Most Underrated Title of 2013?

[The Wykydtron]

I suppose Persona 4 Arena. I know I really, really, really, really, really, really, really love Persona 4 and an expansion to that is like the best thing ever anyway but Arena is brilliant on a purely mechanical level too.

Ummm...unless you live in Europe Persona 4 Arena came out in 2012. The next version of the game won't be out on consoles until ~2050 (just kidding; probably more like 2014 but seriously ASW can fuck off with how little they care about non-Japanese markets). I will also agree that from a mechanics perspective the P4A is one of the best games that Arc Systems Works has made it's just a shame IMO that from a balance perspective it's one of their worst entries. While game balance cannot be 100% predicted it is something that can be worked on and P4A is the least balanced ASW game since the original BlazBlue.

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My nominee would probably be Saints Row 4. Eclipses SR3 in every way possible and was just a ton of fun.

And I *do* live in Europe as a matter of fact, otherwise why would I mention it here?

How is P4A the most unbalanced? I would say BlazBlue is but then again I could never get a foothold to judge anything because I got into Continuum Shift a year or two late so the only people online were y'know, good. Fucking TAGER. No, totally balanced character, cannot control your own character's movements, cannot half health you with one grab then immediate reset with another grab, it's not like every grab is unblockable at all. 10/10 fair and balanced character, good job ArcSys.

As for P4A, I know Elisabeth is Garbage Tier fit to be a great noob-stomper at most. Kanji is broken but I can at win if I turn my entire style on its head and play Zoning Labrys. Ugh. Fuck you for making me do this Kanji, no self respecting Labrys should have to stoop so low.

Everyone else is good but with their own weaknesses, Akihiko is like the best pressure character ever conceived *if* you let him in but he relies on a predictable set of tricks, Labrys is best girl, Shabrys is the hardest to pick up but is lethal once you get good with her, Naoto is insufferable with clever use of traps and projectiles, Yu is your jack of all trades who can do a side of everything and so on.

 

[Bobic]

Hey, I've enjoyed pokemon before, and would like to see what it's heavily inferior to. So what does SMT stand for? (though, at a guess I'm going to say super monster trainer.)

SMT stands for Shin Megami Tensei, a ballsdiculously hard rpg that started back on the Super Nintendo, if I remember correctly, although recently spinoff series Persona has usurped it's popularity.
It shares many common elements with pokemon, turn based, heavilly focused on an elemental tables and hitting the enemies weakpoints, and travelling around with a group of deadly monsters.

There's big differences too though, a moral choice system, usually a intriguing story, the player him/herself fights alongside the beasties in the party, and most importantly, the fusion system. you can fuse two of your monsters together to make better monsters. It's a hellofalotta fun, and I would heartilly recommend Shin Megami Tensei IV for the DS, don't worry about it being a sequel, as far as I can tell, the stories aren't connected

Oh, I have seen that name mentioned a few times around this forum, though never really investigated any further. Sadly, I don't own a DS (nor do I own a working PS2, I checked to see what other consoles they had appeared on). So I guess that's another game to add to the list: 'Should I ever get a DS, these are the awesome games I want'. Ah well, thanks dude.

 

[Username Redacted]

And I *do* live in Europe as a matter of fact, otherwise why would I mention it here?

Just checking. At this point I cannot fathom why Europe even bothers supporting ASW games with how badly they've gotten dicked over with regards to release dates.

How is P4A the most unbalanced? I would say BlazBlue is but then again I could never get a foothold to judge anything because I got into Continuum Shift a year or two late so the only people online were y'know, good. Fucking TAGER. No, totally balanced character, cannot control your own character's movements, cannot half health you with one grab then immediate reset with another grab, it's not like every grab is unblockable at all. 10/10 fair and balanced character, good job ArcSys.

Most unbalanced was maybe going a bit too far. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (BBCT) probably still holds that title. That said BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (BBCS) had some serious balance issues. Ignoring BBCT for the terribly designed mess that it was BBCS had its fair share of issues. Its top tier while less outright retarded than what was found in BBCT was, in general, no less oppressive when matched up against the lesser characters in that version. I also sincerely hope that you're referring to more recent versions of Blazblue in your assessment of Tager as the BBCT version of Tager might very well be one of the worst, relative to the game that the character is in, fighting game characters ever created (no favorable matchups; no even matchups; multiple essentially un-winnable matchups). The BBCS version isn't much better. It wasn't until BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II that the character was even (realistically) able to compete is most matchups.

As for P4A, I know Elisabeth is Garbage Tier fit to be a great noob-stomper at most. Kanji is broken but I can at win if I turn my entire style on its head and play Zoning Labrys. Ugh. Fuck you for making me do this Kanji, no self respecting Labrys should have to stoop so low.

Everyone else is good but with their own weaknesses, Akihiko is like the best pressure character ever conceived *if* you let him in but he relies on a predictable set of tricks, Labrys is best girl, Shabrys is the hardest to pick up but is lethal once you get good with her, Naoto is insufferable with clever use of traps and projectiles, Yu is your jack of all trades who can do a side of everything and so on.

There are five characters "worth" playing in P4A; i.e. a top tier after which there is a decent drop off in competitive ability. IMO there isn't really anything outright broken in P4A but the top characters tend to have few gaps in their tools and just be generally quit oppressive when matched up against the rest of the cast. You also only named one of them (Yu Narukami). The rest are Aigis, Chie, Mitsuru and Teddie.

