Most under-rated game/series of all time? I'd have to say the SHENMUE series. It wasn't so much under-rated review wise, but it was by gamers. What drew me in initially about Shenmue were the graphics at the time, incredible. When I played the game, I played for maybe 30 minutes and was pretty bored by the experience. However, I gave it another chance and kept plugging on through, and I gotta say, best gaming experience of my life so far, nothing has matched it.
The overall story about revenge, though cliche, was told so well especially with secondary characters whom you actually began caring for. The Virtua Fighter-esque fighting and leveling-ip system was a breath of fresh air when compared to the standard RPG turn-based fighting of the time. The in-game cinematics and were second-to-none, and (I believe) the first time a game incorporated QTE in a cinematic way. The environments were fleshed out just as much as the characters; day turned to night, leaves fell in the fall, snow fell in the winter along with Santa ringing his bell outside the arcade. It truly was an RPG, you lived the life of Ryo Hazuki. It could be a slow life every now and then, but experiencing the full series in its entirety, I doubt many people would be disappointed. Again, I can see where some people might get bored and IMO there were very few of those moments past the first hour of the game, but the positive experiences in the game FAR outweigh the negative, 100 fold.
