Games with Underrated Stories

[Winfrid]

Definately Nier, it's not so much that the story is underrated, it's that the game is underrated so no one knows its actually a fantastic story

The ending/s are pretty much a mindfsuk

Spoiler: ending

You play it through the first time and it's such a happy story, happy ending, you feel like you've done good, saving your daughter, then to realise that for the entirety of the game you've been slaughtering the real humans and you're the 'monster', and it's like, "lol these shades are dropping schoolbooks and crayons and shit..... wait..... OMG! SLAUGHTERING CHILDREN!"
Kinda sad Turns a black and white game into all shades of grey

Like the Wolves, the first time you play through you hate those wolves, they're evil evil bastards who killed a sweet, innocent girl on her wedding day - then you play through again and it's like..... damn.....

 

[Gigaguy64]

Id say Spectrobes.
All the games have a really well crafted storyline and some awesome characters.

 

[Lust]

If you like it now, I'd say that it gets even better in the second half.

Plus, by now you've met one of the best characters ever, Emil. Don't want to spoil anything for you, but he has a really good story line towards the latter half.

Cool.

I actually wanted to see how he turns out. Poor little guy.................thanks for not spoiling anything.

 

[BoxCutter]

My vote is for Super Paper Mario..honestly the greatest story I have ever seen in a game. WHY IS NO ONE MAKING A MOVIE OFF OF THE STORY???

I agree. All the Paper Mario games were amazing. I don't know why they aren't more popular.

 

[Extraintrovert]

I have the irresitable urge to type Touhou and enter an obsessive rant about it, but it is hardly underrated considering it's disproportionate fanbase is drawn to the story above most other things. Otherwise, I think I will go with Half-Life 2. There is praise directed towards the gameplay and the visuals and the physics, but no-one seems to appreciate how much depth is in the story, how first-person storytelling is almost perfected by providing Gordon (and the player) with little snippets of things the other characters assume he should already know, managing to present this vast, terrible world with only the smallest of hints at select places.

 

[joemegson94]

The Oddworld games have a great story IMO. Plus the dark humour in them is great.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Is the story of GTA San Andreas underrated? I was under the assumption that people just played it for jetpack cheats and blowing stuff up.

 

[The Real Sandman]

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has one of the most unappreciated stories I've ever seen. It's in a way a spoof of all the western stereotypes we've come to accept as rule of thumb.

The two main characters Ray and Thomas (who could be best compared to Cassidy and Longabaugh [http://mormonmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/butch_cassidy_and_the_sundance_kid1.jpg]) serve as the lighted hearted adventure seeking gun slingers, but are deep down cold blooded criminals. Their brother Will seems to be the only character the audience can truly connect and relate to despite being a whiny preacher boy. And the biggest enemy of Ray and Thomas may not be the twisted leader of a murderous gang or an insane Confederate colonel, but themselves.

The story also had great dialoge, deep characters, and one of best and most moving arcs in gaming history.

Also...fun gameplay, cool weapons, beautiful levels, and you can duel weild gold pistols (which is always a plus).

 

[zhemis]

FEAR. Its why I love the series so much.
And Dynasty Warriors. Though its not underrated in Asia. (Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a chinese classic)

Only problem is the games themselves don't try to bring any life to the story, at least on the english end. You're right that there's less following (and generally caring) about the story here. I thoroughly enjoy the Dynasty Warriors series and wish they'd give a little more effort to getting story across in the games.

Personally I thought Outpost 2 had a good story. It's your everyday RTS but I played through each level because I got excited about the next chapter in the story.

 

[Shycte]

I agree with TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, I thought the story was funny as shit.

See you in the future sucker!

Also, mentioned above Call of Juarez: BiB, great story.

I don't know about the story itself but I love The Elder Scrolls's lore.

 

[Trivun]

A lot of people complain that Halo has a generic storyline. Usually these are people who have never even bothered to play the game, because the games themselves have great storylines, that are original and well put together, and differentiate them from certain other 'generic' alien shooters. And the backstory is massive and amazing too, as detailed in the books/anime/etc...

 

[zhemis]

@Trivun I wouldn't call Halo's story underrated though. Maybe disliked but in my opinion Halo has only ever been overrated. The original had a good story with depth coming as you played through.

 

[Palademon]

Castle Crashers!....it, um...had pirate ninjas.

 

[Kryzantine]

I second GTA:SA. The story was certainly better than what most people expected. Also seconding The Darkness, but then, that game is known for having a good story, so I guess it doesn't count.

I'm going to say Diablo 2.

 

[Vrex360]

A lot of people complain that Halo has a generic storyline. Usually these are people who have never even bothered to play the game, because the games themselves have great storylines, that are original and well put together, and differentiate them from certain other 'generic' alien shooters. And the backstory is massive and amazing too, as detailed in the books/anime/etc...

Exactly what I was going to say. I hate it when people overlook the depth of the Halo setting and just declare it as a 'space marine shooter' because that really isn't fair.
I mean even just the original trilogy as it stood at least rose to the length of a well put together epic trilogy with twists and turns and explosive climactic showdowns, and then you add the rest of the Halo canon to the mix and well... it becomes something beyond epic.

So yeah, as it stands the Halo story is always at least decent and even moves on, more than a few times, into the realm of greatness and it annoys me that it gets so simplified. Especially when the people doing so usually haven't played the game and/or are just biased against it and are making it sound worse then it really is.

I mean no offense to any non-Halo fans out there who may have thought I was talking about them but I still stand by my belief that some people really do just dismiss the Halo story into simple mean comments akin to something Yahtzee would say and that in turn those people are probably just seeing what they want to see.

 

[Alex Cowan]

KotOR II: Everyone seems to hate the story so much, and how it wasn't as mind-blowingly awesome as the first one. I would argue that pretty much every game's story is inferior to the first KotOR, but that doesn't make the second one bad per se, and I think that if people looked at it in a context of not having seen the first game, they'd say the story was pretty good. I certainly enjoyed playing it, and the plot was the main thing keeping me going.

 

[deathbydeath]

i would say thief: deadly shadows (i wanted to know what happened so much i went on wikipedia)
and also portal. there wasn't much of a story, but what little there was was presented extremely well

 

[Neuromaster]

For some reason, space sims Freespace 2 and TIE Fighter come to mind. I still remember the way my heart dropped when I discovered

Spoiler

the Sathanas was only one of hundreds

And I just consistently enjoyed TIE Fighter's story/mission development.

 

[Talon_Skywarp]

Agreed on Nier.

Gameplay...grrrr but story was amazing.

Plus, Grimore Weiss was amazing, I have a thing about that voice actor (cant be arsed to find name) so He made it for me.