Once-underrated but now overrated games?

[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).

 

[default]

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.

For me Undertale sits in the same basket as The Stanley Parable in that it's a deconstruction of game mechanics, stories and structure. It's meta by nature. I do empathise with your point though. In The Stanley Parable it made aesthetic sense because the universe it took place in was paper thin, ephemoral and MEANT to be insubstantial. Undertale tries to weave this world and characters but they never feel like they really exist or live in it. It's like they're always turning and winking at the screen (and sometimes do it literally). It's obviously intended, and that sort of meta style appeals to some people. I don't blame you for not finding these characters relateable, I didn't either. I did enjoy them for their design and writing and style, but I never found myself caring about them or becoming invested in what happened to them. They're often more like actors rather than living beings (with a couple of exceptions). But then, others obviously found them extremely endearing and worth getting invested in, so maybe the aesthetic and style of dialogue and storytelling just doesn't resonate with us.

There is something to be said for how the way the characters are broken down into components by constant changing of timelines and cycles of actions. It's a small game with defined limits that focuses on how characters react differently to a finite list of actions and events, what do you want? It's inevitable that the characters would eventually be reduced to variables. It can only be so organic, and what is there is very self aware of the fact.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

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.

Agreed. It was definnitely underappreciated, but now it's been elevated to some legendary states as an unassailable work of art...and I just don't see it as THAT praiseworthy.

My pick goes to Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Gamecube. I always enjoyed the game, and weathered through the difficult strident "cartoon Zelda sucks!!" phase. I always loved Wind Waker's story, timeless atmosphere, expressive characters and art style. It was a really progressive game with it's higher-level mechanics, and it's pretty much the metric every single super-realistic AAA is juxtaposed to by critics.

Over the years, the hype went through the roof and the game's faults were sort of whitewashed. Like I said, I think it's a great really progressive game, but it made too many mistakes to be the best Zelda game.

Having held the "Wind Waker is Under-Rated!" banner for years, but then having replayed the game recently, I agree with all the things you said. It's still a wonderful game, but its long-time defenders have over-compensated into over-rating it.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

FF6. Oh my God. I played it on the game boy, and thought it was a fun little retro game. The midway plot twist was a stroke of genius. I thought it was a great game that had been overshadowed by the later final fantasies, after the series exploded.

But, guys, let's get real. That game was flawed. The gameplay was bearable, but not great, and the sprites are painful to look at. Compare it to Chrono Trigger, which has aged really well, and it's clear that time has not been a friend to FF6. Furthermore it's just plain silly at times. The opening features an exploding castle, and Kefka is a cartoon villain with no motivation whatsoever, other then the fact that he's a crazy "nihilist." Except that crazy is a lazy motivation, and I don't consider him a good example of the nihilistic philosophy. As time has passed, I've found myself liking that game less and less. I would say it's the most overrated game in the series. It's like a weird inverse of FF7. FF7 went from being slightly overrated to severely underrated. FF6, meanwhile went from being unknown to a lot of people to being one of the most overhyped games in the series.

Yes! Exactly.

FFVI fans (especially those who also happen to FFVII detractors) are way, WAY too willing to overlook the flaws of the game and draw a scope on the flaws of other games in the series (particularly VII). Now, FFVI is a GREAT game. Definitely in the "peak" of the series (though whether one considers VI or VII to be the apex is a matter of debate; I think that they balance each other out in terms of overall awesomeness), but FFVI is QUITE flawed (just like all FF games are quite flawed, if we're being honest) and the unwillingness of FFVI fans to acknowledge those flaws is a problem.

I like this thread.

 

[llsaidknockyouout]

Here's an interesting site:
http://www.overrated-underrated.com/games/

 

[WeepingAngels]

For underrated and then later overrated = Earthbound. It's like a NES game with it's limited inventory and featureless battle graphics. I recognize that the main game graphics are also primitive but I do like those. I have tried, on countless occasions to enjoy it but other SNES RPG's walk all over it like FF6, Chrono Trigger, SMRPG and even the Breath of Fire games.

For plain old overrated games = Dark Souls. Do people ever stop comparing every game to Dark Souls?

 

[llsaidknockyouout]

Shadow of the Collossus. At its time, it was a gem in the rough that only hardcore gamers knew or cared about. Kind of like Dark Souls when it first came out. Now SOTC is making so many "greatest games ever" list. I don't think I ever got past the first level. The controls were so clunky.

 

[default]

Shadow of the Collossus. At its time, it was a gem in the rough that only hardcore gamers knew or cared about. Kind of like Dark Souls when it first came out. Now SOTC is making so many "greatest games ever" list. I don't think I ever got past the first level. The controls were so clunky.

Controls are clunky and clumsy at first, but you do adapt to them and it's worth it for the artistry and design of the game.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Was Undertale ever really "underrated"? I don't recall a period of obscurity. If anything it jumped straight to overrated.