Underrated games Ver. 2.0

[Omega_Ra1der]

I made this topic several months back and it considered dead so I am making an new one.

My underrated games series are: Yugioh ds series: they are good in the gameplay in the duels. But go try 2008-2011 ones first. They are the only ones with the free world in some ways.

2. Fossil Fighters: This is actually good and the second one was the best. (third one was lackluster) First one was interesting in the mid game and the music was brilliant. The second however, topped it with a new battle system built on to the first one, more variety of dinosaurs, and evolvers. The third one was lackluster due to poor amount of dinosaurs available to you (I mean, they completely killed aquatic dinosaurs out)

Feel free to say your underrated games.

[starkidcosmo]

Golden Sun. It's not even popular enough to get a fourth game despite all the sequel hooks in Dark Dawn. the tumblr fanbase is tiny too rip

Great games, even though they're a bit limited by their platforms. The cutscenes especially look a little goofy, which is why it needs a pc/console remake a la ffvii but it'll never get one. ;u;

(Seriously, go find and play this series it's amazing. Cool puzzles, super cool story, cool characters... it's great stuff.)

[Tomas Elliot]

The Luminous Arc series, which I am currently in the process of playing. Despite being held back by less than stellar plots and limited graphics (they are isometric SRPGs for the NDS, what did you expect?), they have some rather interesting game mechanics, and they are just difficult enough to provide a challenge without being downright unfair. I would venture as far as to say that indeed, for a Pokemon fan who tried out Conquest, these games are the next logical step to discover the world of isometric SRPGs...

[Felicity]

Harvest moon and the sibling series Rune Factory doe

[Arkhi]

Monaco is actually great fun if you've got friends to play it with.

I'll vouch for One Way Heroics any day, and with the Plus expansion, there's even more content to check out, so that's outstanding.

[Tomas Elliot]

Tears to Tiara. Sweet mother of God, Tears to Tiara. I shall put my best efforts into maintaining the demeanor most befitting of a proper lady but truly, I just witnessed something so hilarious, I just need to share it with all of you, my dear peons.

Tears to Tiara is a mix of Visual Novel and SRPG (a SRPG with a real time combat system, mind you, which is... Weird to say the least) and, to set the tone and properly introduce the plot, it first of all demonstrates the Visual Novel half. And it is verbose. Oh so verbose. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say it takes about a hour before the player is requested to do anything at all (there IS an interruption at the halfway point of this overly long introduction, which gives you a breather and lets you save). And throughout this hour of talking, you are introduced to an evil priest who quickly makes it clear that he will not hesitate to commit the most heinous acts to accomplish his goal, which is to kidnap Riannon, the main female lead of the game, and sacrifice her in order to resurrect the Demon King, a superhuman individual who embodies everything evil and unholy, in order to claim his powers for himself and rule the world.

And well, the priest is actually successful: in the very first scene of the game, we see him kidnap Riannon, and set up the ritual to resurrect the Demon King. Arthur, Riannon's brother, arrives on the scene to rescue his sister, but it is too late: the Demon King is resurrected, the evil priest offers him the girl as a sacrifice in exchange for power but, surprise surprise, it turns out a being of pure evil is not easily controlled, and in fact he slays the priest, unleashing his dark powers upon the world.

Without even realizing the full extent of what is happening, Arthur jumps in front of his sister to protect her, staring down a being that could probably vaporize him with a mere gesture: needless to say, the Demon King laughs at his efforts, taunting him and daring him to try and stop him. The tension building, a dramatic music playing in the background, our hero faces what promises to become the main villain of the story, surely to take the most classic of the early game beatings heroes often suffer at the hands of final bosses. And then...

... And then...

... And then this happens. Which actually causes the siblings to bicker, with the Demon King sheepishly asking if he gets a saying in the matter (he doesn't). And from here, a plot whose sheer wackiness rivals Disgaea's unfolds.

Tears to Tiara is a PC game which never saw an export outside of Japan, so I honestly don't know if there is any way to acquire it outside of the relatively legal channels I resorted to. It is of course in Japanese, but an english patch (which is free to download and easy to use) has been made by fans. I truly, truly recommend it. If you can stay awake through the overly tedious introduction and grasp the bizarre battle mechanics, you will be repayed with an absolutely hilarious experience. I really cannot recommend it enough.

[Quickslip]

I'll go ahead and second the One Way Heroics thing. Awesome game.

Also, LostMagic is a ridiculously good DS game if you're into its genre. Its basically a real time strategy game with a magic system that requires you to draw one to three glyphs and activates different spells depending on which glyphs you draw and what order you draw them in. The game doesn't stop while you do this though, and if you draw it a glyph incorrectly, the spell fails. Add to this that there are a pretty fair number of units all which interact with the spells in slightly different ways and you have a good idea of this game.

[Amethyst]

The Luminous Arc series, which I am currently in the process of playing. Despite being held back by less than stellar plots and limited graphics (they are isometric SRPGs for the NDS, what did you expect?),

hello :c I thought the story/graphics on LA were great. But I do highly recommend those games! I would say they controls/mechanics are a little wonky especially in the first but the second/third fix a lot of those problems

Also, CIMA: The Enemy. GBA strategy game where you have to guide a group people out of a gate they're captured in. It's cool because you get to both give orders to and play as the various people you protect, and each of them develops throughout the story.

