Z.A.R. and MadSpace (another FPS by Maddox) are now owned by Nightdive Studios, not Maddox Games.

I think you can try contacting Nightdive and ask them why Z.A.R. is still not on GOG (while available on Steam), but something tells me that we have another good old "too niche" situation here.

***

As for "old obscure game...", for me it was Shadow Watch. None of my friends even heard of this game, and neither did I. I bought it by accident because I like turn-based games and because it was very cheap at the time. :D

How did you like it? I loved the demo when it came out, and played the full version somewhat recently. It was OK but got a bit repetitive towards the end, I guess the AI was too predictable. Still I felt like it was worth my time, which says a lot.

Nah. There's plenty of older games I like that would have the current mainstream audience baffled, but given how wonderfuly crazy truly hardcore nerds can be, I can't imagine how obscure a game would have to be for there to be no other sad no-life shmuck playing it too ;)

To be honest, I liked its art style more than the gameplay. I think it still looks amazing, even despite the low resolution.

In terms of gameplay, it was "OK" as you described it. I can't remember anything outstanding, but I also can't remember the moments where the game was too unbalanced and / or the AI was demonstratively unfair.

There are some old ZX Spectrum and Amiga games I'm starting to wonder if I am the only one still remembering them, games like Sorderon's Shadow for the Speccy and Legend of the Sword for the Amiga.

I'm pretty sure there's a 99.99% chance if i pick up any Atari800 game that i'm the only one playing it, regardless which one it is...

Though one of my favorites (Msdos) was Xixit. Love that game. Awesome music...

The full version adds like 2 songs which are less compelling...

I remember my brother getting the NES version of Ultima 5. Unfortunately, it hand only one save slot, so I couldn't also play it.

Also, it's worth noting that this particular version of Ultima 5 is bad. Like, kuso-level bad. In other words, if I were to name games of comparable quality, the list would include such gems as ET, Hoshi wo Miru Hito, Superman 64, the PC game Arabian Nights (the one on GOG, not the Amiga game with that title), and Big Rigs.

Do not play the NES version of Ultima 5 (unless you're intentionally looking for a bad game to play). If you want to play Ultima 5, literally any other version is going to be far better than the NES version.

(This game now counts as old, and I'd say this particular version counts as obscure because I would assume it sold poorly. I note that the NES game is selling for a lot, so it can't have been that common a game, as the price does not reflect the quality of the game at all.)

I felt that way somewhat when playing SYMbiocom recently.....a very old adventure game that is so obscure there aren't even(afaik) "sea routes that start with T" with which to get it.

I felt even more that way when I play an old point and click that I made(made long ago to see if I could do it).

To my knowledge, there is only one place to get it: the community that allowed me to host it on their site....and that's for as long as that site/community remains active and a thing. As such, there are likely not many people still playing it when I do, if any at all.

============ Is it XSquad, by any chance?

(I played it on PS2, but it might be on PC as well)

============

I both played and made games for a small community of point/click devs and players long ago.....so I can sorta get how that creator felt. :)

Occasionally I pull up abandonware copies of Dinopark Tycoon or Maelstrom [the Bluth Multimedia 4x-style adventure game, not the schmup] and realize that each time.

Requital, Neverend, Gooka: The Mystery of Janatris, and my favorite of the bunch, Gods: Lands of Infinity. Not terribly old though. I'm sure I have played a lot of older obscure games on MO5 and Amiga 500, but I don't remember those games.

Sometimes it feels as though nobody has played games like Magic of Scheherezade and Sword of Hope.

What's interesting is that both these games play like something other than a turn-based RPG, but sometimes when you move between rooms you get into a turn-based RPG battle. MoS plays a bit like Zelda 1 (but it does have levels/XP), leading to combat outside of the turn-based battles, while Sword of Hope plays like an adventure game (think Shadowgate), but with random encounters and boss fights that play like RPG battles.

Also worth noting:
* Sword of Hope 2. Sequel to Sword of Hope, but you now have a party (instead of just one character). Unfortunately, the game has some balanced issues (but at least the overpowered abilities aren't direct damage abilities), and you need to fight a lot of extra battles if you don't want to be underleveled (and there's one particular spell you need for the second-to-last boss).
* Hybrid Heaven: Very different setting from the other games mentioned here. There's some 3rd person shooting action outside of combat, though the combats, when they occur, are turn based and revolve around martial arts attacks. Note that you *can* be hit and fight enemy robots outside of "combat" in this game, so it might sort of resemble MoS in this respect, but the game feels very different.

Nope :(

Speaking of Japanese Wizardry, I've been thinking about Wizardry Gaiden 3, but I've decided that I'd like to try fixing a couple annoying bugs before I give the game another go. (One bug makes CORTU worse than useless, the other causes enemies that are supposed to regen health to instead level up as the battle progresses. A third bug, which I don't intend to try fixing, makes status ailment spells cast by the party ignore enemy status resistance.)

I remember the name and reading some reviews, but I never had it.

I might have had that feeling, but one can't really know if someone else isn't playing some old obscure title at the same time, after all there are many old grumpy nostalgic games out there and abandonware sites and rom collections are very popular. I bet if I choose some very bad old europan amateurish game I could be on the right path but also wonder why I am playing that myself.
I can't imagine being the only one playing old official titles for the arcade or old consoles, given how big of a "gaming community" we have now, often with a nerdy twist. Sword of Hope is very interesting btw. I'd like to give it a go for the Japanese version on emulation.