Asklemmy

An old PS1 fighting game called Unholy War. It had a lot of really unique mechanics I haven't seen since.

I don't even remember the name but the game where you run around a weird post apocalyptic world dueling with decks of cards. I would love a modern remake.

Edit: Phantom Dust!

I waited to see if anyone mentioned it, but, POD. A old 1997 racing game from Microsoft built by Ubisoft. You can get the gold edition on GoG for rather cheap but I would absolutely love to see a remaster or remake. Unfortunately I would rather it not be made by Ubisoft as I don’t want to be forced into a separate account login setup from Ubisoft.

Rampage

Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it's easily the most-fun shmup I've ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I've managed to 1cc the game, but I've never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it's even possible without a very specific strategy or something.

Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn't do the best job with it. Still playable, though.

Seibu Kaihatsu's Dynamite Duke (1989), a pretty novel hybrid Cabal-like/Beat-'em-up with a lot of love put into it. The arcade version's got a pretty slick art direction, the environmental destruction vfx rock, and the animation's pretty slick. The whole thing's got that passion project charm to it. Unfortunately, Cabal clones were only really in vogue in that late '80s/early '90s space, and the beat 'em up gameplay isn't fleshed out or consistently applied enough to be satisfying in a post-Final Fight, post-Streets of Rage world. I'd like to see something like it, but there's no way to bring Duke into the world of modern game design practices without drastic reformulation at a minimum.

Notably, Seibu had really high hopes for Duke, being a passion project and a intended magnum opus. Unfortunately, lukewarm reception brought in poor returns, the company slipped into dire straits, and they were forced to make something simpler and lower stakes as a hail mary. That title - a simple, Toaplan-esque shooter nobody had any real faith in - turned out to be Raiden, which would become a darling in arcades, pushing 17,000 units solds worldwide in the first year after release, and becoming the fifth highest grosser on the Japanese market in 1991. (Beating out some offerings from much bigger players like Konami)

Magic carpet 2, the Netherworlds is one I played a ton and think of from time to time. I wonder what I modern remake would be like.

It's the first game I remember playing with deformable terrain.

I was gonna say I was still waiting for a seaman 2, but apparently it existed in Japan. Still, with AI bullshit being all the rage I could see it make a comeback.

Bit of a deep cut, but Tobal #2. TOTALLY ahead of its time as far as 3d fighters were concerned; and chock full of Toriyama design.

Burning Rangers from sonic team on the Sega Saturn. Such a unique concept.

Underrated:

• Scarlet Nexus
• Wii U Gameland
• Colobot

Deserves a Second Chance:

• Atomega (Died because ubisoft didn't update it)
• Biomutant, Lots and lots of dialogue but I actually liked it

Kolibri for the Sega 32x addon for the Genesis/Megadrive. Most of the reviewers that weren't down with the game either complained about the difficulty or lack of story/making sense, but it was a beautiful game for the time that took the space shooter concept and made it into a game that was somehow chill while also being difficult enough to sometimes momentarily make you want to rage quit. If you enjoy games like the Raiden series, you'll enjoy this.

Shout to Knuckles Chaotix (the most unique take on Sonic gameplay of the classic 2D era) and also Shadow Squadron (very Star Fox-esque), which are also slept on because 32x.

Exclusive to the Genesis/Megadrive, it's a crying shame that the Vectorman games never received a third iteration and have seemingly disappeared into the grey goo of IP purgatory. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 were amazing for the time: they were arguably the best 2D platformers of the era, graphically beautiful, oozing with charm, and with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it all. It's crazy that the developers were able to squeeze the performance they did out of the hardware and playing emulated versions of it now still doesn't compare to how it feels and looks playing it on the original hardware with a CRT and a nice sound system (but you should still check it out absent that setup).

On PC, also from the 90s, Descent was truly groundbreaking and unique. It's an FPS that said "what if you were playing as a space ship and had six degrees of freedom to move about?" It was also the first truly 3D FPS game.

Ark the lad twilight of the spirits. One of my favorite classics!

Legend of Kage for NES was an awesome minimalistic beautiful game and I’ve never met anyone else who thinks so

Don't know quite how underrated/forgotten this is, but I wanna see a remake of Vib-Ribbon. That, or have an open source clone of it made by someone who actually knows how to properly program (not me), if it already doesn't exist.

Retro/Grade is a rhythm/shooter mashup where you travel backwards through time and un-fire a bunch of lasers to un-kill a bunch of ships. It was designed for a guitar hero controller if I recall? I found the visuals nauseating and the music lackluster but that premise is gold and deserves another chance.

Also PLEASE play the music backwards??? It's a game about going back in time, c'monnnnn.

Rock Manager. It was very limited in scope and quite short, but it was a really fun game with tons of potential.

I've been unsuccessfully looking for games like it that are as good as it could have been or even as good as it was for over 20 years now.

Marble Blast!!

It was one of the first PC games I played as a kid. Incredibly simple mechanics: you are a marble and you roll and try to reach the finish line (sometimes you need collectibles first). But the level design was top notch. Perfect blend of challenging and rewarding.