Cult games.

Gunstar Heroes is a cult game? It might've qualified as "cult" when it was first released, since nobody'd heard of it and had no idea how awesome it was.

Now, I don't think cult = obscure. Everyone has heard of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but it's hardly overwhelmingly popular. ICO qualifies as cult, but I don't think Phantasy Star necessarily does. It remains somewhat obscure only because not that many people owned a Master System (not as compared to NES owners, for certain). Likewise for Dracula X on the PCEngine CD; practically nobody has ever played the game, but everyone who has immediately agrees it's one of the best Castlevanias ever.

Other cult games that should go on the list? Earthbound, for one. No matter how much we rave about it here on the internet, it still doesn't seem to have a ton of fans. The fans it does have are fanatically loyal, though.

Planescape: Torment is one of the best RPGs ever, but nobody seems to care. I picked it up out of the bargain bin for $10, in a bundle with some other crappy throwaway game, and that's just not right. It got critical acclaim from every single game critic, but for some reason people shunned it.

Silhouette Mirage is another cult qualifier, since I'm pretty sure the entire cult consists of me alone. It's a good game, dammit! It's just really wierd.

Quote:

Posted by evilboris
A real Cult game would be Shin Gouketsuji Ichizoku: Matrimelee, also known as Power Instinct Matrimelee.

THAT'S the fucking name of the game. The one with the superhero guy in the dog costume, right? God, I've been trying to find that game for forever (well, the Neo Geo one, I was unaware it was part of a whole series), but damned if I could remember what it was called.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Quote:

Posted by Matt
Anyone who denies DDR as the #1 cult game is living under a rock.

Dance Dance Revolution can't possibly be a cult game because it's so wildly popular. The key element of cult status is NOT achieving mainstream popularity. DDR is a guaranteed cash cow for any arcade that installs a machine, whereas they're far less likely to be making money off the Pistol Daimyo cabinet in the corner.

Also,

Quote:

Posted by evilboris
[a whole lot of information about the Power Instinct series]

Yipes! A brief summary would have sufficed. I'm capable of looking this stuff up on my own, once I know what it is I'm looking for. -_o

There's nowhere I can't reach.

By that definition, any fandom-related material becomes 'cult' up to and including professional sports. Many people are absolutely fanatical about their various sports interests. Indeed, it's the one socially acceptable nerdly fandom. But despite the hardcore fans, who can be every bit as hardcore as Star Wars or Trek fans, the sports fandom is hardly a cult interest.

Harry Potter, Star Trek, and D&D started out as cult interests, but have progressed into mainstream, so they no longer count. The comic book fandom doesn't really apply either; it's a smaller subset, but there's enough average people who occasionally read Spider-Man to count it as mainstream (just drop by Hot Topic and look at their Green Lantern shirts).

A cult topic has to have genuinely devoted fans, yet only enthrall a small portion of the general population. Stanley Kubrick films and console RPGs in the early 90s are cult, Street Fighter 2 is not.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.