Awesome games that are very underated/unpopular

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I can name two. Gladius for ps2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Awesome turn based strategy RPG. You get to train a school of gladiators to fight against others in different arenas. Theres legionaries, spellcasters, archers, yetis, wolves, and even minotaurs. Great design, other than the boring story. If more people played it, then they would have made a sequel. The other one is RUSE, an RTS for the PS3 and PC. You play battles on a field during World War 2. You can play as the US, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Italy, along with Japan as DLC. Almost every common vehicle used in WW2 is in. Only thing I hate is the horrendously annoying AI and that there was no naval aspect other than in the campaign. Any other ones that come to mind?

Last edited by modernmax on 29 Nov 2012, 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Persona series, and Dwarf Fortress.

Persona is an amazing game for people who play it, but most people dismiss it without a second thought at first >_<

Dwarf Fortress is...

Well, you'll see.

Valkyria chronicles.

Seconded. I'll also add Folklore(ps3). Tokyo Jungle(ps3, psn only) is also awesome(IMHO). So is Corpse Party(psp, vita, psn only). I really enjoyed 999 for the ds, and need to get its sequel, Virtue's Last Reward for the 3ds. Unfortunately, I can only recommend games I've played, not games I've added to my backlog that I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy. I'm quite fond of Ico(ps2, ps3), as well as Hotel Dusk: Room 215, and its sequel, Last Window: The Secret of Cape West(ds). Brutal Legend(ps3, 360), Costume Quest(ps3, 360, download only), and Stacking(ps3, 360, download only) are also recommended. I really do like Theresia for the ds.

While I've added some underrated games to my wii collection(Monster Hunter: Tri and Muramusa), they're in my backlog, and I do plan on acquiring The Last Story at some point. I only add the occasional game to my wii collection, since the wii isn't exactly my most used system, but I've been trying to acquire the "must plays" for the system, along with some underrated classics. I only recently acquired my 3ds, so no 3ds games. Hmmmmm....I wonder if I should include some of my favorite games from past gens that haven't been re-released as hd upgrades. Nah. That list would be too long. As it stands, I've only listed what came off the top of my head. There has to be something I missed, particularly on the ds, if not the ps3.

Played 999 and it's sequel - And I dare almost say the sequel actually outdid the original. Can't wait for the next one ^_^

I gotta agree, The Gameplay . . The story. . The connection to your characters :O

Eternal Eyes for the PS1. RPG where you use jewels to turn puppets into monsters who fight for you, and use more jewels to evolve them. Kinda like Monster Rancher meets Pokemon. I played the heck out of that game when I was younger; even my brother remembers how much I used to love it. Sadly I'm the only person I know who has even heard of it.

MySims and MySims Kingdom for the Wii. They received lukewarm reviews from critics but I absolutely adored them; part of the reason I want to get a new Wii (my first one broke a long time ago) is so that I can play them again. Anyway, MySims is a very Aspie-friendly game IMHO because it focuses on collecting materials and building objects rather than social interaction and caring for your character. Plus your character and your house are very customizable. One thing that I really like about this game is that the characters have a very cute anime-inspired look to them and the characters whose houses and objects you build all have distinctive personalities. My favorite is Goth Boy; I think he may have given me my fascination with other fictional goth characters such as Lisbeth Salander. MySims Kingdom improved everything I already loved about the first game.

To this day I am still a regular player of these two games that are otherwise largely unknown:

The first is Stars! (yes, that exclamation sign is part of the name) Its a space turn based strategy game. Its rather simple but its got this 'just one more turn' effect that keeps me going.

The second is Dominions 3. This is another TBS which is set in a fantasy setting. At first sight it appears simple but under the hood its depth of play and its many possible strategies are totallly mindblowing. There is a forum with tens of thousands of posts dedicated to this game alone. This is true die hard strategy gaming.

That's strange that you mentioned Eternal Eyes, IdahoRose, because I just started a new game on it recently.