 

[The Wykydtron]

And I *do* live in Europe as a matter of fact, otherwise why would I mention it here?

Just checking. At this point I cannot fathom why Europe even bothers supporting ASW games with how badly they've gotten dicked over with regards to release dates.

How is P4A the most unbalanced? I would say BlazBlue is but then again I could never get a foothold to judge anything because I got into Continuum Shift a year or two late so the only people online were y'know, good. Fucking TAGER. No, totally balanced character, cannot control your own character's movements, cannot half health you with one grab then immediate reset with another grab, it's not like every grab is unblockable at all. 10/10 fair and balanced character, good job ArcSys.

Most unbalanced was maybe going a bit too far. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (BBCT) probably still holds that title. That said BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (BBCS) had some serious balance issues. Ignoring BBCT for the terribly designed mess that it was BBCS had its fair share of issues. Its top tier while less outright retarded than what was found in BBCT was, in general, no less oppressive when matched up against the lesser characters in that version. I also sincerely hope that you're referring to more recent versions of Blazblue in your assessment of Tager as the BBCT version of Tager might very well be one of the worst, relative to the game that the character is in, fighting game characters ever created (no favorable matchups; no even matchups; multiple essentially un-winnable matchups). The BBCS version isn't much better. It wasn't until BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II that the character was even (realistically) able to compete is most matchups.

As for P4A, I know Elisabeth is Garbage Tier fit to be a great noob-stomper at most. Kanji is broken but I can at win if I turn my entire style on its head and play Zoning Labrys. Ugh. Fuck you for making me do this Kanji, no self respecting Labrys should have to stoop so low.

Everyone else is good but with their own weaknesses, Akihiko is like the best pressure character ever conceived *if* you let him in but he relies on a predictable set of tricks, Labrys is best girl, Shabrys is the hardest to pick up but is lethal once you get good with her, Naoto is insufferable with clever use of traps and projectiles, Yu is your jack of all trades who can do a side of everything and so on.

There are five characters "worth" playing in P4A; i.e. a top tier after which there is a decent drop off in competitive ability. IMO there isn't really anything outright broken in P4A but the top characters tend to have few gaps in their tools and just be generally quit oppressive when matched up against the rest of the cast. You also only named one of them (Yu Narukami). The rest are Aigis, Chie, Mitsuru and Teddie.

To be honest, the year wait for P4A was Atlus' fault. They have a shitty track record with EU release dates of their own too. :/

I played a bit of Calamity Trigger because I picked it up for under £5 in a bargain bin and BB always looked sort of interesting. I decided to pick up the most recent version after and that's the only one I play so yeah, most recent Tager.

I think one of the reasons I play nothing but Mu-12 in that game is because she's the only one who can half deal with Tager. Christ just try playing Makoto vs him and see how far you can g-dead lol. (I cannot get my head around boxing characters to save my life) I have a feeling Mu isn't going to be very high on anyone's tier lists though, a grand total of one person plays her on XBL in a sea of Ragna, Jin, Lambda, Hazama and Tager mains. I suppose her kit is a bit... Unorthodox? She's squishy as fuck too. Put some damn clothes on woman.


As for Persona, I do remember people saying that Mitsuru is the best one but everyone else is at least viable in their own way even if some characters have stronger kits. Well apart from Elisabeth. I main Labrys because she's adorable and my direct sub is Shadow Labrys because I have a thing for her brand of evil. Then I play a little bit of Yu, Aigis, Naoto and Chie

I never really bother selecting my characters over tier lists and stuff. I'm interested to see what the community thinks and what the pros say but I play what I feel like playing regardless. All you people going on about viability have no clue what real underpowered characters are. I played Phoenix Fucking Wright, the outright worst character in the game by miles in UMVC3 for over a year straight. I can deal with any disadvantage your conventional underpowered character has after that trial. If PW ever downs one of your characters before he hits his power up mode you're laughed out of the fucking building.

 

[InfernalGrape]

Killer is Dead . In many ways, this game is awful. It's blatantly misogynistic

Please, stop repeating silly things after pseudo feminstistic game reviewers. Why don't you blame Tarantino, Rodriguez etc.?

By the way, here is kinda plot analysis of KiD
http://globegander.tumblr.com/post/59534088268/love-killer-is-dead-eros-and-thanatos-in-grasshopper

 

[Story]

All of the ones I could think of have already been mentioned but it is worth repeating Rachet and Clank: Into the Nexus and Puppeteer again.
Both had very unfornate release dates near the announcement of the PS4 both are a great platformers as well. I enjoyed playing both them and Puppeteer would be one of my games of the year if I bothered to make a list.

Also throwing out there Sly Copper: Theives in Time as well.

 

[Khanht Cope]

Devil may Cry I feel was underrated for acutely political reasons.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Metal Gear Rising spent less time on the radar than their gameplay merited.

 

[SquidVicious]

I think Gunpoint and The Swapper are a little underrated given the positive reviews they both received when they came out, however I haven't seen them on many "Best of 2013" lists, although I imagine they would be in the runner ups. The Swapper in particular was an incredibly pretty game with that those cool clay environments that allowed for some really detailed and beautiful textures, plus it was one of the more inventive puzzle platformer games to come out in recent memory. It also had a beautifully atmospheric and ambient soundtrack in the vein of a more subtle Tim Hecker album.

Gunpoint is kind of in a similar boat in terms of inventive puzzle platforming and the game had a lot of great humor to it, especially during the combat tutorial.