Recommend Underrated Games!

[Bean]

While people were being disappointed again and again with the FFXIII stuff that I wouldn't know as of yet, one of the best Final Fantasy games I've played in years came out on the Nintendo DS handheld in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. It's the precursor to Bravely Default in the sense that you have a party of four heroes, a job class system, and a second half that sees you revisiting places you've been to.

I really like how the first half is more about the four having their own adventures (being divided into two groups, sometimes going solo, etc.) before they all team up at around the halfway point. It wound up lasting me thirty hours last year, mainly because I was enjoying the whole enhancing job crowns with jewels to gain new abilities that you could then equip on your characters. It's old school without being too archaic, although the backtracking part right at the start of the second half might annoy some people, I found it to be an overall solid RPG.

[Granix]

I would say Super Aleste (Space Megaforce in the US), since I don't see it being metioned that often.

Honestly I think this game lives in Gradius shadow. The power up system is better ( you don't have to go through power-ups bar crap), each weapon is unique and any of them overshadows other ones. Stages are fairly long but you can with ease come back to high weapon level after getting wrecked, there's plenty of live to get in each stage (either by points or by bonuses) and you can get bombs that will wipe out entire screen from enemies. Also final boss is not total pushover and is legit hard to beat, even with bombs.

Not that I dislike Gradius series, but it's just too punishing to enjoy as much.

[TheFinalSentinel]

I would say Super Aleste (Space Megaforce in the US), since I don't see it being metioned that often.

Honestly I think this game lives in Gradius shadow. The power up system is better ( you don't have to go through power-ups bar crap), each weapon is unique and any of them overshadows other ones. Stages are fairly long but you can with ease come back to high weapon level after getting wrecked, there's plenty of live to get in each stage (either by points or by bonuses) and you can get bombs that will wipe out entire screen from enemies. Also final boss is not total pushover and is legit hard to beat, even with bombs.

Not that I dislike Gradius series, but it's just too punishing to enjoy as much.

You and I have two completely different views on these matters.

'Scuse me, I need to get back to playing some Gaiden. I'll have to check out Super Megaforce one of these days here.

[Katazuki]

Two games to recommend this time around! Two because they're part of the same series, but are different genres. Those games are...

Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color (PS2) & Graffiti Kingdom (PS2)




Both of these games share the same concept of either collecting monsters to use or drawing your own monster using their (rather complicated) 3D drawing board. However Magic Pengel is an RPG and Graffiti Kingdom is an action RPG. Out of both of these two, I personally enjoyed Graffiti Kingdom a bit more.

Magic Pengel has a similar mechanic to Dokapon Kingdom where you have that 'rock-paper-scissors' battle system. Except in this game, you can't use the same action twice in a row. Graffiti Kingdom is a standard action RPG with some added platforming segments and is hella fun to explore as well as beating up them hordes of baddies.

Now both of these games have the similar mechanic of creating your monster designs, but along with that, they also give you the ability to customize their moveset! You're limited at what you can use early on, but you get more powerful moves as you progress! And drawing different body parts allow for different kinds of moves used specifically by that body part!

A few fun things to notice here about Grafitti Kingdom though, is that there's a lot of collectible playable easter eggs in this game. We got an appearance of Pengel from its prequel, we got a Space Invader, we even have Bub and Bob from Bubble Bobble, and even Mog from Super Bust-a-Move!

But probably the cameo that will interest probably a good chunk of peeps in here, and has appeared in both games, is Hakurei Reimu, dubbed in this game as the 'Flying Maiden'. Fun fact: ZUN was involved the production of both games, which is why the cameo exists! In fact, Reimu's spell card 'Fantasy Seal' made its debut in Magic Pengel!

And a last tidbit of information, the music of Graffiti Kingdom is the same composer who did Chrono Trigger. WOW. TRIVIA UP THE WAZOO.

[Nathan the Talkmaus]

I would have mentioned StarTropics but we've recently been getting some love for that in the form of an excellent LP.

