RetroGaming

Some ancient PC role playing games.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul I like this one because I think your party is restricted to having a character of each class: Fighter, Paladin, Cleric and Wizard. I learned what a Paladin was from this game and fell in love with the class. Lots of exploration and tactical battles that are on a map that is the same as where you are in the dungeon were all pretty awesome features of this game. Has permadeath but you can recruit a new person to replace the old one. Always hated doing that though.

Disciples of Steel Team of 8 characters going on an adventure to save the world. The endgame actually has you setting up armies in different parts of the world to help you when the final battle comes. Pretty neat game.

Maybe it's not obscure enough, but for me, Starflight on the Sega Genesis remains the greatest space exploration game ever made.

It was unforgiving the way games were back then, which added to the feeling that you're just out there in unexplored space.

More than 800 different planets, most of them empty (except for resources), but that just makes it so exciting when you find an artifact hidden in ancient ruins.

And an incredible story on top of that. A huge mystery unfolds organically as solar flares start destroying planets across the galaxy and your explorable space slowly shrinks.

The back of the manual was a journal written by another starship captain who sent it to you from the future. It serves as a guide and a warning, giving some valuable locations and clues, in case you're having trouble finding the path.

Oh, and the soundtrack! I can still bring it to mind thirty years later. Haunting.

M.C. Kids for the NES. It was a rock solid platformer held back by the McDonald's theming. It was a bit too hard for the target audience, but it's a fun romp otherwise.

Not sure if obscure, but I really like Buggy Run from Master System

Is a game like Vib-ribbon or Devil Dice considered obscure? Because those would probably be tied for my choice.

I don't know how obscure it actually is, but I played the hell out of Threads of Fate when I was a kid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_of_Fate?wprov=sfla1

Soldam immediately comes to mind as the deepest cut I can think of. You might not be too impressed the first time you put a quarter in, the singleplayer modes are nothing too special. But if you can get a second player, it has one of the most interesting versus modes I've seen in a puzzle game. Sadly, you do need a second player, there is no versus CPU.

This game got a modernized remake on Switch a while back, they added online play... but they still didn't add CPUs.

Whiplash!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiklus

Great game. Seems simple at the start. But it's deeper than you'd think. Beautifully made game.

"Magic & Mayhem" - https://www.bestoldgames.net/de/magic-and-mayhem

Road Trip Adventure

Disney Princess is a very underrated gba game and that's the hill I will die on.

Is The Last Blade obscure or just old?

I think the last game I bought for my 386 was Nomad. ISTR having to make space since it required like 9Mb of the 40Mb drive.

30-polygon-per-ship level 3-D space RPG with limited combat sequences. I think I played it wrong because I seemed to walk largely linearly through the story and defeat the Big Bad without seeing more than 1/10 of the galaxy

I personally loved ice climbers on the nes

Castle of the Winds, a roguelike for Windows 3.1. Initially played the demo at a youth center's tucked-in-the-corner Compaq when Mario Kart 64 was too popular to get any time on, eventually found the full version online for our home machine, wound up celebrating WineVDM long after Windows dropped 16-bit support.

It was popular enough that WineVDM's demos included it, specifically... but it enjoys little cultural relevance today. It has an adorably straightforward mouse-and-windows interface, and barely works if you don't have a ten-key pad. The plot is just barely present. Some monsters will forkbomb you by summoning more of themselves. But it encaspulates a bygone era better than even modern efforts like Hypnospace Outlaw.