Games you love and you don't understand why they are so unpopular

[SirFinlot]

Say thanks to stupid Mickey Mouse copyright laws. That was the easiest way to release game in English, considering that Western licenses are spread among dozens of companies, while in Asian region pretty much 90% of them belongs to Sunrise and rest belongs to companies that are fans of SRW themselves. You can get them by changing region, using VPN and several other methods. AFAIR there's also physical DVDs available, but don't quote me on that.

I'm not sure I understand.

Here's random video of SRW X I've just pulled from search, timestamp set to player move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGyARcnutQE&t=1082s
selects own unit -> command menu pops up
select "move" -> select tile -> post-move menu pops up
select "attack" -> select weapon -> select enemy
pre-battle stats screen pops up -> select start
optional animation that can be skipped or disabled
post-battle xp/loot screen

Here's random video of SRW J: https://youtu.be/P9tD7Bochgw?t=481
selects own unit -> command menu pops up
select "move" -> select tile -> post-move menu pops up
select "attack" -> select weapon -> select enemy
pre-battle stats screen pops up -> select start
optional animation that can be skipped or disabled
post-battle xp/loot screen

Where's the difference? Incidentally, many other tactic RPGs have pretty much the same flow.

Are you sure you didn't just look up X on youtube and got some novice player or walkthrough video? Many players in those seems to be obsessed with checking stats on every own and enemy unit every damn move, don't know about "cursor over" stat screen and second guess weapon selection several times before attack.

Linked SRWJ video does not reflect "the limits". There is a neat feature to speed up animations, and stuff, in general.
I dusted off my 2DS and recorded the first mission and half of the second. Sorry for the bad quality, as I was filming via camera, had some difficulties focusing the view.
By pressing Right Trigger at the correct times stuff will speed up, instead of cycling through units (you can see how I didn't release the trigger and it kept cycling at 1:28). It's a native feature to this game, didn't notice it in SRW OG1/OG2.

The first mission, with all the speed-ups, takes less than 4 minutes to complete. Linked video took 15+ minutes to complete. And that's fair, as it was done for "Lets play".

Fair note, I remember the story by heart at this point, so I just skip through it by pressing Right Trigger and A. And I disable animations.

But the stuff in general feels way faster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQkRx5CXVZ8

From one point of view, it's my bias talking, because I am used to the small screen and minimal UI.
SRW X is played on PC and feels a bit clunky, so it annoys me.

If X could run at the same speed, I would gladly give it a try!

[Lothaeryn]

- Metroid Other M. I don't really get the hate this game receives. For me it still is one of my most favorite Metroid games. I just loved the fusion between first person Prime gameplay and the traditional sidescrolling "vania" gameplay. It was also one of the few Wii games where I actually enjoyed the motion controls.

The issue that most people complained about in Other M wasn't the gameplay; in fact, it was one of the best parts about the game. Mechanically it was well recieved.

The thing people hated it for was the regressive character development Samus received as a character in that game.

Personally, I could technically defend the rationalization of Samus wanting to prove her worthiness as a soldier to Adam, and even her PTSD moment with Ridley, but it was poorly executed and didn't translate well in the western localization, because Japanese cultural concepts of strength are interpreted differently. Thats not even including some of the bizarre storyline BS that happened in that game.

Personally, I want to see Earthsiege/Starsiege and Tribes make a come back. Fuck Hi-Rez for hoarding the IP from public domain.

[MeTaL GuArD]

Personally, I want to see Earthsiege/Starsiege and Tribes make a come back. Fuck Hi-Rez for hoarding the IP from public domain.

Tribes was the shit. Vengeance had a really cool single player story that I got genuinely invested in. I wish they made a sequel to that.

Seeing the "X-siege" in the name makes me think of Dungeon Siege. 3 wasn't actually too bad on the gameplay side, but it won me over with the story, yet again - with the ability to make story-impacting decisions at certain points in the game that led to different outcomes at the epilogue, a bit Fallout 1 and 2 style. I do understand why it wasn't received well though, since it was a huge departure from the first two in pretty much every way possible.

[Lothaeryn]

Tribes was the shit. Vengeance had a really cool single player story that I got genuinely invested in. I wish they made a sequel to that.

