Overrated/underrated

[Guest KoR Fungus]

Eh, like the topic says, what games do you think are overrated or underrated.  Any system, any genre.  Do as many as you want, I'll do five of each.

 

Underrated:

 

5. Suikoden - Got some good press, but was mostly drowned out by the FF7.  Great RPG, great story, and the wars and castle building were very cool indeed.

4. Vagrant Story - Yeah it was pretty universally lauded, but now everyone's forgotten it exists.  Incredible game, very good story, very cool characters, very innovative battle and weapon modes.  Overshadowed, wrongly, by Chrono Cross.

3. Tekken Tag Tournament - It seems like everyone labelled it just a Tekken 3 add-on before they really played it in depth.  Truth is, all the Tekken 2 characters were reworked to the point of being virtually new characters, there were lots of balance tweaks, sidestep moves were added and the tag mode itself was awesome.  Not the most innovative game ever or anything, but more progressive than most sequels.

2. Suikoden 2 - One of the best RPGs of all time, and totally ignored for the vastly inferior FF8.  Further proof that graphics don't make the game, especially in RPGs.

1. Soul Blade - An incredible gem of a game that, strangely, is ignored by the same people that have orgasms at the mere thought of SC.  Besides worse graphics and a lack of eight way run, it plays basically the same as SC.  Of course, what makes it great is the awesome weapons mode, which is, without question, the best extra in the history of fighting games.  It singlehandedly adds infinate replay value.  The interactive endings are also great.  Why these two big innovations have yet to be included in any other fighter, I don't understand.

Others: FF7 (Undeserving of the recent negative backlash), Wipeout 3

 

Overrated:

 

5. Goldeneye - A great game, certainly, but not as legendary as everyone seems to think.  The single player mode is something special, but the much loved multiplayer mode is pretty unspectacular, especially compared to what's available on PCs.  Not a bad party game, but it's not even close to playing Q3A or UT on a LAN.

4. Soul Caliber - Another good game that's more legendary than it deserves to be.  It's really slick and flashy, and that seems to have blinded a lot of people to the fact that it just doesn't have as much substance as the TK, VF or SF series.  And the lack of a weapons mode is completely inexcusable.  I find it funny that critics were hailing the quest mode as something innovative, when SB's story mode was deeper and had a much better payoff.  Was I the only one disgusted by the fact that unlocking all the super expensive pictures at the end does *absolutely nothing*?

3. Final Fantasy 5 - The class system was great, but the game itself is totally soulless.  All the characters are cardboard cutouts, the villian is just a stock evil guy and the plot is virtually nonexistant.  It gained undeserved reverance simply because it wasn't released in the US for a long time, but now that we've all gotten a chance to see for ourselves how unspectacular it is, that reverance should go away.

2. Final Fantasy 4 - Was a lot of people's first RPG, and so nostalgia blinds people to the fact that it's just as old and stale as Hogan.  Blah plot, very blah villian who doesn't even show up until the end of the game, and the worst, least flexible battle mode of the series, and that even includes the old NES games.  Anyone who rates it above FF6 is crazy!

1. Xenogears - What a disappointment.  Take its plot, put it with semi-decent gameplay, and you've got one of the best games ever.  Alas, the gameplay was so hideously bad that the amazing plot, characters and music are all wasted.  Every game is entitled to a bad dungeon or two, but the worst dungeon in the average RPG is better than the average dungeon in Xenogears.  Every dungeon is a long, mazy mess, usually with a high enemy encounter rate and a very low amount of save points.  Combine that with reeeeaaaallly slow text scroll speed (a problem that has never been seen in any other RPG, before or since), large load times, unnecessarily large towns, vague objectives and just about every other time wasting nuisance you can think of and you've got an exercise in frustration.  Yeah, if you can beat it, it's probably worth your time for the plot, but you've gotta be pretty damn patient to beat it.

