Once-underrated but now overrated games?

[Saltyk]

I'll get hate for this, but...
Borderlands.

It has a sense of humor. And that is it. It feels very much like WoW, but first person and with guns. Maybe I would enjoy it more playing with a dedicated group of friends, but it really isn't much fun on its own.

Final Fantasy IX

How dare you.

I think it is still underrated to be honest, compared to other FF's. The overrated ones are 4 and 6.

I can't think of any games that have been underrated, then over time became overrated. That doesn't really make sense either.

Meanwhile, to the other extreme, I feel like FFVII is now underrated by all the people who seem to insist it isn't as good as it is made out to be. How many people have declared it to be garbage on this site alone?

 

[Dalisclock]

I'll also say Earthbound (for SNES) is one of those titles that was initially slept on but now is overhyped. I like the atmosphere and it's overall bizarreness. The gameplay just has poor pacing and overall isn't very fun.

I like Earthbound, but after Mother 3, Earthbound feels like it's lacking somewhat. There's good plot setup at the beginning and the end has some awesome cosmic horror story but the majority of the game is quirky weirdness where the plot is on holiday.

 

[votemarvel]

Mirrors Edge. It was terrible game that received average reviews yet lot of people consider it Great and underrated.

Something we can agree on.

The first time I played the game I thought something was wrong with my 360 and the textures weren't loading, nope turned out the graphics really were that bland.

For a free-running game it sure didn't like you to stray from the predetermined path.

Plus I confess I am not a fan of the first person perspective in games. You don't have peripheral vision, depth perception, or spacial awareness, all things which are important for the type of game that Mirror's Edge wanted to be. Third person can hardly be called realistic but it does help to replicate those three things.

On topic however my choice has to go to Saints Row 2. Back when it was released people wrote it off as a GTA clone but now raise it as the point of brilliance of the series. The controls are awful and the game forces you to do mind numbing tedious missions over and over again in order to be able to progress the story.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I'll get hate for this, but...
Borderlands.

It has a sense of humor. And that is it. It feels very much like WoW, but first person and with guns. Maybe I would enjoy it more playing with a dedicated group of friends, but it really isn't much fun on its own.

Borderlands actually crossed my mind briefly, particularly the first game a.k.a. "Wait, there was one before Handsome Jack?". That being said, I love all the games and I can go through them with a friend or by myself but I can certainly see how people would consider it over-rated. It does have a tendency to be more fun with friends to most people, however.

While I'm shooting myself in the foot by defending games I know are over-rated... uhmmmm Silent Hill 2?

Now, I feel it worth noting that that's still one of my favourite games of all time and I still love the whole series to bits (sans the movies, I mean JfC) but yeah, Silent Hill 2 and 3 are wayyyy over-rated.

I still love me some Silent Hill and Borderlands, though. In fact, let it be over-rated so everyone will hate it then no one will like it anymore and I'll be over by myself loving these games while everyone else hates them because they're popular.

I'd mention Undertale (which I've never liked because I just couldn't get into it, boo) but I don't even think Undertale was "underrated" at any point. It kind of started pretty high and just kept climbing where the air is thin and people start having spontaneous nosebleeds.

 

[Worgen]

I also think Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games that if it were to sell ten times as much as it did, the same people who are lavishly praising it would criticize it a lot.

You do realize it wasn't the gameplay that was praised. In fact pretty much every review talked about how bog standard the gameplay was. It was the story that was great, although with the passing of time it takes a hit since the big moments have mostly been spoiled now.

 

[Worgen]

Mirrors Edge. It was terrible game that recieve average reviews yet lot of people consider it Great and underrated.

Higher reviews than Shadow Warrior though.

Some people can't handle big Wangs. We should weep for them.

It doesn't help that some of the later levels in shadow warrior really really fucken drag, like 2-3 hours long.

 

[BrawlMan]

I played Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I think it's a fun action game but nothing I'd return to. In fact, I'd say that about most acclaimed SNES games. I think most retro games in general have rudimentary gameplay and haven't aged too well. Beat enemies, dodge pits, collect points, repeat. That kind of gameplay just feels very menial to me.

I'll also say Earthbound (for SNES) is one of those titles that was initially slept on but now is overhyped. I like the atmosphere and it's overall bizarreness. The gameplay just has poor pacing and overall isn't very fun.

You can also blame Screw Attack for that one. Sometimes they seemed more than a little bias when it came to most SNES classics.

