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Underrated Games.


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My underrated game is Thousand Arms. Yeah yeah it's a dating sim hiding in an RPG. But when I played it in high school MANY years ago I had fun with it. The animation and character designs were awesome, and I love the music. biggrin.png

Edited by Vicki Turner
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Cool. Spot. The game with the dude whose so cool he makes Sonic seem about as (*snicker*) "cool" as Mario. Seriously, his game actually has a "cool meter" and wont let you advance to the next level unless you've proven yourself 100% cool.

That, and the gameplay really is amazingly fun.

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-Eternal Sonata

A Tales of game starring freacking composer Frédéric François Chopin and characters with instrument for weapons. Just that should be epic, but the really impressive voice acting and the astonishing soundtrack for this game makes it more satisfying (especially the girly impression of Liam 'o Brien in the role of Count Waltz). Maybe there are 1-2 things wrong with the story (the Claves death scene is the perfect example), but i'm shocked on how almost no-one know about this title. It's so underrater that the PS3 version has no trophies, while the original 360 version has achievements. How bizzare.

Wholeheartedly agree. Shame the ps3 version didn't get trophies... would have probably sold better if they were included, seeing how this is the era of achievement/trophy whores in gaming. I too wonder why the exluded trophies even though the 360 had achievements. One of the reasons why I like the game so much is due to the multiplayer of it. Having a friend or two control the other characters is pretty neato.

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  • 2 years later...

I had a nice OP for a thread typed up and everything only to be fucked over by a double check. I just needed to let that out somewhere. The struggle is real  :(

 

ANYWAY, when I think of underrated videogames, I immediately think of the Gothic series.

 

 

GothicSeries1.jpg

 

Made in Germany and hilariously dubbed over into English, the Gothic series was made by the same folks who made the Risen games, Piranha Bytes studios. As games, they play out similar to an Elder Scrolls title, but I find them to be more grueling in terms of difficulty (whether that's a pro or a con will depend on what type of gamer you are) and that they manage to tell a more coherent and quality story than any TES title on top of having a far more interesting world to boot - the most irrelevant NPCs have personality. Think Skyrim in that regard, actually.

 

You play as the Nameless one, and you decide how to respond to nearly everything said to you, Mass Effect style. You start off as an incredibly weak character who could very well end up being killed by a wolf pup, but work your way up to start being able to slaughter the behemoth Orcs this game throws at you while taking in the wonderful story all at the same time. For a fantasy RPG, I'd say it's far from being something special in terms of story, but manages to maintain quality and do enough differently to where it's not par for the course in that regard.

 

I got these games via my best friend for Christmas last year. I was starting to really get into RPGs at that time and these were some of his favorites when he was little. I ended up loving these games and enjoying  them, especially Gothic II, more than Morrowind, which I feel to be the pinnacle of The Elder Scrolls series. I certainly was not disappointed with my present and I played through all of them over the course of two or three weeks. Wonderful, wonderful games.

 

If you like RPGs, I strongly suggest checking this series out - you can pick them up on Steam, but I strongly suggest getting the GoG versions of the games. The guys at GoG put a lot of work into making sure their games run properly upon startup, and you have to edit files in order to even get the game to start without crashing on Steam.

 

All in all, I'd honestly call this the best modern RPG series of all time, and a strong contender with Baldur's Gate for the title of best RPG series of all time. You should definitely look into them sometime if you like these kinds of games.

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I'm probably gonna get shitted on for saying this but these games are underrated:

Crash_of_the_Titans_cover.jpgCrash_-_Mind_over_Mutant_Coverart.png

These games are considered by many as the antichrist of the series, badmouthing the designs, aesthetics and gameplay. The only place where the cart was before the horse was in the gameplay (a bit repetitive, tons of backtracking, etc...). The story, the lore, and the worlds and environments are some of my favorite in Crash. Arguably, you could say they’re storyline Crash games that do something different. CTR could be considered the same thing, CTR doesn’t really conflict with any of the other games and references them a bit, so it could be considered a sequel to the three games before it, but just changes the gameplay. It isn’t, but it could be.

