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You play Final Fantasy; I play Shin Megami Tensei. You play Street Fighter; I play King of Fighters. You played Mega Man 2; I played all of them and VII is my favorite. Good day, kind sir or madams. I am the Grand Jackass of Obscurity and I don't care about popular opinion.
Something funny I've always noticed is that for some reason people tend to remember me even though I'm never going to remember them. I have nothing against the people themselves; I simply have an impossibly selective memory that doesn't care for such trifling details like names, faces, dates or any of those other things that society depends on in order to not fall into total chaos. Still, for ages people have given me nicknames. Sometimes it's out of fondness and sometimes it's not. Sometimes I can't even tell. One that's really stuck is my title of "Hater Mike." My title no doubt is partially because of my cynical nature. No doubt the other part is that I'm simply very willing to state both positive and negative opinions.
I am the friendly jackass. I'm cynical and rude in general at first glance but when you get to know me I'm actually fairly nice. I keep my distance from most people but it just takes one decent conversation before I'm willing to give you a chance. Still, I'm the kind of guy who forms his own opinion and I'm not afraid to state that opinion. Being so outspoken is what makes me a hater to a lot of people, and in some ways I do regard it as a talent. If absolutely nothing else, my opinions are my own and I do my best to form them logically. Sometimes I'm excessively negative, but when I put my mind to it I think I can give extremely solid reasons for why I do and do not like something.
I consider that a talent because so many people seem to like what they do for little reason other than it's what they know. They so often seem to take comfort in familiarity. We have slavish fanbases dedicated to mainstream titles that proclaim how incredible these generally popular games are. I have no way of knowing the circumstances behind each member of these fanbases. Regardless the ones I have seen lead me to believe that if many of these people took the time to expand their knowledge of games a bit: they wouldn't be so hopelessly obsessed with such a small group of games. As such I am the Grand Jackass of Obscurity. I take a certain pride in expanding my knowledge of a particular genre. Exploring it with a magnifying glass. I enter certain phases and begin studying everything available and experiment with as many games as I can. In time I'll have found those games which I feel fit me best.
I don't consider a game on the merits of its popularity but rather what it offers me that is unique and personally appealing. As such I feel I have an identity in regards to my gaming tastes. I took time to find what I liked and the games in my collection reflect my values and interests. At the same time I don't completely disregard mainstream gaming. To be a true Grand Jackass of Obscurity requires a knowledge of both the well and the little known. If it passes my own standard of quality and craftsmanship I will at least give it a shot eventually. There's only so much time in the world, though. Sooner than explore the mainstream options I will readily admit to choosing quirkier and in my mind more interesting titles first.
I often spend more time learning about new games than actually playing games. If you stretched the definition of hobby far enough, simply researching games in itself could probably qualify as a hobby for me. This probably started with my intense research of the Dreamcast library. I was a true fan of the system ever since it had come out and I was always, always searching for something to play on the machine. I scoured reviews of every kind, read summaries, checked out gameplay footage. I played as many Dreamcast games as I could and analyzed well over a hundred games. I found what looked interesting and I slowly whittled away what games I would invest myself in. I found the actual exercise of becoming a borderline expert of the Dreamcast library fun in itself. There was a time I likewise dedicated myself to becoming an expert of the DS library, buying and trying out just about everything on the platform from crappy racing ports like Need for Speed: Carbon to little known platformers like Legend of Kage 2.
I'm quite happy to see crazy new titles like Retro Game Challenge and Space Invaders Extreme find their way into my library recently, but have since tapped the majority of what I consider interesting titles on the DS and have moved on to the PSP. Currently I'm experimenting with Chibi-Robo on the DS. Since I'm on the subject of both my opinions and the DS: I'm one of the few people who thought Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was a work of pure genius in all regards, especially when speaking about the Temple of the Ocean King. I had great fun with the multiplayer, I scoured every inch of the world map and got almost every ship piece, and I can get to the end of the Temple of the Ocean King with only 15 seconds taken off my timer. In terms of how much I enjoyed the game I would actually place it up somewhere near the top of my Zelda list with A Link to the Past.
I think the Temple of the Ocean King is interesting enough to run through it just for the hell of appreciating it. How many of you people who complained about it even realized that there's dozens of shortcuts in it? That dungeon is a maze labor of love. Oh, yeah. I think the PSP and the Wii have lots of interesting games too.
