Underrated Games you like

[Formless God]

Nah, you're not too far off. Only the first game has the To Heart 2 characters though.

[ACSeraph]

Onechanbara Z Kagura for 360/PS3

Gowcaizer for NGCD

- Specifically NGCD version for the soundtrack

Gundam Wing Endless Duel for SFC

SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2) for GB

Fuckin' Caladrius

[Some-Mist]

skullmonkeys - claymation ps1 platformer by the creator of The Neverhood, Earthworm Jim, and the upcoming Armikrog. I'm a sucker for anything claymation/stop motion animation.

moon: remix adventure rpg - ps1 rpg created by Kenichi Nishi who did the field planning/map data for chrono trigger, super mario rpg and later to make lol: lack of love. it's a really weird game that runs in a real time system and you have to "grow" by increasing your love. it mocks other rpgs (e.g. townspeople get pissed that you're "breaking into their homes"). at certain parts you can also program music in the game. it looks weird as hell too.

the sea will claim everything - a pc point and click adventure game made entirely in ms paint by Jonas Kyratzes - a very well read and excellent writer. it was my 2012 goty due to it's amazing story and throwaway dialog. You basically are playing on a "computer" interacting with the world. It's kind of meta but really hilarious, and you can literally click on everything. Jonas was just recently contracted to do a lot of writing for The Talos Principle (still haven't gotten around to playing it) and I think it's pretty fitting that most people love the story in that game. I had to crowd source his new game(s) ithaka of the clouds/council of the crows. a couple of screenshots

Spoiler

clicked on the crate


clicked on the candle


conversation

[quash]

Binary Domain is great. Awesome setting, and the AI is arguably the best of its genre.

[evil_ash_xero]

I look at underrated as more of...not known or appreciated by a lot of people.

The scores can be good or bad, I guess.

Spoiler

God Hand was underrated, when released. Not so much now.
Thanks to word of mouth, of course.

Binary Domain is great. Awesome setting, and the AI is arguably the best of its genre.

Those damn red robots, and their side stepping, drive me nuts! I still have to beat this game on the hardest difficulty. I beat on the one right below that, and the last boss kinda scared me from it. But I will try.

Also, I actually got rid of the game a long time back, and thought about it recently, and bought the JP version (it's the only version without an embarrassing cover...well, that and the euro PC version). So, it's fresher in my mind now.

Seriously, what were they thinking????



Kind of generic, but at least not embarrssing.

[Blinge]

An ill-advised purchase then, considering it's an action RPG and not a card game but I grew to love it.

It is a card game. You collect cards and build up a deck. Then you can take your deck of choice and confront it with another player's.
I'd say people wanting it to be THE GameCube jRPG were in for a disappointment; not those who wanted cards collecting and battling.

Ah, don't take me so literally, I can't seriously be trying to say LK isn't a card game; I had noticed when finishing it both times that I had picked up cards and used them throughout. I meant it wasn't a pure card battler experience. The core gameplay is single player PvE, you use your cards to beat down monsters in random encounters and there's only 3 duels against AI card users in the whole game. Spacing and timing are just as, if not more important than what cards you've brought along. LK's appeal is that it combines card game with "action" gameplay.

There aren't enough viable cards for it to be a competitive experience, as it's balanced for singe player, so later game stuff is more powerful and often just upgraded versions of earlier cards, like the Lizard men. On the rare occasion that you might actually have a friend with the game willing to bring their deck (memory card) round, you don't have to battle the other persons deck, not really. You're just hitting the other player and their cards are a distraction as they try to hit you.

[BrianC]

I agree on Bullet Storm.... wish we got a follow up.

I'm guessing that Gears of War Judgement doesn't count? I heard that got mostly negative reviews, though.

Edit: Looks like I heard wrong. Metacritic reviews are mostly positive.

Edit2: I didn't hear wrong. Critic reviews were mostly positive, but user reviews were more mixed to negative.

[Marc]

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage. One of the 360's best racers.

The Darkness. A shorter with real atmosphere and heart, and actual, likeable characters.

I'll admit to enjoying TRON Legacy too, though I'm not sure I could justify under rated.

[Satan]

I picked up Sonic Racing Transformed over the weekend an wow was I surprised. There is a really good racer under all the (fantastic) Sega fanservice. I've really been surprised by this game.

