Game evangelism: Unsung, weird, or bad games you promote

[Note]

Magic Knight Rayearth, Sega Saturn. Found it in a bargain bin. Not sure why I bought it. Played it for 5 minutes. Thought, "This is lame, why am I playing this." Kept playing and finished it. It's in my top 5 games for the system. Just a simple, casual, fun game with good production values. No shame in that. I think it was my first experience with Japanese animation, too.

That's awesome you picked it up in a bargain bin! I still haven't played it yet but would like to experience this game, seems fun from the footage I've watched. Think it's something I'd be into.

Maybe the next time I visit my brother I'll pick up a copy so we can get all nostalgic

Question for everyone: Does getting a negative reaction to the weirdo games you're recommending lead you to second guess yourself, or like most cults, does it lead you to conclude that people just don't get it, man! I definitely fall into the latter camp

I'm also in the latter camp. Lol, I'll continue to promote the Shining series either way.

[pook99]

@Zrofel and Elkin: I LOVE devils third as well, it is so over the top crazy, I don't know how anyone could not love it, we definitely need a sequel but also will definitely not get one

@Ack: lol, love your analysis on why I am not good at weaponlord, definitely lots of truth there

For me:

1) Metroid Other M, prfsnl_gamer and I will continue to defend this underappreciated gem

2) Aggelos: Aggelos is one of the best 2d adventure platformers I have ever played and very few have played it. I recommend it to all fans of the wonder boy series, or platformers in general. This game is the absolute definition of a hidden gem.

[Ack]

@Ack: lol, love your analysis on why I am not good at weaponlord, definitely lots of truth there.

It's ok, pook. We can't all be bloodthirsty gods.

And I've never heard of Aggelos before. It's not my genre, but I'll go look it up.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I WILL defend Other M. I think it’s a solid Metroid game, and while I get some of the hate for it, I think it’s largely unjustified. Aggelos is just great. A really solid Wonder Boy tribute I can’t recommend highly enough.

Here’s one to tie into this month’s TR...Mickey Mousecapade for the NES. Developed by Hudson Soft and published by Capcom, it’s an action platformer where you play as both Mickey and Minnie at the same time. The gameplay and level-design are tight. The graphics are colorful and crisp. It’s full of secrets, and as a mash-up of various Disney properties filtered through an 8-Bit Japanese video game, it’s a deeply weird experience. It’s also quite challenging, but surmountable with a bit of practice. A lot of people hate it, I think, because it is so strange, but I’d go to bat for it any day,

[noiseredux]

I can sort of understand why people don't love Other M, but I think it's a solid game.

[Gunstar Green]

Too much love for Other M. I need to balance things.

Other M is poopy.

Okay there we go. Carry on.

[prfsnl_gmr]

A few others I thought of just now:

Night Slashers - Everyone talks about the great Capxom and Konami beat ‘em ups, but in my opinion, Night Slashers is at least as good, if not better, than most of those. Plus, it has so much personality!

Bad Dudes - Another Data East gem. I loved this game as a kid, and I still love it. Yeah, it’s corny, but that’s part of the appeal. Better yet, it’s a lot of fun.

E.T. - It is a solid 2600 game, and it’s pretty fun. Nonetheless, people more time dumping on it than actually playing it or <gasp!> learning how to play it. They base their impression on less than five minutes of gameplay, in preparation for which they could not be bothered to read the game’s instructions. IMO, the Atari 2600 has far worse games, and only a handful of much better ones.

[Gunstar Green]

I absolutely love Night Slashers. It's thematically unique for a beat'em up and it's good fun all around.

[Ack]

I absolutely love Night Slashers. It's thematically unique for a beat'em up and it's good fun all around.

Hell yeah, more love for Night Slashers! I wanna go punch zombies in the face.

[pook99]

@prfsnl_gamer: I thought I was the only person on the planet willing to defend ET, so thank you for stepping up. I played the poop out of ET as a kid and loved it, granted I was 5, but when youtube became a thing I was genuinely surprised to learn that people thought it was a bad game. The "unable to leave a pit" hate just drives me insane, you could watch youtubers make 5 minute long videos of them repeatedly falling as they get out of a pit, come on, if 5 year old me could easily leave the pits there really is no excuse for people to be that bad at the game

Here are some other games that I loved that youtube tells me are bad:

1) Double Dragon 3:(nes version) hands down this is the most surprising, dd3 is a legit good game, it is my favorite of the nes trilogy to this day and a game that I still replay all the time, people pretending this game is terrible is just jumping on to internet hype

2) Festers quest: fun overhead shooter with lots of quirk and cool gameplay elements (for the time)

3) TMNT (nes): it is a bit janky but the original TMNT is a great game, and IMO, the one that stood the test of time the best.

4) Friday the 13th (nes): ok, this one I could kind of agree with, but I used to play this game all night, it actually was pretty fun in a pre-internet age, just walking around and discovering all different weapons, items, locations. Certainly has more charm than the internet gives it credit for