Share your recent retro gaming hidden gem discoveries

[ScOULaris]

I thought it would be fun to have a thread around here where people who indulge in some retro gaming from time to time to share their experiences discovering high-quality older games that they'd otherwise never heard of until recently. The topic of "hidden gems" on past systems is always interesting in general, and hopefully people will discover new (old) games to play that they otherwise might not have known about via this thread.

I'll start with this fantastic ninja-action game for SNES that I just recently learned about:

Hagane: The Final Conflict (SNES)

I've always been pretty plugged into the retro gaming preservation/emulation scene, but somehow the very existence of this 1994 action platformer from Hudson Soft escaped me until I stumbled upon a brief write-up for it in Bitmap Books' excellent SNES Pixel Book.

I was just flipping through when this page caught my eye:

So there's one thing you've gotta know about me: I love ninjas and great pixel art/animation in equal measure.

And here is a game that I'd never heard of that appears to offer both in spades. Naturally, I was curious and set out to track this game down. Well, I did, and let me tell you that this game is GREAT!

The game looks great and gives you a surprisingly deep moveset for a game of this era. Your cyborg ninja protagonist has access to a rather large assortment of weapons (each with their own ammo), special screen-clearing moves, and mobility options. He can flip in either direction with a press of the L or R buttons, slide under enemy attacks, wall jump, and just generally flip all over the place while in midair. He even has a divekick-esque attack for attacking downward onto grounded enemies from the air.

And the game is designed to have you use all of these abilities on the fly, with tought-but-fair challenge throughout that forces you to quickly switch between weapons depending on the types of enemies being thrown at you. It's just really polished, fun, and visually impressive SNES gaming. I haven't beaten it yet, but I've been impressed enough to want to write about it on ERA.

Here's a video from SNESdrunk talking about this game's unique history and subsequent rarity:




_________________________

I look forward to hearing about retro gaming discoveries that others have made recently, as I'm always on the hunt for more gems like Hagane.

 

[SoH]

People talk about Treasure a lot but often overlooked is Rakugaki Showtime which is a sort of dodgeball arena fighter hybrid with the whole drawn paper aesthetic that I've been enjoying fucking around with as of late.

 

[onpoint]

Man I wish I could afford Hagane. I really want to play it.

 

[Deleted member 2620]

Here are some of the most recent older games that I've played through for the first time from my little personal game log. I wouldn't call 'em recent discoveries or particularly hidden or anything. Been on a bit of a Chunky Mech Side View Action Game kick lol.

Front Mission: Gun Hazard

This was surprising, but also disappointing in that I can't shake what I WANT it to be.

The core mech mechanics directly follow up on Assault Suits Valken. You have a distinctly chunky jump. You struggle with your hover jets. Dashing is fun as hell. The punch attack is super crunchy. The shield is good but has limited coverage. You can tear up the environment as you try to finely aim and miss. And it even excels Valken aesthetically (making it an absolute top-tier Super Famicom game in this department) thanks to a mix of tons of excellent mech designs, moody backgrounds, cool Amano character designs, and some unique and tasteful visual effects. Even the soundtrack is like a alternate take on Final Fantasy VI.

Unfortunately, the game is held back by its structure. Between all the enemies, environments, and awesome boss fights, you could make an absolutely KILLER 2-hour long linear action game out of all of this. One that would dethrone Valken for sure. Instead, Gun Hazard is a 15-20 hour long trek through a node-based world map, having you level up and purchase gear through scattered short battle scenes. The narrative is delivered through a TON of dialogue and is honestly kinda neat, but I'd trade it for a more focused game in a heartbeat.

Metal Storm

Fantastic game. The gravity switch is a super elegant mechanic and the game's tight six stages explore it thoroughly, with the later stages and bosses being particularly mind-bending. The difficulty curve is smooth, the mechanical designs are awesome, and the constant parallax is pretty impressive for the hardware. The only thing bad I can say about it are few ugly background layers. Looking forward to playing Expert mode.

Shin Shinobi Den

This one is kind of a shame. It probably has the best core mechanics of the Super Shinobi games: the moveset is awesome, well-utilized (especially by the boss fights), and slightly more balanced than Super Shinobi II, and there's this blue orb system that lets you slowly build lives back up without the game outright letting you do a 1up farming loop.

Unfortunately, though, the zoomed in camera encourages you to creep through the stages at a snail's pace, and a few of the stages (minecart, missile tunnel) seem like they're engineered to utilize the blue orb system to turn the game into an extra-slow slog. The aesthetics are pretty forgettable, too, though the visuals are honestly on the better side when it comes to games that use digitized actors for sprites.