Others: FF9, Tomb Raider (Series), Resident Evil (Series), Turok (Series), GTA3 (Not quite as godly as most seem to think)

[Guest Sakura]

You are 100% right about the Soul series and TTT. TTT is possibly the best fighting game ever made and all the critics did was bash it for being "exactly like T3" or a "button mashers game". I'm sick of the treatment Tekken gets. It pisses me off when people say it takes no skill, that's an insult to everyone who plays it seriously in the Tekken community. People $hill Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur while being completely ignorant about Tekken. It's like they just want to be hardcore. Nobody cared about Soul Calibur when it was an arcade game, suddenly it comes out for DC with great graphics and it's the best fighting game of all time? Where were these guys when Soul Edge was out in the arcades or when Soul Blade was released? What about Virtua Fighter? Everyone is marking out for VF4....why? The gameplay is the same, it's always been good. Nobody cared but now all of a sudden it's the second coming. Uh, anyway...

 

 

 

Underrated:

 

Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Not underrated by the fighting game community, but certainly by the majority of gamers and magazines. This is one of the best 2D fighters in ages.

 

Overrated:

 

GTA3: It's cool but I don't see how it's the god of games. The targeting system is awful and some of the missions and AI are totally bogus.

[Guest]

You just known T4 is going to get hated on when it comes out for the PS2. Everybody is on the VF4 train now. "T4 doesn't have Kumite, so it sucks!" Suzuki must have been sending out subliminal messages in Shenmue! Oh wait, that would have only affected the five people who actually bought the game.

 

Underrated:

 

Mortal Kombat 3 - Yeah, that's right, MK3. I think this gets put down way too much, and I think it's far from being the most absolutely, postively horrible game like most people say it is. Campy? That was the intension with some of that stuff.

 

Overrated:

 

Devil May Cry - This is a pretty cool game and I had fun with it (Dante is bad ass and the play mechanics with the guns is awesome), but at the end of the day, I just felt it wasn't this godly action game like most made it out to be. Repetitive and I thought it was overly difficult. Like that one scissors dude in the first half of the game. Two hits or so and you have like no life left. Weaksauce.

[Guest areacode212]

I actually agree w/ MK3. I wasn't the biggest fan of the game, but it was still fun and interesting to play. Some people say that it killed the MK franchise until (the truly awful) MK4 came around. Um, what?

 

Did many people really put down TTT? I loved it (despite removing some of my Nina, Yoshi, & Ogre abuses) and so did every other hardcore Tekken player. It was TK4 that made me drop the franchise (though I had kinda quit fighting games in general by then anyway)

[Guest]

As for Goldeneye being overrated, was Quake 3 even out when Goldeneye was first released?  If it wasn't then it would be unfair to compare them.  I think Tekken 4 is going to be an ass-load better than VF4.

[Guest areacode212]

According to Gamespot, Goldeneye came out in July 1997, a few months before Jedi Knight & Quake II. Even though Q2 (and to a much lesser extent, JK) kicked major ass as a multiplayer game, it's still pretty unfair to compare them, especially if Goldeneye was the ONLY multiplayer FPS game available on a console (I don't know if it was, considering that the only console I've ever owned is the $50 DC I bought in November). Don't forget that PCs had a big head-start on multiplayer FPS action (1993).

 

BTW, what exactly was "weapons mode" in Soul Blade? I'm one of the people who ignored the Soul series until I got my DC  (I didn't feel like learning YET ANOTHER fighting game system).

[Guest]

I think the Turok: Dinosaur Hunter series on the 64 is an extremely underrated group of games, the grafics of the third installment were friggin' excellent for a past gen console.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

<<<I'm sick of the treatment Tekken gets. It pisses me off when people say it takes no skill, that's an insult to everyone who plays it seriously in the Tekken community.>>>

 

Absolutely agreed.  All the same magazines that hailed Tekken 3 as the second coming have now filed the series away as a button masher's series.  If it was such a button masher's series, then why were you spending hundreds of hours playing TK3?  I know that I personally don't mash buttons, or lose to players that do.  All the people that think it's a button masher need to visit their local arcade and see what it looks like when the game is actually played properly, sigh.

 

<<<You just known T4 is going to get hated on when it comes out for the PS2. Everybody is on the VF4 train now. "T4 doesn't have Kumite, so it sucks!" Suzuki must have been sending out subliminal messages in Shenmue! Oh wait, that would have only affected the five people who actually bought the game.>>>

 

Sigh, agreed.  You could tell from all the previews that the mags were getting ready to hail VF4 as the second coming and bash TK4 as a button masher even before they got a chance to play either, and it seems they'll do just that.  Hell, EGM is already babbling about how Marduk is useless, and they only just got a preview copy to play.  That's funny, I coulda sworn I read that Marduk players won some regional tourneys, bog.  And seemingly no mag can get through a preview without pointing out that VF4 has better graphics, as if that's the most important consideration.  Bah.

