Most. Underrated. Games.

What were some of the most underrated games of all-time? Games that did innovating things for video game design and yet, slip under the radar.

Underrated Game #1


Mystical Ninjas Starring Goemon was an Action RPG and Platformer for the Nintendo 64. It fused the wackiness of Super Mario Bros., the mass adventure and gameplay of Legend of Zelda, and many Japanese folklores into one amazing package.


The heroes (and heroines) were Goemon, our title character and hero of the game and your basic hero with blue wild spiky hair, Goemon's best friend Ebisumaru, who was a pervert, lazy and total fatass, the kunoichi Yae, and a robo-ninja Sasuke.

The characters of Mystical Ninajs were colorful, weird, and a bit fruity but all together were so damn silly!



Underrated Game #2


Indigo Prophecy (Fahernheit) brings back classic adventure games to the gaming market. Indigo Prophecy is not just a video game, but an interactive movie of sorts.

Fahrenheit is a video game where every decision has a direct effect on the story path of an unfolding mystery. In this paranormal thriller, New York City is stunned by a series of mysterious murders that follow the same pattern: ordinary people become possessed and kill absolute strangers in public. In this video game, the main male character must uncover the supernatural forces behind his crime.

A good deal of publicity was generated from the developer's rejection of conventional game genre labeling for the title; Quantic Dream prefers to brand it as the first truly "interactive film" rather than an adventure or third-person action title. This game features a large amount of motion captured animation as well as branching story lines, split screen cameras (used in a manner very similar to the television series 24) and an interface designed to be intuitive and realistic. Event triggers in the game are also mainly time-based, as opposed to the more common player-initiated progression found in most games. A majority of critical reviews were enthusiastic, and considerable praise has been given to the developers for their attempt to reinvent and reimagine the "adventure game" genre. However, they also mentioned the bizarre plot twists and the seemingly rushed non-sensical nature of the second half of the game

-From Wikipedia.

One bad thing I do have to say about Indigo Prophecy (Fahernheit) that dispite it's excellent, near pefect storyline, is that the story takes a sudden, rushed twist. Let's just say . . . the plot twist didn't had such a nice transition from the main story. However, thigns are made clear near the end of the game and there was a few plotholes.

dragon valor for ps1, that game was amazing

Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario 64. Seriously people, give these games a chance. They're quite fun and I don't understand why no one likes to talk about or even play them.

Originally Posted by Rach Tul

Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario 64. Seriously people, give these games a chance. They're quite fun and I don't understand why no one likes to talk about or even play them.

Wow. 3 of the most highly rated games of all time.

Originally Posted by Ender

Wow. 3 of the most highly rated games of all time.

Wow, somebody immune to sarcasm.


Anyhow, Beyond Good & Evil is an amazing game, but barely anybody knows about it, let alone played it.

Seriously though, I've hear XIII is somewhat underrated and is quite good.

Also, Jet Force Gemini, Majora's Mask and No One Lives Forever.

Majora's Mask. That game is just made of epic win. Period.

Originally Posted by Rach Tul

Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario 64. Seriously people, give these games a chance. They're quite fun and I don't understand why no one likes to talk about or even play them.

Ha ha! I see what you did there! You put a smile on my face!

Beyond Good and Evil is another underatted game I wanna check out.

Speaking of Ubisoft games, The Prince of Persia games are somewhat underrated. It gets it buzz from gamers and it has a strong fanbase, but it is still a bit underratted.

Underrated Game #3


Final Fantasy II(The NES/Famicom verison) Consider as the blacksheep of the series dispite the fact many common trademakes of the series came from Final Fantasy II such as Cid, Chocobos, Dragoon Knights (Richard), and character death.

Final Fantasy II has the most darkest story in the series as a total of six main good guys dies and a slew of by-standers are killed as well.

Many people hated the game because of the levling system. Instead of just gaining experince points, you are given the chance to build stats one-by-one. This sadly turned many gamers away from Final Fantasy II.

Originally Posted by Snow_Storm

Ha ha! I see what you did there! You put a smile on my face!

Beyond Good and Evil is another underatted game I wanna check out.

Speaking of Ubisoft games, The Prince of Persia games are somewhat underrated. It gets it buzz from gamers and it has a strong fanbase, but it is still a bit underratted.

Beyond Good & Evil is THE most underrated game ever (in my opinion), but Prince of Persia is one of the series that actually made it as underrated as it is. It had low sales because of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, which were sequels and proven to have good predecessors.

Originally Posted by Duo

Wow, somebody immune to sarcasm.


Anyhow, Beyond Good & Evil is an amazing game, but barely anybody knows about it, let alone played it.

