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[Hawks Eclipse]

Loved Descent, man that was back in the day when Interplay was in prime form. Had some great AI as well. If you liked it and haven’t already, give Overload a try on Steam. Many former devs from Parallax Software worked on it, it’s basically Descent’s spiritual successor.

I didn't complete Descent but I mention it because I remember replaying the first level a lot of times back then (can't remember why) and there was one encounter that surprised me greatly.

Early in the first level there's this forked tunnel with a mook (that orangey bot IIRC) inside one of them and I'd just shoot him and move along every time.

Then there was one time where I went there expecting to blast him to bits only to not see him there. I proceeded forward and was got ambushed from behind by the bugger who had relocated to another tunnel.

Up till then my main experience was DOOM so the AI making an effort to ambush me was genuinely impressive. I seem to recall that in D2 they added various enemies with specific behavioural patterns. Enemy behaviour was generally quite engaging and it's a pity that I kept getting distracted by other games on PC.

And yes! I've known about Overload but sadly I don't have a PC to play it now so it'll have to wait. Kinda wish Overload and the Descent games would be ported to Switch with gyro controls

 

[Xane]

Loved Descent, man that was back in the day when Interplay was in prime form. Had some great AI as well. If you liked it and haven’t already, give Overload a try on Steam. Many former devs from Parallax Software worked on it, it’s basically Descent’s spiritual successor.

Came here to mention Overload and pleasently surprised to see it being mentioned already!
The game deserves more players. It is the closest we have gotten to a true Descent sequel.

 

[KàIRóS]

First post of 2020 for this thread, I'm going to dedicate this one to games from 2019, I feel there were many underrated games this past year like Ace Combat 7, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Blair Witch, Shenmue 3 and God Eater 3 to name a few so I may do other posts with 2019 games but this first post is going to be for the really massively underrated games from 2019 (in my opinion of course).

Dragon Marked for Death: Released in January 2019 alongside much more popular games like RE2 and Kingdom Hearts 3, this game was completely ignored, it's a mix of 2D Side Scrolling, Platforming and Action RPG with 4 players multiplayer, there's still a small but lively community of players in high level missions and the game is seriously a blast when 4 players are doing missions and fighting bosses, there are still updates coming out for this game and the devs are working on new playable characters. Made by the developers of the Megaman Zero and Megaman ZX games.

Crackdown 3: I'm probably going to get some hate for this one but I'm still going to defend it, I don't know what others were expecting out of this game but I got exactly what I was expecting which was a proper comeback to the winning formula of the first Crackdown, a mix of Sandbox + Platforming + RPG, basically the mindless fun and constant progression of the first Crackdown is back with this game, if others were expecting this to be a Rockstar open world sandbox game they were looking at the wrong franchise.

Zanki Zero: Last Beginning: I have a love-hate relationship with Dungeon Crawling RPGs so I had a lot of doubts when I first played this game, but the amazing storyline and creative mechanincs won me over, it's really hard to talk about the story in this 1 without spoiling stuff, but I can say it has humour, dark and emotional moments all the time, the gameplay is first and foremost a dungeon crawling rpg but it's combined with puzzles, mini games and survival mechanics and it all creates a very unique game on it's own. Made by the developers of the Danganronpa series.

Pathologic 2: This is another game that is hard to talk about without spoiling the cool stuff it has to offer, it's a First Person RPG like Fallout 4 or Skyrim but with a touch of Survival Horror, your character has 12 days to resolve the mysteries of a plague that is affecting a town, your choices affect the outcome of those 12 days and that's exactly what I'm not going to talk about but boy do things change from day 1 to day 12 getting weirder and scarier, this is a true hidden gem and my favorite of the 7 games I chose for this post, but just as a warning, gameplay is very slow, combat is basic and it's very text heavy, this is a game you play for the story and the immersion not for the gameplay.

