Nayfin's Top 10 Bad/Unpopular/Unknown/Underrated/Low Budget Games Part 2

Well I figure I'd write part two now instead of waiting a whole week to do so, it's not as if it were a TV show where their aim is to leave you in suspense for a whole week after watching the first part of a two parter, Doctor Who I'm looking at you for I know full well you'll do that to me at least five times not to mention that one two parter is showing part one in June and the other part in September it has its reasons but really. Already into the first path I find myself digressing and should really move on, as I say there is no point to make you wait a week for a review about bad but good computer games.

Though now that I think about it, after watching a few videos of Zero Punctuation all I can hear that my voice is another man's better-then-mine British accent not to mention his wit so perhaps it's better that I stop now, grab myself a cup of tea and then continue or I may just do nothing but add sarcasm all over the place. So...

 Much better. So I if you've read my last blog you'd have seen at number 10 with its bad graphics, cheesy dialogue and odd gameplay is Deadly Premonition, number 9 with its unfavourable reviews and dodgy motion play is Red Steel, number 8 aimed at kids but isn't that different to Farmville is Viva Piñata, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness having bad gameplay and very tedious levels has a soft spot in my heart at number 7, and finally number 6 is Shadow of Memories which is basically an interactive story. All good games in my books and now for the rest:

Number 5: Eat Lead The Return of Matt Hazard

  Another game released for this current generation of gaming, a great game but not great enough to be listed as one of the top ranking games.

So Eat Lead begins with a man named Matt Hazard explaining about his history of computer games how he had risen and then fell as the games he starred in were great and eventually crap. So already we have an odd story, a game character who knows he is in fact a computer game character.

Matt Hazard has finally returned for a new game where he stars as some kind of a detective only to find out after the first level that his game has been hacked and a new hero would be replacing him, of course someone has noticed and has hacked the hacker and stopped him from derrezing Matt Hazard. So now Matt Hazard must play through the game to try and get to the source of who is trying to derezz him while another person, a beautiful female tries to stop this from happening by hacking in things to help him at every opportunity. Think of it as someone hacking into your Pokemon game to make your Iunno, Pikachu die, but another outside party stops this from happening, and now you and Pikachu must beat the Elite Four to somehow save your Pikachu. Can't see a possible conclusion or a reason for that matter? You'll have to play the game.

This game is absolutely brilliant, the game being hacked turns the game into Matt Hazards older computer games, ones that actually don't exist but in the world of Eat Lead they do. This ranges from the Wild West genre to troubles with Russia like old spy flicks and then to more stranger scenarios such as zombies and finally even older games that include 2D paper enemies oh and RPG moments. So with so many scenarios you're bound to come across a level that you like, even if you don't like the game play which is an over-the-shoulder third person shooter. The game has a lot of changes, guns, characters, funny moments and outrageous   designs you'd never expect from a serious game making this a very casual, non-serious and fun game. Even the achievements are fun. It's a game I'd expect to see on the Playstation 1, but with easier gameplay and better graphics.

Even if you're still unsure that my liking for the game might not suit yours, £5 at your local GAME for Eat Lead The Return of Matt Hazard is not a lot of money.

Number 4: Obscure

Now if it wasn't for Dan I'd have never played this game. Being another horror game this usually would take our interest, however being a game from an earlier generation we'd be less inclined to pick it up (Not saying older generations are bad, far from it, but a game we've never heard of isn't going to be the first to be picked up) It wasn't untill Dan noticed the back cover mentioning Sum 41 had a song in the game itself did he pick it up to notice something very interesting; the game had the option for co-operative multiplayer. Co-op horror games? That's a good enough reason as any to buy the game.

Now I can only imagine that games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill are to blame for leaving Obscure out of the spot lights. Saying that, this game has that cheesy high school feel and a lot of the characters seemed too perky or irritating, or maybe it was the difficulty that brought the game down. Again on the other hand Resident Evil had the whole Jill sandwich incident and it never really pulled any punches in terms of difficulty, in fact now that I think about it, I've completed Obscure, and unless we're talking about the remake, I've never completed the first Resident Evil which is something me and Dan should do sometime.