Whoever mentioned Mirror's Edge, I agree. I couldn't even finish the demo; it was only FPS to actually make me dizzy from playing.

Sonic Colors. While I wouldn't call it exactly underrated, a lot people were praising it for being a "true" Sonic game. Yes, Colors is a bit better than Unleashed (I hated the Werehogs section!), but the game just replaces its gameplay mechanic for another crutch, The game relies way too much on the colors power gimmicks and most of the levels themselves were underwhelming because of them. Sonic Generations fixed all the problems I had with Colors and Unleashed, and was the better return to form.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica. A lot of fans like to say that the game didn't do well, because it was launched first on the Dreamcast. Some even say Code Veronica felt like a proper RE 3 than Nemesis. To that I say, bullcrap. I played the Dreamcast version at a friends, and borrowed the PS2 version from another and I still didn't like the game. While I was happy to see Claire, not much plot happens in the game to feel to like a numbered sequel. Code Veronica feels like another side-story plot-wise. Claire looks for her brother, they find each other near the end of the game, Wesker's back, and a pair of psychotic, incestuous twins are the main villains. And hardly anything from Code Veronica is referenced in the later games. As far as the series is concerned, Code Veroncia might as well almost never happened. I'll give the game credit in atmosphere and music, but it went overboard in difficulty.

 

[Daymo]

Mirrors Edge. It was terrible game that recieve average reviews yet lot of people consider it Great and underrated.

I'm one of them, it's still my favorite game ever made.

OT: Can we all admit that Psychonauts is a solid 8/10 and not the 11/10 people act like it is?

The worlds were super inconsistent for me, some were amazing and others were mostly filler. It didn't help the steam version had a massive memory leak issue they didn't patch for years.

Saint's Row 2 is this for me though. It's held up as the gold standard for any sandbox game, but still suffers from being a mostly uniteractive world. Something like Sleeping Dogs did a much better job of creating a world that felt alive.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

That game you like that other people didn't but now it's getting the recognition you think it deserves... You know the one? That one is overrated as all hell.

More serious this time, I honestly don't know. I mean, in order for me to feel like it was underrated I would have had to have played it and felt it was better then most people give credit for... but none of the games I played that fall under that ever got the recognition I think they deserved.

EDIT: Okay, reading lacktheknacks post above I got an idea... Banjo Kazooie. I LOVED that game as a kid... but for fuck sake people, it's a massive collectaton with very basic platforming. If that's your thing good for you, but it's not the best platformer ever.

I also agree with lacktheknacks opinion of Psychonauts. In fact, pretty much every Double Fine game is like this. I find most double fine games have oodles of charm but are often less refined in the actual gameplay department. They are fun titles with some endearing qualities, but also not amazing qualities and plenty of flaws.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

That game you like that other people didn't, but now it's getting more than the recognition you think it deserves... You know the one? That one is overrated.

Fixed

Not quite picking up what I'm putting down are you.

 

[MCerberus]

I'll get hate for this, but...
Borderlands.

It has a sense of humor. And that is it. It feels very much like WoW, but first person and with guns. Maybe I would enjoy it more playing with a dedicated group of friends, but it really isn't much fun on its own.

Borderlands didn't really find its voice in the first game. Sure it was wacky, but it didn't have the depressing fatalistic core barely covered by a flaking layer of comedy.

I will defend MM to this thread though. It has its issues like all games but the story and theming were great. Even with the technical limitations it gave you a world that felt lived in, had its problems which you explicitly could not fix all of, and at the end had probably the best summary of the grieving process in media (no you can't bring someone back but you can keep living. It will always hurt but take the small victories). In addition, it's one of the examples of how to do a sequel.

I do agree on BG&E. Lot's of potential, didn't exactly nail the execution. Maybe if they got a second game to try and refine their process they'd get something really great. Not bitter.

Mine are the Total War games up to, let's say M2. Let's be clear here. There were ALWAYS wonky issues with stability, AI, and easy to game inexplicable mechanics on the strategic layer. Each time Creative Assembly added in something that broke it all while removing a loved system. That perfect game you think just needs another layer of pretty to be perfect never existed. If you go into it expecting a tweek to the formula with another set of historic anchorpoints, that's probably the best state of mind. And yes, this does mean that TW:WH is going to be a glorious broken borderline unplayable mess that will take a year to patch into its potential. Just be glad the AI will understand stacking *coughrome*

 

[LordBaztion]

MGS2
First it was panned for its confusing story and misleading marketing, now everything was Kojima postmodern meta-commentary about society. Ok, it wasn't technically underrated since its one of the best PS2 games but it was under appreciated by public (since it is, indeed, an interesting piece of interactive storytelling), specially after the much superior MGS3 came out. Then revisionism on the game put its on a pedestal for groundbreaking storytelling. Sure, its groundbreaking for taking those subjects in 2001 but, IMO, being postmodern doesn't fix a convoluted storyline.

