That underrated, forgotten gem of a game.

[Verkula]

Gregory Horror Show. Im gonna have to replay it soon since i have already forgoten most of the things in it, but i remember wanting a sequel badly after i first finished it.

 

[RoyalWelsh]

I would like to mention the 'Winter Voices' episodes. It didn't have great review scores and didn't sell particularly well but it has it's cult following.

For people who wants to know what the game is all about;

http://www.wintervoices.com/game

The company went bankrupt but one of the developers who worked on it now bought the rights to the game and is currently bug testing with the community. When that's finished it should be back on Steam. I, for one, cannot wait.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1023

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I'd have to go with Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. I do not actually know a single other person in real life who has ever owned it (as far as I am aware). It was and pretty much still is, the only game to give you decent psychic powers that are actually fun to use. The story was atrocious, but the game-play was some of the best.

I'm with you there! Those really were the most fun powers in a game... and the bosses were well thought out! Yes... story was crap, but that wasn't what you played it for!

OT: I will add 2 of my own games that I rarely find others who have played...

The first is Little Big Adventure 2. To avoid going off on one again, I will copy an old post I did from another thread:

Spoiler: Little Big Adventure loving... or why I would be Twinsen over any other game character...

This guy... Twinsen from Little Big Adventure...​

Spoiler: Why? Well...

First of all check out his cool sword!

Not only that... he got the girl! Not only that but he kept her for an enire 2nd game AND she didn't get kidnapped in the second game! NO CLICHE! They have a kid too... that's why she is preggers in that pic!

Why else would I be him? Well...

I'd have a MAGIC BALL!
This ball uses his magic power to bounce and damage the enemies... Not only that... but at it's max level, it's flaming!

​

He also gets to ride a flying dinosaur... yes, it's Dinofly:

Not only that... he talks!

He has a wizards licence:

and a laser gun, a jet pack and a racing car!!

Finally... not only is he the savior of the world... twice... but he also has a crazy casual relationship with god... (Sendel) Noone else can talk to her... but the kids all do crazy songs and dances for her... but Twinsen just chills out and has a chat from time to time!

Yes... life would be fantastic on Twinsun...! Friends with a talking turtle, the queen of the Mosquebees (mosquito/bee, not anything to do with islamic worship! ) and annihalator of the 3 little pigs!

The final little gem that would make me want to be Twinsen is that I would have the PERFECT mouth for a Kit Kat Chunky... and we all know that they are the best choccy bars in the WORLD!

The other game I would choose I think is actually more popular than I think it is... I only think it is underrated because, again, I have only met a couple of people who have played it... but it is The Adventures of Alundra on the PS1! That was a fantastic game, challenging, great story and vrey fun! Definitely worth playing by all!

 

[RubyT]

Sweet Jesus! A fellow fan of Gothic! You have also spared others the pain of me bringing up this series once more!

And another "hooray!" for Gothic from me. Best RPG ever. Light on the RP-part, quirky on combat. If you need your RPG to come with a complex Alchemy system and stats that warrant weeks of research, you would be disappointed. But if you cherish a game with a beautiful open world to discover, very interesting and unique characters and a tight (albeit standard) story, you were served well.

It's sad that visually, Gothic is one of the worst ageing games of all time.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. If you have never played it you are going yourself a grave injustice.

This and also Gotcha Force for the Gamecube. Shame they never carry on with the Metal Arms as the ending did made room a possible sequel.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Phantom Crash on the Xbox would be my first pick. The original disk doesn't even work on the X360.
Custom mech game, story and music are generally praised by anyone who's played it, during fights there's an emphasis on stealth and evasion rather then trying to out-damage and out-tank your enemies.
Maybe it's nostalgia talking, it surely can't be as awesome as I remember it...

A better known pick would be God Eater, specifically God Eater Burst on the PSP.
It's kinda well known, but too many people dismiss it as "baby Monster Hunter" because it has similar (if not a little more limited) gameplay and a linear story.
Customization and upgrades are the largest focus, not only do you create and tinker with your own blades/guns, but the customization goes right down into making your own bullets.

GOB, the only reason why I miss my psp ):

 

[StraightToHeck]

I'm not quite sure how "underrated" this game is, but, Skies of Arcadia/Skies of Arcadia Legends for the Dreamcast/Gamecube respectively.

A JRPG which took the phrases "airship" and "sky pirate" to their logical extremes, did so with almost ZERO angst, got excellent reviews, and no one bought the damn thing.

Seeing as how SEGA's in the habit of re-releasing Dreamcast games on XBLA nowadays, I'd welcome a re-visit to this game, which, under the new circumstances, would finally get the audience it deserves.

 

[47_Ronin]

Archimedean Dynasty - still waiting for proper sequels.

Holy crap yes!
I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to hump your leg.

Hump away friend. That game is so awesome, it makes you want to hump strangers. Enough said.


captcha: hear hear. I could swear the machine takes notes on our conversations....

/edit:

I'm not quite sure how "underrated" this game is, but, Skies of Arcadia/Skies of Arcadia Legends for the Dreamcast/Gamecube respectively.

A JRPG which took the phrases "airship" and "sky pirate" to their logical extremes, did so with almost ZERO angst, got excellent reviews, and no one bought the damn thing.

Seeing as how SEGA's in the habit of re-releasing Dreamcast games on XBLA nowadays, I'd welcome a re-visit to this game, which, under the new circumstances, would finally get the audience it deserves.

Yes, yes, yes to all of it. Grandia II was also pretty decent for that matter.

 

[anthony87]

Just gonna go ahead and quote m'self here....

My game is one that I've mentioned once or twice around these parts.

Ronin Blade, otherwise known as Soul of the Samurai in America was an action adventure game on the PS1, developed by Konami. It had a few elements that were Survival Horror-esque in nature, such as a similar control scheme to that used in the Resident Evil games and its fair share of gruesome monsters.

