With some 169 characters in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Astro Bot, there's a lot of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation history covered. We've detailed 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:every single character in 🦂the game here, but if you want a deeper breakdown on the weirdest, most obscure characters in the game, boy have you ever clicked on the right list. Here, we won't just be explaining who each character is, but taking a look at the strangest characters who made the cut, and take our best guess at why Team Asobi felt its monument to Sony would be incomplete without them. From trailblazing underdogs, facets of overlooked history, to games that were big in Japan, these are the ten most obscure cameos in Astro Bot.

10 𒆙 Ju༺mping Flash

Platformers like Astro Bot owe a chunk of their existence to Jumping Flash, so it's a shame so few people remember it. People often point to Super Mario 64 as taking platformers into the 3D era, but Jumping Flash did the exact same thing a y💞ear earlier and rarely gets 𓄧credit for the trail it blazed.

Part of that is because 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario 64, and several other early 3D platformers, were better. But Jumping Flash was the giant (and a giant mechanical rabbit, no less) w🍸hose shoulders they stood on. A janky first person perspective cost Jumping Flash its rightful place in the history books,ꦿ and Astro Bot sets the record straight

9 🌼 Motor Toon Grand Prix 🐼

Motor Toon Grand Prix is a cartoon racing sim that, while fun, is one of a dozen colourful racers on the PS1. It's obscure, but is it interesting? Actually, yes, and for two very good reasons. Firstly, there's the Japan Studio link. The legendary team made a lot of PlayStation's biggest hits, and many of them are also celebrated in Astro Bot (then Japan Studio became Team Asobi, who made Astro Bot). Motor Toon Grand Prix is especially fascinating because it was the first game made in-house at Sony Computer Entertainment too.

But despite being a more arcadey game, it was directed by Kazunori Yamauchi, making it a precursor to Sony's most iconic (and oddly absent) racing game, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gran Turismo. Though you wouldn't think it to compare Motor Toon Grand Prix and Gran Turismo 7, the two are essentially cousins. From gamer to racer indeed.

8 Farpoint

Some games on this list are have fallen victim to the passage of time. There's less than a decade between us and Farpoint, but time was still a factor - it arrived a little too soon. Dropping in 2017, the world wasn't quite ready for VR blockbusters, and maybe still isn't. There were teething problems, as you might expect from a VR game from seven years ago, but Farpoint was supposed to launch PSVR in style. Now we're in the PS VR2 era and still waiting for the thrusters to fully engage.

There aren't many VR games that have stuck in the public zeitgeist, and despite reviewing well and featuring the sort of movement VR games often still can't get right, Farpoint isn't one of them. However, it's worthy of a place in Astro Bot because it represents something PlayStation has always stood for - trying to be cutting edge, and trying again if you fail.

7 Spaꦛce Channel 5

Space Channel 5 is already a bit of a weird game. Firstly, Michael Jackson's in it. Secondly, it's set in a retro '60s future where aliens invade Earth. But that's fine, weird is good when you look at a lot of PlayStation's history. As a rhythm game, it's also right at home here, with the likes of PaRappa the Rapper and UmJammer Lammy providing more classic rhythm game representation, and then SingStar offering a more modern version of music games.

But Space Channel 5 is a Dreamcast game. It launched exclusively on Dreamcast, and didn't come to PlayStation until three years later, after the Dreamcast tapped out of the dog eat dog world that is selling video game consoles. All in all, that makes it an odd choice for PlayStation to commemorate, but Ulala sure can dance.

6 ꦕ Arc the Lad

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that video game music might be very different today without Arc the Lad. Released in 1995, i𝓡t was the first game to have an orchestral soundtrack, which is now a staple of several dozen genres. Would♛ they have figured it out without Arc? Probably eventually, but the game still deserves a lot of credit for being the first.

