I recently replayed Tom & Jerry for the PS1, a game that is clearly low budget but still is still fun to play, especially when playing against someone else.

This being the retrogaming community, I expect to hear about games up to the 360/PS3 era 😁

I picked up Summoner for PS1 forever ago and didn’t expect much. Turns out, it was pretty amazing.

Another was Phantom Fighter for NES. The music still gets stuck in my head lol.

Woah I played Summoner on my Mac and loved it. I can't imagine how it would run on PS1 though 😅

Katamari Damacy. It was just $20 on release and I didn't know exactly what to expect but loved loved it.

Audiosurf was the first game I ever bought on Steam. That was my first introduction to indie gaming and it’s still quite a fun game. Highly recommended to anyone with a large local music library.

Oh it was awful on PS1 lol. Slow and choppy and yet still fun 😅

There was a sequel, but I never got a chance to play it (couldn’t find it)

Cave story is a fun side scroller and an indie release, same with monster sanctuary & shovel knight. For older ones I think you'll find more plentiful on pc since consoles were both more expensive for an indie to develop for and less likely to print physical media games from an unknown person or team. Adventure games, fps doom and quake mods and clones, elder scrolls mods, myst/fmv clones like the journeyman project, descent clones were pretty popular too.

Cartoon Network Racing. Clearly mostly made to make money off yoing kids who like the CN shows they had included in the game. I'm talking about the PS2 version since I have zero experience with the DS version. Fun in its own way.

Similar things apply to the Ed Edd 'N Eddy Mis-Ed-Ventures gamecube port and PS2 port of Codename Kids Next Door Operation V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. as well.

None of these games are more than tie in games with enough content to make the kids buying them not get bored quickly, but yeah, they're all fun in their own rights when doing a blind playthrough... something I wish I could do for these games again.

That's a game I've only ever played somewhat recently, the unity remaster. Never expected such a banger intro, or a gameplay that's essentially dung beetle being so damn fun!

Summoner on PS1? I can only find images of it for the PS2

I don't know the budget, but I see a lot of mobile games in Southend Interactive's catalog, so:

Deathrow

A 4v4 fictional combat sport title. It's fun enough to play for a day or so... but if you can find 3 other people to sit on the couch and play with, that's where it can be really fun.

Our strategy was to usually have 1 person be the forward, 2 people be enforcers who stomped the enemy into the asphalt, and the goalie would try to prevent any early scores until the opposing team was knocked unconscious.

I think you mean for the PS2. Did you watch the easter egg?

For older ones I think you’ll find more plentiful on pc since consoles were both more expensive for an indie to develop for and less likely to print physical media games from an unknown person or team.

PS1 and PS2 had plenty of low budget titles, the first thanks mainly to the Net Yaroze console. Sure, you still had to get the OK from Sony, but the market was also significantly larger than any PC.

That's a good point, my perspective on that is definitely colored by personal experience. Most of the console games I had were from second hand or toy stores that were mostly first party and licensed games, while pc I saw more in local computer stores that would have eclectic selections compared to corporate stores.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Like Just Cause, but the buildings are also destructible. Pure mayhem.

Thomas Was Alone is low budget and an excellent game.

Ah you’re right! Definitely PS2. I still have it somewhere packed away with a ton of other older games.

Nah uh? There’s an easter egg? (Runs to DDG)

It's on Youtube if you don't feel like digging the game out.

Parachute Joust, Amiga. I think it was free with a magazine. Very silly fun for two players. As the title suggests you fight over a parachute until it's time to pull the cord and the loser smashes through a barn roof.

https://www.lemonamiga.com/game/parachute-joust

Unreal was really cheap when it was released. 25 DM I think. I guess for Epic it was just a way to show off the engine. It was especially beautiful on Voodoo cards. It would be years until other games would have a skybox that could rival Unreal's. Even Unreal Tournament's looked worse.

Growing up, I had a lot of fun playing Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster’s Hidden Treasure.