 

<<<As for Goldeneye being overrated, was Quake 3 even out when Goldeneye was first released?  If it wasn't then it would be unfair to compare them.>>>

 

Yeah, true enough, but Goldeneye also isn't as good a multiplayer game as Q1 or Q2 or even Duke3D, which all were out or about to be out when it was released.  It gets lots of attention simply because it's on a console, but it was always hard for me to be impressed with its multiplayer mode when I'd been playing better on my PC for years.

 

<<<BTW, what exactly was "weapons mode" in Soul Blade?>>>

 

You'd play through story mode, which was basically the same as quest mode except that it was actually different for each character, and told you the story of the character as you progressed through it.  After most of the challenges, you'd get a weapon, exclusive to that character, that you could select not just in story mode, but in any other mode.  Each character had eight weapons in all, for a total of eighty.  Each weapon had attributes in power, defense, strength (how easy it was to break other weapons with it), durability (how hard it was to break) and speed.  Some weapons also had other bonuses, like extra length, health recovery, higher percentage of damage to a defending opponent, invisibility, etc.  Because you could use the weapons in versus and team battle, it added dramatically to the replay value, because in addition to choosing a character, you could also choose a weapon that fit your style, or just pick a weak weapon to give a bad player a chance.  Very neat.

[Guest]

Soul Blade also has one hell of a soundtrack. As does Calibur.

[Guest areacode212]

Calibur's songs are OK, but the Tekken series had some awesome, memorable tunes. Like the Staff Roll from Tekken 3, which was catchy as hell, and though it didn't quite make up for the arcade version not having any character endings, made it worth beating the game over & over just to hear that cool song. Of course, I now have the MP3 to listen to whenever I want.

 

And I marked out like a bitch the first time I heard Law's TK3 theme in Tekken Advance.

[Guest The Man in Blak]

To be totally honest, I NEVER got the appeal of the VF series.  I mean, yeah, it was one of the first, but gameplay-wise, I personally thought the Tekken series owned it.  But I digress:

 

Overrated:

1. CHRONO CROSS.  I wonder how many of the pundits who lauded this game as one of the best ever really played through it the entire way.  The ties to the original Chrono Trigger are solid at times (the "interactions" with Lucca) and totally manipulative at others (the "last boss" and the resolution of the big "mystery" from the first game...which was a total bust.)  The combat system was nice with the use of elements, but the core part of it was taken from Xenogears and by being able to exchange magic between characters, it made many of them seem /less/ relevant and developed.  Make no mistake, it was a decent RPG, but it wasn't even close to Chrono Trigger, and it certainly wasn't worth a 10.0 (Gamespot, I am looking at YOU.)

 

2. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec.  Why yes, we have the most spell-binding graphics we've ever seen in a car game.  Yes, the gameplay and controls are top-notch.  What?  You're wondering about a damage model?  You mean damage being applied to the car when you run into stuff?  Well, we allow you to change oil on the car...and actually gain HP from it and - wait!  We ARE a real simulation!  Running into stuff does screw up the paint job!  Come back!

 

3. NBA Street.  This is no NBA Jam - some friends and I rented this thinking it was our bonafide party game for the night...but having only one on one options for two players really killed that.  That, and the game itself was pretty ridiculous.  Total hype - we actually dusted off the SNES just so that we could experience real arcade basketball with NBA Jam Tournament.

 

4. Resident Evil 2 - Just didn't capture the intensity and fright of the first one.  It reminds me of what somebody said about the Die Hard series: "With each sequel, the area covered gets bigger and the scenes get less suspenseful."  There was more room to run in the larger Raccoon City and, other than the Licker, the monster design kind of took a turn downward.

 

Underrated:

1. Soul Blade, for many of the reasons that everybody has mentioned above.  Just an awesome game and, IMO, the best fighting game on the PS1.