Crystar: On the outside this is a run of the mill Action RPG with fairly repetitive level design, however if you look deeper into it you will find a very dark and depressing game that touches themes rarely seen in media let alone in videogames,, things like suicide, loneliness, guilt and many other internal struggles, it's basically a game about depression and how to fight it and overcome it, it has a very touching story told effectively through gameplay, music and characters.

YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World: I'm not much of a Visual Novel player, I generally get really bored with them, however when I heard that the legendary unlocalized sega saturn VN YU-NO was getting a remake and it was getting localized I decided to give it a chance and see the revolutionary game with time shifting mechanics that inspired the masterpiece Steins:Gate for myself, the story is every bit of amazing as people describe it however since the original game is an Eroge I had to go through very unpleasant naughty dialog that adds nothing but boredom when skipping it, still I'm recommending it because the core story really is amazing.

SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions: This 1 is very recent it came out last month and like the entire SaGa franchise it was completely overlooked. After playing through all 4 character campaigns I can safely say this is my 2nd favorite SaGa game after SaGa Frontier in the PS1, it has and incredibly addicting battle system and really good storylines, the hardcore gameplay mechanics loved by SaGa players are back along with a rocking soundtrack by Kenji ito.

 

[anthraticus]

Hidden & Dangerous 2

Best WW2 shooter out there.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Nice Visual novel, with philosophical phrases about life.

The best thing is that it is the first Visual novel that has multiple languages incluided Spanish

 

[Hastelander]

Alien Isolation is overrated as fuck though.
It's an excellent 4 hour game stretched to 20 hours with just hiding under table and enabling power generators/opening doors with minigames.
Apparently I am not the only one who thinks that way

Alien Aliens+Androids+Humans Isolation Overpopulation. Gameplay wise this borefest has no redeeming factor, yet people like to shit on Colonial Marines just because it "didn't deliver"! Like this piece of shit did, at least CM plays well.

 

[Krathoon]

Critical Depth

 

[Bigfroth]

So Good!!!

 

[Krathoon]

Haunting Ground

 

[Aure]

Incredible game, even to this day.
Someone should remaster this.

 

[RAIDEN1]

GEX I used to think was a 3DO exclusive mascot, but then he went multi-plat, bit like Cool Spot...and then ultimately ended up fading away like Earth-worm Jim

 

[ChoosableOne]

Incredible game, even to this day.
Someone should remaster this.

There you go

 

[Camreezie]

Alien Aliens+Androids+Humans Isolation Overpopulation. Gameplay wise this borefest has no redeeming factor, yet people like to shit on Colonial Marines just because it "didn't deliver"! Like this piece of shit did, at least CM plays well.

Colonial marines was a unplayable , iredeemable piece of shit. Isolation at least had good parts

 

[amigastar]

Rise of the Triad 2013 is really underrated. I love the game.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

 

[Paltheos]

Rise of the necro bump. This topic hadn't seen a post in two years before today.

My contribution, after Ctrl+Fing each page and not getting a hit, is Muramasa. Preferably the Vita version but the Wii original is also good. Gorgeous 2D hack and slash with as fantastic a soundtrack and a wonderful, general aesthetic. The action can get very hectic especially on the highest difficulty where you die in one hit, but it strikes that perfect balance of being demanding without being unfair. Of Vanillaware's many titles, I find Muramasa gets less attention relatively, and critically it marked only in the high '70s but that's too low imo. For how consistent it is in realizing its vision and how consistently fun it is, mid- to high-80s seems about right. Criticism on some of the combat becoming repetitive is fair but it's a light strike on the whole for a fantastic product.

I will whore Muramasa out at every opportunity but unfortunately it's one of the very few, top titles of both those consoles still locked on them. When the PS Store for the Vita goes down eventually too, all the wonderful DLC will be harder to reach too. It's a real shame.

