Underrated games...

[bjork]

I see your vaguely obscure horror titles and I raise you another: Soul of the Samurai, kind of a proto-Onimusha title.
Is it great? No. Does it have a devoted cult following? No. Is it worth a bored weekend when you have nothing better to do? Sure, I guess. Whatever.

Soul of the Samurai is really fun. I remember my dad loving it too.

I was originally coming to say Overblood, but Soul of the Samurai is a better pick for sure.

 

[solnK!]

I´d say Planet Laika, is not really a survival horror with all words but it´s pretty scary and brutal sometimes, and I think there aren´t enough people who talk about it

 

[pissstain]

koudelka or some random crazy shi like paranoiascape just for how out there it is

 

[kalervo]

i second Koudelka, Laika, samurai, martian gothic, echo night 1-2, and Hell Night. Juggernaut, germs, and mizzurna falls are great ones too.

 

[moonbits]

I would say it's Hell Night, it's setting it's quite Unique and the monster it's truly terrifying, Hell Night is one of those games that really makes you feel week against impossible odds but unfortunately it can be a bit frustrating at times.

I made my best friend play this game one Hallowen night when we were in college, he almost cried in the underground city

 

[UnDubious]

I see your vaguely obscure horror titles and I raise you another: Soul of the Samurai, kind of a proto-Onimusha title.
Is it great? No. Does it have a devoted cult following? No. Is it worth a bored weekend when you have nothing better to do? Sure, I guess. Whatever.

It's pretty good IMO, long as you play as Kotaro. Lin makes combat too easy and simple.

Edit - looks like the game is fairly popular on this forum, anyway.

 

[RustySK]

It's pretty good IMO, long as you play as Kotaro. Lin makes combat too easy and simple.

Edit - looks like the game is fairly popular on this forum, anyway.

Oh, to be clear - I like the game as well! Definitely underrated and underappreciated, I wouldn't have brought it up otherwise. I just don't think it's some kind of forgotten masterpiece.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Definitely Hellnight, it's actually easily my favorite horror on ps1, yet its completely forgotten, even compared to Koudelka. I've played a few others like Echo Night, ...Iru and Yaku, but can't say I liked then that much.

 

[Viviana Santos]

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Planet Laika and Moonlight Syndrome are both very cool, very unique, and have fascinating stories and themes. (they also have great atmosphere and music).

 

[Roy U. OmOm]

Too many decant ones to list honestly

Spoiler: legend

SHUMPs, racing games, fighting games, platformers, shooters, RPG, strategy games, mech games, puzzles ,action-adventure games, sport games

DoDonPachi
GaiaSEED
Wipeout 3 Special Edition
WipEout 2097
Destrega
Tenka
Wild Arms
Remote Control Dandy
Neverhood
Chaos Break
Gex trilogy
Ecsaform
Wild 9
Nightmare Creatures
Nightmare Creatures 2
Galerians
Vanark
Legacy of Kayn Blood Omen
Advanced Variable Geo 2
Psychic Force
Evil Zone
Armored Core
Armored Core Master of Arena
Rapid Reload
Tomb Rider
Mad Stalker
Macross VF-X2
Future Cop L.A.P.D.
Adventure of Little Ralph
Dragon Valor
Klonoa
Rayman 2
Mad Panic Coaster
Silhouette Mirage
Mr. Domino
Team Buddies
Radikal Bikers
Colin McRae Rally 2.0
N2O Nitrous Oxide
Rollcage
Gungage
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Shin Masou Kishin : Panzer Warfare
In th Hunt
Disruptor
X-COM: UFO Defense
X-COM Terror of the Deep
Civilization 2
Raycrisis
Fear Effect
Fear Effect 2
Command & Conquer Red Alert
PaRappa the Rapper
Devil Dice
SAGA Frontier II
Syndicate Wars
Jade Cacoon
Tales of Destiny
Valkyrie Profile
Threads of Fate
Vib-ribbon
C-12
Darius Gaiden
Quake 2
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Alien Resurection
Covert Ops
Worms Armageddon
Pepsiman
Elemental Gearbolt
Tony Hawk
Micro Machnes
Point Blank
Warcraft 2
Diablo
SD Gundam G Generation-F.I.F.
Medal of Honor
LEGO Racers
Devilman
Digimon World trilogy
(Every Squere soft. game)

 

[Bandini]

the only game that a ritual(based on The case of Charles Dexter Ward) can be performed.

 

[Muklas]

i second Koudelka, Laika, samurai, martian gothic, echo night 1-2, and Hell Night. Juggernaut, germs, and mizzurna falls are great ones too.

The thing with Juggernaut is that nothing quite reaches the heights of the cyberpunk section where Lucifer is running an organ-stealing business.

 

[gwardojones]

I've heard diehards say that the PSX version of Baroque is trash, but I love it (and I can't get the Saturn version to run on my computer without graphical issues). One of my all-time favorite games. The atmosphere, music, story, art, and even the Mystery Dungeon-style gameplay do it for me.

 

[underhandwriter]

I was also thinking Hellnight, so I'll just give a shoutout to D. It has a great unsettling atmosphere, even if it gets kinda silly by the end.

