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[killatopak]

NieR comes to mind immedietly.

scratch that actually every Yoko Taro game is a piss poor budget gaming gem.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Salt and Sanctuary was made by two people, and it has better combat and is a better Souls-like than a moderately big-budget game like Lords of the Fallen.

Cosmic Star Heroine > just about any modern JRPG, including similarly-scoped ones like I Am Setsuna or Child of Light

When Demon's Souls schooled every other RPG on how to do combat

Also this. (And more recently, Nioh.)

 

[killatopak]

I believe indie gaming also does this along with custom maps and such.

Castle crashers and Binding of Isaac started off as flash games while the whole MOBA genre started off as a custom map pack of Star Craft which transitioned to a custom map of Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne.

These are one man projects and at most a team of a dozen max.

 

[rrs]

My examples may not fit the definition of AAA but here's what I got from the top of my head. Etrian Odyssey has a much more robust battle system than many bigger JRPGs, the way it handles basic encounters especially is definitely better than the competition. Cave Story has better level design than a bunch of Metroidvanias that content themselves on emulating the mediocre one from SOTN(hallways/rooms with random platforms and enemies).

EO has more in common with dungeon crawlers than the genre's evolution to JRPG which replaces the combat detail with more story

 

[More_Badass]

I believe indie gaming also does this along with custom maps and such.

Castle crashers and Binding of Isaac started off as flash games while the whole MOBA genre started off as a custom map pack of Star Craft which transitioned to a custom map of Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne.

These are one man projects and at most a team of a dozen max.

A lot of indie game start out as flash games, freeware games, or game jam entires. SuperHOT, N, Spelunky, Broforce, Westerado, Infested Planet, Flywrench, Starship Rubicon, among others

 

[Bloodporne]

Atlus was just the localizer though - 75k copies sold for a localization that wasn't already part of a popular series are solid figures.

Ah okay, that's the only tidbit of sales related stuff I had memorized for Demon's Souls. I guess my general assumption is that it was pretty low budget regardless.

 

[Freddo]

I'll never stop singing the praises of Cry of Fear, a free game (it's on Steam... for free)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/223710/Cry_of_Fear/

Never heard of it, but will try it out.

 

[Waddle Dee]

Night in the Woods is a better narrative driven game than all of Telltale's output.

Skullgirls is a better fighter than most others on the market.

Devil May Cry 3 had a smaller budget than 4, and a much smaller budget than DmC, yet was better than 4 and leagues better than DmC.

Duck Game is a better multiplayer game about shooting your friends with a variety of weapons in twitch-based action than any of the modern day FPS.

Undertale delivered a better, more memorable cast of characters and an exciting battle system that puts all big RPGs I've seen as of late to shame.

Sonic Mania is going to be a significantly better effort at bringing back the magic of classic 2D Sonic gameplay than was Sonic 4 was.

 

[george_us]

Yakuza 0 has better combat, level design, side activities, story, and side missions than pretty much every open-world game out there despite having a fraction of their budgets.