It's the worst game of the three, but definitely worth playing.

Night Slave

(eroge scenes in this one, google with caution)

This was pretty good. It's a pretty impressive game for the hardware with a lot of independent motion going on in the action stages. Very good mech designs, screen-spanning sprites, mission scenarios, and variety all around. The downsides are some rough edges (I had a few crashes and soft crashes) and unfortunately a lot of the bosses feel like they're built for the player to find an obvious safe spot or bring the right weapon.

It's a way more even game than Leynos even if I wouldn't put it on the same level as Valken.

Assault Suit Leynos

Finally played the original. This is a really uneven one, honestly. The player's mech has a bit of a weighty feel, and you can kinda tell that it's a first step toward Valken. The mechanical designs are really cool and generally well-realized as sprites for a 1990 MD game. The music rules, and the scenarios in the stages are varied and dramatic.

Unfortunately the flooding enemy spawns, regenerating health, and certain objective-based stages drag the game down a bit. So often the game feels totally inconsistent in terms of how many enemies you'll face and of what kinds, to the point where I didn't really feel like I was learning stages at all. On top of that you're often incentivized to wait around, either while your health slowly regenerates or for some internal mission timer to run out. Mission 3 is the worst of all of it: you're compelled to go wreck a large enemy warship for points toward equipment unlocks, but actually fighting the thing involves dealing with extremely amorphous enemy spawns and you'll have to tediously hit-and-run a ton to make sure you don't get steamrolled. It's a really sloppy feeling overall, and I'm thankful that Valken is so fundamentally different in its design.

Interestingly, there's a trick where if you destroy the stage 1 objective without destroying any other enemies, you unlock all the gear in the game early. I did this once and think the game has a much better pace when played that way, lol.

 

[Deleted member 2620]

I've also been trying to 1CC Mr. Driller 1000m mode recently, which is way rougher than expected. Maybe I'll beat it this week before more arcade stuff comes in~

 

[ScOULaris]

Shin Shinobi Den

This one is kind of a shame. It probably has the best core mechanics of the Super Shinobi games: the moveset is awesome, well-utilized (especially by the boss fights), and slightly more balanced than Super Shinobi II, and there's this blue orb system that lets you slowly build lives back up without the game outright letting you do a 1up farming loop.

Unfortunately, though, the zoomed in camera encourages you to creep through the stages at a snail's pace, and a few of the stages (minecart, missile tunnel) seem like they're engineered to utilize the blue orb system to turn the game into an extra-slow slog. The aesthetics are pretty forgettable, too, though the visuals are honestly on the better side when it comes to games that use digitized actors for sprites.

It's the worst game of the three, but definitely worth playing.

Click to shrink...

I never played it, but as a Mortal Kombat-obsessed kid this game's digitized actor sprites always stuck out to me in magazine screenshots. I love the look.

 

[zoodoo]

is wii retro?

if yes then nobody told me Pandora's Tower was so good. I've been going though it slowly for the past week and finding the game brilliant

 

[Deleted member 17210]

Hagane is great, and nicely filled a void on SNES for that type of game.

Here are some of the most recent older games that I've played through for the first time from my little personal game log. I wouldn't call 'em recent discoveries or particularly hidden or anything. Been on a bit of a Chunky Mech Side View Action Game kick lol.

Front Mission: Gun Hazard

This was surprising, but also disappointing in that I can't shake what I WANT it to be.

The core mech mechanics directly follow up on Assault Suits Valken. You have a distinctly chunky jump. You struggle with your hover jets. Dashing is fun as hell. The punch attack is super crunchy. The shield is good but has limited coverage. You can tear up the environment as you try to finely aim and miss. And it even excels Valken aesthetically (making it an absolute top-tier Super Famicom game in this department) thanks to a mix of tons of excellent mech designs, moody backgrounds, cool Amano character designs, and some unique and tasteful visual effects. Even the soundtrack is like a alternate take on Final Fantasy VI.

Unfortunately, the game is held back by its structure. Between all the enemies, environments, and awesome boss fights, you could make an absolutely KILLER 2-hour long linear action game out of all of this. One that would dethrone Valken for sure. Instead, Gun Hazard is a 15-20 hour long trek through a node-based world map, having you level up and purchase gear through scattered short battle scenes. The narrative is delivered through a TON of dialogue and is honestly kinda neat, but I'd trade it for a more focused game in a heartbeat.

