Intro
It's just as the title says... I want to play weird Japanese games! And I mean weird. Fun fact: I have been learning Japanese since I was 14 years old, and I've been into video games for even longer, and therefore its been quite common for me over the years to stumble upon the weird and wonderful. Usually these involve really vivid and almost overly creative and surreal 3D graphics and animations, maybe with stories and gameplay elements that don't really make sense thrown in as well. I don't think these games are necessarily rare or unknown in the community, but I think in general if you're reading this, you might find a new game to check out orrr look at one and think "Oh yeah! It's that game!". If you're into the colourful and surreal retro stuff, like moi, then you're in for a treat.
せがれいじり (Segare Ijiri)
First of all we have a game that is probably, in my opinion, the strangest one on here. I'm not listing the games in any particular order, but this one definitely came to mind first when I started writing. I've watched many Japanese gameplay channels over the years, and this game came up once. It hooked my attention because you could tell instantly that every single aspect of the game was gonna be obscure. See image below.
This PS1 game was released in 1999, and developed surprisingly by Enix (The Enix side of Square Enix before they merged together). The style of the game is Adventure/Platformer, aaaaand hold on to your chairs when you read this... you take control of a young boy with an arrow-shaped head that the mother, a giraffe (yes you read that correctly) gave to him. She gave him the arrow-shaped head in order to send him through a strange world to make him learn different things. So basically have to talk to other weird and wonderful charactes to try and progress the story, like err, with this guy below... Cow. Guy.
This game is essentially a mini-game collection, just there's also lot of bizarre moments and bizarre animations and bizarre creations upped to 1000% thrown in. I don't know about you, but it seems like everyone who worked on this game was working very outside the box. But I applaud them for that. You really shouldn't have a console without something super weird and obscure and out of this world on it, in my opinion. Oh, there is also a sequel to this game on PS2, if any of you reading are interested in that.
I know that 'Ijiru' in Japanese means to 'to mess around' or 'to fiddle (with)' and possibly 'Segare' means 'my son' but I'm not 100% sure on that. I'm going to throw out there that the game title means: "My son messing around", or something along those lines. You get the idea. The arrow boy is the giraffe's son.
A fact I managed to find was that the game was directed by Kitsune Akimoto who was a CG artist, but as well as developing, he also did a lot of differet jobs on the game. Something else is that he is listed to have made the CG parts for a childrens variety show called "UGOUGO RUGA", which looked like this:
Yep. The beginning shows it all. This and Segare Ijiri are very comparable. This guy was honestly a legend for making what looks like... well... whatever the fuck he wanted. May he rest in peace.
プラネット ドブ (Planet DOB)
Also released in 1999, we have Planet DOB. I'm not sure what DOB stands for, but it's DOB. I've seen this around on my Instagram and Twitter a few times, but I think it's a fairly unheard of game. Developed by Microvision and published by Hudson Soft, the game features a carefree alien who gets knocked unconscious after his ship crashes on Earth, and then some scientists who find him decide to send a subject into his mind. And then you play from the alien's mind. As you do.
I have played a little bit of this game already and it reminds me of Point & Click games but… wackier. The game is listed as an adventure/mini-game/puzzle game aaaand just to let you know, it has music. Very good music. Apparently it was actually a promotional game for the Japanese band D.O.B... OHHHHH, "Date of Birth". Okay. I know what DOB stands for now everybody! You can calm down.
Here have some music! I honestly really like this one a lot, actually no... I love the full OST a lot.
and I'm thinking about the fact the band SOMEHOW made a videogame, it's super cool. I would love to know more about the process of how it all came to be. I haven't had time to read it but there does seem to be a lot of information on their website from Internet Archive. I will get to it soon, but if you want to have a browse on it in the meantime: click here!A little information I can give you is that the band Date of Birth was formed in 1985, and the sketches/CG renders were originally made by Ken-1 who is listed to be the "computer art" and "visual director" of the group. I wish more bands were able to make little experimental videogames for promoting their music. Would be a very fun time if you ask me.
東京惑星プラネトキオ (Tokyo Wakusei Planetokio)
From the images and videos I've seen, this game is one of my favourites on this list visually, and again, it's a weird one. I've also briefly played tried this one and I really enjoyed the first cutscenes and the 3D environments. We again, funnily enough, are going with an alien theme, as this game takes place in the near future in Tokyo where the city is being attacked by alien invaders (oh no!). We then follow a boy called Iken. Say hi to Iken:
Doesn't he look great!
He works in a ramen shop.
This game was developed by OutSide Direcors Company and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment in 1999. It is an Action/Adventure/RPG where you talk to the characters around the town and find new items to advance the game. There are also battles in the game, which I actually didn't expect on first impression, but I feel like each one of these games on this list is just full of surprises.
Speaking of surprises, Osamu Sato of OutSide Directors Company also developed LSD Dream Emulator. Which a lot of people have heard of. This game seems like an absolute wild ride, with the kind of 90s 3D graphics that makes my heart want to sing.
This robot is so done.
戦国TURB (Sengoku Turb)
I think this is a title that is way more heard of in the community, especially if you like looking out for weird games- and it is one of the earliest Dreamcast games after all. But man, this one. THIS ONE. This.The character designs with this one are GOLD. I love this so much my heart aches.