Dragon Quest series (everyone ignores this outside of japan)

I didn't even know there was such a thing as an RPG until I picked out a copy of Dragon Warrior I & II for GBC because WalMart didn't have any Link's Awakening. Ever since then RPGs have been my favorite genre of videogame, with fondest memories being of the remakes of the first three Dragon Warrior games for GameBoy Color.

I agree that it is vastly underrated when compared to Final Fantasy, if not just in general.


Speaking of Final Fantasy, my favorites are Mystic Quest for the SNES and Tactics Advance for GBA.

[SAJewers]

Not sure if this really counts, but Sonic the Hedgehog 3/Sonic & Knuckles/Sonic 3 and Knuckles was ported to the PC, and seems to have been mostly forgotten. Thankfully, it's been put it up for download on archive.org

[ztarwuff]

I think Treasure Adventure Game is quite underrated. It's probably not a good game for raocow to LP, given the way he does things. But it's a fun game, nonetheless.

[SAJewers]

Gonna have to add Aero the Acrobat 2 to this lit too now, after replaying a bit of it recently.

For those who don't know Aero the Acrobat was sunsoft's entry into the mascot with attitude craze of the '90s. The first game, while I haven't played it, doesn't appear to be that great (this retrogamer review mentions the first game being poorly received.. However, Aero the Acrobat 2 is quite good.

Unfortunately, there are very few decent videos on youtube of it (There's a Genesis playthrough with terrible audio quality, and a SNES playthrough with the wrong aspect ratio, and the picture quality isn't that great).

If/when raocow does another "suggest games from pateron people" thingy, I'm definitely gonna suggest this.

[Nathan the Talkmaus]

I enjoyed playing the first Aero the Acrobat as a kid but couldn't finish the first world and in hindsight the game actually wasn't very good. Have no experience with the second, but a major quality jump would not surprise me (Mega Man -> Mega Man 2 was "good game to great game", Sonic the Hedgehog -> Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was "okay game to amazing game").

[Rosie Ambrosian]

A lot of my favorite games are obscure/underrated games, here's a few I always wanna get people interested in:

Crusader of Centy/Soliel (Gen/MD): A really fun action adventure title that seems a lot like Zelda at first glance, but as you get into it, it's actually really different. It's a really good looking game with great music and it's very well designed! The story is pretty good for a game of its time as well. The game had radically different translations for EU and NA territories tho, and there doesn't seem to be a -better- one. It'll just be up to personal taste, but I played the American version and liked it.

Metal Max Returns (SNES): I'd love to recommend other titles in the series but it's the only one I've played so far. The only other title in the series to get a translation was Metal Saga on PS2 and I haven't tried it yet. MMR only has a fan translation by AGTP, and it's a wonderful little game. It's a remake of an NES game that was basically an Open-world RPG, or how that could work on tech like that back then. As far as I can tell the original game is kinda a over-difficult grind, like most NES RPGs. But the SNES version patches it up immensely and makes it a really enjoyable experience. Graphics are really nice looking, aesthetic is really nice, you get to drive a tank, you get to customize a tank, you get more tanks and get to customize all of them, the game has a lot of nice mechanics to make grinding not very annoying, and it's really good! If you like non conventional RPGs you should definitely give the game a try. Also technically this game was far from underrated in Japan, the series is still going today over there. The newest game in the proper series came out in 2013 on the 3ds and there's two iOS/Android titles on the way.

Steambot Chronicles (PS2): It's a non-linear action RPG! Or at least that's how the game sells itself, it's still kinda linear. There's lots of paths to take tho, and it's a super good game! Honestly one of my favorite games ever I absolutely adore the heck out of this game. It's far from a super polished title, and has a ton of issues, but it's so charming and has such a neat setup for gameplay that I haven't seen very much elsewhere. I dunno entirely how to describe what all this game gets right in my opinion. It's just a really great aesthetic for the design of stuff, a super well designed world, pretty interesting characters, and just a nailed sense of atmosphere! A lot about the game might turn people off tho, and it's not really one that's easy to try out or anything unfortunately.