The Radical Crash games (except for CTTR) were full of references and locations from the original three games and storywise were basically a loveletter to those games’ stories IF you give them a chance and PAY ATTENTION… which most people were quick to not to because of the *gameplay* and some, HONESTLY QUITE FRICKING SMALL visual changes to the characters. There is a difference between the designs, but they are still more than recognizable as who they are.

A big one off the top of my head is the Uka Uka mural in Titans which explains Uka's origins and the *whole story* of Mind over Mutant is basically a big running joke about N. Brio and Cortex’s relationship and history, with Cortex breaking out from under Uka Uka’s shadow. Despite the humorous nature of the game, those story points are things that Crash fans would have loved if you slapped a Naughty Dog logo and the older character designs on the same game’s cutscenes.

Basically, I believe there are elements of the Crash universe used in Titans and MoM that I would want to carry over to the next official Crash game, even if the gameplay changes entirely again or a reboot were to happen. Things like the aesthetics, the locations, the massive SCALE of the islands in Titans and MoM, that kind of thing. The mystical, voodoo magic atmosphere is another thing I love about those two games. They don't deserve the hate they constantly get.

You can have all the niceties in Titans and MoM without the few bits of sourness. Easily.

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The Saboteur by the late Pandemic Studios is a solid, often overlooked sandbox game set during the German occupation of Paris in WWII. It has great gameplay, a brilliant story and interesting characters making this one of my favourite sandbox games in recent years. If you have an Xbox360 or PS3 definitely check it out, it's Pandemic's swansong.

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I find Operation WinBack N64 is a lot Underrated at some point,  they have also made a remastered version on PS2. it was a very enjoyable Third Person Shooter.

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I'm probably gonna get shitted on for saying this but these games are underrated:

Crash_of_the_Titans_cover.jpgCrash_-_Mind_over_Mutant_Coverart.png

These games are considered by many as the antichrist of the series, badmouthing the designs, aesthetics and gameplay. The only place where the cart was before the horse was in the gameplay (a bit repetitive, tons of backtracking, etc...). The story, the lore, and the worlds and environments are some of my favorite in Crash. Arguably, you could say they’re storyline Crash games that do something different. CTR could be considered the same thing, CTR doesn’t really conflict with any of the other games and references them a bit, so it could be considered a sequel to the three games before it, but just changes the gameplay. It isn’t, but it could be.

The Radical Crash games (except for CTTR) were full of references and locations from the original three games and storywise were basically a loveletter to those games’ stories IF you give them a chance and PAY ATTENTION… which most people were quick to not to because of the *gameplay* and some, HONESTLY QUITE FRICKING SMALL visual changes to the characters. There is a difference between the designs, but they are still more than recognizable as who they are.

A big one off the top of my head is the Uka Uka mural in Titans which explains Uka's origins and the *whole story* of Mind over Mutant is basically a big running joke about N. Brio and Cortex’s relationship and history, with Cortex breaking out from under Uka Uka’s shadow. Despite the humorous nature of the game, those story points are things that Crash fans would have loved if you slapped a Naughty Dog logo and the older character designs on the same game’s cutscenes.

Basically, I believe there are elements of the Crash universe used in Titans and MoM that I would want to carry over to the next official Crash game, even if the gameplay changes entirely again or a reboot were to happen. Things like the aesthetics, the locations, the massive SCALE of the islands in Titans and MoM, that kind of thing. The mystical, voodoo magic atmosphere is another thing I love about those two games. They don't deserve the hate they constantly get.

You can have all the niceties in Titans and MoM without the few bits of sourness. Easily.

This.