 

[John Cruelty]

View attachment 119669
I've heard diehards say that the PSX version of Baroque is trash, but I love it (and I can't get the Saturn version to run on my computer without graphical issues). One of my all-time favorite games. The atmosphere, music, story, art, and even the Mystery Dungeon-style gameplay do it for me.

Its not as big a difference with the Saturn version as they make it out to be

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Planet Laika and Moonlight Syndrome are both very cool, very unique, and have fascinating stories and themes. (they also have great atmosphere and music).

Planet Laika is def a contender, very unnerving and oddly high quality

 

[Scorchio]

Obligatory Gamera 2000 mention

It's the best Panzer Dragoon game you've never played. (Unless you have played it, in which case you'll agree with me)

 

[VampireFreak]

Everyone always talks about Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 6, but I rarely see people mention truly amazing RPGs that go under the radar. I'm not talking about rare and super forgotten games (although those are welcome too) but rather games that could've been popular at their time but now are mostly forgotten because they're not part of the celebrity team of RPGs.

One obvious example for me of this is the 1st Shadow Hearts.

Amazing visuals, gritty atmosphere, fun characters and plenty of options and places to travel. I really don't understand why this game is not as popular as the likes of FF or Fire Emblem. In my opinion, it has all the elements that make an RPG great and maybe in a few aspects blows out of the water the darlings everybody knows. Does anyone else knows similar cases of amazing games that should get more recognition? Either new or old is fine.

 

[sneakyguts]

wild arms needs all the love i want it to come back but ik sony would never bother

 

[TheSoulWalker TheSoulWalker]

Enchanted Arms had a great battle system but was marred by terrible writing and music. From Software CAN make a traditional RPG and I wish they would take a second crack at it but everyone wants another Souls-like from them and that's it.

 

[χKai]

Sugoro Quest - Dice no Senshitachi.

 

[Glimbo]

Metal Max has tanks you can customize/upgrade, a post-apocalypse setting, and very weird monsters. I also love how open it is. You can do things in different order or go places much earlier than you should. It all makes for a unique experience. Shame only two of them made it out of Japan.
Metal Max Returns, Metal Max 2: Reloaded, and Metal Max 3 are great and have fan translations.

 

[χKai]

I've heard really good things about Metal Slader Glory, but I've never played enough of it myself to have an opinion. It kept crashing on the emulator I was running it on, and I haven't had the time to get into something new lately; mainly because my phone screen has all these dark spots all over it so I can barely see shit, and it makes it hard to use. I'll get by, but for now I'm mainly collecting games and nkt so much playing them.

Apart from the stuff about my phone, I've got pretty much the same to say about a ton (and I mean a  lot) of games on the NES and SNES, mostly. It's either:
- I heard it was really good and the story makes it worth checking out
- A game stood out to me, looked like a really good, well-put-together RPG that I never got around to playing

So I have a bunch of games for those systems in specific that I never got the time to check out, if you want a list of various RPGs of varying types and genres but I have little experience playing them, so I don't know what you'll end up coming across if you play any of them. They're mostly translations or really obscure USA titles.

 

[Graw]

I think the SaGa series is underrated. They can be a little weird but they're mostly high quality games created by the director of the original Final Fantasy 2 who basically took the weird levelling system from that game and refined it into a weird jrpg series that combines sci-fi and fantasy with non-linear story telling. My favourites in the series are Romancing SaGa 3 and Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song. Every game in the series is different from the last though. They've all received high quality remasters and Romancing SaGa 2 recently received a full on 3d remake.

Lufia 2 on the snes is one of my favourites on the system for gameplay. I wish more jrpgs had those Zelda style dungeon puzzles. Too many jrpg dungeons are just tunnels with monster encounters. The ancient cave roguelike dungeon is also super cool and could be a whole game all on its own.

For western rpgs, I know it's Bioware which is pretty mainstream, but I feel like Neverwinter Nights never really got the attention it deserved compared to games like Baldur's Gate or the later Bioware RPGs like Kotor, Mass Effect and Dragon Age and stuff like that. The campaign that came with the game is a bit mid but the engine and the toolkit that came with it and the level of creative freedom it allowed still hasn't really been topped to this day. It's about as close as you can come to a full on digital D&D experience. Especially if you play online with DM. You can basically make full on games with the toolkit and hundreds of high quality custom modules exist, everything from full on worlds with tons of quests and areas to explore to smaller self contained story driven adventures and everything in between. It got an enhanced release relatively recently by Beamdog that runs on windows, mac, Linux, android and even ios I think. It seems like most of the custom modules still work and there's a small but active community of online players and servers.

 

[TheGreenJackass]

Jade Empire, from Bioware. It's a sin it never got a sequel.

 

[throughdarkness]

For a truly underdog RPG, I recommend Okage: Shadow King. It was a pretty early PS2 release and has a very specific comically gothic charm with a good sense of humor. The art direction is really good and I think it holds up well today compared to many others.

Okage: Shadow King (USA) PS2 ISO – CDRomance

Okage: Shadow King (USA) PS2 ISO Game ID: SCUS-97129. Languages: English. For Sony PlayStation 2.

cdromance.org