As video games have become increasingly specialized, I’ve begun to appreciate those that seek to break away from the mold, generating unusual sensations by not following modern standards.
Although attempting something irreverent or highly innovative can be risky, as they’re often things that haven’t been proven to work and there are no references to back up their proposals, I’ve always preferred video games to have personality rather than being the same as thousands of others.
It’s not a common practice, but it can’t be said that these kinds of creations are scarce, as many developers, especially independent ones, have dedicated themselves to creating inexplicable adventures that only make sense within the interactive medium.
Therefore, if you’re tired of feeling like you’re playing repetitive titles and would like to try something truly different, I invite you to read this list of the ten best RPGs that are unapologetically weird.
10 Haven
A Romance of Fights
I haven’t played many video games entirely centered around romance because it’s not a common trope, so Haven proposes something quite distinctive from the start.
It’s definitely strange because it drops you into an empty world of islands interconnected by loading screens, where you move as if you were playing Journey but fight as if you were playing a co-op JRPG, making the concept take a while to sink in.
Unlike any other game of its kind, and despite dealing with a common theme like the environmental crisis, it focuses predominantly on the bond between the characters, creating a beautiful relationship with very human dialogue and circumstances that aren’t easy to see even in the indie world.
Mechanically, it just works, as it quickly becomes tedious despite its interesting premise, but the story makes up for it. Haven doesn’t mind not showing a spectacular campaign or boasting about life-changing cities, but rather focusing on the journey of being in love, which I applaud precisely because I am.
9 Biomutant
Fantasy In All Its Splendor
The few times I’ve mentioned Biomutant in one of my articles, it’s been to express a negative opinion, but I’ll allow myself a rare exception in this case.
Precisely, the only reason the title doesn’t strike me as nonsense of biblical proportions is that it offers a truly unique fantasy, with a strange but compelling mythology that makes you deeply interested in its flora and fauna.
The game’s finest parts are when the narrator shuts up, you’re not fighting the same enemy for the nineteenth time, and you’re free to wander the world’s vibrant natural streets, hand in hand with your strange avatar whose limbs you can resize for some reason.
You have story-changing decisions, an RPG system where classes aren’t your typical medieval ones but instead merge with science fiction, hack-and-slash combat combined with third-person shooting and Souls-like bosses… It’s a hodgepodge of many things that don’t always work, though they do catch your eye.
Recommending Biomutant is extremely difficult, especially since I didn’t enjoy it. However, when it comes to weirdness, it has plenty of narrative and gameplay enthusiasm to try things that are very likely to go wrong, so I admire its courage.
8 Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Dungeons and Dragons with Many Twists
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
-
- Released
- March 25, 2022
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Blood, Crude, Humor, Language, Partial Nudity, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- Split Screen Orientation
- Vertical or Horizontal
- How Long To Beat
- 16 Hours
- Metascore
- 76
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
- Local Co-Op Support
- 1-4 Players
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Talking about weird games and not including Borderlands is an impossible task, but I’m going to go one step further and give the spotlight to its most recent spin-off: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
While I don’t think it surpasses any of the franchise’s main titles, I do consider it to be the most dissimilar installment, especially because its peculiar connection to a Dungeons and Dragons narrative and gameplay structure gives it an easily distinguishable essence.
Is it fun to stop shooting sections to walk through a slow-moving board like an early 2000s overworld to change zones? Not quite. Is it normal? Not at all, and that’s precisely why it has the advantage on this list.
From then on, it has the typical stuff: sociopaths, a unicorn ruling the game world, crossbows that are actually pistols, skeletons that make more bad jokes than they fight… It takes the Borderlands’ foundation to the extreme, not always for the better, but you can’t say it didn’t try.
7 Juice Galaxy
A True Fever Dream
|
Platform(s) |
PC |
|---|---|
|
Developer(s) |
Fishlicka |
|
Publisher(s) |
J4D3D LLC |
|
Genre |
Souls-Like (A-RPG) |
|
Released |
2023/11/22 |
|
How Long To Beat |
2 Hours |
Considering I stumbled upon Juice Galaxy the same day I decided to play a dozen tributes to Skibidi Toilet‘s universe that were all under a dollar, you can imagine what kind of game it is.
However, much to my surprise, it’s a ragdoll physics-based Souls-like game that’s insanely fun, especially since it drops you into a vast world filled with exciting secrets like a giant bat that gives you abilities, the game’s developer turning into a boss, and Guts’ sword from Berserk.
Flying around, slashing bizarre creatures out of the sky whose juice you absorb to level up, and repeating the cycle to complete strange side quests from a nightmare-ridden fox is the kind of thing you’d describe in a fever dream, and it’s brilliant.
Despite being in Early Access, it’s a highly entertaining title that’s laughable both because of the hilarious physics and the inexplicable characters and situations. Using a giant plunger to defeat an underground queen bee gives you more dopamine than I can explain, so you’ll have to find out for yourself.
6 Kenshi
Excess of Freedoms
The only thing more unhinged than one human being with too much freedom is hundreds of humans with too much freedom, so Kenshi was a must-have for this list.
Given that we understand the genre as one that allows you to take on a role and live an adventure based on what it entails, I can’t think of many alternatives that surpass what this vast wasteland of undesirable opportunities presents.
I feel like the main reason Kenshi looks and feels like a weird game is because of its ability to embrace sandbox games’ core, where every step you take makes you genuinely feel like there are no limits to what you can do.
If you don’t know the sensation of starting as a limbless slave, afraid of even the smallest living creature, and surviving by doing things you wouldn’t be proud of even if you cast aside your moral code, you haven’t yet experienced peak gaming.