 

2.  Final Fantasy IX.  It's maligned for being the worst selling game in the FF playstation run, but, much like a crappy Raw lowers ratings for next week, everybody's general distaste for FF8 turned a lot of people off from this one.  Sure, it's a little dumbed down and the plot, as per almost every game that has came out since 1998, unravels a little bit at the end.  But it has one of the most simplistic and enjoyable variants on the ATB system and it's one of the most challenging and balanced out of all of the PS Fantasies.  At times, it just seems a lot more fun than the others and it's too bad that a lot of people missed out.

 

3. Fallout.  Everybody lays flowers and children at the feet of Baldur's Gate for resurrecting the RPG genre on the PC, but it should offer thanks to Fallout more than anything else.  Fallout has one of the best plotlines, settings, and character systems ever put out on the PC and it brought back many of the hardcore fans that gave up on Might and Magic or bug-riddled Ultima incarnations.

 

4. Dr. Mario - Honestly, the only puzzle game that even compares on the console front is Tetris Attack, and Dr. Mario has about four years on it.  Just sheer genius, and multiple virus combos rock the house - thank god they released a four player version on the N64.

 

...eeesh, what a rant.  

[Guest areacode212]

Hmm. 3 posts from me in this thread, and not a single vote for an overrated/underrated game. OK, let me think of some:

 

Overrated: Civilization III - Wow, it has nice graphics. Well, compared to Civ 2 that is. Too bad that's really the only thing going for it. Why the hell would someone pay $50 for Civ 2 with nice graphics, especially when there are much cooler games out there (like Jedi Knight II!)?? The interface sucks (left-click on a town and you wake up the sentry? WTF), and for some reason, it gets REALLY tedious about halfway through a game. They didn't even bother making Wonder movies. They just give you a crappy picture of, say, the Pyramids. If you want a cool, Civilization-type game, for a decent price, you're better off saving your money, and picking up a $10 copy of...

 

Underrated: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - Well, it's not really "underrated", but I get the impression that most of the PC gaming world has forgotten about this game, since it got excellent reviews when it was first released, but didn't get a lot of "buzz". Anyway, this is the true sequel to Civilization II (as opposed to a lame remake). Remember how one of the victory conditions for Civ II was to build a spaceship, and launch it to Alpha Centauri? Well, this game follows the crew of that ship as they try to build a new life for themselves on their new planet. The game has a really great atmosphere, the faction leaders have actual *personalities* (which adds to the enjoyment a LOT), the voice acting is awesome, and the Secret Project movies (the new Wonder movies) are really well-directed and cool. Oh, and it actually has a STORY. Yeah, gameplay-wise, it's basically an improved, sci-fi version of Civilization II, but a hell of a lot more fun to play.

[Guest areacode212]

Man in Blak is correct--Fallout was AWESOME, and I praised the hell out of it in Judas's "What PC RPGs do you recommend?" thread. Like Alpha Centauri, I'm not sure how "underrated" it actually is, since it DID win RPG of the Year, and everyone who's played it loves it. But yeah, Baldur's Gate gets all the praise, while casual fans give you a blank stare when you mention Fallout. It's kinda like how everyone remembers Davey Boy Smith, but only smarks, Stampede and Japan fans know about Dynamite Kid (as being something other than DBS's partner).

 

I also agree with him about the VF series. It just never appealed to me. The controls seemed clumsy to me, and the graphics were too boxy for my tastes. The Tekken games had a lot of flashy stuff (like the multithrows) that hooked me initially, as well as the depth & complexity of gameplay. Like, you just HAD to learn how to do King & Nina's multis so you could impress the crowd. VF just seemed kinda blah.

[Guest]

I will say that I thought Mitsuda's score for Chrono Cross was amazing. Loved how each track had its own indentity, yet still incorporated similar themes.

[Guest John Dub]

I'm going to go with Twisted Metal: Black as being the most overrated game. The gameplay was SO repetitive after a while I could barely bring myself to play. I don't think it's a bad game, but it's gets metaphoric blowjobs from everyone on the 'net, and it's really got very little replay value, at least in my eyes. Some of the endings were cool, though.

[Guest]

overrated- i've got to go for gta 3. The freedom it offers is superb, but the missions are so lacklustre. I dreaded dying and repeating the routine of stealing a car, driving to my mission... .dying........

[Guest]

Underrated-

(no particular order) Zombie Revenge for the DC has a very fun co-op mode, and while flawed in there some cheep hits, seems like something worth reccomending on the party front.