 

I honestly loved the world building on those two games, and MoM lets you explore most of this massive world, which is amazing by itself, I remember the climb from the junkyard to Mount Grimly being incredibly well made since it shows you the place, you can see it far away in the distance and it gives you a feel of dread and hype, making it so all the way through there you wonder what will happen when you get there, what and who will you find there.

 

Heck I'd say this game did it better than Twinsanity, which, when you look back, had barely any world building, with most of the interesting locations being cut, and you'd fast travel to another locations instead of having to journey your way through it.

 

I guess that's what I loved about MoM so much that I actually consider it one of my favorite Crash games: The journey, the feel that you are going somewhere, that you'll have to fight your way to get to your destination.

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Funny thing is compared to Titans and MOM and playing Twinsanity recently, the game felt so empty to me. I felt as though I was accomplishing nothing. I know because a lot of content was removed but it doesn't have the same free-roaming experience compared to something like Jak and Daxter or Ratchet.

With Titans and MOM, you felt like you were getting stronger by the minute with collecting Mojo and battling the mutants. I see a lot of effort go into the games which is largely ignored because people assume that Twinsanity is the "last great" Crash game when it's basically a complete mess compared to the Radical games.

Plus, it's WAY too overrated for it's own right.

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And IMO, the Titans on MoM didn't ruin the gameplay when controlling them, since most of them(with one or two exceptions) were either still on the same level as Crash in speed but with stronger attacks, had a way of going faster, or were so fun to use that you'd barely notice the chage.

Twinsanity on the other hand, the Crash-Cortex combo was kind of badly implemented honestly, Cortex alone is too much of a change from Crash and Nina is ok but the only stage you can play as her isn't one I like that much.

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I feel the macross games on the ps2 don't get much attention. They are really neat in that you fight in the air and on foot in your mech. They are pretty solid games.The sega ages series on the ps2 i feel aren't very well know as well. The remastered games are a great way to get into some of sega's other series.

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  • 1 month later...

I was going to make a topic about this but since this already exists, I'll say the Sly Cooper series. This series is so underrated I think it deserves some love. Let's get started, shall we? The Sly Cooper series is a series of platforming games with stealth thrown in. You play as a raccoon thief named Sly Cooper along with other characters named Bentley and Murray and sometimes in the series, other characters like the ancestors in Sly 4. 

The reason why I like the series so much is because of the gameplay, mainly ahen you're playing as Sly. I think Bentley and Murray are okay, but Sly is the best. The gameplay is about climbing things, running, all done with Jumping and Pressing the circle buttton and that's why I think the games are really fun to play.

And that is why I love Sly Cooper. Sure, the story and graphics and stuff helps, I think the best thing about the series is how fun the gameplay is.

 

 

 

 

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I got another one for the list

e.v.o.search-for-eden-usa_zpsz4uubx53.pn

Evo: The Search for Eden

This is a SNES classic in a sense and it became one of my favorites in the system's library. Its game where you play as a non-specified organism and you play in various time eras as you evolve into wildly crazy things to become stronger and attempt to put balance to the world. I always wanted a game that explored evolution and our various time periods but Spore really didn't really had what I really wanted, creativity aside. But Evo is a very charming game in by itself. Its a good looking SNES game and the soundtrack is great and awfully catchy. The themes of evolution was explored fairly well though there is a bit of an undertone of genocide but eh let's not look into that since this was a different time period. Anyways the best part is again evolving and going through time itself and yes it does have a dinosaur stage and its awesome. You can even continue to play as dinosaur during the Ice Age and beyond, though you will be handicapped during the Ice Age due to slipping and sliding.

Yeah there's a few noticeable flaws in this game. It can be a bit repetitive and grinding can be a total snore fest when you're trying to get the strongest body parts. And some of the bosses are pretty fucking hard like the Queen Bee and the Bird King or whatever he is. But just fuck Fort Birdman in general. Its literally the worst level /ever/. But its still a fun game in of itself and that's why I'm mentioning it.

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  • 1 year later...

