That You May Never Get To Play 

Unsigned, CrossCode and Chained Echoes are a trinity of annoyingly not recognized masterpieces

OH MY, I saw Gestalt back a couple years ago, added it to my 700+ Steam wishlist and completely forgot about it, thank you for reminding me. I completely agree with the art style "demo" point, once in a while I look through the indie catalogue on Steam to see if I can find any potential gems and I always seem to be more interested in the games whose art styles are reminiscent of their inspiration. See you on the other side of TotK.

This video is a bit heavy on the FOMO. As a player with 30 unplayed games in their steam library I'm kind of glad games slip under my radar. I cannot play every game I'd love. Sure it'd be a shame but on the one hand ignorance is bliss and on the other hand, maybe at some point It DOES show up on my radar.

I follow RU-vid channels like yours that highlight great indie games. Even if fantastic games like Crosscode or Fear and Hunger fly under the radar for years, they'll eventually build a cult following and the channels I follow will bring it up eventually. At the end of the day, people like us who worry about sleeping on a hidden gem will do what they can to find them. Adding Gestalt to my backlog. Thanks for putting it on my radar.

Guys: u ALL need to play this masterpieces (beside Crosscode and Chained Echos for obvious reasons): Ara Fell Battle Chasers: Nightwar....and, probably, the most underrated indie game of all time? one of for sure... ....Dust: An Elysian Tail. DO NOT MISS THEM!!

Honestly art direction and really getting a unique look and flow to a game is important in trailers and in game. I think devs are doing a good job with handling the art styles we see but there's so many indies and old games alike that can resemble each other in certain ways it's harder to make something different. But I feel like there isn't too much the individual player can do since it really just comes down to people just looking around and being verbal about cool small games they like. Although there's so many, it's part of the reason why I mostly rely on RU-vidrs like yourself to find something cool for me.

Haven’t ever seen a thumbnail lead onto the video title like this. I really enjoyed that for some reason so thank you for your creativity ^^

Its cool to see you talking about gestalt! I first heard about it from the compleationists direct titled "lets start over" where in one section of the video he talked about 3 indie games he and his team were helping publish which inclusmded this one. From my own perspective gestalts art style immediately caught my interest thanks to my love of pixl art (as well as the artstyle used for the character portraits) and castlevania like gameplay. Its overall style just seemed pretty unique for me and its a kind of metroidvania I've been wanting to see more of.

I've absolutely had the problem of not being able to distinguish some indie games from each other. I often want something new and/or distinct after I finish playing something more familiar, but it's getting harder to do that with indie game (kinda the same problem I have with AAA, only not so extreme). Obviously there's nothing wrong with having a retro style, but, yeah, it can make games difficult to stand out.

When they keep talking about the typical "style" for indie games, I'm like "What do you mean? Many of them look so different..." and then I realized they were talking about pixel art. Pixel art vs hand drawn apparently (ala hollow knight comparison). Edit: Or I guess art styles in general. My main thought on this is that pixel art can have different looks and feels to it. Different details thats inherent to each game. In pixel art, just like in many other art styles, there are different ways to express things. How do characters look, how do trees and rock look, how to buildings and the environment look, etc. The game has different ways to express information to you. Its like the difference of Undertale's extremely simple overworld sprites vs their. detailed, clean looking, animated battle sprites, or taking something like the newer generation Megaman games and Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap and comparing them to something like WESTERADO: DOUBLE BARRELED or Celeste. One section of games has a very detailed oriented art style, while the other has a more simplistic look to it. Both convey what they want to convey, they just so it differently and in their own way.

As a consumer, I recommend my friends the games that do not get enough love. Hyper Light Drifter (Touching game with pretty much no writing), Cosmoteer (2d spaceshipbuilding), Nova Drift (asteroids Roguelite, the OP build simulator), Rain World (Slugcat), Potionomics (fun capitalism), Rusted Warfare (Lots of mods), Receiver 2 (Meditative detailed handling of firearms), Freeways (no undo, the game), Horizon Chase Turbo (retro arcade racing), Katana Zero (FOLDED OVER NINE THOUSAND TIMES), Linelight ( - ), Lost Ruins (Pay attention to what environment allows you to do), Opus Magnum (Yes I am a programmer how could you tell), Ravenfield (And get the mod for "American 180" SMG, just trust me on this one), A short hike (Cozy), Streets of rogue (You can play as a gorilla), Luna Nights (Nowhere is safe from Touhou), Wildfire (Neat magic system) These are just ones I played and beat (where applicable), and recommend despite what flaws they have. Check them out, see which seems worth your time, may more beautiful indie games get talked about! I have been playing CrossCode, but the other ones in this list I have missed, largely due to being tired of rpgmaker energy games. Thank you for giving them a shoutout!

