Obscure arcade games (which are worth playing)

[mechamonkey]

Also this, Strike Force is kind of Defender meets Narc. Pure mental.

 

[mechamonkey]

Not sure how obscure this one is but I love playing Capcom's Quiz and Dragons on the cab with a beer in hand
There should be more RPG/Pub Quiz games 

 

[mechamonkey]

One last one for now, The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy

 

[Not Thread Owner]

That looks amazing.

[Rex Grossman]

32 minutes ago, deKay said:

That looks amazing.

Good guide to it here http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/the-cliffhanger-edward-randy

[watusi]

5 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Good guide to it here http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/the-cliffhanger-edward-randy

 

I’m reading the data east and Taino HC101 guides at the moment, some great obscure games. I’ll post a few once I’ve played them.

[electricmastro]

Various releases in Arcade Archives on Switch which seem obscure. Which ones are worth playing?

 

64th Street
A-JAX
Alpine Ski
Arabian
Armed F
Atomic Robo-Kid
Bells & Whistles
Ben Bero Beh
Bio-Ship Paladin
Black Heart
Butasan
Chack'n Pop
Cosmo Police Galivan
Crazy Climber
Crazy Climber 2
Crime Fighters
Cybattler
Dangerous Seed
Darwin 4078
Dragon Buster
Dragon Saber

Empire City: 1931
Fighting Hawk
Frisky Tom
Gemini Wing
Gun & Frontier
Gunnail
Guzzler
Hacha Mecha Fighter
Halley's Comet
Heroic Episode
Highway Race
Hopping Mappy
Hyper Sports
Ikki
Kid's HoreHore Daisakusen
KiKi KaiKai
Koutetsu Yousai Strahl
Kurikinton
Legend Of Makai
Libble Rabble
Lightning Fighters
Liquid Kids
Markham
Mat Mania Exciting Hour
Metro-Cross
Mirai Ninja
Moon Cresta
Motos
Mr. Goemon
Mutant Night
MX 5000
Naughty Boy
Ninja Kazan
Nova 2001
Omega Fighter
ORIUS
P-47
Penguin-Kun Wars
Pettan Pyuu
Phozon
Pirate Pete
Pistol Daimyo no Bouken
Plus Alpha
Pop Flamer
Pro Tennis World Court
Psycho Soldier
Rabio Lepus
Radical Radial
Raiders 5
Raimais
Roller Jammer
Route 16
Saboten Bombers
Saint Dragon
Sasuke vs. Commander
Scramble
Sea Fighter Poseidon
Shingen Samurai-Fighter
Shusse Ozumo
Sky Skipper
Soldam
Soldier Girl Amazon
Space Cruiser
Space Seeker
Swimmer
Task Force Harrier
Terra Force
The Fairyland Story
The Genji and the Heike Clans
The Legend of Valkyrie
The Ninja Warriors
The Tin Star
Thunder Ceptor
Thunder Cross
Thunder Cross II
Thunder Dragon
Thunder Dragon 2
Time Pilot
Time Pilot '84
Time Tunnel
TNK III
Trio The Punch
Tube Panic
Typhoon Gal
USAAF Mustang
Vandyke
Water Ski
Wild Western
Wiz
Wonder Momo
X Multiply
XX Mission
Youkai Douchuki
Zero Team

[Rex Grossman]

Not everything has to be a long list or a bunch of screenshots.

[Not Thread Owner]

27 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Not everything has to be a long list or a bunch of screenshots.

 

Tell that to Buzzfeed.

[Vimster]

Played a nice one recently as part of a high-score challenge: Desert War. Tactical-ish vertical shooter where you have to rescue soldiers and get them to the landing pad. Never heard of this one before. 

 

 

[Yobo Ahoy]

On 23/08/2022 at 16:12, Vimster said:

Played a nice one recently as part of a high-score challenge: Desert War. Tactical-ish vertical shooter where you have to rescue soldiers and get them to the landing pad. Never heard of this one before. 

 

 

 

Ooh, nice. Been playing a lot of GB Choplifter 2 and this looks like that on steroids. Getting it! 

[mwaawm]

On 19/08/2022 at 17:54, JamesC said:

A couple of Sega ones I loved:

 

Title fight which had a great dual-stick control scheme and allowed two player head to head matches.

 

Also Hot Rod, which was in the same vein as Super Sprint or Off Road but with longer tracks. The four player cabinet was fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunatley Title fights controllers gave you really bad blisters after anything more than a casual try on the game

[geldra]

On 06/08/2022 at 07:52, watusi said:

Not sure how obscure this one really is but Osman - unofficial sequel to Strider released in 1996. Hard as nails.

 

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/osman/

 

 

as if by magic:

 

 

[mechamonkey]

Gunball
This is a pretty bizarre but really fun shooter/pinball hybrid, basically imagine if commando took place on a pinball table and you could shoot enemies off into holes and flags for bonuses and good times.
Well worth a dabble.

 

[MarkN]

Flicky: This came up in a high-score competition I was involved in for a while, and I'd never heard of it (and I grew up in a very very good arcade). It's ace! A platformer where you have to rescue your babies, who then follow you as a tail.

 

 

10-Yard Fight - simplified American Football. I thought this was common, but I nominated this as my game in the high-score competition and most folk didn't know it and immediately seemed to hate me for it. It's one of my absolute favourites - there were at least three machines in the arcade where I grew up. Ask if you need pointers - it's not the most accessible game, but it's really very good.

 

Ladybug. Like Pac-Man but with revolving doors. I'd completely forgotten about this until I saw this thread, so thank you for that.