A game that I believe is very underappreciated and has unfortunately been forgotten is WeSki, for the Nintendo Wii. For reference, it has an average of 67 on Metacritic right now for critic reviews, with most rating it as a mixed game that can be fun but lacks depth and has little replay value. The user average is a lot higher, but only 12 people actually contributed and it appears that all of them did so in 2008.

And here's why that's very unfair.

For one, the physics in the game are incredible. Your character can move fluidly over slopes, and the game has very good judgement on when it makes sense for your character to slide over a slope or be launched into the air. The character speeds up in a way that feels natural and allows you to see where your character is going, and slows in a manner that perfectly balances promptness with believability so that you can make quick stops without falling into "stops on a dime every time" territory. There's different snow textures that also have an impact on your movement and speed, and you need to carefully consider them in order to do well. When you crash into another character, they stumble, fall over, and get up believably.

Speaking of which, the AI in this game is excellent. The game is able to handle several unique skiers doing several actions at once without lag, and they have varying skill levels. Some frequently crash into people and trees, while others can ace any course they can find. Some are pretty good but still make mistakes. Some skiiers are gathered into groups, not skiing but having conversations with friends, with some occasionally leaving the group to go on a lift or do some skiing and other occasionally skiing over to join a group. They react to all kinds of events-- crashing into them elicits a scared expression followed by it getting an angry emoticon bubble and angry face or a sad emoticon and a sad face with other witnesses following suit. In general, characters are very expressive-- even with situations you won't usually see, for example, characters smiling with an open mouth when they go fast or closing their eyes in response to getting a face full of snow. These sorts of details make the sole mountain featured in WeSki lively and interesting, and also shows that the ski resort is popular for a variety of people without outright saying that the ski resort is successful. They're also additional obstacles that you need to pay attention to if you want to do well-- crashing into an AI skier merits an automatic D rank and can cause you to fail certain missions.

As for you yourself, there is no set protagonist of WeSki or WeSki mascot. You get to choose and customize your own character by selecting Ski Registration mode and a save slot to put the character data in. You first get a choice to give your character a Mii head or not a Mii head. Unless you choose to make a custom Mii for the game, your character's face is not customizable. However, the selection of non-Mii heads is incredibly diverse with a variety skin colors, hair colors, hairstyles, etc. for you to choose from in four age groups, so you are very likely to find something that works for you. I find that the Mii heads tend to look really weird-- the game adjusted the shading of the Mii to the shading used in the game, but not the actual coloration or design, so it looks weird in comparison to the cute anime non-Mii characters. But they still look pretty good. You then adjust height and weight. It doesn't affect much as far as I'm aware, but its good to have. Then you give your character clothes and ski gear and name him or her, and you are all set. Its very quick and easy, but still leaves room for lots of adjustments, especially as you unlock new and interesting clothes and ski gear. The game has a lot of slots to save characters onto, so whether your family is big or small, everybody can save their own custom character in the game.

WeSki controls very well. You have two options-- to use just the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, or to use the balance board as well. Or as I like to call them, relaxation mode and exercise mode, respectively. In relaxation mode, you can sit down and control the game without having to exert yourself too much. Motion controls are mandatory, but they feel very natural and are very precise. Its like you are really skiing. They're so natural, in fact, that while the game offers an excellent tutorial mode, you probably will only need it for the moguls (which appear to be ranked in much the same manner as real moguls, meaning you need excellent turning skills to do well). In exercise mode, you stand on top of the balance board and use it to make turns by leaning and crouching. You still need a Wii Remote and Nunchuck as you need to press buttons to perform tricks and they also work kind of like ski poles in terms of motion controls. Its quite a workout and will make you sweat, so keep that in mind. The balance board also provides more precise control than relaxation mode. Due to my current video game setup making the use of the balance board difficult, I tend to go with relaxation mode. Both exercise and relaxation mode, however, are top notch.

