Most underrated game due to nostalgia

[Mr Dizazta]

When I mean underrated, I mean games that fans of a particular series lash out against due to nostalgia glasses. I do not mean games that already have a critical acclaim but didn't do so well financially (i.e. Okami or any of your usual suspects).

My game pick:
Star Fox Assault. Probably the most underrated Gamecube I have ever played. I will admit that there are some issues with the game(i.e. saving your crew's ass during every mission), but you cannot deny how good the game plays or how awesome the music is.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I'd say Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. It holds up so much better than Ocarina of time in just about every regard. Not mention that it's basically the closest zelda's gonna get to being the elder scrolls.

 

[Palademon]

Other M.
Apart from the story problems people complain about, and switching perspectives not being fast enough, people dislike the game because of the portrayal of Samus, which stops them from enjoying it. If they ddin't have a preconceived idea of Samus, they probably would've liked most of it.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Pokemon Colosseum and XD, people (especially Gen 1 elitists) seem to bash them for being horrible, I really enjoyed them..

 

[Vault101]

If they ddin't have a preconceived idea of Samus, they probably would've liked most of it.

I don't think its that

samus has "kind of" spoken before..at least in small bits of narration and there was a manga from however long ago which I havnt read (but maybe resembles other M Samus...but thats off topic)

I think its more how bad her characterisation is...its not that people dont like her talking..but god if your going to have her talk don't make her....like that

that fact that it was aparently the original creatos mistep is.....concerning

 

[Frybird]

alpha protocol is the one that stands out most for me. it was hated by the critics, it was hated by most players yet its actually a pretty good game once you get into it

Well, i wouldn't say good, but it had a nice story and an awesome dialogue system and a great idea with the characters individually liking or disliking you instead of being universally good or evil.

In a way, it's more like Deadly Premonition. It's not good, but has so much going for it that it's still worth playing.

on Topic:

I don't know...Enslaved? It was hated by many for having stiff controls and feeling "autopilot-y" when jumping, but it has an interesting story, great characters, nice graphics and a pretty good amount of variety.

Or maybe Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, wich people didn't give much credit for being a Wii Game, being not AS scary as other games or because they didn't like the "run away" part of the gameplay, but it was an excellent reincarnation of the first game with an interesting approach to branching storylines (much of the "psychology session" was gimmicky, but i liked how for example one of the characters changed completely based on your input), great music, surprisingly good graphics for the Wii and awesome implementations for the Wiimote/Motion Controls.
(I'd say Silent Hill 4: The Room is also kinda underrated, but at the same time it's really not nearly as good as the first three)

 

[Bostur]

Dungeon Siege III was bashed by some fans. I thought it was an enjoyable action RPG although very linear. The controls are a little wonky on PC, but not any more so than most console ports.
I didn't mind the linearity since it didn't pretend to have choices or free-form gameplay. I get more annoyed with linearity in games that claim to feature "Choices that matter" or other such BS that they can't deliver.

Some people complained that DS3 was nothing like DS2, but DS2 didn't have much in common with the first Dungeon Siege either.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance, 1 and 2!

Yes... they were different types of games to the original Baldurs Gate... and yes, there was not much story there... but as a standalone set of arcady games, that were awesome in 2 player co-op, and had great graphics for the time, they were actually pretty good!

Well.. me and my lil sis loved them as we were growing up, as games that we could both enjoy in co-op!

 

[Squilookle]

I'm curious to see if Deus Ex: Invisible War turns up here- at all.

I'm going to have to say The World Is not Enough (and not the crap ps1 version)- Everyone at the time derided it as a cheap knock off of Goldeneye, copying the controls, the objectives structure, the timed cheat unlock system, the multiplayer setup etc... they seemed to forget that more of THAT kind of game can only be a good thing, and it did make a genuine effort to improve on some parts of the formula- it had fast switching between gadgets and items, secondary functions and multiplayer bots before Perfect Dark came out, and swimming.

Best of all though was the multiplayer level design- there were some truly genius inventive layouts in there that were as James Bond as you can get- No other game has players duking it out in a storage area as a nuke trundles by in it's crane housing, or having a wild gunfight on the wings of a cargo plane in mid air, and the cable car Skyrail level was much better designed here than it was in the later Nightfire.

It was a clone, yes, but by cloning the best out there, it became easily Eurocom's best Bond game, and the second best Bond game ever made.

 

[Alcaste]

Oh man I loved Dark Alliance. I remember reading that 2 was rushed, though. Apparently you were supposed to be able to rescue the original characters and unlock them as playable. Ah well...

I'm going throw my hat into the ring with XIII. That game was great, at least for me. It hasn't aged terribly well, but the split screen multiplayer saw a lot of use in my living room with friends over. Especially if we're talking nostalgia here. This was the first PS2 game I bought with my own money, and despite the PS2 version being the worst, I still loved the crap out of it. Enough to buy it again when my copy was stolen, then again on GoG when it went on sale.

...Oh right, I bought it on GoG. Welp, guess I found what my day off is.

 

[SidheKnight]

Quake.

Some people hate it for being one of the first "grey & brown" FPS games. But it was fun! And the gothic aesthetic was good use of those colors.

 

[RustlessPotato]

Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance, 1 and 2!

Yes... they were different types of games to the original Baldurs Gate... and yes, there was not much story there... but as a standalone set of arcady games, that were awesome in 2 player co-op, and had great graphics for the time, they were actually pretty good!

Well.. me and my lil sis loved them as we were growing up, as games that we could both enjoy in co-op!

