24 Of Our Favorite Forgotten Games Trapped On The Xbox 360

Mechs. Side-scrolling bullet hell. Over 100 levels. Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury had it all. The 2011 Xbox Arcade game from Treasure, the Japanese studio behind classics ranging from Ikaruga to Wario World, is blisteringly difficult with a cornucopia of on-screen hazards that would make even Armored Core 6’s missile-spitting Balteus blush. Treasure is finally back to making new games after a decade since their last one, but Missile Fury is one-of-a-kind from some of the best to ever do it. — Ethan

Status: Delisted in 2021. Free demo available.

Though Idea Factory’s 2008 tactical RPG will never make it into the pantheon alongside the genre’s greats like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics, it did feature novel systems like faction friendships and team attack gauges. Spectral Force 3 has over 40 characters to recruit and follows a group of mercenaries as they fight warring kingdoms and evil demons. It’s a decent one of those for grid-based combat sickos. The story was trash and the graphics were ugly but those were the dark years for SRPGs we we took what we could get. — Ethan

Status: Physical only.

In 2006 Microsoft was in the market for Japanese-developed exclusives and Square Enix wanted to broaden its genre horizons. Hence Project Sylpheed was born, a messy, overwhelming, but intriguing 3D space sim shooter. The futuristic adventure revolves around distant space colonies and political cover ups, or as critic Chris Dahlen put it at the time, “the story of warring fleets of strippers and Muppet-boys determined to wipe each other out of the galaxy.” It’s no Star Fox but it’s a worthwhile sci-fi anime treasure all the same. — Ethan

Status: Free demo only.

Kill guys. Get orbs. Kill even more guys. This is the circle of life in Ninety-Nine Nights and it works just fine. It’s the anti-Dark Souls, asking you not how many times you’ll die in the face of brutal foes but rather how quickly you can massacre faceless battalions without breaking a sweat. The first game was reportedly developed in barely a year’s time, and is as much a rhythm game of chaining together combos and special attacks as anything else. The sequel was made by different people, not nearly as slick or stupidly fun, but it had even more enemies on screen and occasionally some entertainingly preposterous cutscenes. — Ethan

Status: Free demo only for N3. Nights II is $7.50 to buy.

While it never quite hit the same level of notoriety as Castle Crashers or Super Meat Boy, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was one of the first games to help establish Xbox Live Arcade as a lively space for indie experimentation in console gaming. The scratchy, hand-drawn 2D brawler was gruesome and personal, with finishing moves and a guitar minigame that rounded out its morbid interpretation of industrial kitchen work life. It’s the only game in Ska Studios’ brawler trilogy to never get ported to PC, in addition to some of developer James Silva’s other early projects. — Ethan

Status: Free demo available. $10 to buy.

The history of the Culdcept games is long and winding. A mash-up of Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly, it’s a strategy series about occupying squares on a game board with magical creatures summoned from a deck of cards. Culdcept Saga brought this unique formula to Xbox 360 with a soundtrack by SaGa composer Kenji Ito and a story by Psycho-Pass anime writer Tow Ubukata. It was a fascinating game no one played, in part due to the tedious pacing and luck-based dice mechanics. But they don’t make them like this anymore, and it’s a rough gem worth preserving. — Ethan

Status: Free demo only.

Did you ever watch Grindhouse, that double feature from Quinten Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez? Well, the developers behind Wet sure did, because this Bethesda-published third-person acrobatic shooter feels heavily inspired by those kinds of low-budget retro exploitation films. I mean, Wet even features moments where the “film reel” falls and an ad for hotdogs in the theater’s lobby starts playing. Sadly, while it has a lot of style and some great music, the action gets repetitive fast. Thankfully, you can beat the whole thing in under 4 hours. Anyway, now that Bethesda is owned by Xbox, maybe this thing can get a second life on Game Pass via a quick port? — Zack

Status: Free demo only.

It’s shocking that this never got ported. Over a decade later, the collection containing both Budokai 1 and 3, two of the best fighting games in DBZ history, are still trapped on PS3 and Xbox 360. Budokai 3 was the anime at its 2D fighting peak, right before it made the jump to 3D arenas with Budokai Tenkaichi. Ahead of Sparking Zero’s launch later this year, it would have been the perfect time to revisit the Budokai golden age, and the joy of getting into an after image face off as Super Saiyan 4 Goku. It also has the all-important Future Trunks alt costume from the Japanese version. — Ethan

Status: Delisted in 2021.