Notable mentions: Kickmaster(NES), Granstream Saga(PSX), Iridion II(GBA), is Tokyo Jungle for PS3 underrated cuz I'd like to put that here if it is.

[Antiginger]

It is criminal how underrated Wonderful 101 is but I can understand why it is.

[Ozzy Ment]

Not sure to what extent it could actually be considered "underrated", but I really liked Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. The gameplay was alright; I've seen better, I've seen worse; but the plot was incredible. I was very disappointed to see that Smash 4 didn't even acknowledge the existence of the Mystery Dungeon games at all.
Also The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Yes, it is an entry in an extremely popular series, but Minish Cap always seems (to me at least) to be one of the lesser renowned Zelda titles.

[TheFinalSentinel]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

Anyway, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for Gamecube seems to be one of those games that a handful of people had in their childhood and absolutely love, and then no one else really knows about it, at least in my experience.
It's such a fantastic game that needs so much more love. ESPECIALLY the soundtrack. Kumi Tanioka did an absolutely fantastic job of creating an absolutely beautiful soundtrack for this game, and I would place it as one of the best OSTs on the Gamecube up there with F-Zero GX, TimeSplitters 2, and Metroid Prime and such.

[mysterypersonofwin]

One game I don't hear talked about much is MegaMage, a Mega Man clone. It has its own unique ideas and it has good level design. I consider it to be as good as other Mega Man clones/fan games, like Unlimited and Nezumi Man.

[TuliothePillbug]

There is no game more underrated than The World Ends With You (TWEWY)
Square Enix game with the most unique gameplay you won't find anywhere else. Touching story and amazing style and gloriously memorable music (mostly).


Also, RIP TWEWY 2

[TuliothePillbug]

Considering the shadow it lives under and the fact that I've met all of 3 people who have heard of it, I think I'd argue to the contrary

[Wolfolotl]

if you're interested in games that are equal parts farming sim and dating sim, I recommend the handheld Harvest Moon games, especially Sunshine Islands for DS, Tale of Two Towns for DS, and the one not localized by Natsume and thus not really a Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons for 3DS

I feel that XSEED did a really good job with SoS, and it felt more polished than most Natsume localizations I can think of

[TheFinalSentinel]

Considering the shadow it lives under and the fact that I've met all of 3 people who have heard of it, I think I'd argue to the contrary

And considering the scores of people I know who know and love TWEWY, plus the multitude that have heard of how good it is, I'd argue against that.
It's all about who you talk to. I mean, if you talk to CoD or TF2 players or the like vs, say, RPG aficionados there'll be a massive difference in the responses you get.
Shadow it lives under? I mean, if you put it up against freaking Final Fantasy yeah. But really any general RPG? Not quite.
So underrated? Underappreciated? I'd say no on that one.

You want an underrated DS RPG? Perhaps try Radiant Historia, or even more so Sigma Harmonics. Heck, the later is even a Squenix title too. Too bad it never got localized. It looks so good.
But TWEWY? No.

[XerX]

Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX
They Bleed Pixels on Steam

[Leet]

Uriel's Chasm is as underrated as it gets, being the lowest rated game on Steam. It's definitely cool.

Flower, Sun and Rain is kind of bad and the only English release of it is the DS version with much worse graphics and therefore atmosphere... but its also really amazing at times.

twewy talk

That's right, I've heard tons about how amazing TWEWY is so I wouldn't say its obscure or anything. As others have said, by normal standards maybe, but by the standards of people who know a lot about games, not so much.

[Vinyl]

The only 2 Blinx games in existence have some pretty dank music

Also Tiny Tank: Up Your Arsenal for the PS1 is also heavily underrated or heavily forgotten

Games lost in time.. Forever..

[TuliothePillbug]

I've met all of 3 people

oh man meeting people

It appears I'm wrong by majority, but that comment seemed kinda in poor taste

But ya, Harvest moon handheld games have been pretty good. I like Harvest Moon DS mostly because of nostalgia

[Vinyl]

I have actually begun to play Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town. It's an adorable game, I really love it as a time waster.