Underrated and Overrated Video Games

[skidcrow]

@Universorum

[Hey Im Jordan]

@Mara

[Hero]

Underrated: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. It was convoluted as fuck at the time to get multiplayer going, but it was a lot of fun.

Overrated: World of Warcraft. Just couldn't get into it.

[mickilennial]

I've never heard any negative criticism about Crystal Chronicles, in fact, I've only ever heard praise. How is it underrated? or where is it underrated, I guess would be the question if I were being more specific.

[tex]

@Inkarnate

I don't know what critics said about it. But it can be argued that the game wasn't as well received as the fanboys say.

If you compare its sales to other FF titles released around the same generation, its sales were abysmal. FFX clocks it at 8 million worldwide, IX sits at around 5-6 million, and XII, which seems to draw quite a bit of ire, still sold 6 million units. Crystal chronicles clocks in at a measly 1.5 million, with lower reviews than all aforementioned titles.

You could attribute that to the fact that it was on the game cube, which many Play-station owners likely wouldn't have had. But considering how titles with similar popularity still reached 6m+ sales on game cube, I find that difficult to believe. It's especially surprising how people glossed over it when it was probably one of the most mechanically interesting titles in the Final Fantasy series, if not the best.

I adore the game, but it feels like it has a niche in its genre and presentation. It's not a typical RPG in its game-play, characters, or story. It has a very cartoonish style, but constantly plays with mature themes and adopts very dark tones near the endgame; The typical player would miss out on most of the game's most alluring details until they were to invest a great deal of time into it. Considering how many people judge a game by its box art, it's not too surprising that it didn't sell well as a final-fantasy title. Most friends that I tried to get into the multiplayer were also at odds with the game play being too sluggish, or the game in general having a goofy feel to it. In my experience, it's not easy to find people who actually like the game.

[Fabricant451]

It's probably also because it's not a mainline Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy Tactics, regarded as one of the best games with the Final Fantasy name, only sold 1.2 million. Also the fact that peripherals were needed to get the most of it probably crippled a lot of its casual market appeal.

[Dolerman]

The only thing underrated about Crystal Chronicles is the character design and dat theme song.

[Hero]

I've never heard any negative criticism about Crystal Chronicles, in fact, I've only ever heard praise. How is it underrated? or where is it underrated, I guess would be the question if I were being more specific.

@Inkarnate

Because not enough people know about it tbh.

Also what Dynamo said.

[tex]

These guys were the coolest thing that the game produced. Yukes are amazing... Things.

[Dolerman]

I guess after getting BTFO on the Kill Bill debate, I should have expected contention in another one of my threads.

But yeah the Yukes are a good unique character design. Just because they look aesthetically ugly to you it doesn't mean they aren't well thought out. Plus the races look best in context with the others.

[tex]

The biggest reason why I rarely/never played the other races was just because of how fun the magic fusion system was to fuck around with. Yuke magic stat is god and being able to summon explosive shockwaves was way cooler than all the other charge attacks.

Except for maybe the Clavats? I recall them having the most busted physical combat capabilities. Strong enough to easily wipe most bosses without taking a single hit cuz shields were so easy to use.

[Lady Selune]

ALRIGHT LISTEN UP FUCKOS, ‘CAUSE LADY SELUNE GON’ TELL YOU ‘BOUT SOME GAMES.

Now that I’ve got your attention, have a gander at these rooty-tooty-point-and-shooty games that are actually fun, and a couple more hat are just straight up garbage thankee kindly.

First up, we have a criminally underrated game: Rising Storm 2, 1960s flashback simulator Vietnam. This game involves some of the best fucking gunplay I’ve ever seen, hands down. Guns in RS2 feel like you’ve got a big hunk of polymer in your hands that spit out death. The M1 is a fucking fantastic gun, because every thudding shot sounds amazing from it. The Mosin Nagant makes me cream my pants every time that I use it to shoot an American. Admittedly, the AK and SKS are trash that feels like you’re trying to hit people with a damp roll of newspaper, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that taking an AK, setting it to fully automatic and spraying down a closet is still awesome.

The roles that the game has are tasty too. Sure, you have your basic grunt role, which amounts to ‘here gun, here grenade, shoot,’ but there are also scouts that get SMGs and shotguns, grenadiers and RPG troopers that get bloop tubes and… RPGs… Machine gunners that get enough firepower to clear houses from the outside, and the ultimate bros, your radioman and commander.

Commanders get pointers from squad leaders, and use them to fuck the other team in the dick with artillery, napalm, gunships or just spawning the entirety of North Vietnam directly on the enemy team’s point. Then, to top it off, if you’re born in the USA like a true patriot, you can get behind the rotors of a helicopter, and proudly show off the red white and BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.

Another game that takes fully automatic guns and makes them kill you in like, no time at all is Insurgency, and that game is overrated. Now, you might be saying ‘are you high for the fiftieth time this week, Insurgency is an indie shooter that barely anyone plays’ and to that I say no, shut the fuck up, it’s overrated. Why? Because the game is widely considered good, and it isn’t. Every SINGLE game goes the same way. Race to get the class that has your favourite and near-identical gun for the cheapest. Walk towards the objective, spraying down every potential hiding spot. Die. Repeat.