 

[Tomeran]

Im not sure how popular this will be, or if it even qualifies since it was never really "underrated" but:

Undertale


Its not bad, in fact the story quirks and the little innuendos and clever things about it is what makes it entertaining and even a good game well worth the time and investment. But like someone else said earlier in the thread, people have praised the game like the second coming of christ and I really cant see that. I had a similar experience with Stanleys Parable, but I suppose half the point of that "game" was for it to barely qualify to be called as such and thus quite hit the mark.

The praising of Undertale seemed more like the praising of indies in general and what defines them rather then the game itself being a pure projection of awesomeness.

 

[Sharia]

That game you like that other people didn't, but now it's getting more than the recognition you think it deserves... You know the one? That one is overrated.

Fixed

Not quite picking up what I'm putting down are you.

You said "now its getting the recognition that it deserves" when it is actually when a game gets MORE recognition that it deserves that someone may feel a game is overrated.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Undertale.
It's great but the way people make it seem like the second coming of christ kind of ruins the experience for first time players.

Here, here. The Undertale fandom is less about the game itself, I've found, and more about the three berjillion fanfics or headcanons simultaneously maintained by the community. The plot and game design both tend to fade away as far as conversation pieces go, and all discussions tend to merge into variations on SANS AND PAPYRUS, SQUEE or OHMIGOD, CHARA AND FLOWEY ARE SO GRIMDARK I LURVES IT.

Which is all well and good, but that ignores the fact that the game's mechanics are mostly the same as any other CRPG out there, except for the fact that there's an "attack" option that's aesthetically different from others, has differing narrative consequences and isn't labelled "attack".

The Pacifist route isn't different from anything else out there; it's the same mechanics we've used to present physical conflicts, just presented differently. You're "attacking" enemy NPCs with kindness. The Bullet Hell minigame associated to combat rounds isn't much more than an additional hurdle placed there to break the average CRPG cycle.

I've played through Undertale in two days and uninstalled it immediately afterwards. I have no desire to play it again, even if some folks immediately reply with cries of "You need to go Genocide, seeing as the game remembers what you did as a Pacifist and the characters register your shift of alignment as a betrayal and IT'S SO EMOTIONALLY GRIPPING, GAWD!"

That's forgetting how I can't betray Sans, no matter what I could do. Why not?

Because he's fictitious.

 

[MeatMachine]

Starbound is my nomination.

It was never wildly popular or praised, but loads of people insisted that it was the best survival/crafting game ever, even in its early beta stages.

I find the whole thing to be lacking in substance, and covering that lack of substance with an endless amount of randomly-generated environments and a list of redundant item/crafting materials that's about as long as a small nation's census. I know that the idea of having endless worlds to explore sounds cool, but honestly, where's the satisfaction in stumbling across a stash of loot that is procedurally placed by a computer formula, that you had no way of being directed towards? That to me isn't exploration or discovery - it's aimless wandering, with the vague hope of running into a bit of rewarding coding that is guaranteed to exist somewhere at some point.

Maybe games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Starbound just don't appeal to me.

 

[default]

Undertale.
It's great but the way people make it seem like the second coming of christ kind of ruins the experience for first time players.

Here, here. The Undertale fandom is less about the game itself, I've found, and more about the three berjillion fanfics or headcanons simultaneously maintained by the community. The plot and game design both tend to fade away as far as conversation pieces go, and all discussions tend to merge into variations on SANS AND PAPYRUS, SQUEE or OHMIGOD, CHARA AND FLOWEY ARE SO GRIMDARK I LURVES IT.

Which is all well and good, but that ignores the fact that the game's mechanics are mostly the same as any other CRPG out there, except for the fact that there's an "attack" option that's aesthetically different from others, has differing narrative consequences and isn't labelled "attack".

The Pacifist route isn't different from anything else out there; it's the same mechanics we've used to present physical conflicts, just presented differently. You're "attacking" enemy NPCs with kindness. The Bullet Hell minigame associated to combat rounds isn't much more than an additional hurdle placed there to break the average CRPG cycle.