To this day I still do engage in perplexing activities and can waste hours at a time drudging through my Goozex account looking for some new little game to toss on to my request list. Merely playing games is not part of my identity as a games enthusiast. As the Grand Jackass of Obscurity I'm always trying to find something new and interesting to expand my appreciation of gaming with. My spare time and my common sense are in a never ending battle over whether I should dedicate myself into researching a new game I'd never heard of. All this time I spend outside of games could be spent on games, but somehow I don't think that would be as interesting.
I am the Grand Jackass of Obscurity. In some small way I always seem to be the minority and I'm quite happy to be so. The Wii has more games that interest me than the other next generation consoles. I think Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are way over rated. I thought God Hand was one of the single greatest concepts in the history of history even though it was basically a half-complete game.
I'm perfectly open to listening to opposing viewpoints, but if you plan on talking me ear off about how great some game is you better bring some meat to the table. Prepare for me to think differently from you while I'm at it: I'm not afraid to do so. I'm a jackass that doesn't like frivolous conversation nor being a simple yesman. Often times I find more enjoyment in talking about games than even playing them. In analyzing them and simply experiencing them. In studying them and then trying to do them proper justice in my writings. Seemingly pointless research is in my blood. Catch me in the right mood and I'll be enough of a dick to haze you when I'm done scouring Wikipedia for information on Twinkle Star Sprites. I'm a jackass like that.
Talking out your ass is fun as hell, I might add.
Contest:
5:30 PM on 02.11.2010 | 
Good write up, fap'd.
And, I must say that I agree with pretty much everything you said here. Searching out obscure games is fun. :] Alas, from reading this, I fear that I may only be able to dream of getting up to your level someday. ;p
Also, Retro Game Challenge 2 is amaaaaaaaaaazing.
I unfortunately lost my rival schools for PSX, and the not-perfect-emulation on MAME doesn't do it justice.
Still fun to whoop my sorry ass friend in, though.
@Magnalon: Zoel sent me an R4 not too long ago. I buy all my games so I only have one real use for it. Is Retro Game Challenge 2 very import-friendly?
@Caspulex: I may actually have a spare copy of the game in my trading thread sometime in the near future. I intend to have a revival as the Trading Sultan by bringing in Grade A Merchandise like Project Justice, Einhander, Fatal Frame II, and all other manner of hard to find games.
@grafkhun: Everyone's got their guilty pleasure. Personally my first person shooter of choice had always been Deus Ex. Unfortunately I don't think it's aged very well and I never heard good things about the semi-sequel.
@BulletMagnet: If anyone could still my crown of obscurity it would be you, sir. You got what it takes to be a Grand Jackass to back it up, though?
All the menus are the exact same as the first game; so if you're a junkie of RGC 1, you'll feel at home.
You will need translations for the challenges themselves, but they're easy to find.
Great blog!
@Funktastic: I think Zoel would beat just about anyone in the fight for King of Obscurity.
Kudos sir, for I'm confident in the level of your own appreciations.
@Magnalon, I also freaking love how rival schools has 2 disks! I found it at a pawn shop for a couple dollars a few months, but it only came with the second disk. Luckily one disk is all you need to play!
@Wry Guy, do indeed keep a tight hold on that hat, bulletmagnet seems to be the heir to that throne.
As someone who agrees completely with your first sentence (though I prefer the unfair horrors of Mega Man 1 to 7, and BlazBlue/Guilty Gear are preferable to SF and KoF), I approve.
Now I'll have to go into the attic and find my PS1 and Rival Schools disk. Damn you.
I never know where to start when I want to insult someone. Your write up was long and therefore made me angry many times, but what's a good starting point?
How about this: did you know that some people like things because they aren't mainstream as much as others like things because they are? You sir, are what I call... a no-man. It's the opposite of a yes-man and unless you're aware of it it's just as shallow. At least now that I've told you, you know.
A wise man called Edwin once proclaimed "nine out of ten can't be wrong". Saying metal gear solid, or anything for that matter, is over-rated is blatantly stupid. By whose rating is it over-rated? The masses? So you're saying everyone else's opinion is wrong? Or less meaningful because they agree with each other? Get fucked.
Saying Final Fantasy is over-rated is stupid for an altogether more subtle reason; half of everyone agrees with your assertion! In the words of Bart Simpson, the ironing is delicious.
Ok, now it's story time. In 2009, for Christmas, I received Modern Warfare 2 as a gift. It was my first Call of Duty game ever, it's my first FPS since Goldeneye, and it's my first foray into the world of online gaming. And I love every second of it. Now, call me crazy. That's a complete thought, since your article clearly seems to take that stance. And you know what makes it great, to me at least, in my opinion (which you may immediately disregard as inferior) is that so many other people are always enjoying it with me. Yeah. I like it simply because it's mainstream and it's not unbearably awful. If you think that makes me a sheep then I've failed in making my point clear, or you've missed it for some other reason.