Today, Insomniac Games is closely associated with PlayStation. And during the PS1 and PS2 era that was true, too. But for a short time during the PS3/Xbox 360 era, the Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank studio made some Xbox games, too. One of these was the multiplatform EA-published third-person squad shooter Fuse. It’s not the studio’s best by any means, but its focus on co-op, Insomniac’s love of cool guns, and innovative squad gameplay would have made it a perfect old-school shooter to fire up with three other buds even in 2024. — Zack

Status: Delisted in 2021.

Made by Korean developer Softmax and published by Bandai Namco, MagnaCarta 2 was the third game in an action-RPG trilogy, and one where Stellar Blade director Hyung-tae Kim got his start as a character illustrator. It used the Xbox 360 to push seamless third-person battles out in the field and envelope players in a grim sandbox of muddy gray and browns. The game was far from pretty, but it offered a bold take on some traditional RPG systems and some irresistibly weird character conversations. It’s not a great game or even a good one but it’s a piece of gaming history that deserves not to be forgotten. — Ethan

Status: Physical only.

If you played last year’s Armored Core VI you might be wondering, “Where the hell can I get more of that crunchy FromSoftware mech shooting?” The answer is, unfortunately, not many places. The Xbox 360 store remains one of the easiest ways to access the series’ recent past. The best was arguably Armored Core: For Answer, the direct follow-up to Armored Core IV. It’s fast, handles well, and features some neat open levels in the campaign. Armored Core V is much slower and its follow-up, Armored Core: Verdict Day, prioritized part customization and multiplayer over everything else (the servers shutdown earlier this year, RIP). Armored Core IV, meanwhile, has the distinction of being the first game ever directed by FromSoftware legend Hidetaka Miyazaki. If you’re an Armored Core-head, however, all of these games offer something special in their own way. — Ethan

Status: Verdict Day is $20 to buy. The rest are physical only.

Japanese studio tri-Crescendo has co-developed on some of the most legendary games around, from Valkyrie Profile to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but Eternal Sonata was its first solo game and it’s truly one of a kind. The RPG revolves around the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and a dream world of his compositions that players fight through while he’s on his deathbed. It had a colorful world, incredible music, haunting themes, and a great battle system with a unique spin on traditional turn-based combat. It’s a crime you can’t play it anywhere but Xbox 360 and PS3. — Ethan

Status: $15 to buy.

Before Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, the character’s video game output was more of a rollercoaster with some real gems (Spider-Man 2 on PS2) and some real stinkers (The Amazing Spider-Man). Web of Shadows is one of the good ones and it was the last Spider-Man game built using tech from Treyarch (who also developed Spider-Man 2, 3, and Ultimate and assisted in the development on Web of Shadows). Like those games, Shadows is an open-world game, but this time around, combat got a big upgrade and a new choice system was added, forcing players to make hard calls throughout. It was proof Spider-Man games were always trying to do interesting things with open worlds. — Zack

Status: Delisted in 2014.

The end of the Xbox 360-era was the peak of the Forza Motorsport series for many fans, and Forza Motorsport 4 was probably the best of the bunch thanks to its selection of courses and cars, and its excellent gameplay balance. The graphics hold up decently well, plus it was the last game in the series to have its beloved Fujimi Kaido closed circuit. These trio of games aren’t just a great way to chart the evolution of Forza, they’re a great joyride around the glory days before the franchise was lapped by Forza Horizon. — Ethan

Status: Forza 3 and 4 were delisted in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

What if Mario Kart and all the cool night-time racing scenes from Fast and Furious were thrown in a blender? Well, you’d get Blur, a badass racing game developed by Bizzare Creations that features dark, wet streets and colorful neon power-ups. While the game’s single-player campaign isn’t much to write home about, playing Blur online with other people is some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a video game. It’s a shame we never got a real sequel. No, that bad mobile game doesn’t count. — Zack

Status: Delisted in 2013.

I’m not sure how many people in 2010 were demanding a remake of the 1989 arcade game Splatterhouse, but that’s exactly what we got. And while it didn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to brawlers, it was snappy and bloody enough to keep my attention for its five-hour runtime. The best bits of this remake are when it switches to a 2D perspective and recaptures some of the arcade action from the original game. Oh, and the voice acting is great, with your evil, demonic mask voiced by Jim Cummings aka the voice actor behind Winnie the Pooh and many, many others. — Zack

Status: Delisted.