Apart from Ambush, otherwise known as VIP extraction which is the only decent gamemode and is practically fucking dead, it might as well just be a bad call of duty inspired source mod, which is why the fact that NWI, the developers, made the next game on my list is confusing.
Because Day of Infamy is FUCKING AMAZING. The problems regarding samey guns is gone. Classes actually mean things, rather than swapping you between having two different types of SMGs that handle near identically. Bolt action rifles are worth a damn, and every class has a very specific role that it needs to fufill. Unless your snipers are taking out their MGs and officers (who much like in RS2, can fuck the enemy right inside their dicks by dropping high explosives on their heads,) your MGs are working crowd control, your assaults and flamethrowers are pushing objectives and your engineers are blowing shit up, you ain’t winning boyo.

In fact, the only issue I have with Day of Infamy is that their map design is garbage. There’s approximately one map that’s actually good, and one other map that’s fun, those being a map set during the Nazi invasion of Greece, where Commonwealth troops beat a fighting retreat through narrow streets, wide open courtyards, and finally a fucking CASTLE, and the obligatory Omaha Beach map, where you need to actually assault the beach, then push towards a terrifyingly open MG nest, and then finally root the Germans out of a bunker system to secure the win. Other than these two maps, which aren’t free from issues, you have Brittany, where a German MG can set up shop almost directly on top of the US spawn before the game even starts, Dunkirk, where the final objective can be destroyed by an airstrike, and Sicily, featuring the world’s most complicated cathedral ever to exist, and a bunch that you’ll play like twice before you end up on Omaha beach again.

From WW2 though, we fast forward to a game that I actually like, but is still a total piece of garbage no matter which way you cut it. Rainbow Six fucking Siege. A tactical game with no actual tactics other than ‘pick a fast operator and YEET around the map like a motherfucker, with a balancing team seemingly perpetually drunk, having stabbed themselves in the eye with a fork and are now puking everywhere. I’ve played the game for more than two years, and I can’t stand it any more, because they can’t fucking decide what they want to do with the game.

That moves us onto ano- WOAH FOR HONOR WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU COME FROM? How the shitfuck Ubisoft pulled this out of their asses I have no idea, because it’s actually managed to claw its way out of the pile of dead games like Jason Brody’s mass grave escape in Farcry 3. Having been whipped and abused non-stop by Ubisoft, who were seemingly desperate to curbstomp the first original IP they’ve had since one of them went on a drunken bender watching Doctor Who and came up with Assassin’s Creed, it’s now ACTUALLY FUN!

Ok, it’s an unbalanced mess of heroes that are bad and hilariously overpowered, with console being repeatedly fucked up the ass thanks to the fact that they have less FPS than PC making blocking some attacks nigh-impossible to avoid and a community so salty that League tells them to calm down, but it’s still fun! Maybe…

Alright, enough of this, I’m going to watch the two lovebirds in this thread fellate each other’s rage boners for the next 3 years.

[tex]

Insurgency

@Lady Selune

I thought insurgency 2 was pretty alright for like... One play through. But it's basically a revved up flash game.

[skidcrow]

<Snipped quote by Lady Selune>

I thought insurgency 2 was pretty alright for like... One play through. But it's basically a revved up flash game.

@tex

To be fair, it was originally a Source mod.

Also I'm mad my PC can't run Day of Infamy despite the fact I can run Insurgency standalone just fine.

[Frenzy]

Overrated: League of Legends. Now, a chunk of this is me being salty at being unable to practice without actually doing a match-- a match that takes my entire life to complete. I have 0 patience for that kind of stuff, so I guess MOBAs just aren't my thing.

Underrated: RUINER. I saw the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, and I was kinda curious because of the level of character customization. But I just wasn't super into the cyberpunk genre until I happened to trip over RUINER while looking for songs by Hirasawa. Beautiful game with a great soundtrack. I just. Don't see people talking about it.

[Dolerman]

Underrated: RUINER.

Beautiful game with a great soundtrack. I just. Don't see people talking about it.

@Frenzy

That's because being pretty and nice to listen to is all it has going for it, the gameplay isnt good.

[skidcrow]

<Snipped quote by Frenzy>

That's because being pretty and nice to listen to is all it has going for it, the gameplay isnt good.

@Dynamo Frokane

From what I've read, the short campaign and repetitive level design are the problem, not the gameplay. Gameplay seems to be the issue for people who think they can play RUINER with a controller, at least without changing the sensitivity. This game is definitely more suited for the fast precision of a mouse. Plus, the devs are actively rebalancing the game according to user feedback.

[XAnth]

Has anyone hopped on the died-before-its-time Dreamcast wagon???

Because Skies of Arcadia and Record of Lodoss War alone require it's attention

[tex]

Wasn't skies of Arcadia on GC as well?

[Fabricant451]

It was but it made about as much of a splash there as it did on the Dreamcast.