Games you love, but probably didn't get enough sales/attention

[wintercoat]

Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii and Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean for the Gamecube. Kinda understandable that Baten Kaitos get's piss all attention (Its a JPRG on the Gamecube that had no advertisement what-so-ever), but it seems really strange to me how Extraction got minimal attention when compared to Dead Space 1. Probably because of the whole 'It's a rail-shooter on the Wii while the rest of the franchise is on other systems' but it could still have used a little more love.

Not only is it a JRPG, but it uses a card battle system, the most loathed combat system in the West. Loved the whole aging system for the cards. And the actual combat was probably the best card battle system I've ever played. Amazing music, though the voice acting was...not good. Wasn't there a prequel made?

 

[Dectomax]

Phantom Crash, on the original Xbox. That was such an awesome game; great gameplay and an insane amount of customisation. Damn...now I want to play it again...

 

[Karma168]

Shadow of Rome. Probably made to cash in on the Gladiator craze after the movie but the gameplay was great; over the top violence, big weapons and brilliant attacks - the Gladiator matches were some of the best fun I've had in a game.

Though the stealth missions were probably what killed it

 

[wgreer25]

Transformers: War for Cybertron, and the upcoming sequal, Fall of Cybertron. I'm affraid too many people have a bad taste in their mouth from Michael Bay (screw him). The first game was absolutely awesome. Way better than Gears of War or CoD (I've been bored with shotters for a while, but WoC brought me back). Some of the funnest multiplayer have had in a while.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts N' Bolts. Original vehicular platformer, each mission a puzzle in true Banjo SPIRIT. Just because it wasn't a carbon copy of an out-dated genre, doesn't mean it needed to be so very hated

Collect-O-Thon Platformer Genre
Origin: Super Mario 64 (1996)

First-Person Shooter Genre
Origin: Wolfenstein 3D (1992)

Alright, so, some games that get a lot of hate for no good reason? I've thought about this...

Zapper: One Wicked Cricket
People say that this is a carbon-copy of Frogger, and, indeed, you hop around on grid-based maps in the same fashion, but, that's where the similarities end. Zapper can actually kill stuff and he has to solve various puzzles.

Shadow the Hedgehog
I don't like Next-Gen, Unleashed, Colors, Generations, and especially Black Knight. But, I just don't understand all the hate for Shadow. You can be evil? No one complained about that in Sonic Adventure 2 or any other titles that let you play as a villain. You can use guns? Guns have been in the series since the first game. Just being more accessible isn't a problem. It's dark? Once again, Sonic Adventure 2 was so much darker, and people say it's the greatest Sonic game of all time. The gameplay is all Adventureish, the engine is smooth, the locations are cool, and the game's just fun to play. Also, you actually play as Shadow, and not guide him through railroad tracks, moving left and right, occasionally jumping, like the Sonic games of more recent years.

Gex series
People say that Conker using cultural references was a good thing. But, when Gex does it, they say that making cultural references is stupid. Then, they see Conker and Duke Nukem again and completely forgot they even said that. The gameplay's nice, too, and the whole "Media Dimension" thing was an interesting idea, as well.

Below is a franchise that isn't hated, but is just obscure.

Army Men
Before 2K games bought it, 3DO made this amazing series that kept innovating so much, the games kept coming in a flurry of different genres, such as RTS, third-person shooter, and vehicle combat. It was created under the idea to have those plastic army soldiers actually be alive and from another universe waging war, occasionally slipping into our own. If they stayed too long, they got plasticized, as in, hardened up, with a base formed under their feet.

 

[Mike308]

Darksiders didn't get enough exposure and also Alan Wake. Seriously that game was fucking AWESOME

 

[darkstarangel]

Okami was a majorly overlooked gem, I cant believe it never took off. Also, Eccho night 1 & 2 were pretty cool too.

Im especially bummed that Chrono-cross & parasite eve 2 weren't successful enough (sales wise) to continue with extra sequels. Well theres 3rd birthday but it deviates from the main story & exclusive only to the PSP, a hand console of all things.

 

[malestrithe]

I would say Harvest Moon, but it has a saturation point almost as good as Castlevania.

Valkyrie Profile is one of the best JRPGs on the PS one. It did not have a lot of initial sales, but got a better received sequel on PS2 and DS. Also got a PSP reissue.

 

[thespyisdead]

Alan Wake. the story is awesome, but the game play, i must admit, lacks that something, that would make me play it through a second time...


besides which, Alan Wake was written by Max Payne's face model Sam Lake

 

[Lancallot]

Tenchu has always been one of my favourates. I really hope It gets more attention when they decide to make a sequel to it.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

[HEADING=1]MOTHER 3 and EARTHBOUND[/HEADING]

I can never say that enough. I'll also go with Darksiders, and 3D Dot Game Heroes, which was a fun little experiment.