Ninja Blade featured a mutant plague, clandestine military operations, and Tokyo skyrise showdowns. Developed by FromSoftware and published by Microsoft, it feels like one of the bigger outliers in the studio’s pre-Dark Souls repertoire. The action was in the vein of Ninja Gaiden with quick-time events littered throughout the scarcely nine hour campaign. “This game isn’t great,” wrote one reviewer before the game was pulled from Steam. “But that doesn’t stop it from being hilariously crazy and in your face.” Its producer, Masanori Takeuchi, is still at FromSoftware today. — Ethan

Status: Free demo only.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was a cult-favorite on the original Xbox. Assault on Dark Athena includes that game and continues the journey with a mercenary ship and eventually a planetary siege below. A prequel to the Riddick movies, both games star Vin Diesel and a quaint-but-clumsy recreation of the cinematic performances that made those films sci-fi favorites. Despite some iffy stealth and AI enemies, Assault on Dark Athena is better than most licensed movie tie-ins have any right to be. — Ethan

Status: $15 to buy.

I don’t think there are many (if any) people out there who would list Full Auto as their favorite video game. But while this vehicular combat racer might not be beloved, it’s still worth playing from a historical perspective. This was a very early Xbox 360 exclusive and you can tell the devs were trying to show off the power of the new console with all the shiny textures and destruction. Weirdly, if you want to play the sequel, you’ll need a PS3, as it skipped Xbox and became an exclusive on Sony’s machine. — Zack

Status: Free demo only.

Before there was Forza Motorsport there was Project Gotham Racing, the racing exclusive meant to start the Xbox 360 off with a bang. What PGR 3 lacked in modes and customization it made up for with the mid-2000s thrill of speeding down jagged, HD streets at night in America’s most depraved cities. PGR 4 included better weather effects and way more cars and tracks. It’s way better overall even if nostalgia will always give the edge to PGR 3. — Ethan

Status: Physical only.

Another FromSoftware hidden gem, 2007’s Chromehounds is a wartime mech game about an alternate history WWII where giant robots and solar flares plunged the globe into geopolitical conflict. The game excelled more in online multiplayer than the dry, plodding campaign, but a lot of customization and alternate vehicle types meant it wasn’t a complete slog. Probably the coolest bit about it was that the only way to communicate with teammates in matches was by capturing comms towers and remaining in range. Despite the friction, Chromehounds had a small but passionate cult-following. Nearly two decades later it would be neat to give it another go. — Ethan

Status: Delisted in 2010.

Games can tell heart wrenching stories or present a unique perspective on the world. But games can also let you slice up hundreds of dudes as Hugh Jackman’s version of Wolverine, and that’s pretty sweet, too.That’s the real reason X-Men: Origins Wolverine is on this list: It lets you rip and tear through soldiers like butter with gory kills featuring almost comedic amounts of blood and bone. If Wolverine takes too much damage, you’ll start to see chunks of his flesh rip off. It’s not a very smart game and it’s really repetitive, but it’s short and fun enough that you probably won’t mind. — Zack

Status: Delisted in 2014.

No, this isn’t the Simpsons game everyone loves and wants a remake of, that would be Hit and Run. But The Simpsons Game is still a good time, even if it’s pretty short. As is the norm with Simpsons games, the humor and voice cast do a lot of heavy lifting. But I do enjoy how this EA-published Simpsons game mixes the world of Springfield with video games, having Homer play through a Call of Duty-like parody of war games and Marge transported into a GTA-like world. It’s not an amazing game, but it’s a blast for Simpsons fans and is the last Simpsons game we’ve ever got on consoles. Sad stuff. — Zack

Status: Delisted.

Before High Moon Studios became another Activision studio forced to work on Call of Duty sequels until the heat death of the universe, the company put out some of the best Transformers games ever made. And the first one of these, War for Cybertron, is still trapped on Xbox 360 and PS3 and unlikely to ever get back compat support or remastered. That’s a shame because this sci-fi third-person shooter mixing on-foot action with vehicular mayhem is a wonderful bit of Transformers fun and 10x better than anything Michael Bay created. — Zack

Status: Delisted in 2017.