Now one thing to say about this game is that it is incredibly short, playing it on easy mode and getting to grips with it will probably have you playing it for about 6 hours till you complete it, 3 hours if you've already completed the game before. The game has a mildly good, if rather confusing story at first, though everything about it is predictable. The characters are lovable unless its Shannon because she just doesn't help at all but other then her abilities she's likeable enough. The game play isn't too difficult to get used to, in fact it's more or less Resident Evil but you're able to move while aiming your gun. Only problems I saw were two spots where you could die instantly if you did it wrong but they're easy enough to avoid, and if you do die, surely you have another character to continue with.

Maybe it's the unusual gameplay or that it just popped up during the time that Resident Evil and Silent Hill were in their prime but really I see no reason why this can't be a much loved game. Obscure 2 is even better, though have only really just started in that game. Plus co-operative horror multilayer, having a friend over to play it, with popcorn, or pizza and tea or pepsi/coke along with maybe another friend who enjoys watching, this game is great! If you and a friend are into horrors you should try it, if you don't like it, well that's not a lot of money down the drain. Old cheap games are good!

Number 3: EDF - Earth Defence Force 2017

  This game is pure arcade brilliance, simple third person shooter, all you have to do, is kill all the invading aliens known as Ravagers to advance to the next level, each level adds a little bit of story, maybe a new enemy, or some kind of huge boss. Two weapons are chosen at the start of each level and you can acquire more weapons by defeating each enemy, the harder the difficulty, the better the weapon drops.

With an infinitive amount of armour (which is dropped like weapons)to collect, each one adding a total to your health, 171 weapons to collect with some weapons added as a bonus for completing the game on a certain difficulty and 53 levels to play on as well as five difficulties this game offers a lot of arcade, shooting, collecting, advancing, alien killing fun. Kill the blasted Ravagers and get them off our planet!

This game would be nothing without its multiplayer values. I've spent hours upon hours with my boyfriend just trying to complete every difficulty and get every weapon. We eventually did it after taking down many an alien ant, robot and several other enemies.

As a budget game this game is sold for £20, maybe less now. You may not get a lot of out this, but as I'm a fan of simple games, and the voice acting is just so funny I'm bound to enjoy it.(With lines such as "I miss the sunlight." from annoying 'I miss the sunlight' man and "ARGHHDTHHGEH" from EDF unit dying in pure agony) If you're a fan then look out for EDF: Insect Armageddon coming this June or July.

Number 2: Alundra 2

So whether this game was well known back in the days of Playstation, or if it was another game left to collect dust on the shelves I have no idea, all I know is that whenever I ask someone if they know of this game (This includes then and now) all I get is a shrug and "I have no idea."

Alundra 2 is an Action-Adventure RPG that has no relation to its predecessor and sadly was also less successful. This game was originally bought for me by accident, I asked for a game and my Grandfather ended up buying this for me instead, and am I glad he did.

My feelings for this make me think of a mixture of Final Fantasy 7 with its higher technology in a fantasy based realm and Zelda in terms of gameplay what with the way you control the hero Flint, the world of which you can explore and also the dungeons and bosses.

There is so much to this game, it is a lot of fun and I can remember playing this game non-stop from morning till 2am just trying to complete it, only to have it crash on me (I had no memory card at that time) and to find out that I was actually only half way through the game.

The game had me going for hours upon hours and still I haven't completed it 100%. The characters are lovable, there are a few cheesy moments but the story is superb and the villains are the kind of RPG villains that I do love, evil and menacing. As a boss lover in these kinds of games, the bosses I really do enjoy fighting against, and the music in the game is really good, as I write this one of the dungeon themes is stuck in my head.

So if you enjoy Action-Adventure RPG games and you see this going cheaply, give it a whirl, I'd love to see a remake. Speaking of remakes, if only...