Metal Storm

Fantastic game. The gravity switch is a super elegant mechanic and the game's tight six stages explore it thoroughly, with the later stages and bosses being particularly mind-bending. The difficulty curve is smooth, the mechanical designs are awesome, and the constant parallax is pretty impressive for the hardware. The only thing bad I can say about it are few ugly background layers. Looking forward to playing Expert mode.

Shin Shinobi Den

This one is kind of a shame. It probably has the best core mechanics of the Super Shinobi games: the moveset is awesome, well-utilized (especially by the boss fights), and slightly more balanced than Super Shinobi II, and there's this blue orb system that lets you slowly build lives back up without the game outright letting you do a 1up farming loop.

Unfortunately, though, the zoomed in camera encourages you to creep through the stages at a snail's pace, and a few of the stages (minecart, missile tunnel) seem like they're engineered to utilize the blue orb system to turn the game into an extra-slow slog. The aesthetics are pretty forgettable, too, though the visuals are honestly on the better side when it comes to games that use digitized actors for sprites.

It's the worst game of the three, but definitely worth playing.

oops image removed lol

Night Slave

This was pretty good. It's a pretty impressive game for the hardware with a lot of independent motion going on in the action stages. Very good mech designs, screen-spanning sprites, mission scenarios, and variety all around. The downsides are some rough edges (I had a few crashes and soft crashes) and unfortunately a lot of the bosses feel like they're built for the player to find an obvious safe spot or bring the right weapon.

It's a way more even game than Leynos even if I wouldn't put it on the same level as Valken.

Assault Suit Leynos

Finally played the original. This is a really uneven one, honestly. The player's mech has a bit of a weighty feel, and you can kinda tell that it's a first step toward Valken. The mechanical designs are really cool and generally well-realized as sprites for a 1990 MD game. The music rules, and the scenarios in the stages are varied and dramatic.

Unfortunately the flooding enemy spawns, regenerating health, and certain objective-based stages drag the game down a bit. So often the game feels totally inconsistent in terms of how many enemies you'll face and of what kinds, to the point where I didn't really feel like I was learning stages at all. On top of that you're often incentivized to wait around, either while your health slowly regenerates or for some internal mission timer to run out. Mission 3 is the worst of all of it: you're compelled to go wreck a large enemy warship for points toward equipment unlocks, but actually fighting the thing involves dealing with extremely amorphous enemy spawns and you'll have to tediously hit-and-run a ton to make sure you don't get steamrolled. It's a really sloppy feeling overall, and I'm thankful that Valken is so fundamentally different in its design.

Interestingly, there's a trick where if you destroy the stage 1 objective without destroying any other enemies, you unlock all the gear in the game early. I did this once and think the game has a much better pace when played that way, lol.

Click to shrink...

My opinions are pretty similar on all these games. If you want a bit of different experience with Saturn Shinobi, check out the PAL version which has a completely redone soundtrack.

 

[ScOULaris]

is wii retro?

if yes then nobody told me Pandora's Tower was so good. I've been going though it slowly for the past week and finding the game brilliant

Click to shrink...

Definitely retro at this point. I'd say that anything either pre-PS3/360 or running at 480p and below qualifies.

 

[OrakioRob]

I bought a Playstation 2 a few days ago. Never had one, so I decided to turn this into a History lesson and start from the beginning with the launch titles.

Man, I think I love Eternal Ring.



It's a FROM SOFTWARE game in the vein of King's Field. No, I've never played a King's Field game, but now I think I should have.

The controls are flawed and voice acting is absolutely terrible. However, I love the mood of the game, the music is super good and you can see traces of the Souls games here. No, it's not hard, but there's a very complex ring creation system that's really hard to understand even using an FAQ. It's a pretty deep system, as different rings provide different spells (there are even summoning rings, they're pretty cool).

Look at all those rings 0_0

I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I think the game is very charming and fun to play. There's a decent variety of monsters and they have specific weaknesses, so you'll end up making lots of rings and trying many different spells. There are boss fights too.

You can probably beat it in less than 10 hours, so you can go through it multiple times, experimenting with different rings and all that. Oh, the ending is hilariously bad ^_^ Man, what a game!

 

[Z-Brownie]

My most recent one was Blaster Master on NES, my kid (4yo) discovered on the Switch online NES games and i fell in love with it.

 

[dose]

Scooby-Doo Mystery (Megadrive/Genesis)
I think someone on here may have mentioned it some time ago, but it's a fun adventure game. If you like the classic Lucasarts games you'll like this.