It's a terrific arcade racer from a fabulous developer who understand what people want from Sega, unlike recent Sega... seemingly. I'd love to see Sumo handed all of Sega's franchises.

[ryu]

I always thought it was the common concensus to think that Sega Racing and its sequel are great games. It's definitely a pick I didn't expect in this thread.

My picks are Breath of Fire III and IV. Never played the first games much, but both III & IV are very high on my list of favorite games. I even like V to some extend, although I can understand a lot of the criticism aimed at that one.

Lost Kingdoms isn't a game I would have thought of listing here by myself, but since others have mentioned it I can't help but do so too. It's great. I remember when I bought it I was expecting a more traditional JRPG and was somewhat disappointed at first, but had a lot of fun with the game anyways. Has anyone here tried to 100% clear it? I've done so once a few years back, and gave up when I ran out of cards during the bossfight near the graveyard. :/ Maybe I gave up a little too early, but the game might be be balls hard for real, unlike the Souls games.

[Blinge]

but the game might be be balls hard for real, unlike the Souls games.

I was going to respond, until I read this.

LK is a piss flavoured cake compared to souls.

[ryu]

but the game might be be balls hard for real, unlike the Souls games.

I was going to respond, until I read this.

LK is a piss flavoured cake compared to souls.

Are you meaning to say it's super easy compared to the souls games? I dunno. Having to manage cards for each stage so you can clear it fully without running out of them seems pretty crazy. Maybe I'm just too impatient for that kind of thing though.

[Blinge]

Absolutely, significantly easier.
Just take a couple of card-replenisher cards with you. I got every card but didn't bother 5-star ranking every mission.

Saying souls games aren't hard is ridiculous. Say 'challenging' if you must. I hope you're not one of those who cry "artificial difficulty" =/
Obscura's thread is the better place for it.

[Strider77]

It's a terrific arcade racer from a fabulous developer who understand what people want from Sega, unlike recent Sega... seemingly. I'd love to see Sumo handed all of Sega's franchises.

I'm a fan of Sumo and "Sol" ever since Outrun 2. I think they should handle all things Sega.

How was the 1st Sonic/All Star racer? Any good?

[Immryr]

its amazing. best kart racer ever*. it's very different to the sequel, like I say it's a straight up kart racer.


*I haven't played Mario kart 7 or 8 though.

[Squire Grooktook]

Saying souls games aren't hard is ridiculous. Say 'challenging' if you must.

While they're not Mushi Futari 1.01 Ultra hard, they're challenging and difficult by most any metric one would care to apply.

[ACSeraph]

I think people have that "artificial" reaction to Souls because the difficulty is vastly overstated. For sure they aren't easy games, but what makes them hard is a requirement for memorization, a checkpoint system that requires you too effectively learn a full "stage" rather than brute forcing your way through small chunks, and damage output that makes even small mistakes matter. If you are just talking physical execution, there are only a few specific points in NG where this is a particular hurdle. At least by shmups forum standards Souls probably isn't that hard.

I myself feel that some of the points in Souls that are guaranteed to kill you the first time playing blind, but easy to avoid the second are for sure artificial. An example would be the floor collapsing into the wandering demon fight in your return visit to the undead sanctuary. I doubt anyone here survived that the first time, but once you know it's there it's easy to avoid. That death wastes your time and makes the game feel "hard", but I personally don't consider that to be true difficulty. Gwyn on the other hand...

Anyhow "artificial" memorization isn't really the majority of DS, and I think most everyone on this forum should be used to that trial and error style of gameplay by now.

My wife began playing Souls 1 for the first time a few days ago, and is already descending into Blighttown. According to her the execution of the combat is easier than the Witcher (which she also tried recently). The main difference is that in the witcher fucking up and making a mistake isn't usually very punishing; you only take a small amount of damage. So Souls is easier to play, but hard because you've gotta play it right.

[evil_ash_xero]

Do we really have to have another "Souls is actually really easy" conversation?

I mean...really...I've seen it a million times.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think people have that "artificial" reaction to Souls because the difficulty is vastly overstated. For sure they aren't easy games, but what makes them hard is a requirement for memorization, a checkpoint system that requires you too effectively learn a full "stage" rather than brute forcing your way through small chunks, and damage output that makes even small mistakes matter. If you are just talking physical execution, there are only a few specific points in NG where this is a particular hurdle. At least by shmups forum standards Souls probably isn't that hard.

