mainstream modern-day cult games

im thinking of games like far cry 2, that got mixed-to-negative reviews and didn't seem to sell tons but seemed to have quickly developed a very cultish following (like those dudes playing FC2 w/o dying mentioned on another thread).

the darkness seems like another one of these?

can u think of more?

no indie games or shit like portal, i don't mean cult in that way

the club!

developed by the same dudes behind project gotham racing and geometry wars, published by sega... got an awesome pedigree, reviewed well but I don't think it sold despite being heaps of fun and very original

+rep the club all day long

grand prix legends.

well, it was modern in 1998. classy pedigree, low sales, but absolutely rabid following.

dept. heaven games (riviera, yggdra union, knights in the nightmare)? probably erring more to the cultish w/these tho

^^^these games are so rad btw

did not realise knights was by the same ppl as riviera

haha i scored a box copy of the latter for free not long ago and i just realised it's likely the most valuable game i now own

i wonder about far cry 2's cult status - it sold a million copies before the christmas rush even started, and i've seen overindulged 12-year-olds being bought copies

how big a deal was yakuza in the english-language markets? does it count if games are massive in their home territories but not elsewhere?

escape velocity

demon's souls is the current mainstream modern-day cult game I lust after most; pretty big in japan and has a cult following in the us/uk

ps3 only, I'm afraid : /

think it's maybe too cultish for slocki's defn. tho, I'd place it w/valkyria chronicles in the cultish spectrum

tbf, of all the games I've mentioned, I think only the club fits slocki's defn

Seems like God Hand is this thread.

I don't think GH sold well enough to be considered, but perhaps the Viewtiful Joe series might count. I didn't think that sold greatly either, but Capcom kept franchising it out for a while so it probably did...

before reading those far cry 2 blogs i had never really heard people talk about it (here or irl), but it looks pretty awesome?

black & white

Madworld :(

before reading those far cry 2 blogs i had never really heard people talk about it (here or irl), but it looks pretty awesome?

My buddy insists that this game works much, much better on the PC.

I thought middling reviews and poor sales and rabid following were the very definition?

On that note there's a bunch of also-ran RPGs that would "count" I bet, but those don't REALLY count.

Psychonauts?

Psychonauts got good reviews, just sold like shit. Same with Beyond Good & Evil.

if thats the def then maybe madworld doesnt qualify, because it got pretty glowing reviews, it just isn't selling at all. rabid following seems fair tho.

I wonder if the Football Manager series has a small enough market to qualify here? I bet reviews have more or less no impact on how they sell, or the rabidity of the fanbase.

Do the Lunar games qualify for this?

You know, the latest Prince of Persia might qualify. Sold okay, reviews were mixed to middling, but people (like me) seem to love it to death despite its flaws.

How about non-limited edition games that sometimes fetch crazy prices on EBAY? seems like a reasonable metric.
What are some good cult deals?
"Frequency" is on BUYITNOW for $15.

- God Hand (obvious winner of this thread; it's like the first Velvet Underground record, only with more kicking people into space)
- Killer 7 (probably NMH too, although that seemed to catch on w/ the mainstream way more than K7. I actually had a Gamestop employee talk me out of buying K7 back in the day ["No, dood, it's on rails!"]; luckily I found it online for like $6 a few months later. it owns hard, btw.)
- Beyond Good & Evil (reviews were glowing but since the game bricked like a Joe Buddens full-length I count it anyway)
- Ninja Five-O (widely [and correctly] considered one of the best GBA games full-stop among the fourteen people who actually got to play it)
- Fire Pro Wrestling (likely the last wrestling game a lot of people will ever buy)
- Gitaroo-Man (imsmr this got awful reviews at the time and sold somewhere between squat and doodly-squat, but people still swear by it and were paying like $50 for a disc as recently as a year or so ago)

also dammit now I have to buy the Club

parappa? Yakuza? seaman? Segagaga?
Sega is king at doing this shit btw

Suikoden maybe?

SHENMUE

"Shenmue most amazing game ever created hands down. I bought 2 spare dreamcasts for shenmue 1&2 in case my dc dies."

man shenmue sucks

i think factoring in reviews is kind of pointless because games reviews are so retarded - theres a pretty good cult around the failed sega consoles generally managed to sell a bunch of my rare saturn games (pd, sfIII, sitd) for like $100+ on ebay at one point and the interent is filled w/ dudes that regret the death of the dreamcast

otherwise - there are a lot of cult games that are just niche games maybe things like march of the black queen which is also like $80 on ebay, guardian heroes, hell blazblue is lookin to be a cult game - although the reviews for that have been pretty ecstatic - in the sense that it has a small but rabid fanbase, "weird", and is somewhat cut off from the wider games universe

not new but i think dr. mario is cultish. it could have been a terrible tetris ripoff that cashed in on the mario brand, and instead it's a great tetris ripoff that people are still playing (people i know, anyway).

