Favorite underrated video games?

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Jimboree said:
Gotta be Terranigma. A lil' old SNES ARPG (think link to the past with stats, though the combat is more reminiscent of Secret of Mana) that only came out in Japan and Europe. At first the story concerns "resurrecting the world", from the land itself to the flora and fauna, and then humanity itself, but once the 2nd half of the game hits some real dark shit starts to unfold. Aside from that it's a very well realized game with a lot of neat little things to uncover, though by the end of the game it becomes apparent that both technical and time limitations stepped in and hampered what could have been a truly amazing work. Of these neat little things my favorite was the sidequests where you went around helping various small towns develop into huge cities by helping key historical figures with making their famous inventions (among other things). Also the ending made me cry like a bitch for a week straight. 9/10, even with its flaws it's very much worth playing, though Bloody Mary can suck my dick.
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If you like Terranigma then check out the other games in the "series". Before Terranigma there was Illusion of Gaia, before that, Soul Blazer and before that ActRaiser 1. There is a easy to see lineage from one to the other. The jump from ActRaiser is by far the largest, it switches genre and becoming an action RPG, but Soul Blazer is still about building up towns, helping people and killing monster spawns.
 
Smaug's Smokey Hole said:
If you like Terranigma then check out the other games in the "series". Before Terranigma there was Illusion of Gaia, before that, Soul Blazer and before that ActRaiser 1. There is a easy to see lineage from one to the other. The jump from ActRaiser is by far the largest, it switches genre and becoming an action RPG, but Soul Blazer is still about building up towns, helping people and killing monster spawns.
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I'm already well aware of these games, I just need to get around to playing them. I've heard ActRaiser is by far the most fleshed-out of them, so I may try that one next.
 
DaftMob said:
LIST!

Sunset Overdrive
Pit People
Middle Earth: Shadow Of War
Katana Zero
L.A. Noire
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Is Shadow of War worth looking into? Would one need to invest in microtransactions to not be hamstrung later in the game?
 
Dean Pentel said:
Is Shadow of War worth looking into? Would one need to invest in microtransactions to not be hamstrung later in the game?
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I haven’t personally played it, but I heard about a major rebalancing patch after they shut off the microdtransactions.

So that’s pretty slimy to pull on early adopters, but benefits the hell out of the rest of us who don’t mind playing older games
 
Dean Pentel said:
Is Shadow of War worth looking into? Would one need to invest in micro transactions to not be hamstrung later in the game?
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Definitely. In case you didn't know, its based off the lord of the rings franchise. It doesn't really focus on the actual story in the game, its more about building your orc army to capture different places in Mordor. Combat at first is a little one note, but as your start unlocking different abilities for Talion, the combat starts to become more fleshed out. Talion runs pretty fluidly and there are a bunch of unlockables to spend your time getting. Best part of the game for me is easily building up your army with orcs. The orcs all have have different personality's and voice which his a nice touch. Online raiding is fun and the fight pits are nice if you want a cool orc. And no, they took micro transactions out of the game so no, you don't need to spend irl money. Overall a pretty good game, probably give it a 7.5 or a 8.
 
It's a shame the Mercenaries series died off after 2. It was a really fun destructible sandbox to play around in, and the airstrikes were a blast to abuse.
 
A game I think got a bit of a raw deal was Iconoclast. Celeste came out the same week and it just got lost in the shuffle. It had a Metroidvania style but was more linear and story driven with interesting characters. It isn't at the same level as something like Hollow Knight but it was a solid game that I rarely see people talk about.
 
Blood
Crackdown forgot I already posted in this thread
Saint's Row 2
Super Paper Mario, but mostly because it was the one of the first games I played (and probably the first that had any kind of interesting characters)
 
I think Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is horribly mistreated by MGS fanbase. Is it as good as the original? No it isn't. But it's still an enjoyable campaign and a perfectly valid excuse to play more of the MGS2 game design which many fans consider to be a highpoint of the franchise.

It's sad to me that Kojima never got it rereleased with HD Graphics.
 
The Maximo games on the PS2 are incredibly underrated, the first one is fantastic, the second is not as good but still really solid.

Everyone still talks about Ghouls and Ghosts and G&G is actually getting a new entry, but almost nobody talks about Maximo anymore which is a real shame, I wish there would be a new game, especially since the story (Maximo's search for Sofia) was never resolved.

