Topic: Personal favorite that nobody else played

Did any of you play a game as a youngster that looking back now you remember fondly but seems like you're the only one in the world that played it?

For me, it's Kiwi Kraze for NES (or New Zealand Story in Europe) a fun platformer that got pretty challenging in the later levels. Sky Blazer for the SNES is another good platformer with huge boss battles.

Rez for the Dreamcast.

My choice isn't really that old but no one I've ever talked to heard of it and if they did, they said they disliked it greatly. And that little gems called Ni No Kuni. I admittedly anticipated its western release for years knowing it was developed by the masters themselves, Level-5. So I perordered the Collector's Edition and fell in love with this world. Every inch of this world oozes personality. The story, while it can drag at times, feels heart-felt and so does its message. Also I'll always be a sucker for collecting little critters so the collecting aspect certainly helps, too. I honestly love this game very dearly and it has earned itself its spot as one of my favorite games of all time and my favorite rpgs of all time.

I played New Zealand Story and liked it too. The games I used to play a lot with my friends and that I don't see anyone talk about are Contra: Hard Corps, Samurai Shodown and Star Control. All of them are Genesis/Mega Drive games.

I'm not sure why there ain't as much talk about Contra: Hard Corps compared to other Contra games. At least for what I've seen. It's easily my favorite Contra game. It's a shame it's so expensive nowadays and we in Europe got the inferior version (Probotector). Basically the same game but the sprites have been changed from humans to robots.

I recently picked up Samurai Shodown Anthology for Wii since I really wanted to play Samurai Shodown again. The arcade version is a bit different and I don't have the same friend playing with me all the time anymore so I haven't had as much fun as I would've liked to.

I remember having a lot of fun with Star Control's multiplayer deathmatch. It isn't that great looking game and most would probably find it pretty boring. I couldn't read English yet when we used to play it so I had hard time navigating the menu at first and it took my some time to realize there was a two player option. The single player portion was too hard for me to understand so I don't even know what it's actually like.

Ni No Kuni was huge in the UK when it came out. Loads of people talked about it.
I loved Faxanadu on the NES and was pleased to see a lot of people also remember it so that doesn't really count either. Same for Suikoden.
So after thinking hard I think I'll have to say Pushover for the SNES. You play a small Ant called G I Ant and move dominos in order to knock over the first domino and clear a path to the exit. Only once all the dominos were knocked over could you open the door and move to the next room, but you had to also make sure not to block your own path to the exit along the way.
I'd love to see it come back on the VC or something but I doubt it.

Rocket Robot on Wheels for the N64 by Ubisoft comes to mind, it came in a red cart for NA. It's very similar to Rayman 2 The Great Escape, probably ran on the same platform, only it was based around a theme park in space. It had a lot of extra junk in it besides the 3D platforming aspect. It had many mini games and things to waste time with. Driving the hot dog car on the beach, doing the creepy mini games, painting the Roman city with that paint canon thing or using the mine cart or magic carpet rides. If the controls were tweaked a bit, it would still hold up today despite that 3D platforming is barely breathing.

If you need a newer game from me then I'd say Virtue's Last Reward for 3DS. Not saying nobody played this, but it sure seemed to have a low amount of fans. There's hype for ZTR but it felt like nobody talked about 999 or VLR much except for the time it was mentioned by logo in Nintendo's Holiday 2014 advert. The story is amazing, I love the way it connected with 999. It's so hard to find a visual novel with the touch puzzles worth going through imo, and the whole story was really amazing. It consumed me so much I forgot all my other games for a month. Took 32 hours to do all the timelines with skipping of course, that's pretty good!

I'm surprised Ni no Kuni was on someone's list here. I also had the same experience that people talked about it a lot. Must just be a location thing.

Off the top of my head: Violinist of Hameln. Weird game based off an obscure manga, and the game was Japan only so I can see why most people didn't play it. Luckily the language barrier didn't make much difference as it was pretty self-explanatory, fun little platforming/puzzle solver that relied on dressing your sidekick in comical costumes to achieve your goal.

Viva Piñata for the DS. I guess.

I have to go with Birds of Steel for this one. I completely understand why this one was overlooked; It's a hardcore flight sim and flight sims don't sell. But this game is still a fantastic game with lots of different planes to choose from, mind-blowing visuals, A variety of missions and mission types, online play (no local play, sadly), and even a mission editor. There's also a huge new mode called "Dynamic Campaign" in which you attempt to take control of all of a battleground and prevent your enemy from doing so.