Guardian Heroes is one of the best games I have ever played in my entire life btw

yeah - its fantastic. i def understand the nostalgia around saturn titles console was "ahead of its time" in a lot of ways but hi dere if u have any of those working designs saturn titles they are worth a mint now and i doubt youd miss that albert odyssey

chronicles of riddick

I wish Seaman would make a comeback; that "game" was dope.

Seaman would make a come

come-dy

manstream

I would not miss Albert Odyssey at all because, aside from one ridiculously awesome scene, it sucks hardcore.

u should sell it

fyi sorry slocki completely missed the "modern-day" part of this thread title. best example of new cult games other than blazblue i can think of is maybe the nancy drew wii game

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure.

(lol I just looked on eBay and maybe bidding culture has changed in the past few years so what I'm seeing doesn't mean anything, but it looks like no one actually wants to buy AO (which is as it should be))

What about Castlevania: SotN?

wind waker?

This is a pretty difficult thing to do these days, though, since if something's "cult" it basically means EVERYONE loves it due to the internet saying they shuold. Like BG&E would be a great example if it didn't gain traction from EVERY PERSON ON THE INTERNET basically saying "best ps2 game" all the time or whatever.

Right, but did all that love for BG&E actually result in sales? Also, cultists are way over-represented on internet forums.

or like Rocky Horror Picture Show gets called a "cult" movie all the time, since people seem to like it well enough but a particular subset of the population BREATHES it (at least one night a year, anyway). I suppose Earthbound is the Rocky Horror Picture Show of games.

I think Will's misposting to this other thread (inc. the bit poly just put there) is actually pretty key here. RHPS and Earthbound are exactly what "cult" means. However, I don't believe that's what s1ocki was attempting to get at here. There are lots of cult games with relatively small, super devoted fans. If I interpret correctly, I'm guessing you're looking for stuff more like Fight Club or The Matrix - stuff with inherent cult appeal but clearly still attempting to gain a mainstream audience AND at least somewhat succeeding. Most of the examples here I think don't quite make this definition, being just cult and/or unpopular, though BG&E probably does (as well or Zack and Wiki, probably - maybe Riddick too).

Stuff like Wind Waker, Castlevania, no way, that is just mainstream. Still great stuff, tho.

Anything by Grasshopper is straight-up cult material (and man do I love Killer7, so so much). God Hand is just way too weird to be anything other than seriously cult. Same with everything jamescobo mentioned. MadWorld probably destined to remain cult, since it was definitely not going for the mainstream Wii audience.

luigi's mansion?

(lol I just looked on eBay and maybe bidding culture has changed in the past few years so what I'm seeing doesn't mean anything, but it looks like no one actually wants to buy AO (which is as it should be))

― her performance (ie, her pubes) stood out for me (HI DERE), Monday, July 6, 2009 8:10 PM (Yesterday)

er it seems like no one ever bothers to bid seriously on stuff on ebay until there's <2 hours remaining these days, so that might be the change yr looking for

chronicles of riddick

― cozwn, den 6 juli 2009 21:03 (Yesterday) Bookmark

didn't this get some great reviews though? otherwise it surely fits here, anyone who played it loved it.

I posted that on the wrong thread? Shit. Someone should take away my tabbed browser until I can prove I can use it responsibly :(

copied over to here for u:

This is a pretty difficult thing to do these days, though, since if something's "cult" it basically means EVERYONE loves it due to the internet saying they shuold. Like BG&E would be a great example if it didn't gain traction from EVERY PERSON ON THE INTERNET basically saying "best ps2 game" all the time or whatever.

What's a good comparison to "cult" in this context? Like for example I've heard people call Oldboy a cult film, and yet virtually everyone I speak to about movies around my age has seen it and loves it.

― ㇱ (Will M.), Monday, July 6, 2009 10:40 PM (Yesterday)

or like Rocky Horror Picture Show gets called a "cult" movie all the time, since people seem to like it well enough but a particular subset of the population BREATHES it (at least one night a year, anyway). I suppose Earthbound is the Rocky Horror Picture Show of games.

― ㇱ (Will M.), Monday, July 6, 2009 10:41 PM (Yesterday)