I know that the terms "hidden gem," "underrated," "cult classic," get thrown around a lot and we all have a different opinion on what is considered to be a lesser-known quality title, but seeing firsthand what buying trends are for 16-bit games, I can tell you that most of what people buy involve either a plumber, a blue hedgehog, a guy with a funny green hat, or a gorilla with a necktie.

Beyond those three franchises, you have a subset of "classics" that I would say the semi-hardcore crowd pay money for- Metroid, Castlevania, Contra, Streets of Rage, Ecco, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG, and the like. These are all very popular and very good games, but we all know them.

The SNES and Genesis boast a library of 700+ titles each, meaning a solid 1,500 titles between the two of them. It can't simply just be that the only good games are the ones we've all heard of.

For purposes of this thread I mostly am talking about the following consoles:

- Super Nintendo
- Genesis
- TurboGrafx-16
- Sega CD

Almost hesitant to throw the Jaguar in with that group since they largely share the same subset of games released in that era, but I won't count it because of its awesome, INCREDIBLE 64 BITS OF MEGA POWER!!!! (do the math, dude)

Anyways, here's my list of some less-talked about, maybe-less hyped from the magazines of their day titles:
- Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES) Didn't play it very long but colorful, large sprites, great easy-to-understand game.
- Sword of Vermillion (Gen) Haven't gotten very far but I'm a huge Dragon Warrior fan and this game reminds me of it. The battle system isn't the traditional turn-based JRPG type, so it is a little more involved.
- Arkanoid Doh It Again (SNES) The NES/arcade Arkanoid is well-known but I don't know how many people played this late SNES release. very fun
- Mega Bomberman (Gen) Bomberman is a well known and well established franchise but again I don't know how many played this one which is my favorite in the series
- ClayMates (SNES) don't know how many people played it but I don't think I've met anyone who has. fun basic platformer with some neat in-between level stuff as well as a fun mini-game where you bounce a ball on a 3D rotating plane.
- Virtual Bart - again here, this could be a very popular title for all I know but I don't know anyone who's played it. fun game with a wide variety of action, one of the better (dare I say, the best?) Simpsons games that comes to mind.
- Lagoon (SNES) fun traditional RPG
- Pac-Man 2 (SNES) we all know who Pac-Man is but I'm not sure how familiar people are with this title. It's great, I don't know why magazines lambasted the controls. the sense of trying to direct Pac-Man through a dangerous and unforgiving world was a lot more challenging than simply moving him yourself.
- Plok (SNES) fun, goofy platformer about a guy who almost looks like he could be a stand-in for a member of the KKK. I really like the design of the enemies in the game and the upbeat music.

What are some games you guys like that don't get a lot of attention?