I loved playing The Hobbit on PS2. It was a 3D game with plenty of exploration and puzzles, as well as combat and quests. Some of the treasure chests were very cleverly hidden, so it was great fun looking for every secret.

On a similar note to what @Dankykong has said, I'd put 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors on the list, though perhaps it only feels like nobody else has played it since it was never released here in Europe. The puzzles were good in it, but it's the story that I loved most about it. Everything was explained in such great detail, so I could picture myself being there. VLR was also brilliant, and I'm looking forward to the third game in the Zero Escape series.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Supersponge.

The GBA version. Seems barely anyone has played it, and the ones that did think it's crap. It was my first video game, and I will always love it.

Best one I can think of is that McDolnald's game for the NES...dunno why I enjoyed it, lol.

Seeing as my friends are mostly exclusive PlayStation and Xbox folks, there's a whole lot I could list. I'm looking at Splatoon, Bayonetta 2 and Xenoblade X peeking out of an open drawer right now, and no one I know in the real world has played those games, other than at my house.

But if we're talking about the gaming community at large, my go-to answer to this question is Gladius for the GameCube, PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Here's some 1080p emulated gameplay (so as not to offend our 2016 eyes), but the gist of it is that it was a LucasArts-made, gladiator-themed strategy RPG.

You chose from one of two main characters and traveled around a mythological version of ancient Greece, collecting and customizing members of your gladiatorial team (everything from barbarians to satyrs) and engaging in battles. The battle system was fantastic — it was a turn-based strategy system, but it felt intimate and action-oriented. You could even save your custom team to a memory card and battle with your friend's team, or have someone join in battles on your team with a second controller. I got a buddy of mine into it when we were roommates during college, but other than that, I hear nothing about Gladius. And I don't guess I ever will again, now that LucasArts is kaput.

@VelvetElvis:
That sounds awesome, I might have to grab it tonight.

Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure. The game is a fun platform/puzzle hybrid.
It's also hyper British!

@shaneoh: Awesome, enjoy it and please post impressions if you do — would love to hear some fresh opinions on the game. It's about as close as we'll ever get to a sequel, ha.

Ghost Trick Phantom Detective, easily. Most of my 20 or so favourite games are at least moderately well known, a few Zelda games, The Last of Us, Chrono Trigger, The Witcher 3, Shadow of The Colossus etc. But I'd say that this one stands out for its obscurity as I'm sure 99% of people who didn't own a DS haven't even heard of it despite the mobile port. Heck I'd say even 99% of DS owners probably didn't play it as we're talking about an install base of more than 150 million and a game that I don't think even sold 100,000. Shame too, as I'd say in terms of games that I absolutely love and can never get bored of, only Chrono Trigger, Zelda Skyward Sword, The Last of Us and Xenoblade Chronicles can compete. Such a genius concept all around that deserved a much better fate than the one it unfortunately got, which is being a prime contender for this topic.

The only other game I really love that is very, very obscure is Mother 3, and that is at least mostly because of the fact that it hasn't been released officially outside of Japan. Then I think I'd be talking about Okami, the two Tellius Fire Emblem games (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn) and Golden Sun Dark Dawn, but I think all of those have at least some success and are not too obscure.

I also think the Wii was home to a vast amount of great obscure titles that get criminally overlooked when the console is assessed as a whole. Little King's Story, Battalion Wars 2, Another Code r, Zack and Wiki and Tatsonoko vs Capcom all come to mind as games that are rarely even considered in 'great Wii games' lists, but really, really deserve to be on merit.

For the PS2, Ape Escape 3 BY FAR. It's the only reason I play non-Nintendo games.

For the Gamecube, gotta be Rampage: Total Destruction. My brother and I put hours upon hours into that one.

The GBA port of Battle for Bikini Bottom was a game I spent many years beating. It's a really fun game.

La Mulana is one of the most wonderful games I've ever played and yet I never hear anyone talk about it. If you're even slightly a fan of Metroidvanias then La Mulana is worth checking out. I admit that the puzzles can be somewhat obtuse and complicated, but I used a guide and my enjoyment of the game was not hindered in the slightest. It also has a really strong atmosphere helped out by the great soundtrack.

As long as we're mentioNing more recent games I'm going to add Stuntman Ignition. Definitely not for everyone but mastering the long string of difficult stunts feels awesome and rewarding.

Also have to mention both Baten Kaitos games on GameCube. Two of my favorite RPGs ever, even though I never got to beat the prequel. The premise of card battling sounded boring at first but it's so much more fun than it sounds thanks to its fast pace. I also fell in love with the story, beautiful locations and mesmerizing soundtrack.