Seeing the "X-siege" in the name makes me think of Dungeon Siege. 3 wasn't actually too bad on the gameplay side, but it won me over with the story, yet again - with the ability to make story-impacting decisions at certain points in the game that led to different outcomes at the epilogue, a bit Fallout 1 and 2 style. I do understand why it wasn't received well though, since it was a huge departure from the first two in pretty much every way possible.

IIRC, it was supposed to be a prequel to Tribes 1 and 2, its time period is like 300+ years behind technologically and set some background for the conflicts in T1.

Best part is, Tribes was a long distant future of the Earth/Starsiege series, everything between them was canon in the timeline in some fashion.

Children of Pheonix= Misguided worshippers of Harabec Weathers' sacrifice (who was voiced by Mark Hamill of all people too). Blood Eagle= Remnants of the Terran Empire.

I remember reading the timeline in the Tribes manual and wishing I could see some of the historical pieces in a game.

[Irian]

Dark Cloud 2 is a criminally underrated and unknown game for how fun and creative the game is. If you're a fan of JRPGs then I can ever suggest it to this day, I recently replayed it to see if nostalgia was playing tricks on me and nope, still love it.

[PACOX]

Cyberpunk 2077. Yes its not as good as they claimed it to be. Yes it has some small bugs for me ( very minor). But i am liking it and seeing a lot of potential.
one of the things it does better then other big open world games. Is that the area's with a lot of people. ( markets etc) feel real. And way more buildings are open to you then other games.

Battlefront 2 at launch. Yes you had those bad boxes. But it look, sounded and feels awsome.

Perfect dark ( or jet force geminni, concker bad fury day). People sometimes seem to hate on it. It was a great original ip on the n64. looked great for the time. had great stuff. Man that gamestudio Rare was....no IS the greatest studio in 1 generation ever. For real i do not think there is a other studio that had that many hits or so little crap title's in 1 generation of a console.

I'll vouch for Battlefront 2. A good game. I think it's fault (apart from controversy that didn't even make it into the game) was some people clearly wanted it just for singleplayer, which there wasn't enough of to justify its price tag.

I have another spicy take, EAs shooters are some of best player friendly shooters in the business. Battlefront, Battlefield, Titanfall, Apex, even Plants vs Zombies, EA supports the game for years with regular content updates that aren't masked behind annual full price releases.

They sell cosmetics, which I think is fine.

[Super Kami Dende]

Star Wars the Old Republic.

Literally the only game I've been continually subbed to for the last 4-5 years. even if I only play it once or Twice a month to get a Star Wars fix or scratch the Itch of something Scifi. It is still one of my all time favourite Games.

Don't get me wrong, I *definitely* know the shortcomings of the game, be it content or Engine. But I cant help but love it.

[druchii5]

Star Wars the Old Republic.

Literally the only game I've been continually subbed to for the last 4-5 years. even if I only play it once or Twice a month to get a Star Wars fix or scratch the Itch of something Scifi. It is still one of my all time favourite Games.

Don't get me wrong, I *definitely* know the shortcomings of the game, be it content or Engine. But I cant help but love it.

I agree. To many people, it didn't live up to the "hype", but I still think it's a very fun MMO. I still go back to it from time to time. In similar vein, I think ESO gets too much hate due to it's combat. I'm currently subbed to ESO, and while combat is a indeed a weaker point, everything else about that game is pretty damn good as far as MMOs go. It truly does feel like an online world to me.

[Gref]

Ghost in the shell on steam. man that game was awesome. server had to shut down because of inadequate player numbers.
Capture the base missions were great. the characters, settings, music was all awesome.

Last remnant on pc again. cannot believe it didn't get a sequel with that ending.
Same as armored core. the last game was armored core 5 on ps3.
port it to pc and put it on steam, add more customization and people would flock to it i always said but nope, strictly on consoles and it died slowly.

[Sinaa]

Hexplore, Rage of Mages 2 on PC and Ocmo on iOS.

[lagiacrux]

Ghost in the shell on steam. man that game was awesome. server had to shut down because of inadequate player numbers.
Capture the base missions were great. the characters, settings, music was all awesome.

