Shepherd's Crossing 2, for the DS. I've put a truly ridiculous number of hours into it over the years, and keep coming back.
It's not popular in the farm sims because a key part is butchering your meat animals so you can feed your dogs.
I would say Rebel Galaxy and especially Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw, which reminds me of Wing Commander: Privateer for the "Good game with little recognition".
For the "Objectively bad but I still love it" type, Lichdom: Battlemage and Technomancer are deeply flawed but wonderfully fun gems that require you to ignore some pretty big problems to find your enjoyment in them. Same with DarkStar One and the Starpoint Gemini series.
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.
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.
I love it too, but I still prefer MTG because it's what my friends play.
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?
Mine is Alpha Protocol. While it has some minor cult status its really Obsidians least known modern title.
Its clunky and ugly, but one of the best espionage RPGs with tons of meaningful choices and really unbalanced combat (looking at you pistol head shot god). I would kill for a sequel.
i like a couple games that are not really obscure, but are far from the most popular MMOs or well received sequels:
Fallout 76 is a mixed bag for me. I love a lot of the mechanics and it can be awesome for RP, but I just downright detest the monetization and lack/restrictions of features other survival games (and other fallout games) have.
yeah, to be fair though it's their first try at an MMO. The general mechanics of MMOs are horrible, like what you're saying. I actually never played any previous fallout games as I took a 20 year break from video games, other than halflife 2 (6 years late) and lot of 80s/90s games on emulation. I am considering actually playing fallout 3 and 4 sometime. Pretty much what I wanted was a halflife MMO, and 76 is like, sort of like that. I would prefer a more techy and desolate feel - i also en joy the campy nature and humor of the game, though. Halflife 1/2 was sort of disconcerting and horrifying.
Penny Racers was the jam, way back in the day. It was our family game, but unfortunately I played too much, and no-one could keep up.
Circuit Breakers is a really good Micro Machines clone. I still take it with me when the old ps-systems get carried around.
Biofreaks and WU-TANG:enter the pain are so much fun. Stupid gory party fighters with more jank than a dump site, but I don't care.
Been playing Hero's Hour recently from the itch summer bundle. Never played any Civilization style games before but this one is really fun.
While they sell millions, typical „Ubisoft formula“ games are critically unpopular because they‘re dumbed down treasure hunts, and I enjoy them (in moderation) exactly because of that. Sometimes I just wanna turn my brain off and walk to map marker #312 while taking in the sights.
Not sure how unpopular it is, but "The Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary" is a great remaster of a game which I think is a bit forgotten now. It's still a really fun and charming citybuilder with unique mechanics.
I don't think it's unpopular as in "people don't like it". I get the impression that very few people in the US have ever heard of this series, which is a shame.
I think there is a FOSS projects based on Settlers 2 called Widelands. If you like that, it might be worth checking out.
A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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