 

 

Outfoxies:

 

Found this on Mame maybe 15 years ago. It's so daft, but great with it:

 

Thumbs up for Bagman and The Pit - we had those in my local arcade. Loved Bagman particularly. Cliffhanger I only played much later in an arcade in (possibly) Scunthorpe as a student - it's amazing.

[Rex Grossman]

I don’t think 10 Yard Fight is obscure either.

[Camel]

Flicky is far from obscure. But it is a fantastic game.

[MarkN]

22 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

I don’t think 10 Yard Fight is obscure either.

It's really hard to judge. I grew up in a small town in Devon that happened to have an amazing arcade. For example, I thought all arcades had an I, Robot machine until the internet told me there were a thousand produced absolute tops. With hindsight I travelled the whole country as a kid (we had camper van holidays - there's very few places (especially seaside) I haven't visited). Can't remember seeing another I, Robot. I thought they were standard, cos we had one.

[MarkN]

2 minutes ago, Camel said:

Flicky is far from obscure. But it is a fantastic game.

See my previous post. We never had it in my arcade. Even then I found it really late. If you don't know about something you can't search for it. Flicky is fucking obcsure if you've never encountered it before, especially before the internet.

[smac]

On 19/08/2022 at 09:38, Valver said:

One of my faves is The Speed Rumbler.  It's not that obscure because it was in one of the PS2 Capcom classic packs - but I dont know many people who've actually played it.

 

Its sort of Mad Max-esque...

 

 

 

 

Played it just a few times back in the day - I played a bit of tabletop Car Wars at the time so this looked right up me street. I thought your guy could roll to avoid bullets when he was out of the car, too? That player didn't make use of that move - or I'm getting mixed up with another game.

[Mr Monday]

I think Flicky was an obscure arcade game, I never saw a cabinet.  But the Megadrive conversion plus it’s appearance on a few Mega Games complication carts made it more widely known.  

[geldra]

Full disclosure: I haven’t played it… but shmupjunkie covered a few lesser known games recently and he mentioned Wolf Fang which looks pretty great:

 

 

[Valver]

30 minutes ago, smac said:

 

Played it just a few times back in the day - I played a bit of tabletop Car Wars at the time so this looked right up me street. I thought your guy could roll to avoid bullets when he was out of the car, too? That player didn't make use of that move - or I'm getting mixed up with another game.

Yes, you can roll about to dodge bullets - you're not misremembering it.

 

I *loved* playing tabletop Car Wars back in the day too.  Happy memories of playing that.  I still have all the rule books, maps and car counters in a cupboard somewhere  

[strawdonkey]

Go! Go! Mile Smile:
 

You play as a weird egg-centipede and have to clear the maze of all the pellets without getting caught, by extending yourself from the entrance points on the edge of the maze. The more pellets you catch in one go, the more points you get, but if an enemy touches any part of your disgusting egg body then you lose a life and feel shame.

 

Seriously though I played a ton of this and loved it and very rarely see people talking about it. Great push-your-luck score chasing mechanics and is a really nice mix of Pac-Man and Qix.

MILE and YARD are pursuing their dream.

[Camel]

2 hours ago, MarkN said:

See my previous post. We never had it in my arcade. Even then I found it really late. If you don't know about something you can't search for it. Flicky is fucking obcsure if you've never encountered it before, especially before the internet.

Everything is obscure if you’ve never heard of it, sure.

[MarkN]

5 hours ago, Camel said:

Everything is obscure if you’ve never heard of it, sure.

I've played The Pit on an actual machine. The arcade I used to visit had *almost* eveything. I had to cross the road to the rubbish arcade to play Time Pilot (where it was called Space Pilot IIRC). They also had Tron: Deadly Discs and Boot Hill (and a Fruit Machine you could always win a quid at if a certain thing happened - can't remember what now). Happy times.

 

I still managed to get to almost forty before ever hearing about Flicky though. It's no Pengo.

[Nathan Wind]

Wardner is one I never see mentioned. Lovely little platformer. I don’t know if it’s obscure or not really, but I only ever saw it in one arcade as a kid. 

[Camel]

4 hours ago, Nathan Wind said:

Wardner is one I never see mentioned. Lovely little platformer. I don’t know if it’s obscure or not really, but I only ever saw it in one arcade as a kid. 

I think its obscurity depends on whether MarkN has seen it or not

 

Seriously, I imagine Flicky arcade cabinets were fairly scarce, but as soon as something is ported to the biggest console at the time, appears on a compilation on the same console and is later on every set of that console’s games on new platforms, is it obscure?

 

Having said all that, I think a port can also be obscure. eg, Juno First is a pretty obscure game with obscure home micro ports (it’s also really really good). Gottlieb’s Reactor (again, a good game) had a version on the Atari 2600 but still feels obscure to me. It’s pretty subjective though.

 

Is Boot Hill obscure? I’ve seen (and played) that in a few arcades in my time.

 

[JamesC]

I also grew up in a town full of arcades and I think I only became aware of Flicky as an adult. That's not to say there wasn't a cabinet or two among the many games in Yarmouth's arcades, but it never caught my attention. It really is a great game though.

 

Another more modern obscurity is Sega's Wing War.
I played this a couple of times in the arcade on the Britannia Pier in Yarmouth. That's the only place I've ever seen it and I don't believe it ever received any ports. It's alot of fun though, and still looks really lovely (super colourful)!

 

 

[spanky debrest]

11 hours ago, MarkN said:

See my previous post. We never had it in my arcade. Even then I found it really late. If you don't know about something you can't search for it. Flicky is fucking obcsure if you've never encountered it before, especially before the internet.

 

A lot of this stuff is relative but Flicky was one of Sega's most ported and influential hits.

 

We had a Flicky arcade cabinet in town..but I grew up in Brighton where at one point dozens of arcade centres big and small were a 10-minute stroll away.