The unofficial "games that deserve more love" thread - Page 2

This thread begins and ends with two of the best beat 'em up games that almost no one played:

- Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara
This was an arcade game made by Capcom that let you choose from the standard D&D classes (fighter, cleric, mage, elf, dwarf) each with their own respective strenghts and weaknesses in terms of speed/stamina/strength/etc. But what really set it apart from other beat 'em ups was the fact that you gained experience to level up, learned new spells and also had a fairly sizable inventory to manage as well, which included additional weapons and items to use. You could also purchase additional items at a store at the end of each level with the gold you collected. Aside from being an outstanding action game, it made pretty great use of the D&D license and took you to some great locales and featured liberal use of classic D&D monsters. Sadly, due to licensing issues, the only time it was ported outside the arcade was in Japan for the Saturn. It's worth tracking down a MAME arcade emulator just for this title alone.

- Guardian Heroes
A beat 'em up for the Saturn that is absolutely sublime. Great music and some of the best arcade-style action in any game ever. This, the D&D game above and Strider rotate being my favorite classic action game.

Oh man, I love this game. I still bust it out and play it every so often if I just feel like letting off some steam, even though I've unlocked everything long ago.

My favourite unlockable is playing as Savage Banner. That is just incredibly funky to watch.

Has anyone read Play magazine's april 2008 issue? There is a report on AOU 2008 and Namco Bandai has an arcade game...Wacky Races. No images but maybe it will get a US console release.

Justin Clark, I also enjoy Strider 2. I haven't played it for a while, but it was a terrific game.

Mr Gittes, I would love to see a Capcom Classic Collection 3 featuring both of their D&D games along with The Punisher arcade game of the early 90's.

Does anyone remember a Magic: The Gathering arcade game? Probably not. I wouldn't know about it either, except that I had a friend who worked for Wizards of the Coast when Magic was all the rage, and they had one in the offices. It really was a pretty damn cool game. I was always disappointed that it never made it to consoles. It wasn't the card game, exactly; it was a much more action-oriented take on the same ideas. But it's rare to find an arcade cabinet game with actual strategy.

Greg David, Go to klov.com (killer list of videogames) for screens and description of Magic The Gathering Armageddon, the game came out in 1997

Awesome. Thanks for the info.