What Games do you think are Underrated?

[Pumpkinhead]

There are some great games out there who receive unanimous praise and attention, while there are also others that are still great, yet either the more famous and popular games overshadow them or people generally write them off because of their biases and preconceptions. In your opinion, what games do you like that you think should deserve more attention and appreciation?

For me, I would say the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, ESPECIALLY the sequel, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. The basic premise of the franchise is that you, a human, are turned into a Pokemon and thrust into a world run by Pokemon (who can all talk!). Your memories have been erased, though you do remember that you were once human. With the help of your Pokemon partner, you investigate the reason you were turned into a Pokemon while rescuing other Pokemon in trouble or going on adventures.

The gameplay itself isn't one of its strongest points, though I really don't think it's that bad, and definitely not as terrible as many game critics have claimed it to be (though the first games, Red and Blue Rescue Team, do have a couple bad flaws, which thankfully the sequel addresses and fixes). If you don't like RPG gameplay that emphasizes a lot of dungeon crawling, then it may feel a bit repetitive, though it's certainly still playable. For a Pokemon game, however, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky has a surprisingly solid and original story, as well as characters who show a lot of personality (and depth). I was also caught off-guard by how dark and suspenseful it is for a kid's game; there were tense (and sometimes creepy) moments where I was genuinely nervous and concerned about what was going to happen to the characters. Honestly I think the plot alone has enough appeal for someone to play through the entire thing. At the very least, you get to take a personality test in the beginning to find out which Pokemon you are, which was my original motivation for getting it XD But the fact that the game turned out to be much more than just that gimmick was a huge bonus that I was not expecting.

So what game(s) do you think are underrated, and what is it that you like about them?

[Feathers]

I don't really play too many video games, so I could be wrong in assuming this game is underatted. XD Anyway, my pick would have to be the one you mentioned, Pumpkinhead, and Donkey Country for the SNES(I think?). I'm sorry. I can never get away from this game. And every reviewer I see that rates it usually says it's too difficult, nearly impossible to pass.

Where others see impossibilities though, I see challenge! :D I swear it is the most challenging game I have ever played. But that is what keeps me playing it over and over again even after SNES went out of "style". XD

[Pumpkinhead]

I'd say you're probably correct about it being underrated. I've heard a lot of positive things people have said about Donkey Kong Country 2, but never anything about its predecessor before. Interesting....I should try it out some time. Come to think of it I don't think I've ever played any Donkey Kong games

[Feathers]

Most of them are okay. But the ones I can play over and over are Donkey King Country 64 and the one I just mentioned. I don't they been coming out with new ones lately, so you'll have to go with old game systems and graphics. XD

Another game, that is not really underatted just forgotten, is the Contra series. That was the most difficult game I ever played, but when I finally completed it, a choir broke out in song. XD

[Pumpkinhead]

I think I've heard of Contra. Is that an arcade game or for the NES?

EDIT: Oh, I just remembered, they did actually come out with a new Donkey Kong game last year or so....Donkey Kong Country Returns, which was developed by Retro Studios (same company who did the Metroid Prime games). I heard that got really good reviews.

[Feathers]

Contra...I think is for the NES. Yeah, I'm pretty sure cuz that's what I play it on. Or did...until we found it on the Wii Shop one day, yay~ XD

OMG! Really? I must find this and demand my brother get it! XD He's the big game collector in our house. XP

[Devil]

I saw the new donkey kong country

[Feathers]

SIS Y U NO TELL ME?!! D: Furthermore, why isn't bro buying it?! DX

[Pumpkinhead]

Oops...We better start getting this back on topic XD

Another game I think is severely underrated is Sonic Adventure....I don't just say that because I like the game, but because it seems like critics judge it very unfairly compared to other older games, to a degree that seems unusually critical. Whenever I see gaming magazines do retrospective reviews of it they always give it terrible scores. Even though, back when the game first came out, they praised it for all the things they now claim is bad.

I'm not saying that people can't change their minds about a game or decide that it's dated—or even dislike it—there are valid criticisms about the game that I understand, even if I don't 100% agree with all of them. But it's like critics don't appreciate anything it had to offer at the time (like having the best graphics ever seen when it first came out, as one example?) and they don't evaluate it accurately based on the context it appeared in. For instance, everyone seems to agree unanimously that Mario 64 is an excellent game based on its revolutionary leap into 3D platforming, which I agree with as well, but some of its aspects are dated too. It may have introduced the camera for 3D gaming, but looking back, the camera angles are pretty hard to work with compared to what games can do now. Yet it's Sonic Adventure that gets all this hate for having a horrendous camera, when it's definitely not the worst example of one out there.

