/vr/ - Retro Games

Hourai Gakuen no Bouken! Tenkousei Scramble/The Adventure of Hourai High School

Star Ocean 2nd story for ps1

Yeah, what? Earthbound isn't that unique besides the Charlie Brown characters.

>>2326113

Anachronox is extremely atypical in every single way.

>>2326095
The Magic Candle, Quest for Glory series, ADOM, Uncharted Waters II.

For something really atypical: Insiders 1 for the PC-88/-98, a game where you're trying to navigate through a computer's hardware and software worlds in order to defeat Devil Halton (named after the Halton sequence). Basically a mash of pre-Exodus Ultima, Dragon Quest, and edutainment; you gain abilities/attacks related to computer science concepts, and you have to solve logic puzzles just to get experience from a battle. Not yet translated, of course. The sequel is based around hopping between computer networks.

TAO: The Way for Famicom.

One of the weirdest RPGs I've played.
To be honest it's hard to summarize what the game is about. It's very, very cryptic. Basically, you start off by going to a buddhist temple, and there you find out that a deity has stolen something important from the temple, you are then tasked to go on a quest to retrieve said stolen items, and also to stop an prophecy about the end of times. The game is set in 1999, but you can ride a dinosaur or a pterodactyl to travel from town to town, no idea why there are dinosaurs in 1999.
You go from town to town, meeting different characters. Most of them really, really weird. Dialogue in the game is like very cryptic, obscure riddles.
Main theme, as the name of the game suggest, is enlightment, and has a strong religious element. Mainly asian (Tao and buddhism) but you can also visit a christian church in one of the cities.

As you gain more experience, different kind of entities start attacking you, everytime more powerful ones. It has random encounters like most RPGs of the time, but battles are very weird, basically you just mash the A button as fast as possible to win. You get strongest weapons on items in order to deal more damage, and after you get a certain item, you can transform into some sort of entity yourself, or summon other deities, can't remember.

There is an english translation patch, it's not a very good translation though, but I've read people say even the original game in japanese is cryptic as fuck, probably on purpose.

The developers of this were Pax Softnica, who also worked on Mother.

>>2326117
Only really unique thing about Earthbound is the presentation, dude.

>>2326095
Live A Live

System shock 2
OFF
Deus ex

SMT/persona 2 in its story.

DBZ All Sagas Final

Play as your choice of the main DBZ cast, spawning enemies to fight and level up in Kami's palace before events happen (Namek invaded, Androids appear, Buu wakes up), go out and fight the events, then go back to fight and level up.

Also it's a Starcraft map. Bring your friends. One can even play as the enemies iirc.

>>2326095
Shodai Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun

should be easy to find it in english

>>2326182
There are so many good ideas in this game. It's really unfortunate that they all get so little time to shine.

>>2326095
Inindo - Way of the Ninja (SNES, non-linear free-roaming JRPG in feudal japan with unique battle system as well)
Sweet Home (NES, features fairly unique system where you have to split five characters into any combination of two parties and switch between controlling them on the fly)
Chaos Seed (SNES, completely unique JRPG about maintaining the balance of nature in a town by managing/defending a nearby cave)
Rudra no Hihou (SNES, features a customizable spellcasting system where you write any words you want and the letter combination determines the effects of the spell)
TAO - The Way (NES, weird game in general)
Hourai Gakuen no Bouken! - Tenkousei Scramble (SNES, JRPG with a high school setting and cool job system based around joining school clubs)
Live A Live (SNES, JRPG with unique game structure)
Bushi Seiryuuden - Futari no Yuusha (SNES, totally unique gameplay not sure how to describe it)
Arcana (SNES, card based dungeon crawler)
Metal Max Returns (SNES, non-linear JRPG about being a bounty hunter in a tank)
Holy Umbrella - Dondera no Mubo! (SNES, platformer RPG)
Niji no Silkroad (NES, JRPG based around buying and selling goods as a merchant)

Magic of Scheherazade
While it mainly is an action-RPG like Crystalis and Zelda it also features Dragon Quest like battles and job classes in an arabian setting. Give this a go if you are looking for unique RPGs.

Another game you could try is 100 World Story (or "Hyaku no Sekai no Monogatari" as the rom renaming tools call it) which is a very interesting and fun boardgame RPG hybrid.

Lastly I second >>2326114
I recently played through it for the first time and had shitloads of fun with it.

>>2326114
I would say Quintet in general always had unique JRPG.

But also I say Dragon Quest V might be one of the most stories here you live out the main characters life. And witness all the heartache and triumph in his whole life.

>>2326647
>totally unique gameplay not sure how to describe it
I like to call it a stat-heavy puzzle adventure, where the structure's typical of a JRPG but used to get players into new encounters so they can get experience and optimize strategies to gain magatamas. Beating enemies in as few turns as possible is really addictive; going with a side-scrolling view and multiple options for movement (gated by player limits/turns expended) is clever.

>>2326114
Started this right now. Setting seems like a breath of fresh air compared to all the jrpg i've tried so far. Why isn't this talked about as much as the others?

Chrono Cross
Monstania
Live a Live
Star Ocean 2
Legend of Mana
Energy Breaker
Metal Max Returns

>>2327739
Most Quintet talk focused on the ActRaiser games and Soul Blazer trilogy until recently, as Robotrek got an HG101 article and is getting discussion on /vr/.

>>2326175
And the writing, music, and just about everything except for the gameplay you pretentious anti-hipster.