When you're talking about obscure video games, they don't come much more obscure than 1993's Cosmology of Kyoto, developed by Japanese studio SoftEdge. A nonlinear CD-ROM adventure, the game was lucky enough to get a Western release in 1994, and while it wasn't commercially successful, it has since gained a cult following online.
However, as leftfield as Cosmology of Kyoto undoubtedly is, its sequel is even more unknown—in fact, until very recently, it wasn't even known if it had actually been physically released. Entitled TRIPITAKA 玄奘三蔵求法の旅, the game sold on Yahoo Japan in 2023 for almost $300—and video game academic Bruno de Figueiredo has successfully managed to get it preserved online.
"For years, it was uncertain whether TRIPITAKA 玄奘三蔵求法の旅, by SoftEdge, had ever been published," explained de Figueiredo back in 2023, when the game sold on Yahoo. "Knowledge of the Win/Mac CD-ROM comes solely from the online CVs of producers Hiroshi Ōnishi and Mori Kōichi."
The producers list it as a 1995 production, but it is believed that the game was actually published in 1999 and intended to be available for sale at museums hosting the 'Silk Road Journey To The West' exhibition. This appears to be the only known copy, and de Figueiredo reveals that "after years of appeals", he has finally convinced the current owner to share it online.
"Yesterday I uploaded the ISO image of one of the rarest videogames in history, of which a single copy is known to exist in the online world," says de Figueiredo. "After years of appeals, its owner finally agreed to share it with me so that I could in turn share it with the world."