Freestyle mode is a major draw and easily the best part of the game. There, you get placed at the bottom of a big mountain with 13 courses, some of which have hidden secrets. You can take a ski lift up (and the game even includes a skippable animation of you going up the lift, complete with being able to watch skiers go down the mountain and do stuff), but I find it quicker to use the map to warp to the desired course in most cases. As you might expect, the main goal is to go down the slopes to get the best rank on a scale consisting of D, C, B, A, S, S+. Different courses have different requirements for getting above a D rank. The game has an impressive array of events as well. You don't have to travel far to find something fun to do. Racing, moguls, and slalom are the main events-- racing tends to be very easy once you get speed down, moguls are incredibly challenging, and slalom starts out easy but gets more difficult later on. There's also several variations of "practice a skill" types of events and "find this" types of events, each with different courses, event givers, and goals. All of the rank getting and event succeeding rewards you with star points, which get you pins and it serves as basically a progress and experience tracker. The game strongly encourages multiplayer and will award more star points if you have more than one player with you. 

You can also take pictures for a photo album by finding Silver Flash for stills and Golden Flash for action shots, though the game only gives you five seconds to make a pose while in freestyle mode, which isn't nearly enough time to decide a good one. However, if you do complete it, you earn more locations to take pictures in for Album mode where you have no time limit on choosing a pose. In Album mode, you can take pictures, look at pictures, and have a slideshow of pictures. There really isn't much to it but it can be fun for a bit. Album mode is by far the weakest part of the game but its still pretty fun.

You can also do slalom, moguls, and racing competitions outside of Freestyle mode in Ski Race mode. This mode is heavily multiplayer focused and that is indeed when it is the most fun. But can also be useful if you just plan on just doing slaloms, moguls, and/or races and don't want to have to find them in Freestyle. This is also a good mode for people who aren't interested in hubs but want a good multiplayer title for parties.

Finally, Ski School mode. Its where you go to have tutorials-- it pretty much describes itself. The game is very kind to offer visual demonstrations as well as a text explanation of how the game works. However, the game's learning curve isn't very steep, so you won't need all of it.

In short, I think that contrary to what the critics say, WeSki is quite robust and very replayable. I think it ended up falling into the casual game ghetto in the sense that people took one look at it and concluded that it must be just one more title in a long line of gimmicky cash grab Wii games. Not helping, the marketing of the game was really poor-- the cover shows the more generic options for non-Mii characters doing pretty basic stuff and the advertising seldom touched on the best parts of the game (namely, the sheer variety of events and Freestyle mode) in exchange for advertising its gimmicks and family-friendliness.

I hold it WeSki as what kids and casual games should strive for-- easy to pick up controls and laidback style for new and young gamers, but a variety of details and challenges to satisfy hardcore gamers who are willing to look past the poor marketing and cute aesthetic. Plus it shows actual effort in regards to its control scheme, AI, level design, and physics-- which is much appreciated, because just because people who aren't familiar with a lot of video games can be oblivious to bad programming and design doesn't mean that they deserve shoddy games, plus WeSki could give them enough of a good impression of video games to inspire them to seek other titles.

Due to it having been forgotten by the mainstream, having had a mixed reception, and being on an old console, WeSki is very cheap to purchase. I was introduced to it through a friend who had it but managed to find a copy at Gamestop for $2.99. So its worth checking out if you see a copy lying around at the store.

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Sonic Unleashed.

by far my favourite boost era game. the 60%+ metascore is just not justified, I love every single bit of this game.

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  • 1 month later...

Gex

An anthropomorphic gecko gets pulled into TV Land by a bug cyborg... thing and must escape by using his wits, tail, tongue, and an assortment of dated pop culture references.

I first played this in the stores when it being demoed on  the freaking 3DO (remember that?) While I do find it rather average, the wisecracks are rather entertaining... usually. Some areas they get rather repetitive, like the the jungle and final bosses. 

I played one of the sequels. Its not bad, kinda playing like Mario 64.

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