Underrated games in well known franchises

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles - It looks great, despite having no HD. The first person camera angle on an on-rails pan, gives it a spooky immersive feel. The gameplay is simple, but I find it very fun. And you can play with another person.

Mega Man Powered Up - Sporting a totally different art style, a level editor, lots of content, and a new physics engine, it's much slower and more methodical than the other entries but its colorful and cute nonetheless.

New Super Mario Bros [insertconsolehere] - It gets a bad rap, but all the games really needed were a more unique title, as the gameplay and visuals are perfectly fine. The games have a flow and rhythm that other Mario games, like some of the 3D ones, simply do not.

Call of Duty World at War - It lacked the sales and appeal of the Modern Warfare franchise but it did really well in historical storytelling (for a shooter), tank combat (as janky as it was, was something new) and it invented Nazi Zombies!

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, because there is a great argument to be made that it is better than the original Prime. Yet that game tends to get glossed over a bit, albeit some of it is understandable because it does have some tedious stretches.

Prime 2: Echoes is the best Metroid game.

Final Fantasy XII - great setting and music, intriguing plot that my only complaint with is that it doesn't have enough focus on the characters themselves, and amazing gameplay. Sure it isn't turn-based but it's incredibly deep with the Gambit system and part of the fun is customizing that so that you don't have to lift a finger. But you still can, and good luck keeping that strategy once you get to tougher bosses.

I only 1/3 of the way through Prime Echoes. And personally didn't like it. I enjoyed 1 and loved 3. An annoying feature of 2 is having to wait 45 in a light space everytime you're damaged in the dark world. It hurt the pacing. Perhaps I'm missing out on the other 2/3.

Wind Waker. Do I really have to explain?

@Legend002: Wind Waker is widely considered to be one of the best games in the series...

Republic Commando from Star Wars comes to mind.

Final Fantasy V, mainly because it didn't release outside of Japan until 8 years after the original release.

@charizard1605: To be honest, any main Zelda game could be considered one of the best in the series but the fandom is mostly sandwiched between OoT and ALttP. WW is underappreciated. It's actually the best Zelda in my book to date.

I'd have to go with The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword. It has the strongest combat of the franchise, the best bosses in the franchise, some of the best dungeon design of the franchise, and a campaign brimming with great new ideas around every corner. It's the most replayable of the 3D Zelda's because there really isn't a dull moment. It's just pure fun.

zelda 2: game was not nearly as bad as most fanboys make it out to be, it may be a departure but it is still a solid game

final fantasy 8: Most people I meet love 7 and 9 and flat out despise this game, personally I enjoyed it far more than I did ff7 and dont get why so many people hate it

Castlevania lords of shadow 2: I absolutely loved this game, it gets lots of hate, but I enjoyed the fresh take on the castlevania story and thought that the majority of the game was extremely well done(outside of those god awful stealth segments, they were okay in the beginning but you mean to tell me at the end of the game I can fight the devil one on one but I can't beat some big dude with a gun? come on)

I'm sure there are a ton more, I'll post more later

• Final Fantasy V
• Tatsunoko vs Capcom
• Age of Empires III

I guess Metroid Prime 2 seeing as how it sold less then 1 and 3.

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FFXII. Excellent game.

I don't see this game brought up in Castlevania discussions often. Easily one of my top 5 Castlevania games.

I forget, is that game kind of a "horror" game? What little I recall of it, it seemed to have somewhat of a Doom atmosphere, I may just be misremembering tho.

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, though from a quantitative standpoint in sales and a qualitative standpoint in review scores, it doesn't hold much water in this thread (No pun intended).

Relative to the series, they're one of the more unique entries with some of the best execution of side ideas in the franchise, yet are overlooked and occasionally frowned upon, no thanks to the games that is Gold and Silver. Nostalgia takes me far with them, but their strengths as great games take me further, even today.

@charizard1605: ...and sadly it's still considered one of the worst because of Zelda fans that are still salty about it not being the GC tech demo.

I swear, the Zelda fanbase has to be one of the most divided out there.

To be fair, outside of A Link to the Past, there is no single Zelda game that is universally beloved. As you said, it is a fractured fanbase.

Skyward Sword, for all of its flaws (overused motion controls, backtracking, fetch quests) it had some of the best dungeons, bosses, combat, and characters/development(dat Link and Zelda) in the series.

Aside from the bullet sponge enemies and "The Drowned City" I really enjoyed Uncharted 1.

True.

It is no wonder why it has been selling less and less. Hopefully, TLoZ Wii U turns the tables a bit.

Sonic Rush, Sonic Rush Adventure, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Mario Land, Mega Man ZX, and Mega Man ZX Advent. The ZX games are probably the most underrated though, because I think they're way better than the Zero games.