What bothers me the most is not just when gaming critics claim that it's a bad game now, but when they imply that it was always bad, even for its time. IGN, which praised its gameplay the first time around, now calls the game "so fundamentally flawed that it borders on unplayable". If that's really true, why then did it have an average score of 88% on GameRankings? The fact that it got so much positive attention when it originally came out shows that it was actually a successful game, even if it does have some flaws and problems with it compared to games that come out now. So why does everyone like to misrepresent Sonic Adventure as a complete failure, instead of at least acknowledging what was fun about it at the time (or still might be fun about it)? If we judged all games solely based on how difficult or buggy they seem now, then the original Mario Bros. and Zelda and Metroid for the NES would be hated by everyone too, but I don't see anyone ever complaining about how they suck.

It feels to me like these critics judge the game based their biases, rather than based on the game's actual qualities :/ I've always thought it was a fun game, and certainly a playable one.

[Feathers]

Crap, I suck at staying on topic. XD You all wait till you have an actual verbal conversation with me and you'll find I am the most random minded person who will ever meet. LOL

*reads over long text block* I completely agree. And I find this only with video game reviews. Book reviews, it's always based on when it first came out. Anime reviews, based on when it first came out, etc. Hence why some classic books are as old as dirt and yet tell the same old stories we've heard 100s of times. But back then they were original and a fresh idea.

Why this same concept can't be applied to video games is beyond me. After all, much like everything else ever reviewed critically, video games change over time. Graphics and camera control are some of the most noticable. This obviously means when you look back on some of the older games, you're going to find flaws. That's kind of a big DUH right there. XD

I'd say its to the disadvantage of the reviewer for pointing out the obvious. When I watch a review I want to find out something more about what I already experianced and what the general opinion of it is. That's why I like Rogo's reviews. XD

But yeah, Rogo doesn't review video games so I never find a good opinion for them. It really sucks.

Oh and an example I can think of for this too is Castlevania 64. Now to me, that game kicked ass. And I could easily play is several times over. The story was easy to follow and entertaining. The levels were challenging. The enemies were visually cool to the point where I cringed killing some of them. XD And the best of all, the freakin' soundtracks were epic! X3

But then...

I traveled to the underbelly of the Internet to find that people hate it. Needless to say, I was not happy with the Castlevania fandom. XD

[Pumpkinhead]

Aw man how awkward is that, right? XD I hate it when I find out a game that I love so much is hated by so many people...but it's much much worse when it happens at school X(

Feb 22, 2012 19:20:44 GMT -5 Feathers said:

*reads over long text block* I completely agree. And I find this only with video game reviews. Book reviews, it's always based on when it first came out. Anime reviews, based on when it first came out, etc. Hence why some classic books are as old as dirt and yet tell the same old stories we've heard 100s of times. But back then they were original and a fresh idea.

Why this same concept can't be applied to video games is beyond me. After all, much like everything else ever reviewed critically, video games change over time. Graphics and camera control are some of the most noticable. This obviously means when you look back on some of the older games, you're going to find flaws. That's kind of a big DUH right there. XD

That's a really good point, I wonder why video-game critics do constantly seem to "take back" what they say about older games, because that doesn't seem to happen with other mediums. Or at least, if there are people who do retrospective reviews with older movies/books, it doesn't have as nearly a profound effect on the medium or the work of art being reviewed, and the general consensus about it usually remains the same. Maybe it has do with how we generally regard technology? We always want things that are faster, smarter, and flashier. Maybe reviewers care more about the "functionality" aspect of video-games—in other words, how advanced they are and if they work easily, smoothly, and predictably—more than they do about their other qualities? Do you think this contributes to how so many games are underrated? What do you think?

[Feathers]

Yeah, I think it does. The older games that were cool(and in some cases still are cool) are all forgotten because people assume nothing good can come out of them. Now of course there are people who will play nothing except older video games and bash any of the older ones, which I think is not the way to go either. What it all comes down to is people needing to be a tad more open minded. I mean, yes, the graphics are horrible and you can barely tell who or what is attacking you, but the actual story and gameplay may be the best you have ever seen.