There are people who would actually post that. =\

Well, there's two definitions of underrated. One definition is a game that, despite maybe good sales and even some popularity, does not receive the sorts of ratings it deserves from critics (Chrono Cross could feasibly fall under this category, in a sane person's opinion). The other definition is a game that, despite maybe having good or great critical reception, didn't really gain good sales or anything other than cult popularity (Psychonauts is a potential example).

As for Beyond Good & Evil, that would fall under the second definition, I suppose, but I didn't really like it. I got it thinking it would be great after all the things said about it, but after playing and finishing it, I kinda had mixed views. It certainly showed a lot of effort, and the stealth gameplay was fairly good, but the rest of the game was kinda, well, "meh". And it was short. I liked both Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia better.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within though, would fall under the first definition. It had better sales than its predecessor, but critics and fans nailed it for its darker, bloodier style than Sands of Time (The same critics that would praise something like Gears of War for its "dark, gritty" style, ironically), and not much else. And while I was disappointed at the change of style from SoT, it was totally overblown by critics. When I actually played the game, I was quite surprised that it was actually a good game with improved combat, a more free-roaming world, and a good story. Perhaps the best game of the series.

Originally Posted by Mr. Fish

Well, there's two definitions of underrated. One definition is a game that, despite maybe good sales and even some popularity, does not receive the sorts of ratings it deserves from critics (Chrono Cross could feasibly fall under this category, in a sane person's opinion). The other definition is a game that, despite maybe having good or great critical reception, didn't really gain good sales or anything other than cult popularity (Psychonauts is a potential example).

I completly agree with that, but I think there is also other ones. Good games, which have been forgotten over time (Jazz Jackrabbit, and Diablo I). There are too many of those to be listed off so I won't even try. As for the other ones, Baten Kaitos (personaly one of my favourite games), Deus Ex (1&2) and Tales of Symphonia were all games which got pretty good reviews, but where only comercialy succeful in the gammer market, and not much at all outside of that.
Virtua Quest, Custom Robo, NHL Hitz (well, most of the Midaway sports games), and Lost Kingdoms were never scored that high, but I found them to be quite fun, interesting, innovative, and original. They were also not largly advertised, and thus never saw comercial success either.
Finaly, I saved the best for last. Possibly the most innovative game ever made. I remember opening up my brother's PC Gammer magazine one day and seeing an add in it which had only the words "It plays you....Majestic", and a picture of a bunch of pencils which had been broken and chewed. It caught my attention right away. Unfortunatly at the time I was too young to buy it, and my parents would not b uy it for me. The game's focus was to drive the player made. It would give hints to a conspiracy to the player in all forms. By e-mail, fax, phone, and mail. It could call at any hour of the day, and the clue could be very cryptic. Unfortunatly, it never saw comercial success, and the operations had to be shut down and I never got the chance to play it, however I think that had it been more of a success it could have changed the gamming world easily.

Originally Posted by Rach Tul

Ocarina of Time

You're kidding, right?

A couple games I think are underrated would be TMC and Luigi's Mansion. Both were amazing games. TMC stands on top as one of my favorite Zelda games, but people shoot it down because of it's difficulty. Sure, it is a bit on the easy side, but it's still very fun, unlike TWW, which is a combination of boring AND easy. And Vaati is probably the most underrated video game villain too. I think he surpasses Ganny in coolness...by far.

As for Luigi's Mansion, this game sold well, but I still hear every now and then that it's a disgrace to the Mario series. Totally not true. Give the game a chance, and you'll see how fun and humorous it really is. Let everybody's favorite green plumber give you a laugh. :]

Originally Posted by Ranil

You're kidding, right?

A couple games I think are underrated would be TMC and Luigi's Mansion. Both were amazing games. TMC stands on top as one of my favorite Zelda games, but people shoot it down because of it's difficulty. Sure, it is a bit on the easy side, but it's still very fun, unlike TWW, which is a combination of boring AND easy. And Vaati is probably the most underrated video game villain too. I think he surpasses Ganny in coolness...by far.

As for Luigi's Mansion, this game sold well, but I still hear every now and then that it's a disgrace to the Mario series. Totally not true. Give the game a chance, and you'll see how fun and humorous it really is. Let everybody's favorite green plumber give you a laugh. :]

TMC is one of my favorite Zelda games, along with WW. But I think both sold fairly well AND most critics gave them high scores.

I played to the last boss in Luigi's Mansion. Wasn't impressed.

I don't care solely about critics. I base my thoughts on everybody's opinions, be it a critic or random fans. And based on what I hear, fans don't praise TMC and Luigi's Mansion as much as I think they should be, no matter what scores critics gave them.