 

[itsthesheppy]

I thought Mount and Blade was amazing.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Metals Arms: Glitch in the System.


It was released on the PS2, Xbox 1, and Gamecube. You played as a little robot named Glitch, and you blew the shit out of other robots with all kinds of crazy weapons. It had funny characters, a great campaign mode, and split-screen multiplayer.

The freaking trailer of the game made fun of Halo for crying out loud!


I adore this game to death. I curse the day Blizzard got their grubby hands on Swingin' Ape Studios, because now we will never see a sequel.

We live in a cruel world.

 

[DoPo]

Beyond good and evil nuff said. one of the best reviewed games the year it came out and no one bought it.

Beyond Good and Evil, the sales weren't there for the game.

And it's on sale right now and for the rest of the weekend on GOG. OP should get it while he can.

Well, the Legacy of Kain series isn't really a sleeper hit but definitely didn't get enough attention. Not enough to let Eidos continue it. Last game came out almost nine years ago (will be in November) and there was a sequel that got scrapped. That's the last we heard from it. With the occasional rumour it will come out, but fans have grown desensitised to those. It's worse than HL(ep)3, I tell you.

Other than that, there is Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines, which has mostly small but devote following, no thanks to Activision, though.

And there is Second Sight. It is vastly underplayed. It is a pretty good game but it's so rare to find people talking about it. Hell, I even forget to mention it lots of times just because nobody else does it.

 

[ramboondiea]

SPLATTERHOUSE!!!! a shame really, a sequel would have been appreciated, but that aint ever going to happen now.

Dark sector, decent game, a few problems and suffered from a few story oversights but a damn good game and deserved more love.

Singularity a really good FPS, fun mechanics and an interesting story and fun weapons, but didn't sell terribly well and a lot of staff from raven were layed off a little while ago

VTM:B great RPG, admittedly riddled with bugs but deserved way more sales then it got

Void, a bloody weird game, hard as nails but beautiful, original and intriguing, sold okay in Germany, not so well everywhere else.

that is all I can think off the top of my head.

 

[danon]

In my opinion even though it got some coverage, devil may cry 4 was a largely bypassed title. It has one of the smoothest combat systems i have ever encountered with a gamepad.

 

[Skeggers]

Fuel I thought had a lot of ambition, but I won't say I couldn't let go of it.

MotorStorm Apocalypse flopped pretty badly because of the Japanese Earthquake which occured the same week as the game was meant to come out, which was obviously mostly unfortunate for Japan, but also a little bit for MotorStorm.

Vanquish, Red Faction Guerrilla, HAWX 1 & 2 and Bionic Commando are all games that I really enjoyed that I don't think got as much attention as they should have done.

 

[dimensional]

Well it's true [http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/final-fantasy-xiii]. Like I said Metacritic doesn't mean much.

Did you notice the user score was 8.0 based on about 1500 votes... I don't think as many people hated it as you think. Of course the vocal internet haters may make it seem that way...

This happens a lot though doesn't it? You get a game that people seem to like at the time but then a few months down the line everyone says it sucks. Whenever I hear people talk about this game it's criticism.

Well every game receives criticism but if you mean everyone talks about it in a bad light ill just say its a slow burner, starts off terribly and eventually becomes pretty damn good its just a shame the best bits are the post game battles, which incidentally are the second best in the entire series after X.

I have to disagree with Okami. Honestly even Psychonauts is more of a sleeper hit than Okami and that's the definition of a cult classic (hell it's too popular for that classification too).

Okami and Psychonauts did get attention but they most certainly did not get many sales.

OT: Gitaroo Man, I think everyone who loved it knew it was far too Japanese to ever get mainstream Western attention, but it's still my favourite rhythm game of all time (and I bought and played Britney Spears' Dance Beat just to make sure) and a shitty PSP port hardly does it justice.

Im glad someone else appreciates that game its no longer my favourite rhythm action game as its been surpassed in my mind by K-on! Houkago live but Gitaroo Man is just a brilliant game and definitely did not get enough attention probably through lack of coverage I had no idea what it was when I bought it (for cheap)

Ok thats enough of quoting others the one title which I would say never got enough sales or attention despite its brilliance is [b/] Valkyria Chronicles [/b].One of my favourite games ever made what few sales it had were mainly down to word of mouth and the short demo on PSN, its a cult classic ofc but it deserved to be a huge hit.

Others would be:-

Little Kings Story
Strangers Wrath
Deadly Premonition

And of course polly pocket splash island for the GBA which was cruelly overlooked by almost everyone including metacritic by the looks of it.

note: may not be serious on the last one although it could be great I unfortunately havent had the time, money or inclination to buy it and test it yet.