I think it's just a case of people judging a book by its cover. Or in this case, a video game by its graphic and controls. They really are not looking at the big picture. Of course, that's my own opinion and people can correct me on that. XD

To add on, controlling the video game is usually seen as more important than the actual story or levels. I can kind of agree with this, since what is the point of learning about what the game has to over if you're controls won't even let you leave the start screen. LOL

I took a game design class last year in high school, so I have a general understanding of what goes into a video game(considering I have to make like 3 full computer games with a bunch of levels...which took forever I might add). XD One of the biggest things my teacher taught me though was that a game has to have progression. As in, the game needs to get more difficult and challenging as it goes on. If this is not the case then there's no point in playing.

If you take a look at most older video games(and I mean REALLY old) you'll notice they do have this concept within their gameplay. So I think that reviewers should judge them on that, rather than graphics or controls. :3

[Pumpkinhead]

Feb 23, 2012 14:58:16 GMT -5 Feathers said:

Now of course there are people who will play nothing except older video games and bash any of the older ones, which I think is not the way to go either. What it all comes down to is people needing to be a tad more open minded.

Ha ha! SPEAKING OF SONIC.... XD That comment really made me laugh, because that totally sums up the kind of Sonic fans that attack the newer games. I don't mean the ones that just prefer the older games like Rogo, I mean the angry dogmatic ones all over the Internet that complain about the new games for really stupid, trivial reasons. Like that Sonic 4 is a "terrible" game because its physics engine is a different one from the old games or because Sonic's eyes are green. (I'm serious. People were angry about his freakin' eye color )

But that also made me realize how else games can become underrated. Like you said, sometimes older games are susceptible for being outdated or obsolete, while on the flip side, newer games seem like they can be susceptible for being too different or too experimental. Never mind if it's still fun—it's different now, so that means it's RUINED.

Now sometimes experiments are bad and should have never happened (*cough*Sonic 2006*cough*). But sometimes people, critics and fans alike, really should try to be more open-minded. When you go into a game with a rigid mindset then yeah, of course it's not going to meet your expectations. If you just played the game with an open-mind then maybe you'd realize how cool the game actually is. I'm not saying that Sonic 4 is perfect, but when people trash it for having a "broken physics engine", I think their unhappiness with it is a result of their own intolerance than it is the game itself. Especially when these same people complain that Sonic 4 is a terrible game because Sonic's running animation doesn't look good enough, or that Sonic Generations ruined Classic Sonic because his torso looks fat (when his torso WAS, in fact, fat. Did these people actually play the older games??).

My main complaint about Sonic 4 is that it's short and doesn't have enough levels. I think it had some creative level designs and I wish I could have seen more of that. But even though it's not strictly THE EXACT SAME PHYSICS ENGINE as Sonic 1,2,3&K, I enjoyed it and thought it was really fun, and it definitely does not deserve so much hate. For a game with such an "awful" physics engine I thought it played smoothly, and the later levels provided enough of a challenge that I wasn't bored with it, either. If people didn't judge it based on all these minor details then maybe it wouldn't be picked on so much :/

[Feathers]

I tend to stay away from Sonic games for that reason. XD For me, it's the fans of the series that can either make me love the series or despise it. Now this is not always the case, the example being with the instance for that Castlevania game, but for most other games I choose to either stay or leave depending on the fans.

With that being said, this has occured for games such as the Kirby series, Sonic(as mentioned before), Halo, COD, WoW, Final Fantasy(which is currently being ressurected) and many others. Kirby nearly died, but was graciously ressurected thanks to the release of Kirby's Epic Yarn. XD

As to how this relates to what you said, well you see fans of these video games tend to have love-hate relationships with their games. I don't really care if there's one game in the series you don't think was a good as the rest, but you don't have to demand religiously that everyone despise it as well. On that note, another thing fans do is try to state they are a "true fan or *series*" by saying how they remember the original games and that the new fans coming in are less of a fan then them. Ah, society. XD

This kind of blows out of proportion because, well, we all have different definitions as to what a true fan of a video game is. My personal definition is that a true fan would love all the game series' releases equally. However, it is different for everyone. We are all trying to fit in the way we want to define ourselves and in this case, the selfproclaimed true fans want to bash any new game that comes out, even if it is for the dumbest of reasons.

