I’d argue that this is akin to new anime fans calling the old great series like Full Metal Alchemist “obscure”. They were huge when they came out, but new fans largely haven’t watched the old greats. That doesn’t mean they were unpopular. It just means the new generation hasn’t found them yet, because the current stuff is enough to keep them occupied.
Ori was huge among metroidvania fans when it landed. But nowadays, players have largely moved on. That doesn’t diminish the old games, it just means new players haven’t bothered digging through old games.
My “nobody has heard of it” game is Legend of Legaia. It was a small JRPG that launched in the golden age of PS1 JRPGs. It was completely overshadowed by other bigger names like FF7, Legend of Dragoon, etc… When I first played it, it was so obscure it didn’t even have a page on GameFAQs. To be clear, it wasn’t just missing any FAQs… It was missing the entire game landing page. It literally wasn’t listed on the site at all.
The game was turn based (like most JRPGs at the time) but had a unique combo-based system where you laid out attacks for your characters to do, and they would change into more powerful Arts if you used the right attack combinations.
Nowadays, it has a pretty dedicated cult classic following. But at the time, it was basically as obscure as a game could get.
I’d argue that this is akin to new anime fans calling the old great series like Full Metal Alchemist “obscure”. They were huge when they came out, but new fans largely haven’t watched the old greats. That doesn’t mean they were unpopular. It just means the new generation hasn’t found them yet, because the current stuff is enough to keep them occupied.
Ori was huge among metroidvania fans when it landed. But nowadays, players have largely moved on. That doesn’t diminish the old games, it just means new players haven’t bothered digging through old games.
My “nobody has heard of it” game is Legend of Legaia. It was a small JRPG that launched in the golden age of PS1 JRPGs. It was completely overshadowed by other bigger names like FF7, Legend of Dragoon, etc… When I first played it, it was so obscure it didn’t even have a page on GameFAQs. To be clear, it wasn’t just missing any FAQs… It was missing the entire game landing page. It literally wasn’t listed on the site at all.
The game was turn based (like most JRPGs at the time) but had a unique combo-based system where you laid out attacks for your characters to do, and they would change into more powerful Arts if you used the right attack combinations.
Nowadays, it has a pretty dedicated cult classic following. But at the time, it was basically as obscure as a game could get.