It was a 2D platformer game, probably one in a million back then, but i really enjoyed it.

Here’s some gameplay.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit had one of the toughest endgame bosses i've ever fought.

As a Konami game, I don't think it could be considered low budget back then. Though I guess my question can be interpreted as "the game was cheap" :P

Ya, you’re probably right. I guess “obscure” would be more fitting. It wasn’t even my game - there was one other household in my small town that had a Genesis and we traded games.

Rugrats Search for Reptar and Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase for PS1.

Every Day Shooter is another one which I think was made by one guy. Though got ported to PS3 and PSP

Mercenaries 1 on PS2 was also great.

Not sure these are all low budget, but some always seemed overlooked or underrated. Some I see as imperfect gems of their time.

PS2

• Just Cause 1
• Mercenaries 1
• Rebel Raiders: Operation Nighthawk
• Spartan: Total Warrior
• Super Trucks Racing
• Tom and Jerry: War of the Whiskers

PS3

• Alice: Madness Returns
• Drakengard 3
• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
• Far Cry 2
• History Civil War: Secret Missions
• LAIR
• Naughty Bear
• Overlord
• RUSE
• Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
• The Saboteur
• Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
• Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
• Viking: Battle for Asgard

PSP

• Blood Bowl
• Field Commander
• Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade
• Ys Seven

PS Vita

• Army Corps of Hell
• Deception IV: Blood Ties
• Dungeon Hunter: Alliance
• Ys: Memories of Celceta
• Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

GameCube

• Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters

Wii

• Excite Truck

paperboy was pretty epic.

Quite a few of the various Simple series' games on PS1 and PS2. Some of them were translated and released in Europe and the USA, but many more weren't. Not too many lost gems there, though. Most of the games that stayed in Japan aren't anything special.

The series started out as basic implementations of card and board games to be sold for a low price, then moved into fairly generic video games in established genres, but eventually the various developers started making somewhat original, low-budget games, and some of them are pretty good, especially considering their budgets.

I'm not sure how the games are connected as a series, although they definitely are, because they're numbered in order of release on the original covers. But they're made by many different developers, and even in Japan there seems to have been at least two publishers releasing them.

Not sure if this quite counts, but Catherine for the PS3/X360 was the first title that came to mind.

That game was so dripping with atmosphere. That level late in the game where the lights went out and those spider things were nipping at your ankles was the first time a game genuinely scared me.

I had a surprising amount of fun with Sheep Dog and Wolf that I got for $5 from a bargain bin something like 20 years ago.

Didn't it get a reboot? I remember my cousins and I discovered the original on an Asian bootleg device with 400 games or something.

The humor sensibilities really got to us

I just watched someone play through this on Twitch. Such a weird game.

According to wikipedia, it was D3, a subsidiary of Bandai/Namco that began the series, just to have some budget titles, really.

Is there any that you particularly enjoyed playing? :P

I don't think obscure would fit better. Another poster mentioned some Cartoon Network PS2 titles, which I doubt would count as obscure, same for most other tie-ins.

Yes, when I first realized that being published in Japan by D3 Publisher was a common denominator between these weird and wonderful budget games that I found, I became very interested in them. My friends actually went to TGS one year and got everything they could from the D3 booth for me.

However, since I've moved to Japan, I've continued researching and collecting vintage games, and I've found that while the majority of Simple Series games were published by D3 Publisher, especially the PS2 games, there are also some titles that were officially published by other companies. I guess it all leads back to D3 somehow, though. Also, D3 Publisher was still independent in the years these games came out.