I was at a loss when I finished chained echoes and got every achievement. I wanted more but I could not have! I'm so hoping for a sequel! And yeah, you've hit what I've been saying for years. In many aspects of life, presentation is not the most important aspect, but it also isn't UN-important.

I think art direction is a key point you may have left out here, as that has a great impact on how the game flows as well. For a few good examples, you could go laugh at David Jaffe being really bad at Metroid Dread and the video essays that spawned. In games like Terraria, Stardew Valley, the binding of Isaac, and Undertale, the general art styles are based in pixel art but the direction is what really makes the games stand out at a glance. I'd never had played Isaac if not for people in my high school playing it, stardew and terraria for xbox friends and Undertale is the only one I would have gotten into because tumblr was (still is) a mad house. There are others I wanted to list but I didn't want to repeat genres too hard.

I love Cross Code and the music rocks so thanks for using it. Please everyone give it a try. I will never stop advocating for it.

I agree with you that having unique art and designs in your game might be breaking point if you are going to be successful. I know that first step for me to get interested in some game is if I like the artstyle and only then I feel compelled to check mechanics. But I don't think that problem is with pixelart itself. You might not meant it this way, but that's what I got from the video. I can agree that maybe more standard looking pixelart can be a problem because it makes games look similar, but as hollow knight might not have worked without it's artstyle (though I think character and world design is what pulls you in that game not artstyle itself) I also think celeste might be less popular if it looked more similar to something like super meat boy. I'm biased though since 90% games that I feel the urge to buy and play are pixelart games, not even because of nostalgia as much as I prefer the look. But it could be argued that AAA games could have the same problem with how every game looks similar.

I know I'm a bit late to the party on this one but as a dev and as someone who was introduced to CrossCode and Chained Echoes by a certain channel I subscribed to recently, I just wanted to point out that you and other folks passionate about the games they like are the other part to this equation. A safety net for great games that get lost in the noise as it were. I saw clips of both games but passed them by since, while I like writing them, I don't usually play games often these days and 2D games even less. However Chrono Trigger and FF6 still hold some of the most important experiences I've had in my life while holding a controller. Needless to say after watching a few of your videos I did two things, subscribe and pickup both games that didn't quite land the first impression with me but absolutely landed the second when presented by someone who values them for many of the same reasons I do. Thanks for doing what you do!

I guess we all got for some reason unplayed games on our platforms, that we got in a package, or bought because they where on sale. Just give these games a try and play them for about one hour. You will be surprised how many good games are out there, that are barely recognised.

This is a good video! I've enjoyed your indie game recommendations in past videos, too. Have you considered taking a look at some indie SRPGs to round out the ARPGs and JRPGs you've recommended so far?

I just finished Chained Echoes. I tried it on your advice. 0 regrets, GOTY 2022

Subbed because Indie deserve support. (Even from an older dude who has little time for games...)

Your sub plugs are fantastic, keep up the great work. 👍

I love indie games, especially metroidvania which is my favorite genre and even though I've never seen Gestalt, now I have a whole new game to play. Thx.

Ive ran out of witty things to write. Great video as always.

I mean I basically picked up CrossCode because it reminded me of Phantasy Star Online, especially the music, and I've played through it 100% twice so far.

A future video of yours could be about whether or not an indie game benefits from voice-acting, like between Crosscode and Hades.

Funny enough, I forgot about Gestalt, and I added it to my steam wishlist again. Thanks, my dude.

A semi (though definitely not perfect) solution for someone like are youtubers like you. I tend to have youtube playing while working and as such find out about alot of games i wouldn't have otherwise heard of. Ragnarox for example, has talked alot about various indie and unknown horror games that are super fascinating to me. Retromation does trial runs of indie roguelikes that are new or obscure. There's others i watch too, but for jrpgs and any number of other things; I've found out about alot of games I'll probably never play this way, but at least i DO know about them now so if i ever get the chance, i can.