My picks right now are:

Gotcha Force -- underrated robot-collecting game for Gamecube. It was made by Capcom and can kinda be considered a spiritual successor to a game they made for Game Boy Color called Power Quest. In Gotcha Force you play as this kid who collects robot toys. There are around 200 in all, each with lots of attacks to use. The gameplay is similar to Virtual-On, for anybody who's played that, except faster. I spent hours and hours playing this on Gamecube when it came out. It also has a new game plus option where you keep all the robots you collected. The robots level up too and get more powerful.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRt3rOKI27w[/youtube]
There are a few reasons why Gotcha Force is underrated. First is the fact that the few magazines who reviewed it likened it to Pokemon and slapped it with a low score. It's nothing like Pokemon other than the fact that you get a huge collection of robots. Second is that the game got a low print run, so for the longest time it was hard to find. Third, it was overshadowed by other GC stuff at the time.

Breath of Fire III-- a really good RPG that got overshadowed by the likes of Final Fantasy. :/ So much so that I actually picked BoFIII up at Blockbuster for 6.99 only 2 months after it came out!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RveeanibTS4[/youtube]

Hard for me to say, really, as most unpopular games I know of end up becoming popular anyway, or at least get some kind of cult following. Killer7 seems to be one, but the No More Heroes games seemed to have made Suda51 at least relatively known and perhaps made it possible for his later games to sell a bit better. Hoping 'Killer is dead' hearkens back more to Killer7, even if I do enjoy his less serious games.

I know that Okami was unheard of enough for Clover Studios to shut down, though it later saw a re-release on the Wii(and now has an HD release on the PSN I believe) and saw a sequel, Okamiden, on the DS. Something similar happened with NieR, another kind of Zeldaish game. Cavia, the developer making the game, shut down, and now everyone assumes Square made the game themselves.

I'd say Earth Defense Force 2017 is one, but it got enough attention that they got a new developer to make a sequel titled Insect Armageddon.

I remember one game when I was a kid that I used to play all the time and never got any true popularity. The game was called Rainbow Islands. It was an offshoot to Bubble Bobble that was awesome! You defeat enemies with rainbows, I mean, that just screams play me! It start off a kiddie type adventure and turns into some creepy stuff in the later levels, even facing off with the main character from Bubble Bobble if you play the game right. It's worth getting emulator for.

I thought that Catherine was criminally underrated in the US.

While the advertising marketed it as softcore goodness, it actually is one of the most ridiculously addictive puzzle games that I have encountered on any console.

Akai Katana is another game that deserves a wider audience. It's an insane shmup, but I found it to be very addictive, as well.

Those games are known as "cult classics", and despite apparently low sales, the internet just won't shut up about them. I can say that I've only come across one cult classic so far that I've not cared for, and I'll refrain from saying what it is, lest a legion of angry villagers gather outside my front door carrying torches and pitchforks. Generally speaking, if it's a cult classic, and I try it, I'll generally like it too, and join said legion of fans. Come to think of it, I enjoyed the Beyond Good and Evil HD demo enough to buy the game, but it was added to my backlog, and I never got around to playing it. If the demo's any indication, there's a good chance I'll like the full game. Guys, it has gotten to the point where people could recommend me games that I already own.

Last edited by Tross on 01 Dec 2012, 5:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think the least popular game I have played that I for one loved, was Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the Nintendo DS. A handheld port of an originally japanese only SNES roguelike, it got really bad reviews but I and a few others I know loved it, but roguelikes aren't for everyone. The later Wii sequel wasn't as good but wasn't awful, but at least it came out here at all.

As far as the series goes, and which ones were released where and on what systems, the first Shiren the Wanderer was on SNES in Japan and ported to the DS for Japan and the US in 2006. It was followed by a Gameboy version of Shiren. They then made sequels to both, Shiren 2 on the N64 and Shiren Gameboy 2 on the Gameboy Color, the latter of which got ported to the DS but was still a Japan only release. Shiren 3 was made for the Wii and did see a US release titled simply Shiren the Wanderer, and later had a japan-only PSP port. Since then two more games, Shiren 4 and Shiren 5 have been released for the DS but still never came out in the US.

I would like to have played them, but the two titles that did release here did not sell well.

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games are part of the same overall series, as is vaguely Chocobo's Dungeon(But thats actually made by a different developer), but the Pokemon ones are known for being pretty dumbed down in comparison and overall significantly easier.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was easy? When I got far in the game, a lot of dungeons were pretty hard, and really annoying when you got to a high level and failed, having to restart. I wouldnt say it was signigicantly easier, at least not the ones on gameboy.

Legends of Legaia

Brave Fencer Musashi

Threads of Fate

Vagrant Story

Megaman Legends

Final Fantasy Tactics (Compared to the other Final Fantasy games)