Appreciating a medium isn't about studying its subtleties, its intricacies or its rarities.
@DonkeyKong: I have nothing against mainstream titles. I have something against people never expanding their familiarity with games while at the same time talking my fucking ear off about the greatest game of all time. You're by all means entitled to thinking of me as a no-man, but you miss the point of a simple article made for fun.
I appreciate games because I actually like them. Call me whatever you like. Enjoy Modern Warfare all you want, sir. When did I ever tell you that you had an inferior opinion for it? Modern Warfare is polished and if you enjoy shooting games it's one of the best options there are. I have plenty of ancillary reasons to dislike Modern Warfare that mostly boil down to being geared toward Activision. I don't have an actual grudge with Infinity Ward of the people who make the game.
Enjoy your Modern Warfare, fuck if I care. I personally have sold the game to well over a thousand people and I've only ever had negative thoughts about them when the person him or herself seemed like a douchebag. If they weren't douchebags there's a good chance I had some kind of chat with them too.
As for Final Fantasy all I have to say is: So what? Half of everyone agrees with me, thus it's stupid that I agree with one out of two people? Do I fucking care if anyone agrees with me? Where did I say it was wrong to like the games you like? Simply ask yourself this: Why are you assuming that I'm dismissing you when I never said anything about you? I have only addressed a single type of person in this article: Members of slavish fanbases who rant and rave about how incredible their games are. The entire rest of the article is simply me speaking about myself and how I consider that I have a talent in comparison to that. I never actually said anything against those types of people either. Merely that they may become less ravish if they expanded their knowledge and mellowed out.
I don't know you, sir. The only impression I have of you is the fact that you're telling me to get fucked. Even then I don't really care because I'm well aware of the fact you don't know me either. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're a cool guy under normal circumstances.
@Risky: How did you know about my global diet pill pryamid scheme?
@SuperD1984: Touche, sir.
@Lucas: To clarify I have a fair appreciation of (2D) fighting games in general. If you read my King of Fighters Love Letter, in the first article you'll understand my exact feelings toward Street Fighter. In summary I consider it a technical masterpiece but I just naturally gravitate toward KOF a lot more and wish more people would give it a chance.
@agentarsenic: Well, considering the fact that I try to keep appreciating Deus Ex but can't help but feel it's dated it might be worth giving the sequel a shot. The thing about the original is you just can't get anywhere unless you want to spend forever doing it. Seriously, as something of a completionist in that game it takes a good 2 hours to finish any particular area. On one hand I love it and on the other there's a ton of fluff to such an experience.
@Raider22: Like I said I somewhat exited my DS phase lately, so the more recent stuff I'm not quite as familiar with. Really as someone who works in a game store the grand majority of DS titles can be considered obscure. Very few DS games sell well enough to circulate through the impossible sea of shovelware the system houses. Once a lot of games sell new, good luck ever finding them again used. To obscurity they will go.
A lot of BileSoup's recommendations are solid, but they're also all games I phased out of my own collection for one reason or another. Custom Robo Arena absorbed a very large chunk of my life, but when you get into that just be prepared for a bit of an uneven experience in the multiplayer and with all the Custom Robo games we have: a really cheesy and kinda pointless story.
In terms of actual fun I'd say Custom Robo Arena is a really good shot. Lunar Knights I could only half get into. From a design standpoint I thought the game was just broken. There's so many little nitpicks I could throw at that game if I went back and played it. Still it's worth a shot to see if you like more than I did.
If I get more detailed than this the post will go on forever. BileSoup's recommendations are solid if not perfect games. For the price you can find them these days (if you can), they're all highly recommended. I'll personally toss in that both Mega Man ZX games deserve a chance. In terms of overall polish I'd say ZX tops anything in the Mega Man Zero series and ZX Advent has a share of flaws but a terribly brilliant concept that's worth checking out.
Also, Trauma Center 2 is a game that's so impossibly superior yet it seems nobody bought it. The game sat on my store's shelves for months and kept on hitting price drops until it eventually faded away. It's so fucking good it's criminal. If you liked the first you owe it to yourself to say screw the Wiimote and pick up your scalpel stylus.
I have a pair of outdated DS and Dreamcast threads in the forums with brief advice. Some day I might convert them into more detailed Recommendation Blogs.
Inconceivable!
Translation: "I just googled that Donkey."
@Quistinix: That's actually a game that I never tried out. I'd contemplated trying it many, many times and yet never found reason to give it a real shot. You might say it was never well advertised to me. The whole "You aren't really in control of the character" thing sounded kind of offputting.