That UNSIGHTED footage made me want to play the game a second time. (Which is a luxury most games aren't afforded.) I did love the game so much when I played it on PC that I picked up a physical collector's edition for the Switch through Limited Run Games.

Instantly knew what you were gonna talk about

I think part of the problem is that big youtubers/streamers rarely showcase actual hidden indie gems these days. The nature of the competitive market pushes them to make content about more well-known games since those get more views, even in the indie space. I think the biggest example is Levelhead, the best level maker nobody knows exists. Even though it does many things better than Mario Maker, content creators have no reason to play it over Mario Maker because the latter gets more views, so the game ends up with zero exposure beyond the trailer. Then you see new Maker games come out that lack all the QOL features it brought to the table.

As someone working on a pixel art platform fighter, literally pixel art just requires less dev time for me and the same is reflected across what I hear from other devs. Definitely contributes to the oversaturation to a degree.

Ngl something similar yet different happened to me. I was playing for the first time to this open world rpg where you’re literally a square in a 2D plan , everything is either a coloured square , or some kind of stick to illustrate a character, on the right side of the screen you have some cheap drawing to illustrate your character and that’s pretty much it . But for some reason I played for hours to this game and got pretty invested , even grinding for a while , funny enough it’s the cheapest art style I’ve ever experienced yet I know I will positively recall my experience with this game in the future. PS : I was thinking that maybe this cheap art style might unintentionally end up helping you focus more on the dialogues / the story , by being less distractive than the average , I don’t know I’ll have to think about it . And the reason I’ve decided to download this game was prolly because the art style was original in its own way to loop back in to the video’s theme.

One of the reasons i have gamepass for my pc is that it allows me to more easily come across indie titles that I'd normally overlook. Especially now that most games don't really like doing demos anymore.

tbh I dont look at trailers that often, I watch streamers, especially variety streamers. Everytime I see someone play a game I havent heard about, I go check it out and can see gameplay and hear soundtrack as long as I want, usually.

very good pointers

Your conclusion in this video is basically a concept in media theory that I studied for my film degree. Look up "The Medium is the Message" by Marshall McLuhan. To vastly oversimplify, he argues that the medium of something is what mainly informs our perception of that thing, so I think he would agree: if your message is "this game is just like old Castlevania games" one of the best ways to convey that message would be to make it look and feel like old Castlevania games.

one of the hard things of leaving an impression as well is the fact that there are hundreds of games being published every month so the market gets easily oversaturated. an example would be vampire survivors, at launch no one played it but as it got picked up by content creators people saw it and began playing it as well

I subbed. Do several more indie videos pls and ty.

I've noticed Gestalt during the Steam fest, its demo was a real banger!

i appreciate that you used an analogy related to the topic of your video to remind viewers of the subscribe button instead of the world's most annoying rhetorical "did you know that only zero percent of my viewers are actually subscribed" or just straight up begging like most channels.

I've actually never played any Castlevania before, but I see this art style, and I know I need to play this game. It's wishlisted.

2:37 can i ask the what the music playing around this part is? I feel like i heard it before, crosscode, trails in the sky?

I'm going to be completely honest about art style - most people do not understand art style, including indie/freelance artists. On a surface level art style is what the game visually looks like: head sizes, eye shapes, saturation, and other decisions of that nature or general scope. But in reality art style is a fundamental set of problem-solving choices of how to make the most detailed and engaging thing with the limited resources you have. Pixel art was made out of necessity for the need of small screens and small resolutions to present their pictures, where it developed into a new medium over time in the modern era. Indie Games use pixel art because they are easier to develop and they can use prior games as a backline to help them iterate the fundamentals quickly and get a basis that players already understand/recognize. However a lot of indie games are now falling into using pixel art just because "that's what indie games do" is becoming a culture, which is why I have a problem with pixel art in the modern-day is it's being used less and less as a choice that is best-suited to your game and your project with your resources and more because now it's just expected; and so many indie games with pixel art overshadowing other games because of that alone and it really makes me disappointed, or indie games that choose to be inspired from older titles being shamed for modernizing art and making it more clear (This isn't common, but is not negligible either). As for games going under the radar, I think a lot of that comes down to marketing and publicity (RU-vidrs, bloggers, journalists). Marketing is not a skill most developers have and is rarely in the budget which is challenging. The second is publicity. It's hard to get streamers, YTers, journalists etc to look at your work with so much competition, however, even one will signal boost the game like no tomorrow and spread like wildfire. Games with unique styles (not just art, but gameplay too) are best on this side (Pizza Tower, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Untitled Goose Game, Stray, Slay the Spire, Hades, FTL). At least, these are my thoughts and findings. Thanks for reading my Ted Talk.

