5 Xbox hidden gems you should play

Microsoft's first console only had so many games, but there's still buried treasure.

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Last time on our hidden gems journey, we made a grave mistake by diving head first into the PlayStation 4’s library. This time around was much easier! While the Xbox had crucial, history-making games on it like Halo: Combat Evolved and, uh, Halo 2, it didn’t have a whole lot else. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t underrated, weird, or otherwise interesting games that weren’t just licensed mediocrity or multiplatform shooters. Here are a few examples of games for Xbox that may not sit on many all-time lists, but stand out and are worth playing if they fit your interests.

Breakdown

Breakdown's Xbox box art, featuring a bright red fist with some white lightning-like markings
Source: Namco Bandai

Namco’s Breakdown is absolutely unhinged. It has this bizarre energy that on one hand, feels similar to a Namco arcade joint like Time Crisis, and on the other hand the kind of fever dream storytelling you’d find in a direct-to-DVD sci-fi action movie mostly filmed in Romania. Marketing at the time leaned on first-person melee combat, but the real reward for showing up is a kind of bonkers scenario and dark humor that you’d never expect to see from a mainstream player like Namco.

Crimson Sea

Crimson Sea Xbox box art, featuring a guy swinging a sword surrounding by red VFX
Source: Koei Tecmo

It’s a Koei joint, so you know it’s going to be a decent time in terms of fast action and button-mashing. But Crimson Sea is also a rare effort from the house of Dynasty Warriors and Nobunaga’s Ambition to tell an original story at a larger scale. It’s definitely bizarre, with a lot of over the top characters, scenery-chewing voice acting, and goofy boss fights. But it’s also a creative sci-fi world in an original setting, with enough ambition and material to carry a sequel.

Metal Dungeon

Metal Dungeon Xbox box art, featuring a crew of sci-fi soldier-like characters
Source: Xicat Interactive

This one has a fat stack of caveats that could only mean I’m about to talk about an ornery dungeon-crawler inspired by Wizardry. Metal Dungeon is a super-specific kind of RPG that will have the average Final Fantasy fan running for the hills. It’s also one of the few old school-flavored RPGs on the Xbox whatsoever, and bold enough to be deliberately unappealing to the average audience. Create a team, tackle the randomized dungeon until you have to flee, spend your points, then get back in there and try again. Or perish, and start from scratch. There’s an off-kilter sci-fi setting for flavor, but it’s systems over story all day in Metal Dungeon.

Gunvalkyrie

Gunvalkyrie Xbox box art, featuring a woman in futuristic armor and a mean-looking face in the background
Source: Sega

Sega’s partnership with Microsoft feels like a bad deal in retrospect, but that partnership sure did produce some bangers. Gunvalkyrie doesn’t have the lasting reputation games like Panzer Dragoon Orta or Jet Set Radio Future do. What it does have is intense Dreamcast energy, which is mostly because it literally started as a Dreamcast game. You can almost see the beginnings of ideas that led to later cult classics like Vanquish here, with the kind of arcade-like structure and complex mechanics prohibiting Gunvalkyrie from success. Now, especially since this one benefits greatly from backwards compatibility, you can have the kind of fun that makes you wonder why it wasn’t a hit in the first place.

Otogi: Myth of Demons

Otogi Xbox box art, featuring a soldier of some kind holding up a sword
Source: Sega

This one is for all the Elden Ring sickos out there. FromSoftware made a few Xbox games back in the day, but they were mech games that weren’t as good as Armored Core. Otogi is much more like a step on the evolutionary ladder to what we call Soulslikes today. It’s not a linear comparison of course, but Otogi thinks about things like limitations and risk alongside the combo counter and air-dashing. There are RPG elements, a hidden ending, and an emphasis on exploration that all make Otogi operate at a different pace compared to other action games at the time, like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry.


Now that’s a list of cool, niche-friendly games for a console known for shooting aliens and stuff if I’ve ever seen one. This is the kind of list for sickos like me who spent more time in the early 2000s playing Guilty Gear XX #Reload on their Xbox than Halo. And if that was you, and you missed any of these, I highly suggest firing up whatever means you have of playing Xbox games and give ‘em a shot.

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.

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