When I wrote my first comment I thought about whether I should edit it to make the tone less offensive. I'm not suggesting I offended you, only that I tend to disregard opinions when they're thrust upon me with aggression and I assume most people have that in common with me. For that very reason, I don't like thrusting my opinions aggressively as though they are some pelvis on a very special mission. It's not the right way to get heard and I did myself a disservice by employing such an approach.
I could tell by your original article that you weren't classifying all mainstream games as write-offs but there was something there, something in your tone that irked me. And now I've figured it out.
There was once an employee at my local EB who, when I asked for a suggestion between two games, preempted his response with a warning that he was a "snobby gamer". I'd never heard the term and to this day I'm not sure if he just made it up. It's the only time I've ever heard anyone describe himself as a snob.
I guess your article reminded me of him, but you never once called yourself a snob. It made me want to call you out. Especially here on destructoid, where I can glance to the sidebar and see links to dozens of articles delving far deeper into the world of gaming and not just games themselves, indie games and mainstream alike, discussions mixed with dissections, reviews and previews and all other manner of things. It just seemed like you thought you were a little bit too special and then the internet happened and I overreacted.
Also... ok so I read most of your response but I went to read the rest of it now to see if I needed to clarify anything else or if I should just click post, and at the end you assumed I'm a cool guy under normal circumstances. You must be the most level-headed guy in the world to respond with such class to a man who swore at you on the internet. What is the world coming to?
In conclusion... you're right, there isn't enough time to play them all.
Do you have a favorite SMT?
Wry Guy: Me? But I'm me!
ME: You're me? Then who am I?
Wry Guy: I'm YOU!!!!
Seriously though, I'm just like you describe yourself. Sometime I wonder why I spend so much time researching games instead of playing them.
Then I realize that, for e.g. I played trespasser on my 100 MHz Pentium more than a decade ago, and it blew my mind.
It blew...but it also blew my mind.
But I formed my opinion about it, unlike most net denizens who seem to bash it for no tangible reason other than they've heard/read that its bad.
Stuff like that gives me some impotent, yet smug, satisfaction.
Great write up.
I know I'll enjoy it, though. The RPG satire in itself was pretty amusing and the game was easy to pick up in a matter of minutes. Sounds like a winning formula to me.
@TurboKill: Unfortunately I can't call myself a fan of Dragon Quest, but I did enjoy Rocket Slime. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker didn't really do it for me, nor did Dragon Quest VIII. The DS Remakes are tempting me to give the series another shot some day, but only when I'm really out of options for something to play.
My favorite SMT game is hard to pinpoint. The natural thing to say would be Persona 3 because that's the one I started on, but I like just about all of them. Devil Summoner is my underdog favorite since I wish more people would show it some love. I thought it was a really nice addition to the series. Devil Survivor is a work of utter brilliance as far as I'm concerned. The only one I can't say I have much fondness for is Digital Devil Saga 2.
Probably in order of the ones I've found the time to play so far: Persona 3, Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga, Devil Summoner / Devil Summoner 2, Nocturne, Persona PSP, Digital Devil Saga 2.
The only one I really have trouble getting into is the last one, though. Even then I still found some things to enjoy about the game like the inclusion of the ring system and some really really good music.
To throw in my 2 cents on a few of the ongoing topics:
-Deus Ex Invisible War is, in fact, pretty good, though I still prefer the first one.
-Contact is excellent, and whoever told you you're 'not in control of the main character' was full of it.
-You cemented my fap with your mention of Legend of Kage 2, which was criminally overlooked. No faps now, but you know what I mean.
-I'm glad to hear someone else say they didn't think Mega Man 7 was shit. It might not be my absolute favorite, but I've always loved it.
-You're absolutely right, the PSP and the Wii both have tons of interesting content out. Neither system is given the hardcore respect they deserve.
How come I've never heard of Uniracers?
@Caspulex: Here's a better question: Why would anybody ever tell you about Uniracers? That's the SNES game, idn't it?
A topic sprung up on GameFAQs and everyone's praising how awesome it is in between our blatherings on random subjects. I wonder if it's good or not.
@CASPULEX
Uniracers was a pretty bitchin' game and all, especially for its time. It's still pretty sweet nowadays. It was awesome, since it was a 2D racer, but made itself seem 2.5 - 3D-ish. It did so by having a blindingly fast pace, as well as flips, u-turns, spirals, and jumps interspersed in its courses. The fact that each racer had its own stats as well was pretty sweet. If you see it for $20 or less, I'd definitely pick it up.