I know there's a solid message in what you wrote here - and I seriously think it could have been a real decent take on the gross overlooking of some of the best titles in gaming, indie or otherwise -- just wasn't fleshed out as well as you might think after all that build-up. I can tell that you were trying for something that could have been quite a unique take on this issue -- but the overall progression of the script just didn't gel together that well. Good effort, though - plus the voice-over quality has improved so much.

Well, that applies to life aswell, how do you know you are not entirely missing something great by not doing it? You can't, and with limited capabilities and lifespan we have to enjoy the things we do, as we will not be able to experience everything the world has to offer. The only thing we can do is be open minded, try new things once on a while, and be grateful of the things we experience. We are always allowed to search those hidden gems, hidden world genres, and seek that new passion waiting for us. Don't let that discourage you, but use it to seek and share the things you manage to find :D

I've had Gestalt on my Steam wishlist for a long time.

Huh very interesting title that follows the thumbnail... anyways congrats on the algorithm and cool vid

I think art style being important is a good point, but I think it's actually a bigger issue for AAA games than indie. A lot of AAA have a look of general realism without any character beyond that. I see a lot more unique identity in pixel art these days.

A year ago, I saw CrossCode in the Ukraine Bundle on itchio. I remember a couple comments saying how its one of the best RPGs ever and how its an underrated gem. Bought it mostly for Celeste, but I sunk all of those hours into CrossCode. If you want a more obscure indie game, Knock Harder is a game in the spirit of Observation Duty where you have to spot anomalies to escape inception-like dream sequences, and its only $2 on steam right now!

Gestalt steam and cinder looks amazing ❤ I’m really hoping the game gets a physical version available for the switch Just stumbled onto a random video on unsighted last week and was just flummoxed I never heard about it.. was happy to find a physical copy of the game ❤ it’s definitely a hidden gem of a game I never would have known about

I have had this game in my wishlist for 2 years or so. Le sigh.

Thanks for the vid

What are the games at 4:06? I recognize some of them, but some I don't

Not gonna lie, as much as i like pixel art this is really hard to argue Same as realistic graphic on many triple A industry, many pixel art game are really easy to forget because is soo desaturated with other without any element to make them stand out The esthetic become shackles than charm point

This is why my wishlist has like over 1000 games in it, because I save it. I might not ever buy it, but I at least have it in case I do.

Interesting how the thumbnail pieces together the title in this video. Is it effective?

I... Don't think you're correct. 'Pixel art' is a meta style. Under that umbrella there are many different sub-styles. Celeste does not look like Chained Echoes, does not look like super Metroid. It would be like saying every anime looks the same, or every painterly game looks the same.

bruh ive completely forgotten about iconoclast

This idea of "This game is inspired by another game you may have loved" is the reason why game genres are now termed after the games that made the genres big. We don't do "Platformers" anymore, we now have "Metroidvenia" as a genre; One large, and relatively new-ish sub-genre in "Action RPG" is "Soulslike". Even if the genre is as old as gaming iteself, whatever game becomes the "Big Revival" or the "Defining the Genre" product is what the entire genre gets termed as.

You're right. Lots of games are overlooked. But games (to me) are, in part, interactive art. The art style of a game alone is usually a huge deciding factor in what games I want to play. It's definitely not the only factor. If a game is good and I really don't like the art style, then I won't pick it up. And I'm okay with that. No matter how cool the Metaverse might hypothetically be (never tried it), the unfortunate art style has caused it a lot of damage to it. And as you said, a game's art doesn't have to be unique, just appealing and fitting to the spirit of the game.

For me, Hollow Knight was my first metroidvania. I loved it so much that it got me interested in trying out other metroidvanias. A game doesn't have to be unique art or gameplay wise to be good. If it's similar to a genre you like, it should be just as fun right?