 

Power Stone 2- This was definitely a great party game. Even the story mode is manic. Sure, many people slept on the DC in general, but this game was a blast.

 

F-Zero X- Speed for detail was no unfair trade off in my opinion, and the amount of cars on screen made it more intense than, say, Wipeout in my book.

 

Castlevania 64- While not an old school Castlevania by any means, it was a nice little 3D adventure that I found unfairly maligned.

 

Overrated-

Jet Moto 2- Well, only by the person who caused me to buy the game, but still...

 

Gran Turismo series- Not for everyone. Especially those who like a racer where they can stay on the bloody road.

[Guest]

I loved Soul Calibur, but you do have a point about the weapon mode being better in SB. I was very disappointed by that (especially since the individual story mode that accompanied it was also absent) but it didn't detract from the game for me as much as it seems to have for you, Doom.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

I loved Xenogears.  It was the first challenging RPG I played after the incredibly easy Final Fantasy VI, Suikoden, and Final Fantasy VII.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

I loved Xenogears.  It was the first challenging RPG I played after the incredibly easy Final Fantasy VI, Suikoden, and Final Fantasy VII.

I'm not really a big fan of hard RPGs.  An RPG to me is much more about plot and character development than about difficulty, so too much difficulty just gets in the way.  The only type of difficulty that I can really stand are hard battles, especially bosses, and I didn't think Xenogears was any harder there than FF6 or FF7 (I'll admit, Suikoden was a little too easy).  Xeno's difficulty came from a huge quantity of easy battles and a lack of same points, not things that I like at all.  It's hard, but in the wrong way, imo.

[Guest]

Power Stone 2- This was definitely a great party game. Even the story mode is manic. Sure, many people slept on the DC in general, but this game was a blast.

 

I actually prefer the first Power Stone over the second. While I like the sequel, I just like the first more for some reason. The atmosphere, I suppose.

[Guest chirs3]

Overrated

------------

 

Baldur's Gate: I'm not a D&D fan, so maybe that's what killed it, but this game did not live up to any of its kabillion "RPG of the year" awards. The story was paper thin (and very short), and at some points it was just impossibly hard. The game had its good points: combat was fun, and some of the characters were pretty cool... but this game is not all it was cracked up to be.

 

Half-Life: Go ahead, shoot me. I liked the game a lot, but like BG, "Game of the Year" it is not. It was horrendously linear (remember the bridge?), and the only worthwhile combat was going up against the human AI. A pitifully easy end boss didn't help.

 

In it's defense, it had a good story, especially for a FPS. The graphics were super duper, and again, fighting human AI was fun fun fun.

 

 

 

Underrated

-------------

 

Final Fantasy IX: Yes, the ending came out of nowhere. But that's all I ever hear about. "The ending was sooo stupid, this game suX0rZ!!1!!11!!1!"

 

Did anyone bother to remember the 3.9 discs that came before it? This was a fucking great game, with a great story, a great score, great minigames, great CG movies, and... yea.

[Guest redbaron51]

Underated.

 

River City Ransom: Probably the best action game ever for the NES. Hell probably the most violent at its time. The game its self was addicting enough. I mean bash your opponents with a Led Pipe, and Kaboom. Lights out.

 

Final Fantasy IX: Like others said, this game had potential, but people though how shitty FFVIII was, ignored this game. It had great graphics, cutscenes, storyline. It sure isn't FFVI, but it is damn good though.

 

Overated:

 

GT3: Even though its a kick ass racing game, its nothing different than GT1 or GT2, and besides when Project Gothem Racing came out, GT now has some serious competiton. Besides who wants to race with Civics instead of Ferrari's.

 

Starcraft: God, the people here will rip me to shreds. Starcraft to me was boring as hell, and some missions near impossible to defeat. With a great storyline though, you have to buy extra crap just to have different options, more stuff, and internet play. That could be almost 200 bucks on Starcraft crap. Plus i'm a Command and Conquer fan...nuff said.

 

Super Smash Brothers: Melee: Crap and not original. Anything else?