Number 1: Ephemeral Fantasia

...if only they made a remake of this. Ephemeral Fantasia, known for its bad graphics, anime styles that just were not what gamers got worked up about, weird camera angles, the fact that its impossible to complete without a walkthrough and the fact they all felt it was a waste of money, except for those like me who carried on with the game. I actually lost this game many years back, and a few years ago I asked that this be one of my birthday/Christmas presents, sadly when it came it wasn't compatible with my PS2, but I sent it back and got one that was.

Now despite the down sides, I played through, stuff that I could look past, sure I had to google a walkthrough but only to figure out points in time to look for things. This game has an incredible story, if not an incredible way of telling it.

We begin with our poorly named hero of the game; Mouse. Mouse travels to the Island of Pandule known as the Island of Endless Summer. Sounds beautiful. Mouse has been invited by the soon to be ruler of Pandule to create and play a song at his wedding to which he is going to marry the princess of Pandule. Mouse having his own agenda with one of his life long friends Pattimo, that agenda is; thievery. Pattimo I should mention here is the guitar Mouse carries around, sounds strange but actually Pattimo once was human who got caught trying to steal a guitar and this guitar belonged to a wizard who had powerful magic, he turned Pattimo into that guitar where he would live most of his days as. This bit of trivia was not actually explained in the game, in fact it's quite bad for explaining the main characters histories other then those already living on Pandule.

 Once in Pandule Mouse finds himself going through many traditions before the wedding ceremony, while meeting lots of new friends, enjoying the beach and oh lets not forget, facing demons who appear when things seem wrong, watching members of Pandule die due to catastrophic events and the soon-to-be ruler watching over everything as if everything was normal.

During the week that Mouse is visiting Pandule, a gang of thieves breaks through the castle to steal the princess, princess Loreille explains the outcome of this battle bit by bit, her predictions happen exactly as she stated. This is where Mouse realises something horribly wrong is going on and the soon-to-be ruler Sephiroth- sorry Xelpherpolis notices Mouses sudden notions about the island. It is here that Xelpherpolis is revealed to be the islands puppet master and everything on that island he controls.

As Mouse sees things getting worse and worse and Sephiroth- uh Xelpherpolis taking things not with fret but with laughter, Mouse feels enough is enough, and on the day of the wedding Mouse pulls out his sword and attacks Xelpherpolis only to be defeated and this is the time that Xelpherpolis explains that the Island was on a continuing loop, that the week would repeat over and over again and sure enough Mouse soon finds himself on the first day of the island, unaware that something is wrong, except it doesn't take long for him to realise that things were being repeated, it seemed that neither Mouse nor Pattimo are affected by the spell Xelpherpolis used on them to make them forget.

Few sorry about the long explination of the game. But that sums it up, from here on, Mouse must embark on going through the same catastrophes that had happened, again and again, with every bit of him willing to change things and break other members of Pandule from the spell. The story gets better and better with more twists and turns but I feel I've said way too much on the story.

Breaking the people of Pandule from the spell takes a lot of effort, and you really gotta know the right trick to doing things, more often then not, going through the week to see what happens to each member makes it a little easier to solve the many puzzles.

Lastly I'll mention the battles and the music. The battle is turn based and has excellent camera angles, shame about the camera angles when not in battle, the battles do seem incredibly easy apart from a few bosses but with a complex story maybe that's for the best. As for the music it really is magnifique if I wanted to choose to listen to RPG music it would be this, only second to Nobuo Uematsu.

Sadly it's not a game that one can just pick up and go with, if you don't feel that you can go through this games long lasting play, then you're probably not going to play through it like I did. If they made a remake for this game, improved the graphics, camera angles and have the ability to have more clues in the game to figure out what to do then maybe it'd see more play. But it's been 10 years since the release of Ephemeral Fantasia so who knows, I feel that Konami may have forgotten about this game or at least outside of Japan.


So that's my top 10 bad/unpopular/unknown/underrated/low budget games that I do very much enjoy. You might see some of these games in store and think "Well, maybe I'll give it a try." If you do hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as I did. Some of these so called not good games do actually turn out to be really good if you can have a reason to enjoy them.

Thanks for reading!


...so says Mr Stewart.