I honestly never got any nostalgia for pixel art in the slightlest, I just love the art style and how easy it is to do (yes, easy, I even consider it a cheap art style, may be easier to get but is harder to master as any other artstyle), the only artstyle that has ever made me nostalgic for it is the Newgrounds artstyle of paint and flash drawings being expressive and limited and mostly looking like poorly made draws while being intentional. And even then, it makes me sad to see how the majorith sees pixel art just as an easy nostalgic decistion for a game rather than s creative one just like how Hyper Light Drifter did.

Sometimes it's hard to give pixel art or 2D style games a chance because I assumed they chose that style because of how affordable/easy it is to create.

"games that look like this" is used too many times in this video without ever defining it properly sometimes it means "pixel art", sometimes it means "like old games" it sounds like a poorly refined script turned video before it should

The market is getting very saturated and indie devs don't have many marketing options. Curation used to be enough as it is typically easier for the best games to get deals to for example showcase their trailers at major events. However nowadays there are so many good games releasing that it is no longer possible to sort them. So not only you get those unending conferences made of 2 minutes clips each showcasing something that is worth playing to someone, but there is also a decent chunk of great games that don't even make it in. Obra Dinn was one of the game I missed out on when it initially released and only discovered it a year ago, even though I actively follow game conferences. There are just too many games to keep track of.

While it sounds callous, I no longer see it as a player problem. I already know of "too many" games. I quite honestly know that I will not live long enough to play all the games I *already* own for the time that I want to play them, and I continue to buy more games anyway. Do I end up missing some potentially amazing indie games because they look identical to 99 similar indie games? Maybe. But I do know that I'm already missing playing hundreds of games that I actively want to play. Including darling indie games. Hollow Knight? Steam says I spent 8 minutes on it, enough to make sure it ran well enough, before it fell into my backlog of games I want to play when I have the time. Celeste? I own it, might even own it on two different platforms, and have never even booted it up. Tears of the Kingdom is already purchased, even though I've only recently remembered to put some time back into Breath of the Wild.

so to summarize , Indie games with a specific artsyle tries to capture a specific target consumer who is/are familliar to the said artstyle, Like in Gestalt who is similar to MetroidVania would capture consumers who are familiar to the said artstyle.

"Just make a game that stands out more" is easier said than done, especially if the dev actually likes pixel art.

I'm always baffled by the amount of takes like this. Every pixel game displayed here had so much more visual difference from the next one shown than most nonpixel 2d or 3d games Ive seen. And its exactly the ease of access of the medium that allows for such range in art styles within pixel games. Saying any two of the pixel games shown here look the same is like saying "Okami looks like Assassins Creed" to me. The only thing the visual styles have in common in either case is the medium, pixel in the former, 3d modeled in the later. A Van Gogh and a Bosch piece don't look the same just because they both are made with oil paints. Sometimes I wonder if people are even looking at the games they say look the same, or if they just see squares and their brain immediately writes them off as "nostalgia aesthetic" before they can recognize what they're actually looking at. Are there visually similar pixel games out there too? Sure! But much less so than there are with 3d games, since the choice of placement of even a single pixel in a sprite, or an extra pixel in the resolution, can completely change the visual cues, as opposed to 3d or nonpixel 2d which scale with little difference outside of the extremes.

welp i already trust uour taste so I'll try to have a go at it

CHAINED FUCKING ECHOES YES. I would honestly be surprised if I enjoy Zelda totk more.

bro the hell is that grapling hook in unsighted??????????

Great, I was hoping they never got to finish it

Dragon Quest 11 is actually a pretty easy one to get access to, if you have a PSN Extra account you get it free, along with a lot of the other games in the list that have console ports, not sure how Xbox does it, but I know Nintendo doesn't do free access to games unless they are considered "Classics"

When it comes to indie games, the gameplay tends to be the 1st thing I notice and character design is the second.

it's almost a non-issue, people tend to play the genre they love the most, people will keep searching any game of such kind, either indie or AAA. if a game is good overall, it'll be recognized by the community and people will play it. if i don't like genres like celeste's, i will not be interested, no matter how good the presentation is. i love jrpgs, i'll always try to find games to play, obscure ones are no exception, and there are tons of title no one knows i believe are the best of the genre!

thanks

Play "Pronty" its a nice Underwater Metroidvania. I bet you never heard of it

I always create my games with a pixel art art-style and it is never for nostalgia, I think saying that it is to invoke nostalgia is kind of disrespectful to the medium. Though there are definitely cases where it is for nostalgia. Nonetheless good video!

