Most under-rated games ever?

[Raizen1984]

Because the OP mentioned it, I'd just like to point out that Chrono Cross is not a sequal to Chrono Trigger, and was never intended to be. The director, Masato Kato, was unhappy with the way Radical Dreamers turned out, and set out to develop a game that did it right. Chrono Cross is just a remake/retelling of that story, with a few more connections to Trigger to tie that universe together.

I think it was in one of the Ultimania guides, but Kato mentioned in an interview that while Chrono Cross was a Chrono game, it was not Trigger 2. That should be all the proof anyone needs, right from the creators mouth.

[lgb]

hasn't aged well

of course, as you said, this only exists because reviewers compare newer games to old

in other words, this is subjective and means next to nothing

[BryanM]

Reading some stuff to remind me of how Cross went, I realize now it's just a very confused SaGa spinoff.

"Of course, the fans of the original are very important, but what innovation can come about when you're bound to the past? I believe that gameplay should evolve with the hardware."

Man sounds like a George Lucas.

"Innovation" in making sandwiches.. Okay.

Anyway, Shadow Hearts is more under rateder than it. It has a guy in it who wears a cool hat.

[Solarus]

Ugh I'm trying not to respond to these because it's dragging the topic off course, but I can't simply let them sit.

Because the OP mentioned it, I'd just like to point out that Chrono Cross is not a sequal to Chrono Trigger, and was never intended to be. The director, Masato Kato, was unhappy with the way Radical Dreamers turned out, and set out to develop a game that did it right. Chrono Cross is just a remake/retelling of that story, with a few more connections to Trigger to tie that universe together.

I think it was in one of the Ultimania guides, but Kato mentioned in an interview that while Chrono Cross was a Chrono game, it was not Trigger 2. That should be all the proof anyone needs, right from the creators mouth.

Yes Cross is a sequel to Trigger. A vague, but concrete sequel. It is a re-telling of Radical Dreamers, which itself was also sequal/side story to Chrono Trigger (Magus was in it ffs), which Masato Kato screwed up, by his own admission. In Cross there are several direct connections to Chrono Trigger **SPOILERS** Schala and Lavos as the Time Devourer is critical to the story, and is a direct result of the cliffhanger in Trigger where Schala is owned by Lavos in the Ocean Palace. Crono, Lucca and Marle are found (albeit in ghost form) in that tower in the dead sea and again at the end of the game. Kid is Schala's clone, sent to help her from melding with the Time Devourer, yada yada **END SPOILERS**.

The quote you're referencing is "We didn't want to directly extend Chrono Trigger into a sequel, but create a new Chrono with links to the original. Yes, the platform changed; and yes, there were many parts that changed dramatically from the previous work. But in my view, the whole point in making Chrono Cross was to make a new Chrono with the best available skills and technologies of today. I never had any intentions of just taking the system from Trigger and moving it onto the PlayStation console. That's why I believe that Cross is Cross, and NOT Trigger 2."

In other words, he wanted to create something that wasn't a straight up "Crhono Trigger 2" with the same battle system, story telling style, or characters, as a means of creating his own game, but still wanted to have that connection to Chrono Trigger that shows in the very smallest of senses that it happens in a parallel dimenstion. This would make it a sequel. Considering that Final Fantasy VII is a sequel to Final Fantasy VIII with no story connections whatsoever, this is more than enough to warrant the title.

Ideally, everyone wants the 2nd disc to be an actual game like the first disk was, which would essentially double the length of an already massive game.

Xenogears, disc 1, consisted of walking around and pressing X to bring up text and scenes, several dungeons, and turn-based battles.

Xenogears, disc 2, consisted of text and scenes coming up on their own, one big-ass dungeon, and turn-based battles.

I'm not sure what you want added to disc 2. Should there have been another dungeon to trudge through before you get to fight Sufal Mass? Should it have been necessary to fly back to Nortune and walk around until you talk to the right people or press the right switch to launch Yiggdrasil IV? Stuff like that would've made the game longer, like you say, but I don't think shoving more padding in would've made it any better.

Anyway, a fun game I don't see mentioned much is the original Kunio. It's beautiful in its hideousness!

First of all, there were 3 dungeons on disc 2, not 1. Second of all, you're basically saying that taking away half of the RPG elements is making it better. If they made an entire RPG like disc 2 of Xenogears, you're really saying that it would be considered better than if they fleshed out the story by actually having you play it?