So that's sort of where I think the gamers nit-picking at their own series came from. And it kind of escalated from there. People generally have thought it to be cool to critique something and voice their opinion. I've notice my younger brother, who watches video game reviews, has taken to a liking of picking apart the simpliest of details. Now, I did end up snapping my bro out of this by asking him what he really had to complain about. They were making a new game for him and could anybody really have thought of something better. So what was the problem?

While being open minded has some of an influence on today's generation of video game critiques, I think it more or less has to do with popularity and fitting it. At least, that's my own observation. :3

[Pumpkinhead]

Feb 24, 2012 15:09:30 GMT -5 Feathers said:

I tend to stay away from Sonic games for that reason. XD For me, it's the fans of the series that can either make me love the series or despise it. Now this is not always the case, the example being with the instance for that Castlevania game, but for most other games I choose to either stay or leave depending on the fans.

With that being said, this has occured for games such as the Kirby series, Sonic(as mentioned before), Halo, COD, WoW, Final Fantasy(which is currently being ressurected) and many others. Kirby nearly died, but was graciously ressurected thanks to the release of Kirby's Epic Yarn. XD

As to how this relates to what you said, well you see fans of these video games tend to have love-hate relationships with their games. I don't really care if there's one game in the series you don't think was a good as the rest, but you don't have to demand religiously that everyone despise it as well. On that note, another thing fans do is try to state they are a "true fan or *series*" by saying how they remember the original games and that the new fans coming in are less of a fan then them. Ah, society. XD

This kind of blows out of proportion because, well, we all have different definitions as to what a true fan of a video game is. My personal definition is that a true fan would love all the game series' releases equally. However, it is different for everyone. We are all trying to fit in the way we want to define ourselves and in this case, the selfproclaimed true fans want to bash any new game that comes out, even if it is for the dumbest of reasons.

So that's sort of where I think the gamers nit-picking at their own series came from. And it kind of escalated from there. People generally have thought it to be cool to critique something and voice their opinion. I've notice my younger brother, who watches video game reviews, has taken to a liking of picking apart the simpliest of details. Now, I did end up snapping my bro out of this by asking him what he really had to complain about. They were making a new game for him and could anybody really have thought of something better. So what was the problem?

While being open minded has some of an influence on today's generation of video game critiques, I think it more or less has to do with popularity and fitting it. At least, that's my own observation. :3

Well put!! Couldn't have said it better myself :D

And lol, I don't blame you for staying away from Sonic because of its fans XD That franchise may possibly have the scariest and most fragmented fan base I have ever seen, and at this point I think it's impossible to please all of its divided factions XD

Feb 23, 2012 14:58:16 GMT -5 Feathers said:

I took a game design class last year in high school, so I have a general understanding of what goes into a video game(considering I have to make like 3 full computer games with a bunch of levels...which took forever I might add). XD One of the biggest things my teacher taught me though was that a game has to have progression. As in, the game needs to get more difficult and challenging as it goes on. If this is not the case then there's no point in playing.

If you take a look at most older video games(and I mean REALLY old) you'll notice they do have this concept within their gameplay. So I think that reviewers should judge them on that, rather than graphics or controls. :3

I wanted to touch on what you also said in your other post too, about a game's progression in difficulty being a better factor to judge it by. I think that's an interesting point...because I think sometimes people will play a game expecting themselves to be an instant expert at it and then call it a bad game if they get stumped by it later. They don't take into account that maybe they just need to practice at it.

I don't recall this being underrated per se, but one of the best examples I could think of that fit this was Star Fox 64. At first I didn't like it because it seemed really easy to die, and once you lost all your lives you had to start the game all over from the beginning. But even though it's learning curve was a little steep, the more I kept trying, the further I could get, until by the time I beat the game I was a pro at it and felt really accomplished with myself :3 Now when I play it the entire game is cake because of all the practice I put into it XD

I think the most important thing about a game's difficulty is whether practicing makes a difference or not. If a game is so hard that it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, and I barely slip by thanks to dumb luck instead of skill, or I keep dying because the controls are just terrible no matter how much I practice, then that's when I call it a bad game. I wonder some times if critics are spoiled and expect a game to be perfect on their first play through, when the point may be that they have to really work at it in order to get good at it.