1993 was an exceptional year for video games. Fans were treated to all-time classics like Star Fox, Mortal Kombat II, NBA Jam, Myst, and several other fan-favorite games. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. The year also had a few lesser-known games, especially by today’s standards, that might’ve gone under your radar if you weren’t tapped in. These games didn’t hit the high sales standards of their contemporaries, but are still worth playing today if you missed them back in the 1990s. Here are five underrated games from 1993 that fans love.
Let me be clear: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is not for everybody. This 1993 point-and-click adventure game stars Tim Curry as a struggling horror novelist in New Orleans. He starts having chilling nightmares about the “Voodoo Murders” happening around the city, and believes it could be the setting for a hit book. From there, you dive into an otherworldly murder mystery that ends with Curry’s Knight becoming a supernatural entity.
It’s dark. It’s incredibly weird. But Sins of the Fathers is one of the more effective horror games of its era. Plus, Curry is joined in the A-list cast by Mark Hamill, Leah Remini, Michael Dorn, and Linda Gary. Sins of the Fathers might’ve been a bust at the box office, but anyone who played director and co-writer Jane Jensen’s adventure knew they were playing for something they’d remember. Thankfully, Sins of the Fathers got a sequel in 1995 called The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, which was a much better seller.
It’s probably not fair to call Breath of Fire “cult” in a vacuum. After all, this first game kicked off a long-running series that was still getting new mainline games in 2016. The first Breath of Fire also routinely shows up in “Best of SNES” lists, so I might be doing it a disservice. The reason I have it here is that Breath of Fire never gets the love of its RPG contemporaries like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Look, both of those series are absolutely massive. They’re going to suck up all of the air in a room when a new release hits. Breath of Fire sits comfortably on that second tier, and deserves more love from fans. It’s also worth remembering that the original game didn’t really become popular until the second game launched in 1995, at least in North America. Breath of Fire was always popular in Japan thanks to its great look and captivating story, but players in the West were a little late to the party. Don’t be like them. If you haven’t played Breath of Fire, change that.
Peter Molyneux founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987. Quickly, the studio became known for pushing the envelope with creative new designs. Between games like Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Theme Park, the studio had a busy 1990s. One of the studio’s games that slipped through the cracks for many is Syndicate. This real-time tactical game takes players to a worrying future where corporations are fighting for global dominance.
Instead of fighting back against those corps, you’re playing as your own company, using cyborg agents to assassinate rivals, rescue allies, and entice civilians to join your group. It’s a perspective we don’t usually use in the dystopian future genre, but it’s pretty effective. If you’re looking for something unique, you can’t go wrong with Syndicate. Just make sure you’re playing the PC version because the console ports are mostly bad. Bullfrog expanded on the series with Syndicate Wars in 1996, but nothing has ever been as good as the gleeful violence fans saw in the original.
In 1991, the developers at MicroProse (most notably Sid Meier) popularized the turn-based 4X strategy genre with Civilization. From there, it was an arms race for developers to capitalize on the hype, giving strategy fans dozens of options. In 1993, there weren’t many better than Master of Orion. This sci-fi strategy game was developed by Simtex, but it was published by MicroProse, so it’s no surprise that many described it as a sci-fi spin-off of Civilization.
That’s an apt comparison, but you can’t really play SimTex. Civ is the granddaddy of the genre, and everyone wanted a piece of that pie. Master of Orion excels at customization. Not only does it use a random map generator to create a new galaxy each time, but there are 10 playable races. Each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses, meaning no two games will ever feel the same. At the time, it felt like a near-perfect game. The only thing it was missing was multiplayer, which was fortunately added in the sequel Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares.
Betrayal at Krondor is a side story in author Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar novels. Feist didn’t actually do any writing on this project, but the game was canonized in a novel five years later, and several events from the game have been referenced in future books. What I’m saying is that Riftwar lovers absolutely have to play Betrayal at Krondor if they’ve somehow missed it.
For everyone else, that recommendation is a little less forceful, but you should still check it out. This is a classic RPG from the ’90s. That means diving into caves and dungeons, with your perspective shifting depending on whether you’re exploring or fighting. Where Betrayal at Krondor really gets good is its character progression and story. I think I’ve made it clear that the Riftwar influence is heavy, and the writers mostly live up to the billing. Meanwhile, progression is ridiculously in-depth for the era. You’ll level up skills as you use them, something that was popularized years later by Morrowind. Your options will feel dizzying the first few times you look into that menu, but once you wrap your brain around what’s happening, it’ll be clear that this is a special RPG.
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