That underrated, forgotten gem of a game.

[Ultress]

Wild Arms 3, the series in general tends to be overshadowed by the larger franchises and to some extent I can see why. However Wild Arms 3 does not deserve to live in the shadows.It is the pinnacle of what this series has been trying to achieve:a dying world with a Spaghetti Western style. The previous two had to tell us this world is dying however WA3 shows it.The healing items(berries) have to be grown in a specific place because of the desolate ground and you traveled on seas of sand because there were no bodies of water. The Wild West feel was big here with trains,a ton more guns and battles atop horse back.

The Characters were very well rounded and Virgina's character arc is amazing as she goes from naive daddy's girl to capable leader.The story is interesting and has a green Aesop that doesn't come across as preachy.

On the game play side it has the migrant system that gives you so many points to avoid battles(stronger monsters require more points to avoid) which I really think more games should imitate. The crossfire system is an interesting way to make battles look fluid and the amount of customization you can put into your party is great. Hell even the radar system is kinda cool albeit a little bit annoying.The dungeon puzzles are challenging with out being ungodly vague or requiring extensive knowledge in mythology

While the story is decent length,the side quests tend to take up most of your time some are a couple short boss fights but others are game spanning journeys.The game rewards you for exploring and the side quest are the only way to get some of the coolest things.


Sorry for the rant but damn this game is great.

 

[hermes]

Freespace 2.

I know its hardly forgotten, but given that it sold like shit and it buried the genre, I wouldn't call it a hit either.

However, its a little gem. The best game in the genre. Besides, a game where this happens regularly:

Spoiler

Deserves my respect.

 

[Vinterdraken]

Im going to go with Mirrors Edge, far from the most obscure game on my wierd games list but definetly underrated. And seeing how the sequal seems to have fallen of the face of the galaxy Im going to argue that it fits the forgotten part to.

 

[mrhateful]

Temple of Elemental Evil


Sure it was buggy initially, but thanks to community patches, it now works as intended

Okay, is this nostalgia talking or did you seriously think this game is good.

I just brought this game like 1 week ago and I think it must be the most disappointing game I've played so far.

First of let me just say I played Planescape: torment and Baldurs gate 1&2 and love them both to death.

But TOEE is nothing like those the game has no story awful early gameplay(I got level 2) plus the music makes me want to pull my ears out.

Also it cheats you by making you think you can play with premade characters (you cant) thing is you need to make sure your stats rolls are high enough so you dont die to the very first frogs.

What I will stay is the turn based dnd combat is very awesome for seasoned dnd player such as myself but dying over and over the first levels having to go all the way back to town to heal up makes it near unplayable in my opinion.

I think if the game started at level 3-4(like NWN2) so that you have heal spells and your wizard doesn't start at 4 hp then I could see this being a fun game but otherwise no just no.

Normally I except RPG games being boring and awful the first 2-3 hours but since this isn't a RPG then what's the point. Using dnd ruleset and not put in RPG elements is like playing an FPS with the mouse disabled.

 

[blackdwarf]

Medabots: Metabee. its plays like a JRPG, but is enjoyable as hell. never beaten the endboss, but did replay the game twice getting there.

 

[SilentFlames26]

May I present to you...

This is my all time favorite game from the Gameboy Advance. I sunk more time into this than Pokemon Rudy. It's that fucking good.

EDIT: fixed image

Oh my god, yes! I loved this game except I had the Rohkusho version, but I could never beat the race at the medabot championships

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I can't believe that no one has yet mentioned War of the Monsters (PS2)

That was the game of my late childhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Monsters

 

[Mert Matthews]

I am not sure if it is really underrated but i had never heard of it until a gaming magazine gave it for free back in 2009. It is definately not for everybody. It is slow paced 4X game like civilization(4-5) but imo much better due to increased realistic mechanics, arguably more immersing music, combat much more interesting unlike in civ where there would be units that counter units but here you build your own friggin spaceships with the 3 types of weapons and 3 types of armor against them (not to mention the modules) so combinations were huge. It had some flaws but if a game can keep you on for 18 hours for 1 map then they don't matter much do they? Name of the game you ask? Galactic Civilizations 2: Twilight of Arnor

 

[Arfonious]

Gothic and Gothic 2

Funny, I never thought of them as underrated, but that's probably because in Poland, they were HUGE.