 

[snakey2389]

I recently played the Silver Surfer game and I gotta say it's a real good shmup. Yea it's tough but it's a real solid game.
Also, Skate or Die Bad N Rad for GameBoy is like a Mega Man clone but with a skateboard. The Shinobi GameGear games are good too.

 

[the magical kitsune]

is wii retro?

if yes then nobody told me Pandora's Tower was so good. I've been going though it slowly for the past week and finding the game brilliant

Click to shrink...

A 9 year old game (7 in the states) isn't retro. Wii just got a game in 2020. And the retro cutoff proposed by OP makes no sense as that would make 3ds games retro...

 

[GlitchyDegree]

Do ports to newer systems count? If so mine would be Guardian Heroes.

It's a beat 'em up with RPG elements similar to Capcoms Dungeons & Dragons Games or Dragons Crown. The combat is really fun & since the game has multiple paths & endings, it's highly replayable. The game originally came out on the Sega Saturn but I played the Xbox 360 version.

 

[leder]

A bit of a lazy answer, but I've been going through a lot of Taitos back catalogue and finding that almost everything is good to great. Incredibly consistent company.

 

[Choppasmith]

A while back I got two Itadaki Street (aka Fortune Street) games for cheap on eBay. And me being a nut for Fortune Street played them in Japanese.

The nice thing about Gorgeous king is you can use the on screen translator in Retroarch works quite well with it.

There's also a free roaming mode that lets you play Sugoroku aka Treasure and Trapdoors from DQ.

Itadaki Street 3 is a whole other beast. It's like Horii and his team really wanted to shake up the formula. It's known for changing how winning works (usually it's whoever reaches the target AND gets to the bank, here it's whoever has the highest net worth regardless who gets to the bank first).

It doesn't help tha PCSX2 doesn't run it quite properly but man the maps here are really REALLY cool

 

[Deleted member 17627]

The game has such an arcadey feeling to it and I am having such a fun time playing it, a shame that 2009 and VT4 tried to be more simulation than arcadey.

I miss Sega AM3...

 

[Deleted member 17210]

This is one of my recent Commodore 64 purchases (I briefly played it emulated probably 20 years ago). Aside from the amazing box art, it's not great but it does have some charm to it. It's a mix of horizontal shooter and platform action with some exploration.

 

[andymcc]

R-Type Leo

I'm not the biggest R-Type fan in the world. I love the first one, but I could honestly live without the rest of the series. R-Type Leo is different-- gone are the overtly punishing checkpoint respawns where you're often placed near enemy-dense hazardous areas with little more than your starting weapons, the levels aren't padded with slow stretches of nothingness that plague some of the later titles in the series (looking at you Final), plus the music absolutely slaps.



It's a much more "conventional" shooter than the original series, and I could see how it would not be as warmly received by series die-hards but me... I fuckin' love it!

 

[killuglypop]

Trigon plays like Raiden but not as cumbersome and sheeit, Irem were godlike when it came to 2D

 

[andymcc]

Trigon plays like Raiden but not as cumbersome and sheeit, Irem were godlike when it came to 2D

Click to shrink...

I need to get that Arcade Archives Trigon still!!

Also, third Irem game to pop up in here lol

 

[killuglypop]

I need to get that Arcade Archives Trigon still!!

Also, third Irem game to pop up in here lol

Click to shrink...

Hell yeah, always great to see R-Type love, such an iconic series and Leo really mixed it up. Awesome stuff. I was going to add Gunforce too, the arcade game is great but the SNES port is abysmal

 

[OrakioRob]

Scooby-Doo Mystery (Megadrive/Genesis)
I think someone on here may have mentioned it some time ago, but it's a fun adventure game. If you like the classic Lucasarts games you'll like this.

Click to shrink...

Oh, this one is really good!

I remember renting it on a Friday back in the day because I was late and all good games had already been taken. I'm not even a Scooby-Doo fan, but I enjoyed this SO MUCH!

 

[Temtastic Muns]

It's probably not as 'hidden' as other titles, but I just recently discovered the Shock Troopers titles by way of the NEOGEO Mini. Somehow, these managed to pass me by back in the day, but what fun and great looking run 'n gun style shooters! 2nd Squad was a slight step down, but both games are a fine evolution of the classic Commando / Ikari Warriors, which is a genre I haven't played an in age.

 

[Morfeo]

Good choice! The first Shock Troppers is one of my favorite games ever.

 

[electricmastro]

Lesser-known strategy gem, Trap Gunner: Countdown to Oblivion, where you set traps up for your opponent while shooting at each other.