In the end, the best thing about Kenshi is that it’s organic, and organic is, in an industry where everything is premeditated, encrypted, and meticulously studied, an immeasurable anomaly that makes it stand out quite easily.
5 Hylics
Completely Unexplainable
You know how incredible a game has to be to have its entire story, characters, and dialogue be completely gibberish and still be the most exciting thing in the world? Well, that’s Hylics.
Besides easily standing out for being made with claymation, the game throws you into a bizarre universe whose language is literally unintelligible, and each nomenclature is less intuitive than the last, forcing you to wander until you halfway understand what’s going on.
If I’m being honest, even when you see the credits, you won’t truly comprehend what happened, though you’ll quickly begin to unravel how it works mechanically, such as how skills are acquired by watching TV, how fights operate like a traditional turn-based party RPG, and how eating the enemies’ flesh makes you level up.
All the game’s systems are familiar, but nothing about the presentation is. Hylics has no messages, no intelligible dialogue, and no sense; instead, it features psychedelic attack animations, an extravagant color palette, and enemies straight out of a nightmare.
Given all of the above, you might think the game is cool… And it is. It’s among the rarest titles I’ve ever played, so I think it’s literally impossible for me to forget the four hours of madness I put into it.
4 South Park: The Stick of Truth
An Excellent Adaptation
Unless you live under a rock, I’m sure you know what South Park is, so I don’t think there’s much point in me over-explaining South Park: The Stick of Truth‘s presence.
I don’t think it’s Obsidian‘s best game, but it truly demonstrates their ability to work with a defined mythology and make the most of it, which explains the wonderful way the series’ irreverent world adapts to the gameplay.
The fact that abilities can be body gases, weapons can be simple wood wands, and enemies can be homeless people is not only a great way to adapt the franchise, but also to shape the tropes of the RPG genre in a way that’s believable within its universe.
South Park: The Stick of Truth isn’t an extremely complex or deep title; it’s an outstanding adaptation that understands how these types of games work and how they can satirize them narratively and mechanically to appeal to the gaming audience.
It’s a good game, yet as an adaptation and dedication to South Park fans, it’s amazing. It’s a game where an ability called Dragon’s Breath actually implies using a firework in your enemy’s face and where the main antagonist is called Big Bad Government Guy.
3 Fear & Hunger
As Bizarre as Dark
I spent several years reading about Fear & Hunger before finally giving it a chance, and now I’m afraid I’m the one who can’t stop suggesting it.
Still, the reason it’s on this list is that the RPG genre usually maintains a fairly clear line with the maturity with which it approaches an adventure in terms of story, gameplay, and visuals, but this indie gem couldn’t care less.
Instead, it’s more like a graphic adventure, where the text predominates and doesn’t hold back for a second to say, show, or do excessively obscure things, which is extremely unusual for a genre where you “want” to play a role.
It’s still a turn-based RPG where you change your weapons and armor, vary your squad, and explore dungeons while killing enemies, but the title’s delivery of this content is more typical of a seinen manga than an RPG.
I don’t want to go into too much detail because every new thing you discover on your own adds a lot of value to your experience with Fear & Hunger, so just know I’m not the same person since I had to watch my character amputate his leg with a saw to stop his health bar from going down.
2 Undertale
Subverting Expectations Out of Habit
We use labels like “RPG” because they allow us to quickly identify what a video game entails, but there are anomalies like Undertale that no category adequately fits.
It’s no coincidence it promotes itself as an experience where you don’t have to kill anyone, because this is precisely a prevailing verb in the genre, and what this pixel-like wonder is interested in is subverting everything we know about role-playing games.
From the way we fight opponents, in a sort of minimalist bullet hell where you don’t actually attack bosses, to how Sans explains that “EXP” is an acronym for “Execution Points,” Undertale rejects the standards and turns them on their head, creating a unique game.
Between the dialogue’s predominantly comedic intent, the map’s lack of intrusive indicators, and combat based on knowing your opponent to discourage their desire to fight, I think you’re never quite able to anticipate what’s coming, as it doesn’t follow any pre-known structure.
You may like it more or less, but it’s undeniable that its charm stems from its strangeness, which is born from a clear creative intention to be revolutionary and atypical. I was so impressed by it that I ended up getting it tattooed, but it’s the kind of game that, whether you like it or not, it’s easy to see why it got as far as it did.
1 NieR: Automata
Yoko Taro in His Element
Every game directed by Yoko Taro is inherently strange, and while any Drakengard would have been enough to top this list, I think it’s better to shine a light on NieR: Automata for its ability to be as unusual as it is extraordinary.
Being different is difficult, but being different and still excelling in every extravagance you set your mind to is commendable, and 2B and 9S’s adventure makes it their routine as if it were effortless.
One moment, you’re playing a hack-and-slash about a robot invasion; the next, you’re playing a side-scrolling platformer in an amusement park whose metallic final boss wants to be beautiful; and finally, you’re playing bullet-hell hacking minigames, all within a ten-hour timeframe.
If you add to that the plot twists, endless fourth-wall breaks, multiple protagonists, the need to replay the game to see the true ending, DLCs where you fight Square Enix’s Yosuke Matsuda and PlatinumGames’ Kenichi Sato, and numerous other things I’m forgetting, you easily understand why NieR: Automata is in first place.
Besides, it’s a masterpiece thanks to and despite all of the above, which I don’t think I can say about any other JRPG I can think of. It isn’t suitable for all gamers, but for those who are, it’s a truly unforgettable odyssey.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