 

[fart town usa]

It's like a mix of Mega Man Legends and Resident Evil. Fantastic anime inspired graphics, Beat-Em-Up style combat, guns, multiple characters, pre-rendered backgrounds, fixed camera angles, a shit ton of puzzles. Out of all the games that scored low, this one still confuses me the most. It's was absolutely trashed when it released and it makes zero sense to me. Such a good game.

There's nothing special about VHD and it's honestly quite lousy. That being said, it's also fun once you get a handle on the controls and it's not annoyingly difficult if you play on easy. There's no reason to play on normal or hard and it's not worth it IMO. The voice acting is awful beyond belief but it's just a charming RE clone worth checking out. Probably the best RE clone on the PSX (not counting the RE clones that are actually good).

 

[Beechos]

The order 1886, days gone, ryse son of rome, outriders, guardians of the galaxy are ones the come to mind without thinking.

 

[Hastelander]

Colonial marines was a unplayable , iredeemable piece of shit. Isolation at least had good parts

And I can say the same thing in reverse. CM gets a bit dragged out at the end, while "A Lot Of Targets With Not Nearly Enough Ammo" is a drag pretty much after the first one or two introductory level. Had they stuck to the promise of avoiding combat, specially with the fucking androids, we wouldn't have another The Evil Within: Resident Evil 5 Part 2 on our hands.

 

[Sosokrates]

The order 1886, days gone, ryse son of rome, outriders, guardians of the galaxy are ones the come to mind without thinking.

The order 1886 is complete dog shit, clunky as fuck gameplay and practically all cutscenes. Days gone was tedious as hell, the missions really lacked variety and the GamePlay was generic as fuck.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I rented this after already playing it on PC to see what it's like, but Diablo on PS1 was a pretty good port. The graphics/sprites seemed bigger on screen than PC and it actually played well with a gamepad.

 

[VeganElduderino]

 

[VeganElduderino]

 

[Havoc2049]

This thread is awesome. Kudos for OP listing Sudeki right off the bat.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

 

[TheGreatMusashi]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You always hear about AC 4 (it is the best one). And in modern day AC 7. But AC 2 is solid.

Avoid AC 6 and Assault Horizon. They were shit. I havent played every AC game, but AH is easily the worst one I played. It even has a carbon copy AC-130 level like youre playing COD 4. The only difference is Namco used a slight purple shade to the view instead of COD 4 which was either black and white or greenish.

]

 

[Hastelander]

Some underrated vs overrated:


Mafia: City of Lost Heaven vs Mafia II (aka retro GTA IV with hardly any mafia involvement)

Crysis 3 vs CoDCrysis 2

Lost Planet 3 (won an award for story, by far its weakest point, also you could listen to your own music), and Bionic Commando 2009 vs Dark vertigo Void and Wanted WoF.

New Dead Rising titles vs the old ones.

Resident Evil 5 vs 4 (same amount of QTEs and forced shootouts, 4 has better gunplay but worse pacing and encounter design).

The Evil Within 2 vs 1 (aka RE5 part 2) and its DLC.

Aliens Colonial Marines vs Alien(s and androids and humans) "Isolation".

Many "clones" vs GTA.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

No doubt the game was more like Fallout 3.5. The graphics were barely better than 3, long loading times and the biggest difference was probably mechs and community settlement building which you can do all over the map.

As much as people were disappointed in the game, it is still better than F3.

If you played F3 to death like me, F4 is nothing special. But if you never played F3 or Fallout Vegas where F4 is the first 3D Fallout game you'd play, it's a good game. It's probably on sub plans or dirt cheap by now. It's got to be a $10 game by now. Just make sure to play it on next gen systems for best experience to max out resolution and 60 fps and reduced load times. And for QoL features, add some mods.

 

[Roberts]

I’m playing Unruly Heroes right now and it is super good 2d platformer. Judging by achievements, barely anyone has played it and it is a shame.

 

[KàIRóS]

Here's my 5 hidden gems from 2022.

