Games you believe are Underrated?

[Stevens]

Rain World. Get it. Play it. Love it.

Also you're going to die. A lot at first - but once you get used to the controls you die far less. Knowing the areas helps too.

Play it blind.

[XoPachi]

Most Contra fans like/love Shattered Soldier, in my experience. The ones who dislike its boss rush ethos tend to feel the same about Hard Corps and even Contra III. SS even got ok reviews in US/UK magazines at the time, and got Greatest Hits reprints in Japan.

Sadly, it wasn't long at all before Konami started going to utter bean counter-driven shit, ca 2005. Outsources and radio silence galore from that point to present, outside of MGS (and now Kojima's gone too, dohoho). Had Konami not decided to firebomb some 25 years of legacy and goodwill, I'm sure smaller-scale but niche-pleasing productions like SS, Neo Contra, and Gradius V would've happily continued on, even if in Japan only, given the positive fan+critic receptions and apparently decent sales.

I just remember growing up hearing nothing but flak thrown towards the game. Not from reviewers, but just people who played it. Either the gritty stylistic choice, the soundtrack, or the brutal difficulty due to the new Hit Rate mechanic.
"The game is too rigid". I thought the game was brilliant and I appreciate it's unapologetic demand to replay levels until you get it.

SA1 is really good but the handling is kinda slow.

SA2 has godawful level design. Otherwise it's ok, I guess.

SA3 is fine. Better than 2 but worse than 1.

All of them have FUCKING TERRIBLE special stages.

Sonic Rush is better than all of them and gets even less respect.

I think the Advance games are just...harder, but that doesn't make them terribly designed. Aside from the special stages.
Speaking generally, I'm very surprised that people adore and laud Sonic CD as one of the best Sonic games ever but malign the Advance games despite having very similar level quirks in the later games (Advance being far more streamlined than CD imo).
I don't think they were any more BS than the rare bit of frustration you can find in the classic games. I feel like people remember one or two odd points in Sky Canyon or the one star enemy in Technobase 1 (one of the last levels in the game) and say "the whole game is badly made".

2 is an interesting case because I either hear "Sonic Advance 2 is hold right to win" or "it's level design is bullshit". I don't get how it can be both of these extremes and in my opinion it's neither. It's just a solid game that has one or two sour points which you'll remember and adjust to on the second attempt.
1 is a little slow, but I sort of forgive it? Being on such a small screen, they probably didn't want an extremely hotblooded pace for the first entry. Then got a bit more confident with 2 and 3.

The only thing I didn't care for in 3 was the switch pressing. I feel like if Sega remastered them and widened the aspect ratio, people would have less issue with whatever problems they had.
Also these games are just a treat to look at. Especially 3. They're so vibrant and fun.

[BIL]

brutal difficulty due to the new Hit Rate mechanic.

Nobody who complained about Shattered Soldier's difficulty should be taken too seriously imo. It's an uncompromising game in the way all 1HKO affairs are, but it's absolutely nothing out of line with Contra III or Hard Corps. The no-restart S-Rank is certainly a challenge but that's kinda the point.

(disliking the over-reliance on simple rote over more volatile action/platforming is definitely something I can understand, though I think the Charged Flamethrower letting you demolish boss phases so aggressively keeps it from getting stale)

I dunno though, it's the sort of game I wouldn't discuss outside of an arcade-conversant setting. I know casuals did complain about the difficulty, but we all know they'll cry about anything that puts up the mildest resistance.

[To Far Away Times]

I love the hit rate mechanic. It adds a little spice and to the game when you've got the easy parts memorized.

Shattered Soldier is one of the few games where I would pick apart enemies for score.

When you are just learning the stage layouts it can be ignored.

Once you can get through the stages at a level where you can 1CC the game, you can get the hit rate up to 90% + to access the final level without hardly any additional trouble, since the game is so static and memorization heavy. It's really only when you go for S Ranks that the hit rate mechanic becomes unforgiving, and that's mostly due to the no death nature of it and the perfect execution required.

[Sima Tuna]

Sanic Advance 2 was one of my favorite gba games as a kid. It has a different design philosophy compared to the classic 2d titles, feeling more like a Tony Hawk or extreme sports game. But I enjoyed that. The air trick system is basically your safety net to compensate for not being able to see and react to obstacles in time.

The GBA sanics in general are super solid, like Sonic Battle is a fun little game for what it is.