Good games you may not remember

[Zork Nemesis]

As part of a class assignment a month ago or so I had a mock interview with various people who work the local technology companies. The whole interview sucked, between a moderate lack of preparation and a general difficulty of speaking to people in person, they gave me what I believe is a very good idea. Among the pieces of my interview and presentation I had a handful of essays I wrote throughout my last few semesters for various classes and I made mention of other pieces that I didn't have on hand, such as the couple of game reviews I have on Steam. They said I should consider setting up a blog of some sort and expand and/or practice my writing capabilities.

I've thought about it, and I'm considering carrying out this kind of thing in the near future. I've decided that maybe I'd like to write about and review older games that fell off the radar along the lines. Games that turned out to be a lot of fun but never became popular enough for everyone to remember. I've stumbled across a few of these already but I don't seem to have a whole lot to go off of. Furthermore, most of them seem to be in the Shoot-em-up genre so a bit of expansion would be helpful.

So I'm asking: what old games do you remember that you consider to be good but don't recall them being very popular? By old games, I'm drawing the line at games before 2000, so basically PSX, N64, and Dreamcast are the cutoff points. A small list of games I've already considered:

-Hyperzone (SNES)
-Einhänder (PSX)
-Low-G Man (NES)
-Star Fox 2 (SNES, unreleased)
-Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast, maybe...)
-Pokemon Pinball (GBC, also maybe)
-Landstalker (Genesis)
-Zero Wing (Genesis)
-Wetrix (N64)
-Gyruss (NES)
-Little Nemo the Dream Master (NES)

Pitch me some ideas, I'm sure there's a lot of good underrated games out there and I bet you guys know of them.

[lyn]

Chrono Trigger(SNES)

[belak]

NASCAR Rumble (PSX)
Earthworm Jim (SNES)
Hydro Thunder (Arcade, PSX)

Earthworm Jim might not count though.

[Jesus_Faction]

Nocturne (PS2)

[Plinko]

Was Einhander all that unpopular? As far as I know it's the gold standard bullet hell game. I am still pissed someone borrowed mine and I never got it back.

Some ideas from me:
Faxanadu (NES)
Herzog Zwei (Genesis)
Baku Baku (Saturn)
Chu Chu Rocket (Dreamcast)

I might think of some more later, those are just off the top of my head.

[LonelyTentacle]

Here is a list of very good games that are totally underappreciated or have been forgotten to the pages of history. I'll probably add more to the list when I'm home. I tried to avoid games that are AAA titles every knows or that have picked up a lot of steam over time:

NES:
Little Samson (you have to sell your first born and a couple organs to buy this one now)
Tiny Toon Adventures
Guardian Legend
Felix the Cat
Gargoyle's Quest 2
Journey to Silius
Xexyz
Kick Master
Little Nemo Dream Master
Scat
Bucky O' Hare
Metal Storm
Clash at Demonhead
Shadow of the Ninja

SNES:

Pocky & Rocky 1/2
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Wild Guns 1/2
Sunset Riders (think this is pretty popular now)
Super MegaForce
Sparkster
Firepower 2000
Hagane
Jim Power: Lost Dimension in 3D
UN Squadron
Act Raiser
Demon's Crest
Super Turrican 1/2
Shadowrun
Ninja Warriors
Saturday Night Slammasters
Maui Mallard
Secret of Evermore
Run Saber
Rock n Roll Racing
Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures
Axelay
Illusion of Gaia
Blackthorne
Congo's Caper
Joe and Mac
Sky Blazer

Genesis:

Kid Chameleon
Beyond Oasis
Shadowrun (different from the SNES version)
Granada
M.U.S.H.A.
Gaiares
Mega Turrican
Ghostbusters
Truxton
McDonald's Treasure Land
Wonderboy in Monster World
Cadash
Mutant League Hockey/Football
Splatterhouse 2/3
Comix Zone
The Ooze
Toki Going Ape Spit
Dick Tracy
The Punisher
Crusader of Centy
Dynamite Heady

[LonelyTentacle]

Was Einhander all that unpopular? As far as I know it's the gold standard bullet hell game. I am still pissed someone borrowed mine and I never got it back.

Some ideas from me:
Faxanadu (NES)
Herzog Zwei (Genesis)
Baku Baku (Saturn)
Chu Chu Rocket (Dreamcast)

I might think of some more later, those are just off the top of my head.

Einhander has always been a classic title among Shmup enthusiasts but since Shmup followers have a much smaller following state side it still can be considered obscure since the masses generally ignore it.

[lyn]

McDonald's Treasure Land

... wat. I need to play this.

[Cat Square]

Cobra triangle (NES)
Snake rattle and roll (NES)
Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball (NES)
Rock n roll racing (SNES)
Kirby's dreamland 3 (SNES)

[Kilgore Trout]

LEGO Island, my first computer game. My PC could barely run it. 32 MB of RAM is no joke.

[Zork Nemesis]

Chrono Trigger(SNES)

Chrono Trigger's been rereleased at least three times (PSX, DS, and Mobile recently) and is heralded as one of the greatest games ever by many (Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it #24 when they did a 100 best games ever article back in 2001), I don't think it qualifies for what I'm trying to do.

Good list so far. I haven't even heard of most of these games, which is good for the list. Gonna have to do some ROM hunting it looks like.

[Supreveio]

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Yes.

[CoyoteCreed]

The Neverhood (PC)
Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention (Genesis)
Mega Man Legends (PSX)

[Zork Nemesis]

Mega Man Legends may not count either since Mega Man fans have been clamoring for Legends 3 for years despite no interest from Capcom, not to mention Tron and the Servbots being prevalent fighters in MvC, but it's worth considering.

I'll have to find the PSX ISO for it though; I have the N64 ROM and it doesn't emulate well at all.

[Plas]

Thinking back on ones I would rent multiple times back in the day.

North & South NES
King Arthur's World SNES
Metal Marines SNES
General Chaos Genesis