Soulstice: It's not often that we get Devil May Cry clones and even less often that we get Devil May Cry 1 clones, many games fail to replicate the particular feeling of DMC1 and it's combination of exploration and combat but this game does and while it does use the DMC template it also tries to be it's own thing by combining mechanics from more modern Hack and Slash games like Nier: Automata, it's also clear that the devs had a very specific idea for the game's world, using inspiration from the manga/anime Claymore for it's characters and setting, highly recommended to fans of these types of games, Bayonetta 3 actually had competition this year with this game, oh and btw the battle music slaps so hard.

ANNO: Mutationem: This is a 2D Action Adventure game, I say 2D but in reality most of the game is actually in 3D, it looks pretty retro due to how the devs stylized the game and this combination gives it a pretty unique look, like Soulstice this game oozes style when it comes to it's world, it has a pretty interesting Sci Fi story and sometimes even really good writing, this is a game that I would recommend if you like world building in games, it also seems to be only the beginning of a bigger story, I'm honestly pretty excited to see what these devs do in the future.

The Diofield Chronicle: The only non indie game in my list but definitely the most Underrated amongst the dozens of games released by Square Enix last year. We often ask devs to take risks when it comes to new gameplay ideas and while this game isn't necessarily something entirely new it does try to differentiate itself from pretty much every other SRPG by having a Real Time Battle System rather than a Turn Based System, the story also surprised me especially by the end, It's not a game for everyone but if there's even a minimal interest I say you should try it, it's pretty good overall.

Astlibra Revision: This is the one game that truly represents what I meant by Underrated Games when I first created this thread, a Hidden Gem through and through but at the same time it's hard to fully explain why it's so good, it's one of those game that until you play it you won't believe how good it is, at it's most basic it's a Side Scrolling Action RPG with some Metroidvania elements here and there, but it's the combat and all the systems fueling it that makes it so addicting, there are at least 5 different systems between crafting and leveling and it gives the game a constant progression, it's clear that the dev spent a lot of time perfecting this combat and it shows, everyone on Steam trying this game is loving it and a Switch version just got announced. Don't be fooled by the seemingly poor presentation, this game is super in depth in it's gameplay.

Signalis: This one is for fans of Old School Survival Horror games like the first 3 Resident Evils, Silent Hill or Alone in the Dark, it's also much more forgiving than those games by having much more relaxed Save and Movement systems, story is interesting, puzzles are good, combat can get pretty tense and overall it captures the feeling of 90s Survival Horror games.

 

[AndrewRyan]

Always thought Scaler was somehow related to Ratchet & Clank. Maybe the last game on my PS2 backlog, lol.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Reviewers were too critical of Biomutant.

 

[Havoc2049]

Aliens (US version) on the Commodore 64.
I still hold this as my favourite Aliens games to date that captured the feeling of the film, none have come close since. And i've never met anyone that had played it. A real shame.

I owned owned Aliens on my C64. Great cinematic action/adventure game. This game was pretty popular in the United States and released on the C64 and Apple II by Activision. It came out in 1986, the same year as the movie and had quite a few print ads in computer gaming mags of the day. The lead developer was Steve Cartwright. Cartwright had some hit 2600 Activision games and also developed the popular Hacker series for the 8/16-bit computers of the day.

 

[Havoc2049]

Aliens (US version) on the Commodore 64.
I still hold this as my favourite Aliens games to date that captured the feeling of the film, none have come close since. And i've never met anyone that had played it. A real shame.

I owned owned Aliens on my C-64. Great cinematic action/adventure game. This game was pretty popular in the United States and released on the C64 and Apple II by Activision. It came out in 1986, the same year as the movie and had quite a few print ads in computer gaming mags of the day. The lead developer was Steve Cartwright. Cartwright had some hit 2600 Activision games and also developed the popular Hacker series for the 8/16-bit computers of the day.

 

[Havoc2049]

Triple post!

 

[Havoc2049]

Double post.