Just in general there are tons of great ips Capcom has that just don't get enough love, such as Haunting Ground and Shadow of Rome (the stealth sequences are kind of eh, but the gladiator sequences are a lot of fun)
 
The Warriors video game. Probably the most underrated game in Rockstar Games's library (yes, THAT Rockstar Games). You don't have to go watch the original movie, but its one of my favorite's. The first half of the game takes place before the events of the first film, with you playing as Rembrandt in the tutorial and getting his stripes. The combat system is the main attraction in this Coney Island game (no pun intended). Its mainly comprised of making big combos to build up your rage meter, which will let you one hit kill enemies for a short amount of time. The combat is a bit stiff, but its not as bad as GTA 5, it's heavily brawling focused like a 3d beat em up.. The prologue is fleshes out all the characters and builds up to the Warriors at the meeting. All the characters act the same as they would in the movie, and they all have very similar voices with the original characters, like Ajax and Cleon. Its awesome how they also incorporate the gangs from the movie into the game. The Destroyers are the rivals of the warriors, I won't go very deep into the story but to put it into a watered down summary: Beat up the Destroyers after they mess with you and kill their leader. Beat up and humiliate low level Orphans gang and humiliate leader and take their girl. Beat up the Hi-Hats and kill their leader and trash their art place. Finally, the Saracens need some help with the Jones Street Boys by sabotaging them and the police, in return putting a word in for The Warriors so they can get into the meeting. It's pretty good for a prologue for the original film, and the writers deserve a lot of praise for it. The bonus content is probably some of the best exposition in bonus missions ever. It tells the stories of all the Warriors and how they joined the gang. It starts out with Cleon and Vermin being set up by their gang leader, The Destroyers leader to be exact and surviving; They quit the gang and form The Warriors. Then its Swan and Cowboy who are competing in a king of the hill competition for money. After they win, they're asked by Cleon and Vermin if they want to quit The Destroyers and join The Warriors, which they agree too. Then its Ajax and Snow who just joined The Warriors. They venture too the east side of Coney to visit a girl and get ambushed by The Destroyers who steal their vests. They beat up the crippled guy who took their vests (along with some help from the rest of The Warriors) and take back their colors, and then proceed to go back to the girl to have some fun. Then it's fox, who is tasked with running through China Town for the final part of The Warriors initiation. They force him to wear a shirt that says "F##K YOU HUNS!" which is a rival gang in chinatown. You go through with Vermin and make it out of Chinatown and earn your vest. Then finally, Cochise wants to join The Warriors so he must go take a size 9 hat from another gang, The Boppers. So you beat up the guy, and join the warriors. That's pretty much all I have to say about this masterpiece. Their's also other side missions outside in the "Open World" which you can barley call it that. But it's still a nice touch. Also, you can use weapons like bats and bricks, and regain health by using Flash (drugs). Also other game modes like rumble, where you can play against your friends by playing as two separate gangs and beating each other up. It's a masterpiece and my favorite game from the Ps2 era.
 
Maybe it's shit by now, been a minute, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi-Ops:_The_Mindgate_Conspiracy was good, cheesy fun the old-fashioned way.

And Beetle Adventure Racing is this game I sometimes remember existed, just a fun and solid old time. Ths guy playing this one sucks, but I remember this game being so sweet when I was a kid - long-form racing courses with volcanoes and halloween shit? And the routes changing based on your lap? Righteous
 
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Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. For a Tri-Ace game, it has a decent story and uses a Faustian bargaining system that I've yet to see in anything except maybe a Fire Emblem game. In the game, you can permadeath one character per battle except the main one if bosses are too strong for you, which is often the case in a Tri-Ace game. That character gets stats x10 for the battle and your main character learns a very powerful skill that can be reused in later battles. New game+ is encouraged to get all the skills from your sacrifices and the endings are based on how many you kill during a playthrough.

Infinite Space is a visual novel similar to Suikoden set in space. Weird AF combat system though since it's like Platinum games remaking rock-paper-scissors. The fun is in modifying ships to increase stats like in any JRPG. I like the game because the story is a really good anime.
 
Cardenio said:
I think Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is horribly mistreated by MGS fanbase. Is it as good as the original? No it isn't. But it's still an enjoyable campaign and a perfectly valid excuse to play more of the MGS2 game design which many fans consider to be a highpoint of the franchise.

It's sad to me that Kojima never got it rereleased with HD Graphics.
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The cut scenes were fun but felt out of place for the game. But they're still fun. If you agree check out the japanese movie Versus, the creator/director of which was picked by Kojima to direct the cut scenes of The Twin Snakes, the director had a certain style you know. Versus is a fun movie, super low budget but it plays like a video game. It's actually sort of like the ridiculousness of Dante in Devil May Cry 3 but years before that game was released. If environments and characters were swapped some of the cutscenes from The Twin Snakes would fit pretty well in a Devil May Cry now that I think about it...
 
albert chan said:
Fusion Frenzy for the original XBOX
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Another original Xbox launch title that got overlooked was Bloodwake, while it isn't the best game by any means it's still pretty interesting and while plenty of games today have much better looking water, almost 20 years later and I've still not seen a game that tried to simulate water physics as much as Bloodwake did.
 
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