18 INCREDIBLE 8-bit Hidden Gems you NEVER Played (2024 Edition) 

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Oh, I see you missed that you can hold the down button whilst jumping in Ufouria to perform a stomp attack on enemies 😅

Shadow of the Ninja is being remade for modern systems at the moment and it looks gorgeous

I've watched a lot of hidden gems videos but these ones look more like actual hidden gems (to me) than most, thanks for the video!

On Double Dragon for NES, you can punch enemies on the ground if you level up high enough. The enemies can even throw you off sometimes too.

Wow! Thanks for mentioning Sylvan Tale! And other awesome 8-bit games.

Praise the algorithm, what an awesome video to stumble onto! Thanks for sharing these gems, I'm getting back into NES/SNES/Genesis era of gaming and now I have even more games to add to my collection!

holy diver is one of the hardest nes games. crushingly hard. the levels are long so getting sent back to the start is brutal

Really happy to see Ufouria getting mentioned. It probably my favorite lesser-known NES game out there. Loved the music,the characters, the art style, the versatile gameplay and the pacing. I actually love it so much that I did a translation hack of it back in the day so I'm rather familiar with many of the smaller details in the game. Heck, when the original released on Switch recently (Under it's original name "Hebereke") I even set a world record speedrun at the time xD If you know what you're doing and know the route then you can definitely beat the game in an hour's time, no sweat. One important gameplay mechanic you sadly missed is that you can indeed jump on enemies, but you need to press and hold down to initiate the state where you'll actually hurt enemies. It's probably my biggest problem with the game cause it's not communicated well to the player at all an it's complicating something that should have been a simple mechanic. But I guess think of it as a lesser pogo-jump from Ducktales. When killed, the enemies can also drop health but it's random and most of the time they will instead drop that useless ball thing you use during showdows. which adds to the tedium. Had that stuff been addressed and fixed, then this game would be much more enjoyable for newcomers to play through. Something I would often find fascinating is that there are certain enemies that you might never see on even a normal playthrough as they only appear once in specific areas, which is kinda baffling that the developers would set the memory aside for something like that. Uforuia is a games that oozes with charm and personality and I would recommend everyone here to try it out if you want a different kind of Metroidvania. It's available to download from the Switch e-shop under the name "Hebereke" though it's sadly the Japanese version.

Kenseiden is amazing. And yes one dojo is incredibly stupid difficult, but the best hour of training you can get for platforming and memorization. It was so satisfying to finish, even with no fanfare afterwards.

FYI - Tower of Doom was released on the Intellivision 2 cartridge for the Evercade!

I'm proud of the restraint you showed not saying "Holy DIVAHHH!" like song by Dio

Hey Sitka, My Dad bought an Intellivision before I was born, I started messing with it a long time after everyone else lost interest. Tower of Doom really impressed me, there’s definitely a few hidden gems on Intellivision. I think the system has more complex games when compared to its contemporaries. Also, Seraphima title screen FTW.

Wow, I don't think I've ever heard of any of these. I think the parallax on seraphima surprised me the most from a technical standpoint. Great video as usual

As much as I love video games you're one of the few channels I subscribe to. You really put the work into this. I learn a lot about retro Media from you. Good job. Don't stop man!

Hearing you describe the dojos in Kenseiden as stupidly difficult absolute terrifies me, considering how casually you glossed over Holy Diver's difficulty level.

Oh man, I've gone from "I've never heard of this" to "This NEEDS a remaster" for Moon Crystal. It looks incredible, and I genuinely cannot believe THAT was running on the NES. Just imagine what it would look like with a new coat of paint and maybe fully animated and voiced cutscenes. Also, there's gotta be an English patch for the MSX1 version of Cosmic Soldier 2, right? Gotta have that original experience when possible.

thank you so much!!! I love hidden gems of 8-bit or 16 bit era. your video introduces so many great game. thank you x1000!!!

Incredible list, great work

OMG I never heard of The Scheme for PC88 but your showcase made me look up the OST and I LOVE IT! Thank you for that!

11:29 kenseiden looks insane. i would have sworn some of the background assets and sounds came from the revenge of shinobi if this game was not made before it. the dojos have a double dragon vibe to me as well haha.

Thanks for your works !! ♥

I love this channel. Always so many games to experience. Cheers.

You've made a new follower, very good narration and display, I had a very entertaining time. Thank you

Awesome! Simply awesome video, thank you!

Loved the bit with the banana - start to finish - it's things like that, that keep me subbed to your channel mate, and separate you from 1000s of others doing exactly same thing. Excellent content brother.

From that description Black Widow really does sound like a much newer game with all of that mechanical complexity, it reminds me of Geometry Wars with its many types of enemies and that one came out in the 2000's.

Great list!