Last remnant on pc again. cannot believe it didn't get a sequel with that ending.
Same as armored core. the last game was armored core 5 on ps3.
port it to pc and put it on steam, add more customization and people would flock to it i always said but nope, strictly on consoles and it died slowly.

just wanted to mention the last remnant remaster is going to come out soon, but i just looked it up and it came out 2019 .... ouch
gonna have to pick it up eventually

[Aucald]

Asheron's Call, one of the first-gen modern MMORPG's that co-existed alongside EverQuest and Ultima Online. AC was largely overshadowed by the mega-popular EQ, but I found AC to be more dynamic and ultimately more fun than its more popular sibling. Fully customizable "classes," live events, and a unique world with an evolving story all mixed together with the right ratios. Even though I'd moved on long before, I was sad to see it close back in 2017 after 18 years of operation.

[Lahkesis]

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, amazing gamecube era game that is still probably one of the best HP Lovecraft inspired games out there and it's a shame that the franchise never took off.

[bbr]

This goes both ways though,.

Bad games you hate and dont understand why so many people like it.
Or some books for that matter.

Like skyrim and lords of the ring.

[rowaasr13]

Hexplore, Rage of Mages 2 on PC and Ocmo on iOS.

Heh, my pal from back at home town is raid designer in Allods (how RoM is known domestically) MMO nowadays.

[Mysterymask]

Seriously Wild Arms is ..usually just an ok series but whenever people talk about it they mainly talk about the first one..and either the pretty charming story or how god damned buggy it was

But man...2 blew that game out of the water and years later and 5 other entries later I still think this is the best one. Granted this game is amazing and the other 4 are kinda crappy/boring. But I don't know something about Wild Arms 2 is just..actually pretty good. Has a good mix of charm,an AMAZING sountrack, a pretty good story, great puzzles and a slew of fantastic characters. My only real gripe on it is their way of dealing with Random Battles (Oh you can cancel every like..2 of them and its still a similar encounter rate of any other JRPG) and this was the first game with the series Brilliant (TERRIBLE) idea of you have to search the world map for stuff...like towns are invisible until you push square and it happens to be in the search field. It was stupid and just padded the game. BUT everything else was fantastic. I don't expect this in anyone's best rpg ever conversation but...to me if your going to talk about Wild Arms you REALLY should be talking about 2 over 1.

The rest are terrible and should honestly be ignored.

[Mendzia]

Heroes of might and magic 3 - Its such a classic and i cant put my finger on exactly why it feels so much better and satisfying than any the later releases in the same genre. Given that it has a rather big fan following it might not fit in this thread but i thought id mention it anyway.

Huh?!
Are you joking, right?
There is huge HoMM3 community with tens of thousands people online playing daily, tournaments and patches.
Thanks to HotA this game had never been so alive before...
Sadly Docent Picolan (main person of the whole project) died at the end of last year ... but his team decided to continue work and new fraction (Factory) can be released any day now.
Personally i play atleast of dozen random maps with IRL friends or against AI every few months.

[Mysterymask]

Huh?!
Are you joking, right?
There is huge HoMM3 community with tens of thousands people online playing daily, tournaments and patches.
Thanks to HotA this game had never been so alive before...
Sadly Docent Picolan (main person of the whole project) died at the end of last year ... but his team decided to continue work and new fraction (Factory) can be released any day now.
Personally i play atleast of dozen random maps with IRL friends or against AI every few months.

The one issue i have with this thread is a lot of people confuse "Not Mainstream" and "Not Popular"...by that logic every RPG not named Final Fantasy 7 and Persona 5 would qualify. Likewise FIFA and Madden are 2 of the best selling games period and I'm pretty sure there is maybe 4 people on this forum that play them regularly.

[Aphrel]

Huh?!
Are you joking, right?
There is huge HoMM3 community with tens of thousands people online playing daily, tournaments and patches.
Thanks to HotA this game had never been so alive before...
Sadly Docent Picolan (main person of the whole project) died at the end of last year ... but his team decided to continue work and new fraction (Factory) can be released any day now.
Personally i play atleast of dozen random maps with IRL friends or against AI every few months.

read again! I said it has a rather big fan following! Wich is why it probobly doesn't fit in a thread about unpopular games^^

[Spacewalrus2010]

Last Epoch. I wouldn't say I "love" it, but I think the game is great.

Yes, its still in early access which is likely why I suppose. Just figured there would be more people following it at the very least given the ARPG genre is pretty starved atm.