 

NFL 2K2: For any system, this game completly bombed. I mean if I'm playing with a friend, I don't want him to see what I am doing. Controls are good for the PS2. I definitly did not like the controls for X-Box. Madden is a better choice, or for X-Box NFL Fever

[Guest saturnmark4life]

I'd agree with Gran turismo being overrated, it's not for everyone.

course, i still think sonic on genesis is the best game ever made, and contained just about the best music ever released in the 90's

(that's NOT an april fool's joke)

[Guest areacode212]

Starcraft: God, the people here will rip me to shreds. Starcraft to me was boring as hell, and some missions near impossible to defeat. With a great storyline though, you have to buy extra crap just to have different options, more stuff, and internet play. That could be almost 200 bucks on Starcraft crap. Plus i'm a Command and Conquer fan...nuff said.

In a sense, I agree with you in that some of the missions were REALLY tough, which sometimes turned me off to the game for months at a time. Still, the storyline and voice acting were top-notch...I'm crossing my fingers for a Starcraft movie some day. As far as single-player storylines go, it was one of my absolute favorites. It kicked ass as a multiplayer RTS--the units were really cool, and it had a lot of replay value. The fact that it's still one of the most popular online games, after 4-5 years says a lot.

 

BTW, what do you mean about buying $200 of extra crap? You can buy the original game and Brood War for $10 each now. Even when they first came out, they weren't *that* expensive. Bnet is free to play on, and Blizz released about 18 MB worth of maps to download.

 

Unless you mean Starcraft64, which I know  nothing about.

[Guest redbaron51]

Wow that must be a good deal, cause then I must have gotten gipped or somethin.

 

I payed 45 for Starcraft, 30 for Brood War another 30 for the Expansion Set...damn Electronic Boutique...

 

BTW 200 was exaggerated

 

[Guest chirs3]

Another 30 for the expansion set? What expansion set? Brood War was the expansion set, unless I missed something big.

[Guest Bruin]

Just a quick list of some things that weren't mentioned.

 

Overrated:

 

Diablo 2:Lord of Destruction (expansion)

- Hey, it's a fun game, I'm not denying that. But 40 bucks for one more act, two more characters, and having nearly all of your other characters maimed on entry to that one new act isn't that great. Now, the constant patching is what really ruined this game for me. Blizzard would find a skill that was "unbalanced" (in other words; very powerful) and promptly release a patch that makes it much less powerful, and also goes and "balances" many other skills (making other skills useless). Thereby frustrating nearly all the players of the internet community. You have no idea how many new characters I've had to make because of those patches, and how many that were lost because of them. It's easy to forgive them for that though, afterall, many of the skills were being exploited.

 

Quake III Arena

- The fact that the only reason this game is still surviving is because of the online community. Quite honestly, the mods keep this game alive. id just did a flat out horrible job with this game. A horrible netcode, bad bot AI (There are plenty of occasions where they do cheat. Not to mention the insane shots that they make, and hit with incredible percision), and just plain stupidity of them when it comes to patching. (You upgrade Q3 one day, AHH! You can't play your mods because of this patch!) Y'know, it truly is sad when anyone agrees with John Romero, but I have to with one thing he said. "id should stop making games, and just make game engines."

 

Civilization III

- Like another post said. It's Civ2 but with better graphics, big whoop.

 

 

Underrated:

 

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

- Speaking that it gave credibility back to the Star Trek genre of games, after such dismal failures that they've had in the past, I don't think enough good can be said of it :b

 

Unreal Tournament

- Because it debuted shortly before Quake III Arena, it was easily overlooked. It's a much better game overall than Quake, but still gets overlooked. (Call me crazy, but I appreciate being able to play on the hardest difficulty without having to worry about how badly the computer cheats) This also has much better modes of play out of the box than Quake did, and was just more fun to play.

[Guest redbaron51]

I forget what it was, but it was somethin for Starcraft. I sold all of it.

[Guest]

course, i still think sonic on genesis is the best game ever made, and contained just about the best music ever released in the 90's

(that's NOT an april fool's joke)

 

The Sonic games, up until Sonic Adventure, had awesome music. I think the Green Hill Zone theme is forever embedded in every Genesis player's head.

 

I wouldn't say UT is exactly underrated Bruin. The game was universally acclaimed when it came out. Picked up quite a few Game of the Year awards (and rightfully so, I might add). I know I was on the UT side during the UT/Q3A war.