My favorites include (Almost all PS2):

• The Zombie vs Ambulance (aka Zombie Virus). Drive an ambulance around a zombie-infested city, rescuing survivors and upgrading your vehicle.
• The OneeChanbara series. Slay blood-gushing zombies as an inexplicably bikini-clad, cowboy-hat-wearing swordswoman with light adventure/Metroidvania elements. The earlier ones are better IMO; as time went on they focused more and more creepily on the sexy female characters which were initially mostly a gag, especially after the movie (Yes, a movie!) came out.
• RC de Go! (PS1) Race in a remote-control car league.
• The Sniper 2 (direct sequel to a PS1 game I own but haven't played). Play a sniper blackmailed into doing missions for a crime syndicate while you try to find a way out.
• The Ninkyo (aka Yakuza Fury). It's pretty fair to call this a very barebones Yakuza (Ryu ga Gotoku) knock-off, but it has its charms.
• The Nihon Tokushubutai (aka Special Forces). A strange hybrid of FPS and realtime strategy in which you control a SWAT team in various scenarios.
• The Helicopter (aka Radio Helicopter). Fly a radio helicopter around your neighborhood while completing arbitrary but fun challenges. There's another game that was marketed as "Radio Helicopter 2" in PAL territories, but it seems to be completely unrelated and not even a Simple Series game. I have it and didn't find it nearly as fun as the original.

There are more that look very interesting but I haven't played them yet, so I don't feel I can recommend them. And there are also some real dogs, naturally, although I should say that even the ones I've listed can be something of an acquired taste. The Earth Defence Force series started as Simple Series games too, although I haven't played any of them

While I was writing this I remembered a few more of my favorite budget games that weren't Simple Series games:

• Sanvein (aka Starfighter Sanvein) on PS1. I'm not normally one for overhead shooters but I was really taken with this one. There's an interesting light strategy element to it.
• TheDog Island on PS2 and Wii. Inspired by a line of stationery and decorative items, it's a collect-'em-up with light Metroidvania elements aimed at younger players, but quite fun and addictive.
• The Puppy/Kitty and the Magic Hat (aka Petz Dogz/Catz 2) on PS2 and Wii. A spiritual sequel to TheDog Island, they're actually two games which appear to be identical except that one is populated by dogs and the other by cats (I have the cat version).
• Choro-Q High Grade 2 (aka Road Trip Adventure). Choro-Q is a line of kids' toy cars that older Westerners may remember as Penny Racers. Naturally there is a whole slew of tie-in kids' games in Japan, from the Famicom onward, but for me this particular game is a standout. There's racing, sure, and it kind of sucks, yes, but the meat of the game is exploring a massive open world, solving mysteries, and figuring out how to get to various places and which special vehicle parts you'll need. It includes a "soccer" minigame which feels like a possible inspiration for Rocket League, but in a game that came out many years earlier.

N2O on the PS1, I loved that game. Really simple and straightforward, you’ve got a ship, you’re in a tube, you’re killing bugs. Crystal Method did the soundtrack and you could put it into a CD player and listen to it like a music CD.

Xbox 360 - I Maed a Gam3 w1th Z0mb1es 1n It!!!1

My first experience with indie games on console. I properly loved how much it made me believe it was possible for an anybody to make it as a game dev. Such a bad game, technically speaking, but it had a certain charm in that it knew it was bad, and reveled in it, and was also legitimately kinda fun.

I can't quite describe the feeling. Knowing its shit but being excited by it anyway. Like when your child shows you a picture they drew.

If there’s any girls there I want to do them!

I was constantly reminded of paperboy every time I tried pulling a heavy pallet at my old job. Motherfuckers just jumping out at you out of nowhere trying to kill themselves on you

A rom hack of sm64 but you play as shadow the hedgehog has to be one of the most chaotic and most fun I've had with a game in a long time

Monster Racer for the PS1.

It's a beyond horrible Crash Team Racing clone, but it hit the spot when I was a small kid and wanted to play a racing game and wanted something that's not CTR. I only had a few games at the time.

Oh, and it somehow became a somewhat popular meme in the retro Playstation speedrunning community, so that's a bit funny. :D

I just finished Cave Story, and I can't believe I haven't played it before. Such a charming game, excellent music, and a surprisingly dark story. 10/10

Edit: well, I say finished but I didn't get all the way through Hell. Pretty far though. It's pretty brutal.