From what I can tell, there's also a pretty heavy and consistent reaction element to the games. I'm not sure exactly how all the ai's work, but a lot of enemies have a variety of moves that seem to be on random timings, and you have to watch carefully and react in order to avoid throwing out a poke at the wrong time (another way I see the combat as similar to classicvania).

I don't think there's a ton of memo in the game. A lot of sections that other people died to, I got through blind, and a lot of sections other people got through blind, I died to. There's some things you really need to know for sure (what attacks will completely annihilate guard, and a few specific traps), but for the most part I wouldn't call it a super memo heavy game. Most things are telegraphed pretty fairly.

[Shepardus]

There is definitely an element of reaction to the games, and in some boss fights it's even quite difficult (at least in my opinion), but there are plenty of harder games in that respect (I would count Monster Hunter, for example, among them) and I don't think that's what people are referring to as "artificial" difficulty. It's that many gamers nowadays aren't used to the idea of death being a major part of gameplay. Usually when I see the Souls games being called unfair it's in regards to obstacles that you're expected to die to the first time you encounter them but become much easier when you know it's coming. I don't consider this unfair, though, as death is how Souls games communicate and teach you, and the games don't really punish you all that much for death unless you're both hoarding a ton of souls and not learning well enough to reach where you dropped the souls (at least Dark Souls, Demon's Souls does have more consequence for dying). It's not the "you failed so hard we had no choice but to revert your progress" that many games use death for, but is a tool for progress, which many people seem not to understand.

[Squire Grooktook]

Personally, the souls/humanity punishment for death is my favorite part of the series. Exploration and combat wouldn't be the same without that constant sense of tension, much like your average arcade game.

[Blinge]

Do we really have to have another "Souls is actually really easy" conversation?

I mean...really...I've seen it a million times.

Sorry, I couldn't avoid rising to Ryu's comment about LK/DS.

This guy says it better than I. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oYLhAZvjvU

The difficulty is only overstated overrated because that's the general reaction from masses of gamers (internet hive mind) who don't encounter actual consequences for failure. Today's youth aren't used to that sort of thing.

[ryu]

Absolutely, significantly easier.
Just take a couple of card-replenisher cards with you. I got every card but didn't bother 5-star ranking every mission.

Didn't you need to 5-star every mission in order to unlock a couple of bonus stages?

And if keeping a card stock up would be that easy, I wouldn't have run out of card last time I played. Unless you can't get those refill cards up until a certain point in the game.

I don't deny that I may have overestimated the difficulty level of LK though

[Blinge]

Not on LKI as far as I'm aware. Just looked up a mission list and walkthrough, there's nothing about a reward for 5-star ranking all the missions. Bonus stages are unlocked via different means.

There's no consequence for failure, when you retry you'll have every item still, and all the exp you collected. So just try again and head directly to the goal/play efficiently.

[ryu]

There's no consequence for failure, when you retry you'll have every item still, and all the exp you collected. So just try again and head directly to the goal/play efficiently.

What? As far as I remember, there were no items and exp in LK. Just cards. And if you fail a mission you start from the beginning. In Souls you get to keep items, and have a chance to keep your exp/money. There's also the shortcuts making some stages less frustrating to replay.

[Blinge]

When did you last play? Your cards get exp. By items I mean cards, yes, but also red fairies.

You start from the beginning of the stage when you choose it from the world map, with all the cards and red fairies you picked up and all exp still. None of the stages are long at all.

[ryu]

A couple of years ago. Maybe I should replay the game some time.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Can't remember when was the last time I finished any game. Lost Kingdoms is one of legion looming over me.

Seriously, what were they thinking????

[BIL]

Ah, manly/brotherly battlefield lovin'. Not an easy subject to capture. Best left to the old masters.

Spoiler

[evil_ash_xero]

Yeah, they did a better job of it.

The BD one was just....awkward looking.

Then again, the Operation Wolf one is a little awkward looking too, with that dude's ass sticking out.
The Guerrilla War (in flames) one is better. But he looks like he's saving John the Baptist.