Haha, I remember I spent a week at a friends' grandmother's house. (she was wealthy and I was invited). We finished the whole game in one week. I loved that game^^. The amount of junk food and snacks we ate was astonishing, I'm surprised we're even alive xD. Good Times.

O.T Star Wars The Force Unleashed 1. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a very fun game. Even if the switching between menus part of the game were excruciatingly long, I did like the game.

The Force Unleashed 2 on the other hand....

 

[Starik20X6]

Hmm, it doesn't really count, but I find 3D Dot Game Heroes doesn't get nearly enough attention. A lot of people say it relies too heavily on the nostalgia but I didn't find that to be the case. It's not that people hate on it, but I think it's a lot better than most people realise or give it credit for. As far as I'm concerned it was more Zelda, and there's never too much Zelda.

Star Fox Assault.

Assault was the first Star Fox game I played, and I damn loved it. And yeah, the soundtrack kicks all sorts of ass.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. I think it's hated simply because it features Spyro...and of course, it has a lot of merchandise and costs a vast amount if you want to buy it all. However, even if you just go with the base game and buy nothing else, it's still a good looking, quite funny, very fun to play, fairly lengthy adventure. I love it, and I can't wait for the sequel. I should point out, additionally, that I loved the original 3 Spyro games; Spyro 2 was the first game I ever owned, and I love the series to bits. Skylanders is still great fun though

 

[Soxafloppin]

Pokemon Colosseum and XD, people (especially Gen 1 elitists) seem to bash them for being horrible, I really enjoyed them..

I second this, what was coolest to me was being able to get the Legendary dogs, the gen 2 starters and Ho-oh and have them in Ruby and Sapphire. I also liked that you started with Ubreon and Espeon, two of my favourites.


I vote for Starfox Adventures, people lashed out at it for being the Blacksheep of the Starfox series but I loved it.

 

[Overusedname]

Other M.
Apart from the story problems people complain about, and switching perspectives not being fast enough, people dislike the game because of the portrayal of Samus, which stops them from enjoying it. If they ddin't have a preconceived idea of Samus, they probably would've liked most of it.

...I dunno about that. We're talking about one of the most EXTREME examples of this sort of thing.

If samus was replaced with a different character and this was a different universe entirely, you'd still be left with terrible acting, a crappy story, wretched pacing, inconsistent tone (you're supposed to feel isolated...wait no your not, you have allies! And now your alone. And now it's about teamwork! And neither is portrayed as better or worse, so just throw it all together and see what happens! And when you listen to orders and submit to daddy, you almost burn to death! What was the message of this game again?)

And in center stage: a submissive, whiney little girl who everyone keeps saying is a really cool, strong and self-reliant space warrior. And we have to play as her. Admittedly it would be less painful if it was new character, instead of an utterly retconned established one, but it barely makes a difference. It would simply make it an ineffectual, mediocre game, as opposed to one that had a genuinely terrible impact on the reputation of an established franchise, and removed the last great female leading role in AAA gaming. I honestly do not think Samus is coming back anytime soon outside of Smash Bros. Wii U.

I've played Other M: It's not exactly a misunderstood gem. Nothing about it was above average from start to finish. Handful of pretty cutscenes, but the scenes were overdramatic, poorly paced, poorly written and poorly acted. And I really HATE the piles and piles of...shall we say...unfortunate implications regarding the female lead and her relationship with men. If it wasn't Samus, it would still leave a bad taste in my mouth. Though my nostalgia didn't help, I still thought the moment to moment stuff genuinely sucked.

FF9 is something I feel fits into this category better. A lot of people weren't ready for the return to stylized graphics and a fantasy setting after 7 and 8, but...well. Most people I ask who did try 9 say it's their favorite.

 

[chimeracreator]

I'm curious to see if Deus Ex: Invisible War turns up here- at all.

Yeah... I tried replaying that before Human Revolution came out. Even going into it remembering how bad I thought it was... the game still wasn't good. I admit that I had to use a gun a few times earlier on in the game before my augs made my baton better than any other weapon in the game, but still not all that good thanks to weapons that were just plain odd and damage feeling off. See: Batons to the face do more damage than assault rifles.

 

[Scrustle]

Pretty much all the recent Zelda games. You'll have no trouble finding someone with something bad about to say about any Zelda past the N64 era, yet they're all still well loved games. Despite how good they are people still pick things out they hate because it's not like Ocarina of Time, yet they keep playing the games. People always seem so grumpy and betrayed with every new Zelda game. Sometimes it's a good thing that Nintendo don't listen to fan feedback.

I think the gen. 3 Pokemon games probably get a raw deal. People don't necessarily bad-mouth them, they just kind of get ignored. I guess it's because they came between the generations that hold a lot of nostalgia and the more recent ones that are still fresh in people's memories. People say that they made a lot of improvements to the games since gen. 4 too, but I haven't really noticed. It think it's more on a competitive level, so it doesn't really change anything to a more casual player. But gen. 3 are great games, my second favourite in the series in fact. When they first came out I wasn't so hot on them but as time has gone on I've realised how much fun they actually are.

And although the game isn't underrated at all, I think Skyrim gets a lot of undeserved criticism from people who have nostalgia for Morrowind and such. They may have taken a few little things out, but does that really make the game worse? They've taken out less than people think too. A lot of the skill that were part of a removed skill tree were assigned to a different one. Overall there may have been a slight narrowing of features, but it's still an utterly enormous game.

And what about improvements? There's a lot that's better, like the graphics and animation, voice acting, ease of use, aesthetic design, kinaesthetic, and the perks system which adds a unique quality to levelling a character.