Topic: Nintendo World Report Declares New 'Catrap Day' Holiday

[NWR_Neal]

Come celebrate overlooked old games with us!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/28066

From this point forward, October 13 will be Catrap Day, where we all gather around and celebrate obscure gems that never got their fair shake. Thanks to the joy of digital distribution, we can sometimes get to experience these games, but that isn't always the case.

Catrap, originally released for the Game Boy in 1990, came out on the eShop today in North America. It is already out in Europe and Japan. It's a weird game where you control a cat through different block puzzles. Surprisingly, Catrap is a good game.

In honor of Catrap, let's honor all those great games that went undiscovered by most people until much later on. Let's cheer on Ufouria, Cho Aniki, Chew Man Fu, and nearly every single game on the TurboGrafx-16. Go ahead and mention what games you discovered for the first time in the Talkback thread below. Don't cheat and be like "I played this game called Mario. He jumped. It was rad."

I'll be honest. I still don't know how to pronounce Catrap. I feel like if it should be Cat Trap, there should be two Ts. So, I'll continue to pronounce it Cat-rap, because it's funnier to me.

[5kytar]

My obscure game was a game called Gotcha Force. Aside from it having really annoying voice acting; it really gets me hooked just by the fact there are so many robots to choose from and so many new ideas going through the game. Even replaying it about 10 times won't even give you all the robots.
I think it's a pretty rare game, and not very many people have played it. That's why I believe it to be obscure. It's really fun and I've lost a lot of time to it.

[KDR_11k]

I don't think I learned about any games from talkback threads specifically but of course I do know a ton of niche games (collecting those is a bit of a hobby for me, dunno if that makes me a hipster or something equally stupid).

Gotcha Force was a ton of fun, yes. On the same system I liked the Lost Kingdoms games. Games with tons of different collectibles with gameplay uses just appeal to me. Same goes for the likes of AlphaBounce. If the collectibles are too similar then it gets boring (c.f. Borderlands). It's also one factor in the appeal of the Earth Defense Force games and others by Sandlot (Reginleiv is well known here but Chou Soujuu Mecha MG is very niche).

Catrap is a pretty common game on those X in 1 pirate carts for the Game Boy. One game that's on practically every single one of those carts is Volley Fire. It's a duel shmup where both players (or one player and the AI) control a ship on a side of the screen and try to hit the other player across moving belts of obstacles. Because it's so damn common on pirate carts I actually got to play that in two player mode once.

[oksoda]

I'll pronounce it KAH-TRAP.

[Fatty The Hutt]

AH, another mention of Cho-Aniki!
Everyone take a drink.

[Chozo Ghost]

I propose this cat based holiday be celebrated by the return of the cat lettuce avatars.

[NWR_insanolord]

You already mentioned the game I'd have picked, Chew Man Fu. I'm really looking forward to when they get around to putting TG16 games on the 3DS like they said they would so I can play it on the go.

[Stogi]

Jet Set Radio was dope. I don't know a lot of people that played that.

Bloody Roar was an awesome fighter that didn't get much love.

Star Wars Shadow of the Empire. I'm not a Star Wars fan at all (I am a fan of Darth Vader though), but this game kicked so much ass.

Earth Worm Jim. The first one was pretty obscure.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Mace: The Dark Ages. Probably my favorite fighter of all time after Killer Instinct.

[ejamer]

You already mentioned the game I'd have picked, Chew Man Fu. I'm really looking forward to when they get around to putting TG16 games on the 3DS like they said they would so I can play it on the go.

You mean TurboExpress games?   

[NWR_insanolord]

Yes, those.

Now that they're putting NES games on the service I wonder if they'll actually go through the charade of calling them TurboExpress games.

[Plugabugz]

In honour of RFN, today should be cat rape day.

But don't actually go out and do that.

[Halbred]

Earth Worm Jim. The first one was pretty obscure.

The SNES version is up on the eShop, son!

Catrap was developed by Asmik, which means we might also see Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World on the Virtual Handheld someday. That would be SO AWESOME.

[Ian Sane]

Wait, Earthworm Jim is considered an obscure game these days?  I remember back in the day it got tons of attention in the game mags and it had a cartoon show and action figures.  Not exactly underground.  It was a big title at the time.

The best I can think of is Saturday Night Slam Masters.  Being a Capcom game and having Mike Freakin' Haggar in it made it somewhat well known at the time but it hasn't had a VC release and wasn't included in the Capcom Classics Collections like most of their arcade games.  It's one of my favourite games.  I actually have both the SNES and Genesis versions.  The SNES version is nearly arcade perfect and the Genesis version lacks the popular Team Battle Royale mode but instead offers an exclusive Death Match mode.

[Chozo Ghost]

Wait, Earthworm Jim is considered an obscure game these days?  I remember back in the day it got tons of attention in the game mags and it had a cartoon show and action figures.  Not exactly underground.  It was a big title at the time.

Agreed. A more obscure game from around that era would probably be Boogerman.

Earthworm Jim wasn't obscure back then, but it might be obscure today. Half of the gamers today were probably just born around the time it came out so of course they wouldn't know anything about it.

[KDR_11k]

By that logic the original Tetris releases are obscure.

A good one was Stratosphere: Conquest of the Skies, a game about building a flying fortress and then roaming around in it, fighting other fortresses. It's a PC game.

Too many people today forget that Descent was a fully polygonal FPS before Quake. I guess that makes it obscure.

[UncleBob]

By that logic the original Tetris releases are obscure.

Well, they are... who played Tetris in Russian?

Seriously, I think the difference with Tetris vs. Earthworm Jim would be that EWJ hasn't had squeals or remakes.  He's just fallen off the radar.

Too many people today forget that Descent was a fully polygonal FPS before Quake. I guess that makes it obscure.

Also, it sucked compared to Quake.  That didn't help.

[MegaByte]

Seriously, I think the difference with Tetris vs. Earthworm Jim would be that EWJ hasn't had squeals or remakes.  He's just fallen off the radar.

I don't remember any pigs in Earthworm Jim, but it was remade just last year.

[UncleBob]

Seriously, I think the difference with Tetris vs. Earthworm Jim would be that EWJ hasn't had squeals or remakes.  He's just fallen off the radar.

I don't remember any pigs in Earthworm Jim, but it was remade just last year.

Heh.

I didn't even know they'd released an HD remake of it.  Either I'm far out of the loop, or little effort was made to promote it.