What are the rarest video games today? Setting aside the obvious ones for the U.S. Saturn: Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun and Shining Force III...

I have a sealed copy of the "Collector's" Gold cartridge Ocarina of Time for N64 sitting in my closet and have seen it disappointingly going for under $100 and sometimes not much more than I purchased it for back in 1999 (found it on the shelves long after Xmas '98) when it shows up on eBay.

Now I know demand affects values and that a re-release could cripple the rarity of such titles (Mega Man 7; used to be around $70+ with box and manual, now lucky to get half that).

It would appear many games once sought to be rare are no longer or simply won't fetch for prices asked for on the auction circuits...

I was recently browsing the Genesis archive, which includes around 615 soundtracks. One caught my eye (Nightmare Circus) and I read the text file:

"This game was made to be Sega's answer to
Donkey Kong Country, and was completely
finished, but SOA canned it at the last moment,
and, looking back, good call there. The game
WAS sold in Brazil, and did finally make it to
US Shores some years later - albeit on Sega
Channel. The game is INCREDIBLY rare, especially
with box and manual. I've heard a few people
somehow have English manuals... if anyone's got
one, please scan it and get us the scan!"

That seems pretty rare to me (another surprise was that Kurt Harland [of Soul Reaver] composed some of the music). Another one is Sapphire for the PC Engine, which I remember was selling for $400 on ebay. Remarkably, back when I was trading extensively, someone that had Sapphire contacted me and that's how I got the soundtrack. I always considered that trade particularly lucky.

Starfox 2 is another that strikes me as rather rare, if I may so rightly reckon.

I'm definitely not up to date on the gaming rarities of today, but of my own current collection, Suikoden II and the two Bust A Groove titles may still be considered rare.  I'd like to think so, anyway.  Gitaroo Man for the PS2 as well, though that one may be easier to acquire these days now that Lives! for the PSP is readily available.  What else..... how about the Lunar: Silver Star Story and Eternal Blue Complete sets for PSOne?

Speaking of DKC, remember the Competition Cartridge?  Given its limited availability, I'd imagine one could still get a pretty penny for it even today.

Kizuna's Encounter US for Neogeo, like 4 in the world.

10 Grants.

Isn't Panzer Dragoon SaGa (Azel) pretty rare? I'm happy with my copy of Zwei but I think the third RPG one is hard to come by.

What about the original Battle Ogre for the SNES? Granted it was re-released on the PS1.

Mega Man 7 still commands around 40~45 bucks at the local game store where I live (if they had it) but the copy of Chrono Trigger that's there commands $50.

hmm, Shining Force III is considered one of the rarest games ever?

I'm thinking of selling my copy, due to my non-functioning Saturn, any takers?

I'm pretty sure I came across some site at some point that kept track of how rare which games are.

Most titles that have been mentioned so far (with the exception of the game Jodo mentioned, and that NeoGeo game) are WAY too mainstream to be considered really rare.

I think one of the console games to be considered most rare is that NES cartridge that contained the first level of Super Mario Bros as well as single levels of some other games, for use on some official Nintendo contest, the name escapes me at the moment.
Let alone cartridges with beta copies of NES games that exist (I think the ones for DuckTales and MM3 are the most well-known, if you look around hard enough you'll be able to find their respective ROMs somewhere)

Sealed games heaven might be worth checking out. The rarest / most expensive game I have is probably (still) sealed Valkyrie profile for PS. At least it fetched pretty nice munnies when I bought it. The remake wasn't - I think - even on the planning stage at the time, so the price of the original may have come down since. I just don't feel like checking it, though.

The PC-Engine special caravan games are pretty rare; they were also used for contests back in the '90s.  And then there's Darius Alpha, which was only available to people who bought both the Darius Plus HuCard and CD (I think there are 800 copies of this).  The Bonk 3 HuCard is also pretty rare; the CD version is slightly less so.

Panzer Dragoon Saga (the U.S. release) is pretty rare.  Azel (the Japanese release) isn't really very rare at all.  Used to see copies of that all over the place in Japan for cheap.

The rarest games I have are probably that, Dracula X, Bonk 3 (HuCard), and Magical Chase.  There are probably other games in my collection that have become rare that I don't realize (why the heck are some of my PS1 and even Gamecube games so expensive on ebay now!?).

Actually, now that I think about it, isn't there a version of Tetris (by Tengen/Tangen?) on the NES that's rare? Can't help but think there was a story about two tetris games being developed and one was axed or extremely limited due to a copyright dispute. The kicker was the fact the hard to find one is the better version.

Dunno how reliable the site is, but it seems that they just collect sales data from various stores so it should give a decent idea of how much a game is worth:

http://www.videogamepricecharts.com/

Hot damn, I could've sold my copy of DDR Disney Mix for $100 in 2006.

The rarest game that I have is probably Great Greed for the Game Boy. Tips & Tricks magazine once listed it as one of the "Top 10 Hardest-to-Find Original Game Boy Games," and it was actually one of the last Game Boy ROMs to be dumped. Apparently Warlocked for GBC is also pretty rare, despite being a first-party release.

Emulation is probably to blame. Back then, the only way to play a game was to have a physical copy, but ROMs and Virtual Console releases are so widespread now that only the most dedicated collectors would be interested in getting the actual cartridge/disc.

It was never released, unfortunately.

A few beta carts of this have to exist, don't they? Otherwise I don't know how the ROM dump ever came to be.

Damn indeed. Though I think I still got a pretty good return on it....$100, god damn.

Neat.  I own Bonk 3 and Magical Chase...... somewhere.  I should probably do a good rummage through at my mom's place.  Assuming she hasn't tossed them by now.

I remember a friend owning a copy of Tengen's Tetris.  At the time, I didn't know about the allegations leveled against them, so it was all perfectly innocuous.  I do remember Tengen cartridges looking ridiculously cool, though. I owned R.B.I. Baseball for a time.

Don't suppose a Japanese version of Disney's Rave would've counted, huh?  Those PSOne DDR importing days were some of the best.

I don't know how rare it truly is, but given the folklore surrounding the game's abysmal failure and subsequent burial, I like to pretend my copy of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for Atari is something that survived and shouldn't have.

This and Valkyrie Profile used to be the "big two" for PSone RPGs. Then they remade VP for PSP, and the price for original PS1 VP dropped significantly (or, at the very least, demand dropped... I assume the price with it).

So that leaves Suikoden II, at least in English-speaking territories. If they'd just give us the PSP version of that, or hell, even just put Suikoden II on the PSN, that would drop its value a fair bit. Even though it still certainly holds collector hot-item status.

I remembering being with my friend when he purchased Suikoden I and II; never thought they reach such prices on the second-hand sales market. Time proves us all wrong at some point....

Still, I'd like to find a Saturn copy of Mega Man 8 so I can fight CutMan and WoodMan (and for it to go with my copy of X4.) I remember when I was younger and how mad I was when I found out that was exclusive to the Saturn.

I have Mega Man 8 on Saturn and I haven't played it in like 10 years. I know it's the game's true form but it's not supposed to be a rarity is it?

Not really, but I wouldn't say it's common either. Finding PSX copies of both games even today is no problem (both being GH's) compared to the Saturn versions. To this effect I'd think you'd fetch more if you found an interested party.

Edit: I purchased a copy of MM8 for the PSX a few months ago for a measly $6 (black boarder w/the anthology booklet), I would expect to spend a few times more than on the Saturn version.

So no, I wouldn't say it's rare (or as rare as the other games in this thread) but I'm willing to accept it's somewhat more uncommon.