It also has an interesting history that shows how much more global gaming is these days. A TRPG (or SRPG, as many call them) with fantasy elements, Sony Computer Entertainment America decided against bringing it Westwards, feeling Western gamers would not be interested in big goofy swords and party management. Cue the success of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7, 🐎and by the third game in the series, Sony finally attempted to take Arc the Lad worldwide. As you can tell from its position in this list and💃 the fact you may well never have heard of it, this was not an entirely successful endeavour.

5 Incredible Crisis 🌳

Video games these days keep raising the stakes. The world is about to end! God is angry with us! My trauma risks going unprocessed through the medium of violent revenge! And so forth. Incredible Crisis, despite its name, is not about an incredible crisis at all, but a very low stakes one. It's grandma's birthday, and everyone is running late. That's it.

As you try to get characters home on time for the family matriarch, a series of roadblocks appear, and through winning a succession of minigames, it's your job to overcome them. A WarioWare before WarioWare, Incredible Crisis is an entirely unique game and one you fear is a little too silly for the grown up PlayStation of today to bother with.

4 Ore no Ryouri 🐼 ෴

If you've ever played Cook, Serve, Delicious, you have (probably unknowingly) played a little slice of Ore no Ryouri's history. Geddit, slice? Because he's a chef? Anyway, this fast and furious cooking sim never released outside of Japan, but was popular enough for fan translation and remakes. These games led to the development of Cook, Serve, Delicious, which is still the closest you can get in the West to playing Ore no Ryouri.

Its inclusion in Astro Bot is an important one, because we're used to thinking of PlayStation for games like The Last of Us or God of War, with many fans associating Japan more with Nintendo, or specifically with JRPGs. But Sony is a Japanese company and many of the biggest innovators through PlayStation's life have hailed from the island nation, and Ore no Ryouri is a tribute to the diversity of games Japan has made down the years.

3 Alundra

I know what you're thinking - this guy looks like Zelda. Well, first of all, he looks like Link, not Zelda (rookie error). And second of all, you're in luck! It also plays like Zelda! But if Zelda had one of those Inception machines, because Alundra is a dreamwalker who can invade 👍your dreams to cure you of whatever mystic nightmares might ail you, all while solving puzzles, battling through ♓combat, and possibly even smashing a clay pot or two.

With cryptic dungeons that span over 7,000 screens (it was a lot back then, and still is now), Alundra is a fascinating PlayStation game because it almost feels as if it predates the PS1, channelling the more methodical game design of the Sega Genesis over Sony's edgier, faster action landscape.

2 ♛ Boku no Nats🌞uyasumi

Similar to Ore no Ryouri, Boku no Natsuyasumi never made it out of Japan. It's all about a boy, Boku, in 1975 who spends his summer vacation living the good life. There aren't really any goals in the game, just like there aren't really any goals in summer. Just have a nice time, however you'd like to. The world is yours. It's a magical feeling.

There are a few of these peaceful games represented in Astro Bot - Flower and Journey, both from Thatgamecompany, spring to mind). But the way Boku no Natsuyasumi used hand-painted backgrounds to offer a unique beauty on a console that wasn't quite ready for the graphics of later consoles we'd call 'gorgeous', it's a special part of PlayStation history.

1 Mad Maestꩵro ✤

As the Space Channel 5 entry mentions, there is a lot of rhythm representation in Astro Bot. It was a massive genre once upon a time, and thus it's only fitting that this historical exhibition of the Triangle, Square, Circle, and X button includes so many. But in a genre full of deep cuts, few go down to the bone like Mad Maestro. Playing 🐟as a conductor rather than a musician, this one did make ꦐit out of Japan and to the West, but never really made a name for itself.

Its gimmick was that timing wasn't the only thing measured here, but pressure too - however hard you pushed the buttons counted for different scores, giving it a lot more depth than most games of its ilk. That depth wasn't enough for superstardom, and so it's definitely one of the most obscure games to get a shout out in Astro Bot.