There are tons of things they could have added to the second disc to expand the story and character development, even after having not played the game in like 4 years. First of all, the "story time" method briefly says "fei and pals go to the huge mass reactor building filled with nukes and shoot the gun. Along the way they meet the Voltron pals". That could have very easily been an important dungeon, but becomes a 2 minute show. Also, they could have had an actual transition to where Fei and party magically somehow find Zohar in the middle of nowhere. I think having a dungeon before Sufal Mass with some development of everyone turning into Wels would have been cool as well. The Yggdrasil IV thing would have made a good "ok we finished this dungeon and got a message that bad things are happening. Let's go there instantly" transition. There are numerous other things they could have done (and intended to do. the framework and plan was there), which they simply couldn't do because Square said "screw you, we're cutting your budget".

[Solarus]

EDIT: Double posted by accident, sorry. Essay was big enough as it is

[Raizen1984]

Ugh I'm trying not to respond to these because it's dragging the topic off course, but I can't simply let them sit.

Who cares? Topics drift off course all the time. It's stupid to try and restrict conversation like that. It's not like we went from talking about underrated games to beet farming.

Yes Cross is a sequel to Trigger. A vague, but concrete sequel. It is a re-telling of Radical Dreamers, which itself was also sequal/side story to Chrono Trigger (Magus was in it ffs), which Masato Kato screwed up, by his own admission.

Radical Dreamers was a side story, not a sequal, to Trigger. It can't be both.

In other words, he wanted to create something that wasn't a straight up "Crhono Trigger 2" with the same battle system, story telling style, or characters, as a means of creating his own game, but still wanted to have that connection to Chrono Trigger that shows in the very smallest of senses that it happens in a parallel dimenstion. This would make it a sequel. Considering that Final Fantasy VII is a sequel to Final Fantasy VIII with no story connections whatsoever, this is more than enough to warrant the title.

Final Fantasy doesn't really work as an example. It's a series that has made it's name by being intentionally different with every installment. When FFX-2 came out, why do you think everyone called it the first true sequal to a Final Fantasy game? Because it was.

Do you think Shadow Hearts is a sequal to Koudelka because they happen to take place in the same world? Metroid Prime is another example of a game in the same universe, but not a sequal to the rest of the series. Just because a game takes elements from another game (whether they be plot related or game related) doesn't mean it's a sequal.

[lgb]

whether or not something is a "sequel" may as well be subjective too

[RoninBuddha]

mention a sole random jrpg.. shit happens

[Sandlegs]

karnov on nes.
you got the fat guy shooting fireballs, genies in bird nests, gorillas throwing boulders, space men turning into balls of spikes, the list goes on. what's not to love?

[Matsunaga]

Just because you enjoyed them again doesn't mean they have aged well. FF7 is a horribly bloated goose chase and Xenogears is a pixellated mess with a second disc that shouldn't even exist. But they were good in their own time, I will admit that. Back in 1999 or whenever, I did play through and beat FF7, although I had to use a guide because I had no fucking clue why we had to go to some irrelevant town and add another useless character to the fifth slot of our party which we'll NEVER end up using. Best thing out of that was chocobo breeding and the Gold Saucer thing.

I guess you didn't like FF7 because you didn't actually play it.. You used a damn strategy guide. You might as well just read a book if you're going to use a strategy guide for an rpg. Is it fun to follow directions through a 60 hour game?

[BryanM]

Of course the jrpg in question must be a Squaresoft game. You can't just say "Shin Megami Tensei III sux" and expect to get 20 pages of rage or neckbearding out of it.

One thing I liked about Chrono Trigger was it felt a lot like a Dragon Quest game, without all the rigid dogma. Wish those guys would make more games together.

karnov on nes.
you got the fat guy shooting fireballs, genies in bird nests, gorillas throwing boulders, space men turning into balls of spikes, the list goes on. what's not to love?

Getting killed in two hits and getting sent back to the last checkpoint, fat man. One hit in the arcade version.

Also it lacks plucky robots.

Damn, I still like this game more than it deserves.

[Ed Oscuro]

Beet farming, that's pretty tough I tells ya.

Best to check in once in a while to make sure they aren't turning into sugar beets on you, that's the worst. Sticky, sugary, spreading sneaky death to your margins, that's what it is.

[Elixir]

this is subjective and means next to nothing

That's stupid. This entire thread is subjective. That's like saying, "unless you can PROVE that this tomato was originally surrounded by dirt, it's not a tomato". But all this shit tastes the same anyway, and that's what this thread is about. Tomatoes.

I guess you didn't like FF7 because you didn't actually play it.. You used a damn strategy guide. You might as well just read a book if you're going to use a strategy guide for an rpg. Is it fun to follow directions through a 60 hour game?