From the start the player chooses to be either a young male ronin named Kotaro or a teenage female ninja named Lin (Rin). From then on he or she travels through prerendered levels, killing enemies and fulfilling their mission.
The combat system is quite detailed, and will take a while to get used to. However, when mastered, it is relatively easy for Lin and Kotaro to dispatch multiple enemies quickly from different directions, while simultaneously avoiding the enemies thrusts and swipes. There is a single attack button, but combined with different directional buttons pressed in different combinations and held down for various intervals. There are different attack speeds which correlate to the weight of the equipped weapon, and this is displayed on the sword's 'check' window (also displayed is the sword's length and sharpness, and a brief description of the blade).

Each character has their own story and boss fights, however they cross paths often and come together at the end of the game. The true final boss of the game was unlocked. by playing though as one character, loading the completed save file and then starting as the second character from that save file.

It really was one of my favourite PS1 games. It was short but it was one of those games that I could pick up and play over and over again. As for my favourite thing about the game....


DAT SOUNDTRACK!!!!

That one right there is the best boss fight music for one of the best boss fights in the game.

EDIT: My avatar....she breaks T_T

 

[MidnightSt]

Planescape: Torment

always.
I know, it's not really "unknown", but not nearly enough people know it, and those who do usually don't appreciate it by far as much as it deserves.

 

[Blade1130]

Only one that comes to mind is Gotcha Force on the GameCube. Its story is basically Transformers, but instead of giant robots, they're small toys. Yeah, kinda weird there. But it is an awesome beat-em-up / fighting (it's kinda unique in genre) controlling a bunch of different toy robots and doing battle with one another.

Sadly, I have never heard anyone else even mention this game. So very very sad...

 

[Syzygy23]

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. If you have never played it you are going yourself a grave injustice.

You're my new best friend here. MA was the first shooter I ever played, and it set my standards high early before anything mediocre could ruin my perception of quality.

 

[JasonKaotic]

Lost Odyssey. That game is just... wow. It's ridiculous that's it's so overlooked.
If you have an Xbox 360 and you like Final Fantasy, please, please buy this game. It deserves so much more attention. It's like £5 preowned.
Hironobu Sakaguchi wrote the story and Nobuo Uematsu made the soundtrack. That is all you need to know.

 

[217not237]

El Shaddai and Mister Mosquito were amazingly bizarre.

 

[Leemaster777]

I love any opportunity to pimp out Freedom Force:

Love this game, it's a simply fantastic top-down tactical RPG. It's like the entire Silver Age of comic books contained in a single game. Great characters, great powers, great gameplay, and just a damn good time.

Although I wish that the sequel hadn't ended on such a ****-tease cliffhanger. I mean, I'm glad Irrational went on to make Bioshock and everything, but dammit, I want to know how the Freedom Force story ends!

 

[JackandTom]

James Bond Everything or Nothing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Everything_or_Nothing.jpg

I guess people just think it's a movie tie in or something. It isn't, but it's the only reason I can think of. It had great graphics, great gameplay, an amazing co-op campaign, a brilliant voice cast and WILLEM DAFOE!

 

[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.

What ? ToEE has much better combat then all those other RtwP D&D games you mentioned (BG1/2,PST, NWN 1/2) Lets face it, combat is a pretty important part of most all RPGs, and ToEE is right up there with the Gold Box games, Dark Sun and Knights of the Chalice for best combat in a D&D based game. Creating your whole party from scratch is great and welcomed in a game which is more about the combat and dungeon crawling, as opposed to one being more story focused. And I think you mean 'story elements', not RPG elements, btw. Have you ever played the original ToEE module by Gary Gygax ? (or alot of the early D&D modules) They were about dungeon crawling/adventuring and fun encounters, not these intricate stories and long winded dialogs. Not that I dislike a game like PST, as it is a great story focused RPG, but I def can appreciate a more tactical/combat focused D&D romp also, IF the combat is well done. (which it is in ToEE)



Your other complaints just sound like you were softened up too much by easier games. ToEE combat isn't that hard once you get used to the system a little. Roll yourself a decent party (obviously), stick with it and don't give up so easily. Of course if you're an "all about the story" type player, this game isn't for you, and you would of known if you had done your research.

This music makes you want to pull your ears out ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MOvDv_Gr_o&feature=relmfu

Okay first of lets get something clear the game is not hard, its drawn out. I have played lots of RPG games to know that once you get high enough level the game starts becoming a lot easier the thing is, the first few levels(the ones I played) was all about going in wishing the mobs didn't hit my fighter for 8 out of his 12 hp, or if the mob was unfair wishing it would miss my wizard 2-3 times. If they did load, try again or if I killed the group(losing all hp in the process), go all the way back to town heal up then try again. Or as I am guessing you might have done sit for 1-2 hours rerolling stats until the game is basically on killing spree mode. So don't give me this "the game was too hard for you crap" because its drawn out and dull but certainly not hard.

And yes the music is awful I actually want to play more of it just to see if it gets better but just thinking of that music is enough to hold me back.

 

[EmperorZoltan]

Dark Cloud 1 & 2; absolutely LOVED the weapon levelling system in these games, sure it could be a little grindy and the RNG for good crystal upgrades could be occasionally punishing, but the games were tons of fun.

Level 5 unfortunately made nothing I wanted to play this console generation...

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I'd also suggest the Yakuza series. I don't know if they are particularly under-rated but The fighting system and the stories of those games are just so damn enjoyable. I highly recommend picking those games up if you get a chance.

 

[Spydercake]

I'll add in the Corpse Party series for the Psp
Though with more LPers playing it now, it will hopefully get the attention it deserves.