Underrated Video Games

[Mecha]

Saints Row is pretty overlooked thanks to GTA.

I have no idea why everyone hated SR4 so much. Granted it didn't have so much gang shit and was in same old Steelport, but it was still a broken, insane mess. In a good way.

[Theobromine]

Ib. I'm honestly not sure exactly what I loved about it, but I did. Doesn't have very fancy graphics, just a simple RPG-style gameplay... But it was a lot of fun. It's free if anyone wants to look it up and play it. :P

[Tick]

Yeah, Saints Row doesn't get the kind of marketing or attention GTA does. I didn't like IV as much as III, though. Gameplay seemed more samey/padded.

Theobromine said
Ib.

This is what I get when I look up lb.

Edit: I can't think of a lot of underrated games off the bat. You could name most old RPGs, and it'd be true(Planescape: Torment and the old Fallout's, mostly), but that's true of most '90/early '00 games. Period.
Borderlands was an extremely underrated game, probably still is. Borderlands II got a huge amount of attention because people recognized the name by then, though.

[Rusalka]

Mecha said
Saints Row is pretty overlooked thanks to GTA. I have no idea why everyone hated SR4 so much. Granted it didn't have so much gang shit and was in same old Steelport, but it was still a broken, insane mess. In a good way.

Saints Row has always been a peculiar series with me, and while I didn't much favor the Third storywise, I will say it was interesting to see the series evolve from its GTA roots, which unfortunately gained the ire of some of its fanbase, but I enjoyed it no less. And SR4 tried to at least give back to the fans what they had seemed to rob, which was really nothing other than just the old gang feel, but I believe it best that SR cut its ties with the GTA clone and made a new image for itself. Takes alot of balls to do something like that, especially when you have such a rabid fanbase.

[UnendingEmpire]

Guess it's about time to post another GameCube gem or two.

F-Zero GX:
The F-Zero franchise was a cool sci-fi racer series on Nintendo's part, though grossly underrated. About 95% of the attention it gets anymore is from Captain Falcon (whose machine is just okay from where I stand) being playable in every Super Smash Bros. game with his memetic Falcon Punch, and relatively more recently Samurai Goroh appearing as an assist trophy in Brawl. However, every person I ask about this series is like "Wut? I mean, I know who Captain Falcon is, but..." This series had everything one could want out of a sci-fi racing game. Fast machines, a diverse cast of characters, such as Mr. EAD, Silver Neelsen, Spade, Gomar & Shioh, and even freaking Deathborn, one of the more intimidating villains we've seen on Nintendo consoles.

On top of all this, the series boasts some great soundtracks. I'll list two major tracks from F-Zero X and GX, so here goes. Big Blue (F-Zero X), Rainbow Road (yes, THAT Rainbow Road, in F-Zero X!), Phantom Road (GX), and Emperor Breath (GX). The characters - while typically shallow - are interesting and diverse enough, and each one has their own unique machine that is meant to be played differently. The only thing I don't like about F-Zero? The horrible neglect it suffers.

Cel Damage:
Vehicular combat at its best and funniest, Cel Damage is a GameCube racer/fighter game about toons (cartoon characters, though all original to the game) getting in their unique vehicles and abusing the laws of cartoons to beat the hell out of each other. Eat through an opponent's bulldozer with your woodchipper if you want, or fire off some heat-seeking missiles. Maybe you'll throw a cleaver and chop 'em in half! Since they're toons, they'll just get right back up again, ready to kick ass and take names. While there's not too much resembling a plot, that can be a good thing in a fighting game, especially one as over-the-top hilarious as Cel Damage. It would also seem there was a PS2 copy entitled Cel Damage Overdrive. In the event that this explanation fails to properly create an image for you, there's also a Let's Play of the PS2 version of this game. Let it be known that there are some differences in gameplay between the two different games.

[Mecha]

Rusalka said
Saints Row has always been a peculiar series with me, and while I didn't much favor the Third storywise, I will say it was interesting to see the series evolve from its GTA roots, which unfortunately gained the ire of some of its fanbase, but I enjoyed it no less. And SR4 tried to at least give back to the fans what they had seemed to rob, which was really nothing other than just the old gang feel, but I believe it best that SR cut its ties with the GTA clone and made a new image for itself. Takes alot of balls to do something like that, especially when you have such a rabid fanbase.

I just wanna know where they'll go from here. There's been talk of a reboot, but those are just rumours. Considering SR is getting more and more crazy as time goes on, I wouldn't be surprised if they went with what you saw during the credits, lmao.

Adding to the topic, Kameo: Elements of Power, an Xbox 360 exclusive. It's an action-adventure beat em up fantasy which is pretty much about "stop the trolls from taking over!" All the different monsters you could take control of were awesome, and if there's one thing I'll always remember about it, it was the fucking difficulty. The controls were a little awkward, which I think was the problem.