This game is an action-RPG developed and published by NEC Home Electronics, a devision of NEC (an electronic firm). You play as a young space traveller named Jino, who wanders into the world where there is a cival war between the countries “Sheep” and Cats”. It is therefore, for some reason, up to Jino to make peace.
Something I didn't know before writing this is that the game was a remake, as it was originally a PC98 shareware game (see below).
Another fact is that the character designs were done by Toko Kuroyanagi, one of the Tamagotchi artists, and that is very, very, very cool. The game also has a followup game called "戦国TURB Fanfan I ♥ me Dunce-doublentendre" or Sengoku Turb F.I.D., which is a strange title. The 'Sengoku' part at the beginning means something like "country in civil war" or "warring states" and then the rest is, what looks like, fun words smashed together. Again, this was basically a minigame collection, released solely in Japan on the Dreamcast.
In the main game itself though everything is so blocky and colourful, and it's like I'm in a funhouse to explore. There's a lot of different scans of magazines, flyers etc. from the time that can be found on Tumblr or various website pages, and they're very fun to look at. I recommend checking them out, especially if you like old low-poly graphics. For example I really love this tweet showing off the guide book for Sengoku Turb.
Ah great... another item on my wishlist...
クルクルトゥーン (Cool Cool Toon)
Another Dreamcast game! Woo! Dreamcast is great!!!
Here we have a bright and colourful 3D rhythm-comic game (as in, cutscenes are 2D and gameplay is in 3D). Developed by SNK, which you may know for their older gamesFatal Fury, Samurai Shodown or The King Of Fighters. Cool Cool Toon (along with Koudelka) was one of the games developed during a period when the company had a very sad financial situation which lead to SNK being acquisited by Azure - however, the game is very charming and I wish it solved all of their problems at the time. To be honest, I think it gets a lot of love now. I've seen people express their adoration for the characters and the style, and I've seen some cool artists draw fanart: here's an example I like.
Released in the year 2000, this game follows protagonists Amp and Spica as they dance, dance and you guessed it, dance some more. You have to dance to defeat the opponents. I love all of these old games for being colourful, vivid, wild but still having such distinct styles. I'm also thinking of the games Gitaroo Man, Space Channel 5, Parappa the Rapper and Jet Set Radioooooooo of course. This game's art was done by Ippei Gyoubu, an illustrator who actually worked a lot of the Gundam series. The artwork is such a highlight omg.
Apparently Cool Cool Toon was praised for the graphics (no surprise) but also for the unique use of the analogue stick, as you had to use the analogue stick to move a marker to the letter and press the corresponding button at the right time... err wait, you know what, just watch a gameplay video:
Just by looking at this game once you can tell that it's going to have a poppy, fun, funky soundtrack, and it definitely delivers on that. This game looks so straight up fun. And that means a good game in my book. I'm surprised that it was a Japan exclusive.
ポイニーポイン (Poinie's Poin)
And last, but certainly not least, we have a PS2 title that I stumbled upon recently! Also it's the one I know the least about currently. Poinie's Poin was released in 2002 exclusively in Japan, uniquely however also coming with an English voice track and translation (so you can pick between Japanese or English), which is a surprise but super interesting. The game is a 3D action platformer featuring Poinie, who lives in Jelly Town. The game features Poinie figuring out the strange happenings going on and thus defending his town from eeEEEevil and restoring all the citizens back to their normal lives. The world is filled with poins, these orbs that contain things... emotions or something I think, and you use these poins against the enemies but also for changing the emotions of other characters around you, making them happy or sad etc. etc. Yeah, I don't know for sure what's going on either. I haven't played the game yet, but it's all very very intriguing.
It's a bizarre looking game with great music and all in all, it's apparently a memorable time, especially because of the graphics. I mean look at this:
I don't even know what these are. But they look a m a z i n g.
Here's a longplay of the game as well if you're interested.
Oh wait! A fun fact before I end this post! The channel 'DidYouKnowGaming?' on YouTube, explains in a video that the games English voice supervisor was Christian Storms, the supervisor for the first three seasons of South Park's Japanese Dub. And you can clearly hear that one of the characters in Poinie's Poin sounds suspiciously like Cartman from South Park. It's really weird to hear the voice in the game, it's almost like a weird crossover. But that's what makes looking at these games fun, you find out random facts like this.
And my brain is starting to get full of these random little facts. :)
Outro
Soo yeah!! I might make a Part 2 of this as well! If you have any recommendations for me, please let me know! Some other games I'd like to mention that are 'Okage Shadow King' and 'Purumui Purumui'- I've fully played both of these and they were both great! Also I want to look into 'Napple Tale', along with 'Evolution' for Dreamcast, 'Tenerezza' for PC/Xbox... the list is VERY long.
But yeah, there we have it! Of course there are many obscure games, ones that are also way more obscure than these. But these ones are still funky and fun and weird, but I also think they each have their own colourful personalities that we lack a little bit in the gaming scene nowadays. At least with mainstream gaming. But that's also just my opinion, I think there are a lot of weird games out there just waiting to be found... and I'm going to try and find them!
Hell yeah.
Thank you for reading!
✰Written by Iris Lyoko✰