Mine is the Army Men series. Objectively mediocre games at best but the concept of toy soldiers fighting over our yards and rooms has always been cool to me

  • zacky_dont@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hell yeah, the Army Men games are so dope. Terribly clunky, combat leaves much to be desired, mediocre map layouts but goddamn do I still find them fun. Specifically Sarge’s Heroes, would love a switch port.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Shadow Man. It was definitely shit, but I played it for so many hours. The mood and the scale of it was incredible, but the controls and gameplay were sorely lacking. Even so, I found it incredibly immersive.

  • juliebean@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    i feel like there are two ways to interpret this question. some games are unpopular because they’re widely known, but considered to be not good, but others are merely niche games that never got widespread recognition.

    for the former, Mad Max (2015) got mixed reviews and seems to have been generally regarded as MEDIOCRE, but i still keep coming back to it every so often. for the latter, I wanna plug an old PS2 game called Steambot Chronicles, that has never gotten the recognition it deserves. Its a steampunk mech sandbox rpg, and is legit fantastic, but my partner is the only other person i’ve met that has even heard of it.

    • Signtist@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      I’ve heard of it! I just started my latest playthrough, and I was wondering if it ever got any love on Lemmy.

  • eldnikpw@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It’s your typical Ubisoft open world game, boring gameplay even on extreme difficulty but the world is so beautiful, and I love just driving around the map with no HUD.

    • baker@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      boring gameplay even on extreme difficulty but the world is so beautiful, and I love just driving around the map with no HUD.

      Hey, this is basically Skyrim and I’ve got 2k+ happy hours in that

  • Sev@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Russian Fishing 4. I’m not an IRL angler whatsoever but I love games that lean hard into real gear and simulation (as much as possible in a video game).

    Rf4 just has a good chunk of content and feels good. The other fishing games out there are a joke in comparison IMO.

    It’s unpopular because of grinds and the fish spawning, but I chalk it up to real life …sometimes, the day isn’t yours right?

  • VorpalPen@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I used to log in to armorgames.com to play shitty browser flash games occasionally. There was one “mmo” game called Rise of Mythos. It was a deck building collectible card game. I would play it for a few days then forget about it for 6 months. Over time I had a cool deck from years of occasionally logging in, never spent money on it though. Then one day I logged in and it was gone. I would have paid some money to keep it around.

    • manapropos@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Armor games was so great. I forgot what the games were called but I used to play one set in WW1 and it’s sequel set in WW2 all the time. There were 3 lanes and different troop types you could send in

  • grizzlyshark@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Creeper World. It’s like an RTS/TD type game that uses fluid dynamics that is always fun to go back to. The campaign writing and UI are just terrible but the gameplay is great and there are plenty of good community made maps to try.

  • pruwyben@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Eternal Card Game - basically an online MTG clone. It’s always been small, and the userbase has been gradually shrinking since it started. I still think it’s a great game though.

    • hightrix@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hey, this is awesome to see. I worked on Eternal back before launch.

      I thought it was a great digital version of mtg.

  • carrot@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Been playing Hero’s Hour recently from the itch summer bundle. Never played any Civilization style games before but this one is really fun.

  • manapropos@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Not a series but the Saboteur is an awesome AC/GTA clone set during WW2 that I never see anyone talk about

    Edit: special mention for Klonoa 2. My dad picked it up for me when I was a kid and I recently replayed it. It’s a pretty challenging 3D platformer with a story that will draw tears

  • fuzzyspudkiss@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    I played the hell out of this video game called Axis and Allies that I found for like $5 in cheap games section of Office Max around 2008. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it or share my experience. I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up if I played it today but back in '08 I was a pro.

    • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It was actually a board game first, and there have been a number of electronic versions throughout the years. I had one such adaptation on CD growing up in the late 90s, but I’m not sure it would be the same one you played.

      Cool game, though. I sunk lots of hours into it.

    • goosehorse@waveform.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m late to this party, but you might appreciate the open source Axis and Allies engine called TripleA.

      My step-dad was a big WWII history buff, and he had the pc version of Axis and Allies installed on the family computer! Loved it and occasionally fire up TripleA for nostalgia.

  • MolvanianDentist@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    The most unpopular/niche game series I’ve really liked is the Princess Maker series. Japanese games which only received official English translations recently, niche genre (life raising sim), some silly fanservicey elements… but it reminded me of playing with dolls when I was younger, and in some ways the Sims series also.

    Another series I liked which is much more well known but still has a small presence in the gaming consciousness is Star Fox. Character cameos in the Super Smash Bros series don’t count.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Daaaaaamn, I found a copy of Princess Maker 2 on the internet all the way back in 2002 or so, only years later I found out about the original translation and failed attempt to release it in the USA. I personally love PM2 and should play 3 sometime properly.

      • MolvanianDentist@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        The Princess Maker series are now officially available on Steam! Unfortunately the translation quality is quite poor and the unofficial DOS copy of 2 is much better in that regard, but it’s nice to have access to multiple entries in the series now.

        • sci@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          they also cut some content which was against steam rules. (underage nudity and such)

  • Tekchip@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Section 8 and Section 8 Prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(video_game)

    A fantastic pair of games which died too quickly because everyone saw the power armor and thought it was going to be a standard run and gun Halo style game. When in fact it had a mechanic that required dropping shields with certain types of weapons before you could then use other types to penetrate the armor. It also had a power management mechanic allowing you to move faster or use other abilities if you had the power remaining to do so.

    As a result all the Halo/COD bro’s bounced off the game because the few of us who took the time to understand and master those mechanics would just absolute wreck their faces. This unfortunately also included many critics/reviewers. Which results in a whole lot of “this game sucks”. In this case the bliss of ignorance killed both games.

    I enjoyed them immensely if briefly. They died too soon.

    • killadelphia@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I remember playing at least the first one back in the day. It was a solid shooter for sure. The problem now is that the video game market is so huge that unless you are providing a quality product which is being constantly updated people will move onto the next big thing.

  • Kinglink@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Dynasty Warriors, They are my “Dumb fun” game. I usually just turn off my brain and “grind” even though I usually call out every game for grinding or unnecessary combat.

    But something about that series makes me pick up every one and waste tens of hours just killing the same-ish soldiers over and over.

    • Lakija@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Same here. And if they come out with another one I’ll grab it. Although I didn’t play 9 because of bad reviews.

      But I did recently replay DW8 Empires yet again. Love it!

      I picked up a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to read finally.

      • GenericUsername34@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As someone who invested an embarrassing amount of time into each mainline game since 3, 9 was awful. I think there may have been a decent (musou) game under there, but even several years and patches later it’s rough. The battlefields are empty. The traversal is buggy. The upgrade system is grindy in the least fun way. I don’t want to mine metal in a DW game…

        The best musou games in the last 5-10 years have been spinoffs like Hyrule and Fire Emblem. I don’t have much faith in Koei Tecmo releasing a DW game that captures the essence of 3-5 in a modern way.

      • Kinglink@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I recently started 9… and it’s… Yeah It deserved most of the somewhat negative reviews, but it’s still a DW game. I honestly think they should have called it something like Empires. As an open world game it’s interesting and unique but it is a little too open for “DW”. IT feels like a half step in the wrong direction but if they continued on and made “Dynasty Warriors 10 World” with that system and improved it, it could be something pretty unique. Just not as the main line series.

        If you haven’t read Romance of the Three Kingdoms you’re in for a treat, I really enjoyed those books quite a bit, especially after being such a fan of the series. Getting more of the back story is great, and the characters are way more interesting.