Not really a particular piece of media, but I saw an artist on twitter that made anime style art but with a Tex Avery twist, it’s very strange seeing it but it intrigued me so much.
There was a game from my childhood for the Dreamcast called E.G.G. (Elemental Gimmick Gear). I’ve never heard anyone else talk about it, but I remember it being super cool
There was a game I played on my grandma’s TurboGrafx 16 many years ago. I cannot remember the name, and searching over the years still has me befuddled.
It was a racing game, but with an RPG element where you had to continually upgrade your car and take on local race champs. I loved it and cannot for the life of me find the damn thing.
Edit: holy shit I think I found it. Final Lap Twin
I’m more shocked that someone actually had a turbografx back then, here I never saw a live one in my life, but it’s a fun little console with some underrated gems, I’m having so much fun going through it’s anime inspired library.
I don’t know where she got it, probably ToysRUs back then. I would play it for hours. We only had an NES at home so we were always blown away at the graphics. Now you can find them in used game shops every once in awhile for 200 bucks, at least around here.
We had a TurboGrafx when I was a kid! We had Shinobi 3 and some game that was supposed to be like Punch Out! But I don’t think it actually was called that.
My dad brought home “Xexyz” for NES one year. I have never heard anyone ever reference this game in any nostalgia reviews and had to actually go look up the name myself after vaguely remembering it as that side-scroling NES game that started with an x.
sometimes I feel like Nintendo’s Custom Robo series counts as only 2 games ever existed outside of Japan: Custom Robo [Battle Revolution] for Gamecube, and Custom Robo Arena for DS. Luckily there’s been 3 spiritual successors since then: Cyberspace Colosseum,WizardPunk, and Battlecore Robots.
There’s also this B-movie from the 60s called The Creation of the Humanoids. It’s not that spectacular per se, but it is the source of the “You are a robot” sample used in Powerman 5000’s When Worlds Collide and the Metal Arms: Glitch in the System theme music.
Given the amount of videos on these games you’d think they were super popular and well known, but when they were brand new nobody knew about 'em. To this day, I rarely find anyone who actually played them when they were first launched on an actual DOS computer and not through GOG and DOSBox.
Even today, it’s rare that I run into people who know how awesome they are. They had it all; bitchin’ graphics, insane action, amazing FMV with actual acting and costumes… Other than the controls, they still hold up today.
Kubo and the Two Strings. Some of the story elements are a bit too obvious, but the overall story is charming and the art style (stop motion with puppet-like characters) is just plain cool.
Kirikou and the Sorceress. Wonderfully weird with an interesting story
Triplets of Belleville. The entire movie is “told” without words, except for a single sentence right at the start and one right at the end.
Games:
Terranigma (SNES). Main characters revives / creates an entire world that was doomed ages ago. It’s kind of bittersweet when you’re done reviving the continents, plants and animals and then the humans start f*cking stuff up. Great music and visuals too, despite being 16-Bit style
Ōkami. One of my all-time favorites but due to minimal marketing, not many people are aware that this game even exists. Charming art style and interesting gameplay concept.
I just recently played through Terranigma! It’s the third of a unofficial trilogy of similar Enix titles that I played as a child: SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia. Terranigma didn’t make it to the USA for some reason.
Maybe it’s a regional thing then…? I’m in Germany and noone I know of has heard about either one. I wouldn’t be surprised tho if those two got the attention they deserve in other parts of the world.
What you are missing is that Okami bombed and capcom made no money with it, it’s THE example of a great game that consumers ignored. It’s more popular now than back then.
Okami was really fun. I will say that going back to play it now the NPC talking sound the murmuring gets really old fast. I still enjoyed everything else.
The game Chex Quest, which was a total conversion of Doom for kids, used as an advertising campaign and included in cereal boxes. Incredibly well done game.
I watched a video about all these advertisement games and they missed out on the Mr. Pibb shooter that McDonald’s was giving out with kids meals in the mid 90’s, but the entire second half of the video was all about Chex Quest.
I mentioned this in another thread on CQ, but can you imagine getting brought into that kickoff meeting and just thinking “great, another soulless marketing game” and then realizing everyone including the client is on board with you making THAT.
Its not like it broke any real new ground (other than a bar for promotional give aways) but in a time when crappy doom clones were a dime a dozen… CQ went HARD.
Boffing some of the details here but: poor dude with the last name “Noid” also happened to be some kind of skitzophrenic. So unlike many people struggling with that, people really WERE talking about him… Kinda…
Poor bastard had a multimillion dollar ad campaign with radio, tv, bus stops saying “avoid the noid” which to him was “avoid this man!”. If he was receiving help, he would have heard those ads on his way home from his appointments. He would have junk mail through his slot with anti-noid propaganda.
Anyway he took a dominoes hostage. He released all the hostages I think he was the only victim. Just one of those insane things, like anyone else with that surname it would have been a material for their tight five stand up bit a decade later, but in this case it lined up with a man struggling with the exact mental disorder that made it the worst thing possible. Merry Christmas!
Cherry Coke had a promotional game called something like The Lost Island Of Alanna they gave out in the mid 90s. There was a little attack of them in the waiting room of the principles office at my school.
It was a pretty well done short Myst-like.
When you beat it the reward was a guide to read secret messages that were hidden in the squiggles that covered the cherry coke label at the time.
I don’t remember how we had it but when I was growing up, we had a pc game called Adventures with Chickens. I might have to track down a copy and play it again because I’m confused as to why MobyGames says the game has “shoot 'em up elements” when I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
I recently worked my way through the old games library on archive.org and found some gems I used to play.
The game that got me looking there in the first place was Lost Dutchman Mine (still holds up!), but then I just kept scrolling and have bookmarked dozens of games. I won't list them all, but some favourites I grew up playing (and still occasionally revisit) that I don't think were massively (or at least still would be) well known: Xonix - the first pc game I ever played, back when monitors only had 2 colours lol Jones in the Fast Lane The Sims if it was a board game Mario is Missing Yes, the Mario. I was the only person I know to own and play this game Home alone and Home Alone 2 both on 5¼-inch floppy Goblins I never got far in this game as a kid, and I have resorted to digging up the walkthrough even today to progress lol
Not a game, there is also Jerry Springer the Opera, a satire which I feel went far too low under the radar, and more people should watch (I think most people assume that the first act - a mock up JS episode, is all it is, but it really isn't). I've listened to it so many times I can literally sing you the whole thing from beginning to end (OST is much better quality than the live recording, and is on YT too). 😂(CW: contains some outdated and offensive terms and slurs)
E: here's a no-spoiler taste, the ad break
Edit again (I'm now re-watching it and this part just came up and reminded me lol): some folks here might be familiar with I Just Wanna Fuckin' Dance, which is from the opera!
There are probably many more, but I've just woken up, so that's all that comes to mind rn..
Same, though not only in childhood! For a while it was my "get to sleep" game I would play every night until I dozed off, this was only a couple of years ago.. 😂
Despite that last remark, it's a great game (if a little repetitive, which is what puts me to sleep lol E: Sims 3 often does the same..😆)!
Add comment