Under Appreciated or Obscure Games

[Dan]

Dynamite heady for the Sega Megadrive. The whole premise of this game was great, it all took part on a stage. You play as dynamite heady, all the characters are pretty much puppets, it has great boss fights as well, I would seriously check it out, it can be found on PSN, steam and XBL I believe and of course a Megadrive cartridge.

 

[Vampire Squid]

Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

Bubsy 2

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales

Bubsy 3D : Furbitten Planet

 

[Dan]

Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

Bubsy 2

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales

Bubsy 3D : Furbitten Planet

How can I forget these treasure troves!

 

[LittleGumball]

Ball Jacks!

 

[Cfrock]

Probably a huge offender of a game that I absolutely love that not many people have played would be the first Zero's Escape game 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (for the Nintendo DS) as well as the second Zero's Escape game Virtue's Last Reward (for the Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita), both by Spike Chunsoft (with a third game currently in the works).

I actually bought 999 recently after a friend told me about how much he's enjoying the sequel. I haven't played it yet because I've been working my way through Prof. Layton and the Miracel Mask as well as Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth but I am really looking forward to playing it.

 

[Koosholts]

I might be in the minority, but I believe the opposite. I believe it's OVERRATED. I can't actually walk two feet without someone talking about it and people exploding about how amazing and wonderful it is. Yes, Dark Souls is a great game, but too many people are in love with it and find it to be 'best game ever.' It's a great game and possibly the best game to come out of 2011, but underappreciated? I don't think so.

Huh, perhaps it has something to do with the demographics of our surrounding areas? Because none of my friends had ever heard of Souls series until I told them about it, and on the internet, I see people passing it over as too difficult to be any fun, etc. way too often. And I agree, ever since the PC version was released it has garnered thousands of more supporters and fans, but I got in to it when it first came out and back then it flew completely under the radar.

Demon's Souls on the other hand had a lot of build up when it was coming out and while it came out strong, it now seems like a forgotten relic of 2009.

Yea, I completely agree. Although as a whole I feel Dark Souls is unequivocally better, even thought they're very similar in a lot of aspects.

I agree that too many modern games hold players' hands throughout and that Dark Souls is a great & very underappreciated game, but I think you have to admit that part of a game's difficulty due to bad conveyance is not a good thing. A game should be difficult because it throws challenging situations at you after giving you the chance to understand its mechanics. Mastery of these mechanics should come AFTER the learning curve rather than being a part of it.

Dark Souls does an absolutely piss-poor job of actually delivering the player instructions on how the game mechanics work, but that doesn't mean the tutorials are completely in-existent. Instead of having the game force you to go through tutorials (for example: combat tutorials in Zelda games), they make you actively seek out instructions yourself. Now, albeit, the actual instructions are not the most detailed in the world (Poise, probably the most important mechanic in the game is completely brushed over), and I do agree that the tutorials need a re-vamp (not a total re-vamp, mind you) in Dark Souls II, but all-in-all I like what they did. Having players struggle to figure out how game-mechanics work helps foster a stronger and tighter community. If it wasn't for these unique nuances, the Dark Souls community would not be what it is today; two-years later and its still as active as ever and there are still game-mechanics that people are testing.

 

[JuicieJ]

Having players struggle to figure out how game-mechanics work helps foster a stronger and tighter community.

I disagree. One of the reasons Super Smash Bros. has such a die-hard fanbase is because it's so easy to get the hang of, but difficult to master. The mechanics are simple to get the hang of, but truly understanding them takes time and practice. Dark Souls takes time and practice just to get the hang of things, and that's just poor design.

 

[ScouseOctorok]

Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

Bubsy 2

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales

Bubsy 3D : Furbitten Planet

[video=youtube;FTAlr5raV2U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTAlr5raV2U[/video]

Enjoy that video.

 

[Lord Carlisle]

The Professor Layton series. Not enough people play those.

 

[Lucia]

Dark Souls takes time and practice just to get the hang of things, and that's just poor design.

Sorry to get off topic, I can't actually take this line of reasoning seriously. Poor game design is needing to take time and practice what you've learned and what is available to you? How is that different from a game like the Devil May Cry series or even fighting games?

I'll elaborate. Both Souls games have excellent design. Both in gameplay and level design. You use what's available to you to navigate the terrain and the enemies you'll face. Sometimes there's things that aren't explicitly told to you, sometimes you'll have to look up information to learn things that the game won't outright tell you. That's not really poor game design, you have to make the effort to learn the game if you want to be good at it.

 

[Justac00lguy]

I'm not sure how many people have actually played this game or on its actual popularity but I'll go with Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. This was a game back on the PS1 (feels so long ago now) but anyway this game and a few others really made up a chunk of my childhood games and I feel that sometimes it gets overlooked.

I don't really know what it was about this game but I really loved it as kid, maybe it was my young mind but I really appreciated the themes the game showed. A story wasn't really present in the game itself however I thought what little narrative it had it done great. It was all about this young crocodile who was had no parents and was raised by a strange small Tribe, known as the "Gobbos". Eventually Croc over grew his raisers and and suddenly they where all kidnapped and it was up to us to save them. For some reason the story really gave, me as the player, a motive to go out and save the world, maybe it was because the story was personal as the tribe who raised us where kidnapped.

Looking back now the gamplay and controls seem really poor and I do remember the sheer frustration as a kid. The game was generally perceived as a Mario 64 clone which I think is a bit harsh considering the game itself differed in ways. However the controls where quite poor as was the camera angle but hey if a 6 year old can complete the game then it can't be truly bad right?

Just a fantastic game in my opinion and when I see people mention the "Golden Era" of gaming and more specifically titles on the PS1 I never see this game get mentioned and it's kinda upsetting in a way as I loved this game so much. I do see why it gets the criticism it did but I would have love to seen this game get more praise and recognition, maybe even the soundtrack at least as I thought it had one of the best in game soundtracks ever.

 

[Ventus]

I disagree. One of the reasons Super Smash Bros. has such a die-hard fanbase is because it's so easy to get the hang of, but difficult to master. The mechanics are simple to get the hang of, but truly understanding them takes time and practice. Dark Souls takes time and practice just to get the hang of things, and that's just poor design.

No, the difference between Smash Bros. and Dark Souls is that the tourney-level play (Smash Bros) is created literally by "trying to find" new things - i.e playing the game in such a way that the devs did not intend - and that the casual play (Dark Souls) is trying to play the game the way the devs intended. You won't see Sakurai SHFFLing, that's for certain, haha

 

[Musicfan]

Sky Gunners a game of my childhood

 

[Lucia]

No, the difference between Smash Bros. and Dark Souls is that the tourney-level play (Smash Bros) is created literally by "trying to find" new things - i.e playing the game in such a way that the devs did not intend - and that the casual play (Dark Souls) is trying to play the game the way the devs intended. You won't see Sakurai SHFFLing, that's for certain, haha

I dunno. From Software really didn't intend for me to do things like this: [Dark Souls] Dem Jumps - YouTube

 

[Vampire Squid]

[video=youtube;FTAlr5raV2U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTAlr5raV2U[/video]

Enjoy that video.

I found that video offensive, and personally insulting.