Well, I knew that it was big in German but it's basicly unheard of here in Sweden

 

[blind_turtle]

Sacrifice: well received, poor sales.

 

[Zepherus14]

Two choices:

1. Little Samson - NES: My god, this game is probably my favorite of all time. I love the music, the characters, the plot is easy to understand and okay for the time it was released, it's well balanced, the palette and worlds are great, the music is fun...I could go on and on. If you have a chance to play it, do so (It's $100 on eBay so.. *ahem*).
Everyone who played it admits its one heck of a game. Sadly, it came out in the same year the SNES came out so it was horribly ignored and underrated. *Sigh*

2. The Legend of Dragoon - PS1: Alright, so that one's more well known but there are still people out there who don't know about it and don't care about it. Just like Little Samson, Legend of Dragoon came out around the same time as Final fantasy 7 so...yeah.
Maybe the graphics haven't aged well and heaven knows the voice acting isn't the best. But aside from that, it had a lot of things going on for it. The story was pretty good, for one. The combat was unique up until that point. The world was pretty interesting and the characters were well rounded.
People who have played the game and loved it are often claiming a sequel. but we'll never see that day.

Yep I thought Legend of Dragoon too!

 

[Help my pants are on fire]

Advent Rising - ends on a cliffhanger and a universe I'd like to revisit.

 

[Blunderboy]

I am surprised that not one as mentioned Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines! That game is a great classic and just because it had a lot of bugs and flaws thanks to a studio being shut down... but it is still a worthy game even to this day!

But... To me... The best underrated game I played, own, love, cherish, and elevate every chance I get... is Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. This is the first RPG I ever played in my life... when I was about 7 years old... Too young to really understand the D&D rule sets... But not young enough to just say meh.... haha. I love this game. Nothing so much fulfills that "create your own life, in a game"-game than BG2:SoA.

I really wish the current games could just look at these two games and try to improve on their great points. But oh-noz, they are so old... they have wrinkles... they smell sorta funny... ya? but I love them... and wish games were more like these old gems than some of the quite frankly cookie cutter games that have been coming out lately...

Thank you.

Now I loved at least two of the games you listed, but none of them are in any way under rated.
Seriously.

 

[Jazoni89]

Pretty much most of the 3DO, and Jaguar library.

Sure those system had their fair share of absolute dross, but some of the games for the two systems are great, so it's a shame that most people do not know about the good games like Iron solider, and Lucienne's Quest.

Also, I need to give out some love to Baten Kaitos: eternal wings and the lost ocean for the Cube. It's so good, i just can't comprend how many don't know about it.

 

[debra_ beretta]

Pharaoh and it's expansion Cleopatra. I've invested hundreds of hours building pyramids and guarding the Nile against invaders. I would also like to put forward Jade Cocoon as I really did enjoy playing that originally.

 

[Schadrach]

Majesty.

Fantastic strategy game with awesome, unique gameplay. You didn't build and fight with units, you built guilds and had heroes come to your town to populate them, stocked them with items from your market and blacksmith and sent them off to kill monsters by putting bounties on their heads.

There was a sequel, it was also an absolutely fantastic game. I heartily recommend that everyone and anyone plays Majesty 2.

The mission in this gameplay video is the one I was up to when I last played the game, it's friggin impossible, the enemy chews up your heroes like so many cats and dogs. Anyways, it's still an amazingly fun game.

Wizards in Majesty were *way* too frail, and then *way* too destructive once they got past being frail
Train a wizard, wizard falls down.
Train a wizard, wizard falls down.
Train a wizard, wizard catches on fire, falls down, and sinks into a swamp.
But the fourth wizard, he made it to level 2, and now he's level 10 and one shotting groups of things that murdered his brethren.

That and rogues who'd loot their friend's graves before you could manage to rez them.

Gothic and Gothic 2

Two basicly unnoticed RPGs from Germany

A bit unintuative but when you get the hang of it it becomes awesome

Also relativley large areas and a city that feels like a real city

It also bears repeating that Gothic games do the exact opposite of what Elder Scrolls titles do -- instead of scaling the world to you, they warn you that places are dangerous, and really, genuinely mean it. By dangerous, I mean "will eat you alive in two hits". Of course, when I finished Gothic, the only living folks in the world were myself, Diego, Lester, the one guy from the new camp, and Xardas.

The population was quite a bit larger at the end of Gothic 2, but fewer people triggered my "you're a dick and need murdered" response.

