing in HD, 24-bit color, maybe upscaled graphics, and at a high framerate.

IIRC, Syndicate Wars didn't review as well. I can't recall whether I ever got around to trying it.

For anyone who hasn't tried Syndicate, the game is a cyberpunk, squad-based isometric-view pixel-art game where one has to perform various missions to gain control of territory; might be assassinating someone, capturing someone, clearing enemies from an area, etc. Doesn't have destructable terrain, though vehicles are destructable. Late game missions tend to have so many very-durable bionically-enhanced enemy agents charging at one's squad that one has to keep the squad pretty much bunched up and using either rocket launchers or miniguns just spewing out a ton of firepower in their direction.

In its time, Syndicate was pretty well-known, though I dunno how many people born later would be familiar with it today.