PlayStation 1 Games Not Released in the West

[bbobb]

Little Ralph was a really cool game. It's the first game I thought of when I read the thread title. I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested.

Hey Grave, how did you go about getting hooked up with the Japanese PSN?

You sign up.

[Kiken]

Adding Mezase SenkyuuOh (aka Battle Balls).

There's a good review for it here: http://nfggames.com/games/senkyu/

[Frogacuda]

Soul Hackers and Persona 2: Innocent Sin are really the only import PSX games I care about anymore. Though at least the Innocent Sin translation is going pretty well, I may be able to play it in English in the next year or so.

Sooner, I reckon.

[Tsubaki]

dog$ will bitch, but lots of people seem to love Umihara Kawase Syun. I never got any further than the first boss, myself.

WTF does dog have against Umihara Kawase?! I've only played Shun and I thought it was awesome.

Also, even though the OP says no-Jp-needed, I think the biggest loss of unreleased gems is the original Growlanser. It's still regarded as the best (or 2nd best, depending on who you ask) of the series.

[YellerDog]

Oh yeah, Klaymen Gun Hockey was a weird Klaymen/Skullmonkeys/The Neverhood air hockey game that involved shooting the puck with a gun instead of slapping it with a mallet. Definitely worth checking out if you can find it.

Say whaaaaaat?

That sounds awesome.

[A Robot Bit Me]

It's at least among the best claymation games about the sport of gun hockey.

[YellerDog]

FINALLY.

[Low]

A few more:

Photo Boy- PCE title rereleased as a budget PSone title with a new level and option for rearranged music (which had to be pointed out to me).

Dezaemon Plus- The popular shooter construction kit cept with a 100+ user created titles on board, wonderful to screw around with.

I really want to hunt down Harmful Park, reminds me of Magical Chase in presentation. *-neo

[Shooting Love]

Block Kuzushi 1 & 2 are really fun Arkanoid clones that I still play from time to time.

I can second that.

Arkanoid R 2000 (Taito) is notable because it supports the Namco Volume Controller, but the game gets pretty boring. Over Christams I played through all 100 (iirc) levels, and had to pause and leave it on overnight, etc, to make it bearable.
The expanded control of your paddle and other variations in the Block Kuzushi games are more enjoyable.

Namco Museum Vol.2 is also worth mentioning because of Volume Controller support and inclusion of BombBee and Cutie Q.
Also the Namco Anthology releases might be worth a look if someone doesn't have the later PS2 Namco compilations

Some of the Simple 1500 series of games are unique and fun for brief plays if you can find them cheap
Vol.77 The Swimming (HighWayStar) ain't too bad, and along with being 4-player, is the only 32-bit swimming game around.
Vol.92 The Mountain Climbing RPG (HuneX) looks really cool, but I haven't put the time in to really give it a run yet.

and then there are the GunCon games
Simple 1500 Vol.24 The Gun Shooting (developed by Tatsunoko Prod.?) is a 3D rail shooter with atrocious polygon environments, but is playable enough, and gave me impressions of what it might be like to play Panzer Dragoon with a light gun.
Vol.63 The Gun Shooting 2 (developed by AMS) looks to be a competent target shooting game in the vien of Gunbalina and others.
Gun Tengoku: The Game Paradise 2 (Jaleco) I've never played it with the lightgun, but a second player is supposed to be able to use the GunCon to assist in shooting down enemies in this shmup.
Rescue Shot Bubibo (Namco) is another 3D rail scroller, but this time you protect an amnesiac character wandering through the jungle. Another concept that could be developed a lot better - shoot traps and enemies along the way, and also peg the character in the ass to make him jump over stuff, or hit him in the head to make him duck, however it really didn't hold my interest for long in this instance. This one makes me think of what Sin & Punishment would be like with a lightgun (also released in Europe)
Oh! Bakyuuun (Eighting / Raizing) is supposed to be a Point Blank clone with a haunted house theme or something. It looks really cool, but iirc is said to be impossible difficult. My lightguns have been stored away since I aquired this one, but looking forward to trying it out, as I know Eighting/Raizing make some quirky cool action games (a haunted Kururin sequel with a light gun, I could only wish)

some others that don't get mentioned frequently:
Firemen 2 Danny & Pete, The(Human) The sequel to the SNES(EU) game looks like it was a SNES game. I played through this long ago, and enjoyed it; though, after playing the SFC original, I think the first was a better game. Two players can play cooperatively or one player can swap between the two firefighters making use of either the long-range concentrated spray, or the short-range wide spray. You navigate top down environments extinguishing fire and rescuing people, I remember getting stuck at a few spots because a neccesary passage wasn't clearly defined due to the mediocre artwork.

Hyper Crazy Climber (Nichibutsu) This update of the early 80's dual joystick skyscraper climber uses the same control scheme on the PS pad, and has some really nice sprite artwork, but like the original it is too damn hard (and I just suck). None the less, it is still fun for a play from time to time.

Choro Q Marine Q-Boat (Takara) Superdeformed boats of every make, model, shape, and size. All sorts of small little race challenges to unlock more boats and courses. A lot of the challenge is just adjusting to the manueverability of the craft. I really enjoy it.

Arcade Gears: Image Fight & XMultiply (Xing) These Irem shmups haven't been faithfully ported anywhere else. Image Fight is tough as nails but has some kickin' tunes that help you want to keep trying to get further along. And X-Multiply is just fucking cool any way you take it.

Pop'n Tanks! (Symbio Pixel Newton / Enix) This arena tank combat game features cartoony polygonal graphics and a varitey of upgrades and whatnot. There's a definate learning curve to best control your tank, and I've yet to give it the time to figure which configuration is most intuitive. Looks like it has potential, though.

Sunsoft Memorial Vol.5: Hebereke & raf World (Journey to Silius) (Sunsoft) A collection of two Famicom games. I bought this because it was only $3, and was supprised to find the Hebereke platformer is actually pretty fun to play.

Kid Klown in Crazy Chase 2: Love Love Honey (Kemco) This game completely sucks, but I've got a thing for isometric scrollers (thanks Zaxxon) so even though it is stupid and frustrating it still might manage to entertain if you're a fan of the first.

Sonic Wings (Video System) Not just an arcade port, but actually a remix of all three games into one. Really imballance difficulty depending on which character you play as, and some slowdown issues. A great pre "bullet hell" vertical shmup.

SuperLite 1500 Battle Qix (Taito? / Success) Too bad it features pedo schoolgirl characters, but as a fan of Qix it is worth checking out.

Raiden DX (Seibu Kaihatsu / Hamster) Really good Raiden. Get them monitors and TVs tated!

[Lordmrw]

Sooner, I reckon.

I have two friends that are gonna be happier than a pig swimming in its own shit once they hear this.