I was ten years old. The game isn't all that linear and has a lot of needless sidetracking in The Hunt for Sephiroth and Friends. I liked the game regardless of using a guide. If you read back, you'll see that I said that I enjoyed FF7 at the time, but I couldn't enjoy it now. Hence canceling out the whole concept of how games can't age and they play the same as they did when they were released.

[Matsunaga]

I was ten years old.

That explains a lot.

[Momijitsuki]

FFVII is an extremely mediocre game, leaning toward bad, especially when compared to FFIV and FFVI. The only thing that kept me going through that game was the soundtrack, which was possibly its only redeeming factor-- definitely one of Nobuo Uematsu's best works. I hated the characters, and Sephiroth is the biggest pussy of a villain I have ever seen. It's incredibly overrated, and I look forward to selling my copy for a ridiculous price to someone dumb enough to buy it a few years down the road.

As for underrated games, I'd have to go with games like Shiren the Wanderer and Etrian Odyssey, that don't seem to get any attention.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I've been playing lots of Contra games lately, and it's just sad that some of them are so unloved. Most people seem to only know the NES games and Contra 3. The following aren't simply underrated, but also underplayed and unfairly judged because they're not like Contra 1-3.

Contra Hard Corps: I grew up playing Contra 1-3, and I didn't even know HC existed until 2003 or something like that. The first time I played it, I got killed in less than five seconds. The game is so fast! Then, you find out that each character has different weapons and there's multiple endings with unique bosses and before long, you're telling yourself, "wow, this game is great!"

Contra Shattered Soldier: Contra SS is a very good game, but there's wayyy too many bosses and not enough platforming. I think it would've been a great game if they made it more like HC with multiple paths and characters with different weapon sets. That way you're not always fighting the same bosses and going through the exact same routine.

Neo Contra: This is a very nice change of pace from SS. While SS is rigid and serious, NC is wayyy over the top, cheesy, and more free form. Also, the spread gun gets a nice remix and it's very satisfying to use.

[Ghegs]

Contra Shattered Soldier: Contra SS is a very good game, but there's wayyy too many bosses and not enough platforming.

I felt the abundance of bosses and less platforming was great. But then, I do likes my bossfights. In any case, both the PS2 Contras are pretty awesome indeed. I've been meaning to start practicing for an all S-rank clear of SS for a long time, but just haven't managed to motivate myself properly yet.

[dcharlie]

you know what ? FF7 gets a LOT of hate, but at the time i ABSOLUTELY enjoyed it. And i was in my 20's at the time

YES, FF6 absolutely destroys it story wise, but at the time the game wasn't in anyway bad or mediocre (at least IMO), it was -at worst- "good" and the main complaint from me was (coming from mainly western RPGs with oodles of freedom) it felt more like a story that was playing out in front of me rather than having at least more of an illusion that i wasn't being corraled down a particular path.

+1 for Eterian O. though -again- it is the darling of a few forums. Fantastic old school rpg brutalness though.

[BIL]

Contra Shattered Soldier: Contra SS is a very good game, but there's wayyy too many bosses and not enough platforming. I think it would've been a great game if they made it more like HC with multiple paths and characters with different weapon sets. That way you're not always fighting the same bosses and going through the exact same routine.

HC's multiple routes ended up taking away from it, for me. It's good for replay value, when the game is new. But you can only see one set of the (incredible) final stages per playthrough, and a couple of the mandatory ones get boring (Junkyard and Jungle, and much of the Research Center). I'd rather a heavily routine-based game like HC/SS focus on one set of optimal level designs. Not that SS doesn't have a few dead spots early on (Mission 2 bikers, Mission 3 eel = zzz...), but there's less overall and the entire second half is nonstop action.

Same goes for weapon sets - normally I'm a big fan of multiple characters, but not in the HC/SS memoriser model. I just end up using Fang since he's got a charge shot that cuts boss times in half. SS removed diversity by chucking in all the good stuff as standard, but at least you can always ace the current segment with maximum style and efficiency (rather than just sitting through the motions).

SS definitely needed more run and gun. But it entertains me more consistently than HC despite being just as routine-based. If HC was composed of only its final stages from Stage 2 on, it'd be my favourite Contra hands-down.

[Momijitsuki]

you know what ? FF7 gets a LOT of hate, but at the time i ABSOLUTELY enjoyed it. And i was in my 20's at the time

YES, FF6 absolutely destroys it story wise, but at the time the game wasn't in anyway bad or mediocre (at least IMO), it was -at worst- "good" and the main complaint from me was (coming from mainly western RPGs with oodles of freedom) it felt more like a story that was playing out in front of me rather than having at least more of an illusion that i wasn't being corraled down a particular path.