[Theobromine]

Tick said
This is what I get when I look up lb.

Ha ha ha, wow, that's definitely not the game I was referring to. I just tested it out: if you type in "Ib (game)" into google then you should get the correct game.

[Fabricant451]

UnendingEmpire said
Vehicular combat at its best and funniest, Cel Damage is a GameCube racer/fighter game about toons (cartoon characters, though all original to the game) getting in their unique vehicles and abusing the laws of cartoons to beat the hell out of each other. Eat through an opponent's bulldozer with your woodchipper if you want, or fire off some heat-seeking missiles. Maybe you'll throw a cleaver and chop 'em in half! Since they're toons, they'll just get right back up again, ready to kick ass and take names. While there's not too much resembling a plot, that can be a good thing in a fighting game, especially one as over-the-top hilarious as Cel Damage. It would also seem there was a PS2 copy entitled Cel Damage Overdrive. In the event that this explanation fails to properly create an image for you, there's also of the PS2 version of this game. Let it be known that there are some differences in gameplay between the two different games.

I don't know if you know this, but Cel Damage is getting an HD re-release for the PS3, PS4, and Vita some time this week.

Mecha said
Saints Row is pretty overlooked thanks to GTA. I have no idea why everyone hated SR4 so much. Granted it didn't have so much gang shit and was in same old Steelport, but it was still a broken, insane mess. In a good way.

By the time SR3 came out, it had differentiated itself enough from GTA to be its own thing. And leagues better than both GTA 4 and 5. As far as 4 goes, it was just the natural extension of the crazy shit that you could do in 3. I will always love SR 4 just because I could fly around and cause mayhem with this song blaring. More open world games need to embrace the out-of-car music thing.

[Mecha]

Fabricant451 said By the time SR3 came out, it had differentiated itself enough from GTA to be its own thing. And leagues better than both GTA 4 and 5. As far as 4 goes, it was just the natural extension of the crazy shit that you could do in 3. I will always love SR 4 just because I could fly around and cause mayhem with blaring. More open world games need to embrace the out-of-car music thing.

GTA 5 wins for the story. Saints Row 4 wins for the gameplay. Being able to nuke an entire part of the city with a single punch took the cake for me.

[Cpt Toellner]

Really glad someone brought up F-Zero, my personal favorite racers where these two..

I was also a huge fan of Custom Robo and would be interested in seeing the series expand to the newer systems.

The ultimate underrated game for me is Metroid Prime, easily my favorite video game of all time. But it doesn't necessarily fit because it has quite the cult following. Still, it is not usually recognized as the true piece of art that it is.

So my two additions would be Metal Arms and Colony Wars.

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, was the PS2's first reaction to Halo, which explains its failure. The game has a cool setting, interesting combat possibilities, and some really off-the-wall humor.

Colony Wars was a Space Fighter trilogy for the first Play Station. The games were unique in that a failed mission would never lead to a "game over", instead, the plot would take different routes depending on the success of the player, leading to 5 different endings.

[Darog the Badger God]

A few that I was gonna mention(Custom Robo, F-Zero, Metal Arms, Dynasty Warriors, Kingdom Under Fire) already have been mentioned, So I'll compile a new list straight from my own library.

Zone of The Enders: The 2nd Runner - I cannot express enough how this game is my favourite PS2 game of all time. The action was fantastic, the Cel-Shading was beautiful and the story was simple yet good. I'm a huge lover of Mech Lore within anything, so this game really appealed to me. I consider this underrated because of its poor sales. I just think it had the nasty habit of being made in the wrong generation. Here's hoping for a 3rd installment!

Legacy of Kain Franchise - Rich world filled some dark and grim lore that even now doesn't really get explored that much in current trends(Dark Souls carries that trend, which I really appreciate). Legacy of Kain is by far my favourite franchise that features Vampires, an order of vampire hunters, and dark Lovecraftian-esque Elder Gods. A complex, heavy hitting story that features themes of destiny, fate, Time Travel, corruption and salvation whilst throwing in some of the single most badass vampires you will see in a game? That is why I love it. granted, Soul Reaver 1 and 2 are very outdated, I still enjoy playing through them. fuck Nosgoth though, which ignores all that for a free 2 play class based third person shooter game. Because we haven't got enough shooters -_-.

Kingdoms of Amalur/Dragon's Dogma - These two rough but fantastic gems are super overlooked by a certain few other big name RPGs(Looking at you, Elder Scrolls). KoA has a very flashy and fun combat than most other RPGs do. But I prefer Dragon's Dogma, because that game does big monster battles perfectly. You have to climb up a cyclops, a dragon to really deal some damage to them(Again, unlike Elder Scrolls which you only need a super strong weapon and just slash at the enemies knees). Also, Dragon's Dogma final battle, is one of my all time favourites.