Painkiller. Sure, it got some popularity after Yahtzee mentioned it, but still. It is a glorious game, and very possibly the most cathartic game I have ever played.

It was sad that it took that long to get popular. I really hated the multiplayer for Painkiller though, and that's speaking as someone who had all the stars on all the levels on Trauma and had the Divine Intervention tarot card (I might have been a *little* bit obsessed with that game, and I *still* hated that one secret in City on the Water). The Battle Out of Hell cards were a lot harder to get than classic Painkiller cards though. Hoping the remake does it justice.

Arcanum of Steamworks and Magic Obscura. it remains the only fantasy game that goes "what would happen were society actually you know, NOT IN A MEDIEVAL TIME LOCK" and the consequences of that (the growing irrelevance of wizards,discrimation of different races) and it was made by most of the people who made Fallout!

Brilliant concept, horrific execution. Real time combat mode was basically unplayable too.

Sacrifice: well received, poor sales.

...and probably my favorite RTS.

Advent Rising - ends on a cliffhanger and a universe I'd like to revisit.

Wasn't it originally supposed to be a trilogy, and poor sales stopped it before it could get there?

 

[Calibanbutcher]

My favourite underrated gem would have to be "infected" for the psp. It's hands down one of the funniest games I have ever played, with good graphics and fun, if a bit repetitive gameplay.
THen again, you get to dress up as a zombie in a bunny suit and shoot zombie santas.

 

[pilouuuu]

Lemmings! Brilliant puzzle game! I don't understand how there is no new version of the game. The game was totally fun and funny.

 

[KissmahArceus]

Moonstone (amiga), Dark Sector (glaive baby, it made up for the wank melee combat), Pariah (shite end but my favourite grenade launcher EVAR), Project X (my fave sh'mup of all time) and Enslaved (great story, cool charcters and a wonderful setting. Gameplay was on the easy side but I still love it)

 

[Squilookle]

The only game that qualifies for this in my list of top favourites, I suppose, would be Driver 2- many discarded it as a terrible sequel to a great game with worse graphics and a bad frame rate. While these criticisms are valid, I love it for it's slightly improved controls, better overall mission design, and most of all the ability to switch on invincibility in survival mode (oh how I wish Driver 1 had that)

Outside that though, I have quite a few games I remember fondly, even if nobody else likes them (if they remember them at all)

Liero.

Soldat on steroids, imagine a game of Worms playing out in realtime with massive firepower vaporising huge chunks of the earth as two tiny worms make their way towards each other for a final showdown over... something. Also featured gaming's greatest grappling hooks until Just Cause 2 came along. This game could be played splitscreen on a single PC, and quite often was, way back in school.


Mashed

Somehow overlooked in the States, but in Europe and Australasia we saw this gem for the brilliant game it was: The ultimate couch car multiplayer game of the last generation bar none. It says something about the fun factor of the gameplay that most people's favourite track was a ice sheet racetrack comprising of just two straights and two hairpin turns. Incredibly addictive and perfect for parties. Even had it's own taunt button.


Blobby Volley

Another school favourite- this incredibly bright volleyball game was very simple- and had a tiny file size. It also had players controlling blobs.. but hey... We used to dim the screens down to an almost pitch black during class, and you could still see the blobs and the ball, which was all you needed, really!

This video is in german, like most of the youtube blobby videos. I chose this one because it accurately shows how much it can become serious business.


Mobile Forces

An absolutely mental game that was borderline broken, but somehow insanely fun at LANs. Picture Battlefield or UT2004, but only with on-foot and ground vehicles, with the cast of Counter Strike. Coming out the same year as BF1942, you'd think it'd be crap by comparison but keeping all the action on the ground in well designed maps lent to some fast and furious CTF plays and bombing runs with the nuke on that trailer. Hilariously inept bots filled out the roster as game after game had us in stitches seeing all the carnage and close shaves happen on a regular basis in each match. Again, it's a very small filesize too. And did I mention that its vehicle physics are absolutely outstanding? Suspension has never felt as right as in this game. Try it.


Re-Volt

Probably a bit better known than the others but if you don't know, this is THE Remote Controlled car racer. Some find its unforgiving car handling a... handful (snigger snigger), but you can't deny that it pretty much nailed how RC cars would feel racing around a track. Oh and there's plenty of Mario Kart weapons and a wonderful variety of levels, too.