When I played it, I saw a poorly-localized game with graphics that would have been a million times better if they had stuck with the fantastic pixel art that FFVI had. I hate it when people give me the 'they were being innovative!' shit. I'd rather play a well-done 2D game over a 3D game with graphics that often resembled unintelligible polygons any day. The plot was filled with holes, and the story was sort of a ripoff of FFVI's as well. I will never understand why this game this game got so explosively popular, even to newcomers today, aside from the hype and the OMG IT'S FINAL FANTASY factors. Proper logic would say otherwise.

[TLB]

I bought FFVII for five bucks at a yard sale after having played several other JRPGs, and a few PSOne RPGs, at that. Thought it sucked. Found it boring as all hell. Maaaybe I'll go back and finish it some day, but my friends have talked about it all the time, and it's been spoiled like no other game in history by mass media. I really don't care to play it. Just isn't very interesting. For the time, sure. Now, no. As Elixir said, the game doesn't age well. Those who believe it does age well are the ones who played it in the 90s, and have fond memories of it. Those of us who came in later think it's shit.

Personally, I think MGS2 was fucking awesome. Why? Because I hadn't played through the first one when I got it. I had no predisposition to hate Raiden because he wasn't Snake, I just played the game. The first part with Snake was cool as hell. The second part with Raiden was just as cool or cooler. The first game was a whore to track down, but when I got it, I played through it without blinking. That is a game that has aged well. It's still fucking awesome today. If my PS2 weren't broken, I might play through it after school just for the hell of it, because it's so much fun. Unlike a boring JRPG from twelve years ago.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Contra Shattered Soldier: Contra SS is a very good game, but there's wayyy too many bosses and not enough platforming. I think it would've been a great game if they made it more like HC with multiple paths and characters with different weapon sets. That way you're not always fighting the same bosses and going through the exact same routine.

HC's multiple routes ended up taking away from it, for me. It's good for replay value, when the game is new. But you can only see one set of the (incredible) final stages per playthrough, and a couple of the mandatory ones get boring (Junkyard and Jungle, and much of the Research Center). I'd rather a heavily routine-based game like HC/SS focus on one set of optimal level designs. Not that SS doesn't have a few dead spots early on (Mission 2 bikers, Mission 3 eel = zzz...), but there's less overall and the entire second half is nonstop action.

Same goes for weapon sets - normally I'm a big fan of multiple characters, but not in the HC/SS memoriser model. I just end up using Fang since he's got a charge shot that cuts boss times in half. SS removed diversity by chucking in all the good stuff as standard, but at least you can always ace the current segment with maximum style and efficiency (rather than just sitting through the motions).

SS definitely needed more run and gun. But it entertains me more consistently than HC despite being just as routine-based. If HC was composed of only its final stages from Stage 2 on, it'd be my favourite Contra hands-down.

The Junkyard is not so bad, but the Jungle is a pain in the ass to play because of the core boss. Jesus. That bitch takes forever to kill.

I can't imagine playing all the last levels of HC in a row. That'd take a lot of mental toughness to go through. But then, the last part of SS is more than a dozen boss fights in a row. It's doable but extremely tiresome.

[Cuilan]

Legend of Mana
Mega Man 5 (Gameboy)
Kirby's Star Stacker
Wild Card
Senko no Ronde
Condemned 2
Space Giraffe
Pretty much everything Bungie developed before Halo

[Sandlegs]

karnov on nes.
you got the fat guy shooting fireballs, genies in bird nests, gorillas throwing boulders, space men turning into balls of spikes, the list goes on. what's not to love?

Getting killed in two hits and getting sent back to the last checkpoint, fat man. One hit in the arcade version.

Also it lacks plucky robots.

Damn, I still like this game more than it deserves.

whoa! my name is bryan m too, that was weird. not to many bryans on the y team.
and yes, karnov is still great in all its glitchy glory.

[Thunder Force]

Panzer Dragoon Orta

[TLB]

Panzer Dragoon Orta

[evil_ash_xero]

Panzer Dragoon Orta has amazing reviews. It just didn't do too well.

Now, let's give it up for a true underrated masterpiece:

[lilmanjs]

jarret and labonte stock car racing(PS1). the soundtrack was amazing, and it had damage and a good selection of cars you could unlock and some great tracks to race on. I found it fun to win a race when your car wanted to run off the track by itself

[Damocles]

Enclave (X-Box)

I'm still bitter about the canned sequel.

[dcharlie]

Enclave (X-Box)

oh YES, completely forgot about this one. Completely agreed.