That's a clever use of thumbnails and titles

Chained Echoes it's really good, highly recommend it.

To say pixel art games are nostalgic style games is a fallacy and missing the point entirely. Do you thinknonly people in their 40s play pixel art games? My niece is 12 and she plays these games not because she feels nostalgic, but because the games are neat. We who grew up with SNES games not only played pixel art SNES games, there were many styles, and the 3D (or faux 3D) art styles were also available in the early-mid 90s, even for the console. And the N64 and PS1 were released around that time as well. So, why don't we call 3D nostalgic? Because 3D games have evolved visually and are now hyper realistic, but pixel art has equally evolved, only it doesn't want realistic visually. The thing is, pixel art games never disappeared, they just became less popular when making games was only possible for rich people, but for the last 15 years, "anyone" can make games, and indie games don't go after the trends set by by huge studios, instead indie games are what they really want. Honestly, you simply sound like you dislike pixel art style, because when you say all pixel art games look the same, you really don't know what you're saying. If you want proof, compare Zoo Story and Stardew Valley. "But these looks exactly the same", you say. And I say, "Yes, these two games look identical, which demonstrates than all other pixel games that you even showed as looking identical in your video, are quite different. If you say Ara Fell and Chained Echoes look identical, you are being cynical, but if you say the same about Stardew Valley and Zoo Story, you are being critical. And in this video you are being cynical.

Release date announced today. May 2024.

Great video. I agree with Chained Echoes it is an ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE especially the OST music which equally has the ability to tell a story by its own merit. I hope they make Chained Echoes 2, I would love to see Kylian utilize his new godlike powers (won't add any spoilers for those who have not finished the game)!

The proposition that games look like each other because they use pixelart is ludacrous. Quality and style from one pixelart game to the next varies a lot. I get that a lot of people are not able to appreaciate the difference... kinda the same as with photography.

I guess devs could release free demos

For some reason my friends don't know about Skul the hero slayer or Blade Assault ! BOTH ARE HIGHLY RATED !!! They rather play TMNT shredder revenge & awaiting Double Dragon (Arcsystemworks), Maybe multiplayer & local Co-op is all the rage again now that Quarantine is over IDK

I don't think that it's a problem because most gamers know what genre they like and as for me I know that pixel art games can be awesome so I look up alot of them based on what genre it is and there is always information about any game once it releases so if you truly care about missing out you won't, you just got to put in a little leg work. As for missing out simply because you never saw a game at all now that is a problem because of the shear number of games these days

If you think that "How many outstanding games are out there that you didn't play because they didn't stand out enough?" is an unsettling question to ask yourself as a PLAYER, boy howdy, let me tell you what it feels like to ask that question every single day as a *developer*.

Honestly it's not even an issue with the art style of a game. It has everything to do with time. Human beings are a species that function on a clock, we have a limited amount of time to allocate to the things we do. That includes video games obviously, so we're in turn selective of the things we spend that time on.

Play vigil: the longest night.

What the heck is the last game of the video??

If you like super mario land 2, you should check out MAGO

Ok but Gestalt is also just not out yet

Curate and signal boost. That's what players do to help fix the problem of games being passed over. You've had the solution right under your nose the entire time.

FUCK SOMEONE MENTIONED ICONOCLASTS WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAAAAAAAAAAAH

I have never watched a review on a game in years, monkey see monkey buy. I typically watch genre break downs, and speaking of Gestalt, Signalis is one of my favorite games I played this year, and I just looked up "Horror games for switch" and watched a top 25. No real review, just some gameplay and a breif overview. But Signalis, it's replikas and Gestalt characters, and even enviroment had a striking art style and was reminiscent of Silent Hill of days past. None of the others really struck that have to play cord, so I agree on the look of genericism can hurt a games chanches. Also anyone read this play Signalis it is... It is perfect

indie games should include free demos

Wait is G and S OUT???

Still waiting