Happyland, BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites

Obscure is relative. A lot of little ♥♥♥♥♥ these days don't know Commander Keen or Jazz Jackrabbit.

While John Carmack's tile refresh tech wizardry allowed PC sidescrollers to catch up to consoles, it was far from the first. I played the crap out of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZW0A3zFUTU

Jill of the Jungle is still a favorite of mine, but it's semi-sequel is less known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgS9Kkk16T4

I very much enjoyed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tceqj1x_Q8Q even though the studio were kind of scumbags with the whole Wacky Wheels chicanery.

I should have specified on Steam.

My best example of this would probably be:

https://steamhost.cn/app/908560/Intrepid_Izzy/

Everything is on Steam if you use https://steamhost.cn/app/1118310/RetroArch/ right.

Great Giana Sisters was a very highly regarded masterpiece, but never quite got the wider recognition it deserves. A good example of 'obscure, but not really'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1wOfDat6rA

The version on Steam has lousy reviews, so I would suggest emulating the DS version of the reboot. But it's against the rules to suggest that, so I won't.

It sucks that almost the entire Shantae series is on Steam in some form, but the original is still Gameboy Color only. Totally do NOT emulate it with retroarch.

Originally posted by Electric Cupcake:

It sucks that almost the entire Shantae series is on Steam in some form, but the original is still Gameboy Color only. Totally do NOT emulate it with retroarch.

It is also on the Switch eshop

Found one you haven't got yet!

https://steamhost.cn/app/236090/Dust_An_Elysian_Tail/

I am thinking of getting this on my next round of buying.

https://steamhost.cn/app/860950/Mark_of_the_Ninja_Remastered/

I really hope the Evercade remakes of Duke Nukem 1 and 2 get to PC at some point. And the real OST of DN2 is restored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlmBDu64QJk is a classic, though it's a bit overshadowed by Word Rescue and Math Rescue.

How do you define

• obscure?
  
• platformer?

Looking for the "platformer" tag in my library (there is no "obscure" tag in my library), sorting by playtime so the games I actually do know are first and filtering by 2D and gut-feeling, I can come up with these suggestions in no particular order:

https://steamhost.cn/app/236090/Dust_An_Elysian_Tail/
https://steamhost.cn/app/35720/Trine_2_Complete_Story/
https://steamhost.cn/app/692850/Bloodstained_Ritual_of_the_Night/
https://steamhost.cn/app/1016960/Super_Neptunia_RPG/

This one has no combat; it's more of a puzzle platformer:
https://steamhost.cn/app/72000/Closure/

Note that this is a stealth game:
https://steamhost.cn/app/860950/Mark_of_the_Ninja_Remastered/
I've only played the previous version, but I wouldn't expect this new one to be totally different...

Originally posted by Andrew R:

Looking because of the sale; I own 2 billion of them.

You should list them so we don’t suggest you any repeats.

Spelunky 1 and 2 are masterpieces of modern sidescrolling, but are hardly obscure.

Though they were heavily inspired by La-Mulana, which is arguably more obscure.

Also, Shovel Knight is a masterpiece, but too hard for little ♥♥♥♥♥ these days, so someone made the bone headed decision to contaminate with rewind and savestates to coddle them.

https://steamhost.cn/app/1162960/Angry_Video_Game_Nerd_I__II_Deluxe/

We love you, James.