Been watching your videos and listing some of the games (especially the modern gb games list)... On this vid, I was able to fortunately have played Sylvan Tale and Shadow of the Ninja (which I knew as Kage) but was not able to finish them back then. Great vid andlooking forward to play some of the games I did not knoe. Keep it up!

The Heroes of Might and Magic game for Game boy actually shows some graphics from HoMM3. The goblin portrait and wolf rider portrait and probably even some of the hero portraits. Orcs using axes instead of crossbows is also HOMM3.

Kenseiden mentioned!! Def one of my favorite SMS games. Love it so much I even ripped the FM VGM pack that’s on SMS Power as well as the title and stage 1 music being the first tracks I played on my vgm podcast! 11:21

Thank's for sharing👍

Man... The pixel art in Power Blade and Delta's Shadow is fantastic. The attention to detail is top notch.

Always nice to get some reccomendations from Stika!

Ah, Holy Diver. There was a cool-yet-shady-in-retrospect video store back when I was a kid that stocked lots of imports. the famous weird cartridges with the ribbon on them. but they went the extra mile and printed out fake "manual" leaflets and front/back slips, often with fake names invoking popular franchises like Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa being labelled as Baby Mario, and of course this being Castlevania: Holy Diver. I remember the back slip saying you're a belmont who beat Dracula but then followed his soul down to hell to finish him for good. It was suitably metal as fuck considering the game they'd put that fake storyline to.

Mais um ótimo vídeo! Parabéns!!!

Glad to see another video! :)

I subscribed with the golden axe video, now you are one of my favs

HoMM on Gameboy Color is awesome! I had the first one. Amazing to get such a complex game working on a handheld

So many forgotten memories came flooding back when Shadow of the Ninja came up! What a banger of a game that was!

Lightspeed Rescue is my favorite season and I got the gbc game when I was younger. Still have it.

heck yes, this is great! thanks for mentioning Cosmic Soldier 2

Shadow of the ninja looked nice and played nice. I rented it several times. Great co-op play, too.

Moon Crystal looks great. I've never heard of it before, but I'll definitely check it out. If the NES could display a few more colors it would almost look 16 bit. Fun video 👍

8:35 - "Straight Outta Contra" -- the 8-bit NWA covers album

Very nice list, of these I only played Lightspeed Rescue and Banana Prince, I'll put everything else in my backlog!

I just love 8-bit games so much. It inspired me to make my own pixel art. It just has that fun charm to it, whenever I play an indie game with that style.

Moon Crystal and Banana Prince are some of my favorite nes games I even did a few hacks for them, thanks for playing them.

I played Shadow of the Ninja back in the day as a kid, renting it from Blockbuster. It was such an awesome experience and you're right. That games music was a huge hit with me. Every single track on it is amazingly good. They are even working on a modern remake of the game, Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn, like they did with Ninja Warriors for the SNES! I'm so excited to try it out!

Some fantastic games here mate. I've been following the Kenseiden 16 bit remake which looks amazing. I'll have to look into UFOuria as it looks very much like WonderBoy Dragons Trap in some ways!

I always recommend Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom. Crazy old Hudson adventure for the NES that goes into some weird places. You start out in a sort of fantasy setting as Sir Cucumber and go through Japanese nightclubs, fighting eight headed banana monsters, and have mech battles. It's not only a crazy, wacky, cartoony adventure, but one of the better games of that genre on the console. Also thanks for letting me know about the Ufouria sequel. That plus the upcoming Shadow of the Ninja remake seem like a good time!

Excellent video! as usual! See you soon!

Every Time, I consider my collection quite finished, you drop a Video 😁

Thank you, I would never have otherwise been aware of a Space Invaders Clone with Jager Froid's body double in it otherwise.

Loved Kenseiden back in the day!

this list is great!

Damn! these really are hidden gems. Kenseiden is the only title I played. Kind of impressed how it's still possible to find games of this caliber that flew udner my radar for over 30 years. Well, except for Seraphima, which flew under my radar for not that long.

Greetings: Holy Diver saw a localized version a few years ago thanks to Retro Bit. Sold at places like Limited Run Games. First time in English.

Moon crystal is an awesome game, I spent a few hours with it when I first got back into gaming, the music was good, graphics were awesome, I got about halfway through it but I found it quite difficult and put it down, I needed this reminder to pick it back up, thanks.

you talking portuguese outta nowhere was priceless sometimes i forget you're also Tuga

Sylvan Tale was incredible. like an 8-bit Secret of Mana. Similar to Crystalis, my favorite 8bit RPG/adventure

Moon Crystal is great, I've been playing it on my AVS and I love it. Also for Ufouria, you just need to press "down" while jumping on an enemy, then you can kill them.

Psychic War was one of my favorite PC games ever. I haven’t been able to get it to work right on my computer now, which is a shame. And we know it won’t be remade anytime soon. But great list overall!!

I thought the Neo Geo Pocket Color was 16 bit?

