I get why people love lost media. Thereās something thrilling about the idea that a half-forgotten cartoon or bootleg VHS might still be out there, waiting to be found. The internet eats that stuff upāforum deep dives, YouTube essays, decades-long hunts for proof.
But hereās what gets me: the flip side. The stuff that was everywhere. Huge hits. Critically adored. Easy to find. And yetā¦ somehow, no one remembers. Not lost media. Lost consciousness. And itās way weirder.
One of them is the band Everclear. They were a major part of the ā90s alternative scene. They sold millions of albums, were critically respected, and you couldnāt escape their music videos on TV. But now? No one talks about them. Somehow, one-hit wonders like Harvey Danger get more nostalgic shoutouts than Everclear. And damn itāI still love that band. Yet their subreddit has only 874 subscribers. Thatās shockingly low for a group that should be iconic.
Another exampleāthis time from filmāis Road to Perdition. It was a box office smash, earning $180 million. Nominated for six Oscars. Won Best Cinematography. And yetā¦ itās like it never existed. When people talk about Tom Hanks movies, this one rarely comes up. Even in gangster movie lists, it gets ignored. If youāre in your 20s or younger, you probably donāt even know this movie exists.
Now hereās another case of lost consciousness: Trine.
It came out in 2009. Sold over a million copies. On Steam, it has a 95% positive rating across 12,000+ reviewsāone of the most beloved games of its year, at least on paper. It launched a five-game franchise, and each sequel sold millions in turn. And yetā¦ no one talks about Trine.
You have to understand how significant this was. In the 2000s, 2D platformers were mostly dead on PC and consoles. If you wanted one, you had to go handheldāGame Boy Advance, maybe DS. On other platforms, there were a few indie exceptions: Cave Story, Braid. But back then, āindieā wasnāt what it is now. In the 2000s, no one even knew what indie meant. And most indie platformers of the time? They lacked polish. Great ideas, sureābut not a lot of visual flair or technical sophistication.
Then came Trine.
It was gorgeous. The visuals still hold up today. Beautiful sprite work, luminous lighting, detailed backdrops. Trine had a beauty that other 2D platformers didnāt. And I know it was special because I actually finished itāand I donāt finish most games. I even left a review on Steam. I said something like: āTrine is about entering a vibrant world where you solve problems through unique characters. In this, it shines. Itās a true PC classic.ā And I still believe that.
It wasnāt just the art. The physics-based puzzles were brilliant. You had to think in terms of motion, weight, momentum. And instead of one playable character, you got three: a wizard, a thief, and a knight, each with unique abilities. The wizard could conjure boxes and teleport. The thief had a bow and a grappling hook. The knight had a sword and shield. Super fresh.
Also? Co-op mode. That was a huge draw. Not many 2D platformersāespecially in 2009āhad that. I didnāt play much co-op myself, but I know people who bought the game just for it.
So yes. Trine is incredible.
And yetā¦ obscure. Forgotten. Go to YouTubeāno retrospectives. No nostalgia posts. No āremember this?ā energy. Itās like itās disappeared from memory.
Why?
I think part of it is that Trine was ahead of the curve. It brought back the 2D platformer before the revival fully kicked in. It helped revive the genreābut didnāt get the credit. Another factor? It was made by an indie studioāFrozenbyte, based in Finland. And while Trine became their flagship, theyāve made other titles too: Nine Parchments, Has-Been Heroes, Boreal Blade. I even liked their earlier top-down shooter, Shadowgrounds.
But Frozenbyte isnāt Nintendo. Theyāre not Capcom. Not even Devolver. Theyāre small. And even when the little guy wins, they rarely get their due.
Another reason: Trineās fanbase was mostly on PC. Yes, it came to PS3, but physical copies are rare. So I suspect most players were PC gamers. And for some reason, PC gaming classics donāt get the same nostalgic glow as console games. You donāt hear about Hexen or Divinity the same way you hear about old Nintendo or Sony titles. Thatās something Iāve noticed for a while.
I hope it changes. But Iām not holding my breath.
StillāIāll scream it to the heavens: Trine is amazing. It deserves to be remembered. Itās one of the most compelling, fun platformers Iāve ever played. Every minute I spent with it was worth it.
āAnyoneā is a bit of a stretch. I think this is an example of how fragmented media and experience has become.
Selling millions of copies in impressive but there are billions of people in the world. And there is also new stuff being released all the time in the worlds of music, tv, film, books and gaming. All of this is jockeying for media attention and peoples attention.
These things were important to you as they were part of your formative years or had some emotional resonance., so it makes sense you are aware of them, but your lived experiences arenāt the same as others.
For example, Iām a gamer, Iāve heard to Trine but never played it.12,000 reviews on Steam is pretty impressive. But its a 16 year old game and when it comes to older games there are huge titles like Skyrim or GTAV that dominate attention still from that eraor earlier.
The Road to Perdition is a decent film but have a look at a list of Oscar winners - how many have you actually seen? The Oscars isnāt representative of films that were widely popular but rather films that were popular or important to people on Hollywood itself, or to the movie makers. It won one Oscar for cinematography.
And it grossed $180m - not bad but if you look a box office mojo the top 3 films in 2002 were Lord of the Rings 2 towers, Harry Potter and Spiderman. Road to Perdition was the 25th biggest film of the year, and bigger films includes Gangs of New York, Catch me if you can and Minority report. It was a decent film in a year of bigger films commerically.
As for Everclear, sorry to say Iāve never heard of them. Looking them up on wikipedia, they didnāt seem to troubled the charts outside the US and Canada, and for some reason New Zealand. And they did well in the Alt Music charts but they never broke the top 10 in the popular charts. So they are a bit niche even if they were popular in their own right and did well.
All of us have different things we love or were formative for us, and even the āmainstreamā that gets the attention is still really only a fraction of whatās going on.
And Iād add the nature of taste and preference is so different that the stuff that gets big and crosses over into a mega hit is either generic/inoffensive commerical slop backed up with massive marketing or rarely so extraordinarily good that it spreads through word of mouth. There are so many gems out their like Trine or Everclear but most people will never come across them. Keep spreading the word about the things you love so others can enjoy them too.