[Caz]

I wouldn't really call it as underrated as some of these, but I think Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core was pretty underrated, it great graphics, a great story, great gameplay, it was my favourite game ever as a kid.

Also, Destroy all Humans 2 was one of the best and funniest underrated games I played back then too, but it's another series that ended up being ruined by terrible sequels.

[DiLimiter]

I remember this Jak & Daxter racing game from when I was younger. I believe it was called Jak X or something along those lines and people just automatically dismissed it just because "Oh, Naughty Dog is killing off another franchise with a kart racer." Now, while I would've LOVED to gotten a Jak 4 instead, the game itself wasn't actually that bad at all. It held up very well for a racing game and kept all the characters IN character. Other than Mario Kart I think I would consider it to be one of my favorite racers.

Also, I think Luigi's Mansion for the GameCube was a tad underrated. Nobody really seemed to get why the game was made and it at least felt like nobody bought into it. I enjoyed the hell of that game when I was a kid and still play the originally copy I have for my GameCube from time to time. I don't know, I was like, six or seven at the time of me playing it for the first time so it's kind of a blur on what I got from peoples' opinions.

[BrutaLotus]

Didn't want to "steal" your topic, just simply didn't saw it.

Anyway, who wants to read mine, here it is:

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19208#entry463735

(thanks again @kosherkoneko for directing me to the 2.0 Thread)

[Ruby Riding Hood]

Not sure if it'd be considered underrated now thanks to Chuggaaconroy, but Okami I feel is still pretty underrated. There's a racing game called Kinetica I also feel is pretty underrated. It was for the PS2, but I never heard anyone mention it.

[Loopysaurus]

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is an awesome adventure/platformer. The best part is probably the dialogue; the cutscenes are long winded sometimes but they're always entertaining. Searching for the collectibles is also a lot of fun.

(rip Shantae in Smash)

[MellowSlinky]

I bought Tales of Zestiria over Christmas when it was on sale and have been really enjoying it

Pros:

- The combat system is engaging and really rewards you for mastery

- Lots of collectibles and side quests that require you to fight more powerful foes

- Good story that actually gets you thinking about more philosophical issues

- Playable characters have distinct fighting styles

Cons:

- Very complicated item fusion system that requires significant grinding to get the most powerful weapons/armor

- Story starts out kind of predictable (but imo gets better as you go along)

- There's a fusion mechanic for characters in battle and the fused characters all play very same-y. Wouldn't be a huge concern but the fused characters pretty much need to be used in order to make certain fights do-able

- Without a lot of fighting you will be under-leveled for a lot of the side quests, although you can always come back and do them later

Edited January 10, 2016 by MellowSlinky

[Synchronoise]

3D ultra minigolf

[Lupo]

Mana Khemia, literally what got me into gaming in the first place. The first game only tho, cuz the second game was a little crap

Special mention goes to Dragon Seeds though

[8bit Moonside]

Custom Robo was an amazing Gamecube game, and probably the best 3rd person shooter I've ever played. My only gripe with it is that it's very linear, even in the postgame.

[Damage]

Tales of Zestria was... Underated yes.

The first half where the hero questions if using abilities (like a god) to help people and other sorts of interesting debates like should super powerful entities pick sides during human wars was interesting but all of this goes away in the second half. Where it becomes generic anime blandness where good are the humans and evil are the monsters. The villain even had the most potential out of all the tales villains. (Tales of Xillia's Gaius was a great villain turned opposing force who was properly utilized so he doesn't count.) The gameplay in Zest was awesome like the best in the series (that camerawork... not so much). The armor system was borderline useless unless you wanted to do the challenges. Music was pretty good. It got a 6/10 which imo wasn't 100% accurate but close. If the game had been the series first entry then the game would be like a 9.5. But since its number like 10 I think a 7-7.5 would be fair since a lot remained the same. But if you've never played an action jrpg then this is your bud or Radiata Stories which was a pretty undersold yet phenomenal ps2 game. Too many ps2 games to count.

[8bit Moonside]

[FOGHORN SOUNDING] CONTROVERSIAL OPINION INCOMING

shadow the hedgehog was actually kind of a good game

It's nowhere perfect, and it's definitely not the best Sonic game, but the gameplay is kinda fun and the graphics and music are very good. The level design, on the other hand, is atrocious, especially in the latter half of the game.

[desertrose]

Avalon Code. I'm playing through it right now, since I got it over Christmas, and it's really good. It provides an interesting concept.

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Huniepop. Everyone just puts it away as porn but it's not porn okay it's a great puzzle game and the characters are cute as fuck...

I mean it's pretty lewd but that's ok.

[Omega_Ra1der]

[FOGHORN SOUNDING] CONTROVERSIAL OPINION INCOMING

shadow the hedgehog was actually kind of a good game

It's nowhere perfect, and it's definitely not the best Sonic game, but the gameplay is kinda fun and the graphics and music are very good. The level design, on the other hand, is atrocious, especially in the latter half of the game.

You are not alone. but then I am bit biased due it was one of first 2 gc games I got along with my gc.

[5hift]

You don't hear much about Super Monkey Ball anymore.

That game made me and my friends hate each other (but we were still friends).

[8bit Moonside]

It really is a shame nobody really talks about Super Monkey Ball these days, although that might be because there hasn't been a game that's been...memorable, I guess? since the first 2 on Gamecube and also Deluxe. The DS and Vita games were good too, but they lack the same appeal the first few games had.