Sylvan Tale is one of my favourites on the Game Gear!

So crazy that Ronnie James Dio had an entire Famicom game based off him and it was never originally released in the USA ! The country he's from! RIP Dio! 🤘🤘 Holy Diver!! (Update) Holy Diver was officially released world wide a few years ago by Retrobit

finally got around to this one, thanks for another great list Maybe the next one should include Magical Doropie, which was called The Krion Conquest in the US but was not a full translation. There was a fan translation for the full game though

Great video, and what is that outro music?

For Moon Crystal, I think the anime you're looking for is Vampire Hunter D (1985), the story and art style look directly inspired

Im sure that someone has mentioned this, but Holy Diver DID get an official western release for the NES. Just not back in the day. Just a couple of years ago they did an official release on a bone white cartridge with lots of bonus goodies!

Tower of Doom almost seems like a prototype Shadow Tower/King's Field, gonna have to check this and a bunch of these other ones out.

Kenseiden is one of my favorite. Once in a while I play it till the end. Graphics are neat, balance is great, and it can be challenging depending on the road you choose to take. It's the embodiment of what a good video 8bit game should be :)

The music at the end of the Moon Crystal video reminds me of the temple ruins music in Zelda Oracle of Seasons.

Dude! Holy Diver! Fun fact, what spells you have determine what level you're on. When I was hacking the game, I artificially upped the number of spells you have. And that would jump me to a specific level.

Brother, you got a gift for sniffing out games I’ve never heard of. Another great video.

(Arcade) Renegade is also the first game in the Kunio-kun series, which at this point I'd say is more influential than it's connection to Double Dragon. Also Cosmic Soldier 2 and the first Megami Tensei game actually came out the same year. Not sure which came out first. Or did the first Cosmic Soldier have the dialog conversation system too?

Great video as always! I don't know if you accept requests but if you're interested in PC-88 games published in the West, take a look at JB Harold Murder Club, which had a huge success in Japan due to its ports for MSX and NES (and an MS-DOS port in the West) and 2 remakes: one 16-bit remake for the Turbografx CD in the West and a Nintendo DS remake in Japan. It also had 4 sequels but only in Japan.

22:37 Oh, we played that game a lot back in the early 90’s, actually, but it was called Blue Shadow then. Always hated the first boss, but otherwise it was pretty good. But the real selling point over something like Shadow Warrior (Ninja Gaiden) was the 2 player mode! Not many games in that genre had simultaneous multiplayer, so when you found one you stuck with it!

11:44 Kenseiden was one of my favourite Master System games growing up. Hoping someone will make an HD/Modern remake

Bananas were kinda sacred in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, sooo... makes sense.

A solid assortment.

These old-school game look fun.😊

Sylvain Tale always reminded me of secret of mana. It’s so fun.

I've been seeing Kenseiden on a lot of RU-vidrs lists. Im going to have to check this one out

I always get excited at any mention of Sega Game Gear! I have over 200 games and Sylvan Tale is not among them! Looks like a good one!

I did play shadow of the Ninja. Seraphima looks cool! I'ma try that!😮

Shadow of the Ninja is also a great 2 player co-op game too!

knowing uforia 2 exists because of this video is really gold!!

CAPTAIN TSUBASA VOL. II for the Famicom it’s an 8-bit gem that doesn’t get mentioned enough in North American and European channels. Regardless of one’s personal stance on soccer, the game is top quality in terms of music, graphics, storytelling and length; throughout 33 matches you build a sort of relationship with your players, which makes its conclusion tremendously satisfying. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to mention it in one of your videos or even make an entire video about it.

I can't believe that a god stealing your sacred banana is a laughing matter to you.

Oh man! I played Shadow of the Ninja back in the day but it was buried in my mind until now, thanks for the video!

great video

Is that an MSX rendition of stage 3 from Shadow of the Ninja in the beginning? Either way, great picks.

Fun fact the black onyx actually had the monster capturing first which was 1984 via adventures you talked to which you can rob talk and make them join your party and this game was a best seller so it takes the crown of being the first game to have monster catching so take that ultima 4

I actually got to play Holy Diver recently on a bootleg Super Nintendo mini that came pre loaded with over 2000 Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, many of which were never released in my country and some that were never officially released at all like the fighting game based on the DC comics character Lobo. Anyway, Holy Diver was definitely an interesting experience. I only played it a little bit before i died and moved on to another game, but im definitely going back to give it another go.

Seraphima would sell well if they modernized the game. Since you brought up Shadow of the ninja. I should playthru it again.

Tower of Doom!!!! I sank so many hours into this as a kid!

Interesting looking games on the nes

i played kenseiden back in the day. but i didnt get very far. and then as an adult i beat the game..... it's an awesome game.... i'll have to try the others.

Holy Diver was the Castlevania I always wanted but never knew existed