I will add more when I can remember more plus excuse my terrible grammar spelling, it was late when I posted this and I was tired.

[Turtlicious]

Neo Scavenger http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/2

Space Rangers HD http://spacerangershd.com/

[Kaga]

Theobromine said
Ib. I'm honestly not sure exactly what I loved about it, but I did. Doesn't have very fancy graphics, just a simple RPG-style gameplay... But it was a lot of fun. It's free if anyone wants to look it up and play it. :P

I second this.

I'm not much of a gamer, and Ib certainly doesn't strike me as hardcore, but I feel like the time it took to play it was time well spent. If I had to label it with a genre I'd call it a "light horror puzzle game". Basically it's about this little girl who visits this art exhibit, but before long she gets separated from her family and is suddenly all alone in what was just a moment ago a crowded exhibit. Then creepy shit starts going down in the museum, art starts coming to life and Ib finds herself in what almost seems like a totally different world, filled with paintings and sculptures that all want to kill her. There are a lot of interesting puzzles Ib has to solve to find her way out of the exhibit, plus she meets some interesting characters while she's in there, and I really like all the music in it, too...

Oh! And there are multiple endings. So after you've finished it the first time you can go back and mess around with it to see what other endings there are. In fact, some of the paths aren't just multiple endings, but even change small things here and there throughout the course of the whole plot so that the entire buildup leading up to each ending feels different.

And like Theo said, it's totally free so you might as well check it out.

[Gelatinous Cube]

im2stoned4reality said
Anybody remember Arcanum? Shit was so cash.

You're damn right it was, son!
Magick or Tech?

I always really enjoyed Summoner for PC and PS2. I can fully acknowledge the flaws it had, and it certainly wasn't breaking a whole lot of new ground but I just found it to be a lot of fun. The story unfolded at a nice pace and it's stealth sections were really cool.
(Also, I just found out it's one Steam now, so hopefully it enjoys a bit of a new life. Maybe the multiplayer servers will start back up too. Who knows?)

[Lucian]

Fabricant451 said
An underrated and fairly recent game is Nier. It came out in 2010 and was kind of just forgotten by most people. One of the more infamous 'reviews' gave the game a zero because the reviewer couldn't follow the on screen icon to catch a fish. Nier is a hell of a game. It's made by Cavia who make games that exist to screw with the player And they also made a game that is kind of messed up story wise called Drakengard. Nier is a 'sequel' to Drakengard (and a much, much, much better one than Drakengard 2 since Nier was headed by the guy that headed Drakengard), in that it takes place after the fifth ending of Drakengard. Which, if you don't know what happens it is probably one of the most out of left field endings ever. It's also one of the biggest middle fingers to players in gaming. But that's a different story. Nier is not the prettiest game and its combat isn't as in-depth as a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta (since Nier is an action RPG and such) but what it does have is a fantastic narrative, a fantastic soundtrack, and fantastic characters. Some of the Cavia dickery is present, mostly in the sidequests that get ridiculously fetch questy, but on the whole it's a great game that flew under the radar. It's a game where a second playthrough is required, not just because it's worth it, but because a second playthrough gives you more insight into the story. It's fantastic and worth checking out. Also one of the characters is a sarcastic talking book who speaks in a stuffy exaggerated accent. And it is awesome.

I remember Drakengard! I played it when I was a kid. I remember thinking it was really awesome to be able to seamlessly switch between riding a dragon and fucking shit up on land. Don't remember much else about the game though.

[The Imagination]

Did anyone mention Rampage yet?

Rampage was/still is fun.

[Lucian]

The Imagination said
Did anyone mention Rampage yet?Rampage was/still is fun.

Rampage was the shit.

[Joegreenbeen]

I haven't read any of the posts besides the first, so I am sorry if I repeat or get in the way of something. I think Spore was an under rated game. I may think this because I was too young for it when it was big, but I think it should have a bigger following based on what a great game it is.

[Genkai]

I remember playing Dark Cloud. It was fun. ;3

I'd say the first four dot hack games are underrated. I've managed to keep all four secure since they're so hard to come by, but most people who like the franchise, have missed out on them and I think the plot was more solid for them than say, the G.U trilogy of games. *shrugs*

[TheRogueRose]

It seems like the games I get invested in end up starting to be forgotten.
I don't know if Skyrim falls into that category yet, but I feel that Dragon Age is getting there and Inquisition hasn't been released yet.

Anyone remember Ty the Tasmanian Tiger?