I'm still waiting for a sequel after that cliff hanger of an ending...

Anyone who says Wind Waker is delusional. Wind Waker is so goddamn popular that it actually got a legit HD remaster. If you wanna talk about an underrated Zelda, you should dig up stuff like Minish Cap or Four Swords Adventures.

I would say DA2. I actually liked that game. Though I don't think it's underrated; it's a shit game to be honest.

It's more militaristic than the usual Star Wars games, but no horror really. In fact, your squadmates are some of the funniest AI companions in the history of gaming.

I would think any sort of fanbase for a huge franchise would become very fractured, to be fair. Naturally, the more games you create and more people you attract, the more you are attracting more different and varying opinions and tastes.

Lord knows how fractured something like the Final Fantasy fanbase can be. It's funny because the whole ALttP vs. OoT thing is pretty similar to the FFVI vs. FFVII thing FF has. The "older refined classic" vs "the title that revolutionized gaming by transitioning a loved series to 3D." and then there's Majora's Mask and FFIX, the games that maybe didn't get as much love back in the day but boy did they grow a following over the years.

>Underrated
>Zelda anything

Lol okay

Dark Souls 2 (underrated compared to its prequel as it's often shunned as inferior even though it improves upon Dark Souls 1 in a number of ways, including environment design, visuals, multiplayer, weapon variety, build potential, and even weapon mechanics. In fact the only obvious downside to me was the bosses weren't as good as in Dark Souls 1)

Age of Empires 3 (as someone has already mentioned)

CoD World At War (as tc mentioned, and actually my second favourite CoD of all time behind Black Ops 1).

Within the confines of the series, the Minish Cap and I guess to a lesser extent the Oracle games tend to be glossed over. With that said, are some people here honestly saying Wind Waker? If anything it's over-appreciated.

MGS2, everyone seems to think MGS3 is the best game of the series but I insist MGS2 has the most interesting story and the most polished gameplay of the original three games.

I actually just played through Minish Cap recently and I do agree its good, although I can understand why it doesn;t get as much love as other Zeldas. The kinstone fusing could be a bitch, and the figurine collecting in MC was just torturous (which might not have been as much of an issue if it wasn't required to do to get a piece of heart). Wasn;t one of the funner games to try and complete or explore, when alot of stuff was blocked off by the deceptively kind of convoluted kinstone fusing system.

Now the Oracle games I agree with. I loved those games and would consider them some of my favorite Zelda games TBH (especially Seasons). These games generally don't pop up in favorite Zelda game discussions.

Not really, Oot, MM and Lttp are considered "better" than WW

zelda games still sell very strong. i think the highest selling zelda game was TP but besides that they all have similar sales

What I mean is that there is a very vast portion of the fanbase that will say Wind Waker is the best game in the series, and there is.

There is also a vast portion that hates it- this is the same as Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or Twilight Princess.

Really, the only Zelda game which gets universal love is A Link to the Past.

MGS3. I have never played the original but from all the others its by far the one i enjoyed the most.

Off the top of my head: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for the GC. It was awesome to play with friends, and it's a shame they didn't expand on it with a sequel. There was a DS game, but it wasn't as fun.

Best Metroid game? Are you high?

This lol. Zelda is artificially highly rated. If a Zelda game is a 91 on metacritic, it's probably a bad game period. Give that score to a lesser known franchise, it's probably doing something amazing. Bayonetta 2 for example.

This. I held off playing it for years because of the lukewarm reception. May have skipped it entirely if not for the Prime Trilogy collection. Sooo glad I finally played though. Great game.

Bushido Blade 2, not so much underrated though. More like people forget it even happened.

Also, I really liked 1080 Avalanche.

THISSSS

The job system, characters, dungeon design, the extra dungeon in the GBA version, the superbosses, make it my favourite Final Fantasy.

I strongly agree with most of this post but just can't with the bolded. A few parts of Skyward Sword were almost unbearably boring.

AC: Rogue.

Star Fox Adventures and Assault

Early Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider (Legend and Anniversary, never played Underworld yet)

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and Deception (I liked Armageddon too)

Sonic Colors, Advance and Rush

Metroid Prime 2 and 3 (Other M is a fine game too, despite it's Sonic 06 esque reception from Metroid fans)

God of War 3. It's my favorite God of War game.

Maybe he meant best Metroid Prime game which is understandable. Best Metroid game period? Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission have it beat.

Resident Evil 5, 6, Operation Raccoon City

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge

Final Fantasy XIII. Wow the hate that game gets is just unreal but I really liked it.

Metroid Prime > all of those listed.

ODST. Probably the second best Halo campaign, and probably Martys best work.

I think the only part that might have been a drag is the very beginning.

Minish cap is probably the most overlooked zelda in recent memory, that game was great