I've played through Undertale in two days and uninstalled it immediately afterwards. I have no desire to play it again, even if some folks immediately reply with cries of "You need to go Genocide, seeing as the game remembers what you did as a Pacifist and the characters register your shift of alignment as a betrayal and IT'S SO EMOTIONALLY GRIPPING, GAWD!"

That's forgetting how I can't betray Sans, no matter what I could do. Why not?

Because he's fictitious.

Way to miss the point of storytelling. Of course the characters aren't real. Do you watch a movie and shout 'FAKE!' at the screen?

I've never seen anyone give half a shit about Undertale's mechanics, apart from a passing 'Oh, that's kinda clever' directed towards the bullet hell elements. The people who enjoy Undertale play it for the story, the characters, the themes, the fourth-wall elements. Obviously they didn't strike a chord with you, and that's fine. You are missing out on a lot of what the game has to offer by not giving it another playthrough though, that's where it really begins to shine in very interesting ways.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Mirrors Edge. It was terrible game that recieve average reviews yet lot of people consider it Great and underrated.

I'm one of them, it's still my favorite game ever made.

OT: Can we all admit that Psychonauts is a solid 8/10 and not the 11/10 people act like it is?

I'd go with 7/10, especially if we're talking the PC version. I've found it to be a great story hampered by sometimes wonky controls and (on PC) some immersion breaking visual bugs. I'd score it higher but I've always had trouble getting through the game because of slight issues with camera and a few other controls that just don't feel polished.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Way to miss the point of storytelling. Of course the characters aren't real. Do you watch a movie and shout 'FAKE!' at the screen?

I think I should've been clearer.

Undertale seems to play out in a way that assumes that its characters will have some sort of resonance, as if their simulated lives would have a serious impact on the average gamer. There's a lot of games that manage to pack pathos in meaningful ways and that make your choices relevant to the greater plot, but Undertale isn't one of them, as far as I'm concerned.

Telltale's approach to things seems more fluid: the protagonist is offered choices at sporadic intervals and all choices make at least some sense in the moment. From the get-go, Undertale tries to get under your skin with Flowey trying to goad you into misinterpreting the game's own mechanics; and the narrative's offered paths are limited to "sunshine and bunnies" or "wanton genocide". There's some variants depending on who you do or don't kill, but the thing is the game dares you to play it like a traditional RPG.

The next thing you know, Sans chastises you for it.

Undertale isn't really doing much of anything else outside of weaving a narrative around its own mechanics in a way that's as far from subtle as possible. The pseudo-puzzle with colored tiles? Much of the game's first dungeon? Both can be considered to be commentaries on your average boilerplate RPG, but the game never leaves Meta territory.

How can I take a story seriously if it doesn't at least partially buy into its own fiction? The way the game refuses to be entirely reset unless you wipe out all traces of it after uninstallation makes it so the more you play, the more certain narrative branches are cut off, and the more the entire thing's artifice becomes inescapable. The entire cast stops being perceivable as characters and start to come across as milestones in the gameplay-mandated plot.

I've read about people who tried five or six consecutive runs based on the same save file, people who spend hours ferreting out all the tiny bits in which subsequent playthroughs affect one another if certain actions are shifted around - and that just kills it for me.

After a point, you're no longer playing a game, you're ticking boxes laid out by Toby Fox's big list of potential events and responses.

 

[Dalisclock]

Starbound is my nomination.

It was never wildly popular or praised, but loads of people insisted that it was the best survival/crafting game ever, even in its early beta stages.

I have Starbound and every so often I play it. I really want to like it and it be the game I can play for days.

The problem is, much like you said, there doesn't seem to be much to work towards. Early in the game, you start out with some very basic tools, a broken spaceship and an unexplored planet, and somehow need to explore and build everything up so you can repair your spaceship so you can leave. Then you need to repair your FTL drive so you can go to another star system. The problem is, once you do the first real mission and repair your ship, after that it's pretty much just doing quests and hoping to find better gear and stuff.

I'd like to reach the point I can have mechs and upgrade my ship, but for whatever reason the game seems to be bugged as far as quests go, so I can't really proceed, which leaves exploring, finding stuff and hoarding. And it's not fun for me anymore.

Maybe when the full release drops it'll have some real direction to it but for now it's just a big sandbox where it feels I've done everything interesting(at least until the game is fully released).