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

[Martymark]

I love Sins of a Solar Empire, and have put several THOUSANDS of hours into it. I've tried to get my friends to play it, but they've all hated it. So I guess I just have bad taste, but I still enjoy it.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I think the only one I can think of that comes close to being an example would be World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria... When it was current, that is.

The rest tends to be if not AAA games that sell in the millions, at least well-received and garnering a small but dedicated following, such as with MegaQuarium and Banished...

[Jastall]

Pillars of Eternity series, especially 2 which I liked a lot but whose sales bombed even in the context of it being a fairly niche RPG.

Total War: Attila, one of my favorites in the series behind Medieval II and Warhammer. It has the deepest campaign map gameplay of any Total War and actually strives to make the endgame less of a steamroll; sure, it has issues, but I can't even begin to understand why people like Rome 2's low difficulty and spaghetti battle lines better.

Darksiders series. III is pretty weak, but I love I and II.

[PACOX]

Elite with a flight stick is amazing. It’s easily the best space sim to date. All you need is a cheap Thrustmaster Hotas set up. I have a T16000 which I paid about a $100 for on sale (happens quite a bit).

But on M/KB, the game is a bit rough. Mainly because there will be a bunch of times you’ll be attempting maneuvers that require a more natural intuitive control than just a keybind can offer.

Where did you find a stick?

[Mysterymask]

I love Sins of a Solar Empire, and have put several THOUSANDS of hours into it. I've tried to get my friends to play it, but they've all hated it. So I guess I just have bad taste, but I still enjoy it.

...doesnt mean bad taste more like your into a niche

Shit when people at work ask what kinda games I play they look at me funny when I tell them things like Persona 5, Celeste, and Guilty Gear....

[desertlizard]

Resident evil 6. I personally love the game and it has pretty much the same system that RE4+5 used with some tweaks. Don’t understand the hate it gets

hate it gets cause it was not a "RESIDENT EVIL GAME FORMULA" of the prior 3 original games, pretty much happened with RE5 too

[Alteiry]

Divine Divinity, the isometric, Diablo-style RPG released in 2002 by Larion Studios that eventually spawned Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Literally don't know anyone else who played it, whether IRL or online.

[dwightyo39]

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest

Mario 2

[StillMcfuu]

Where did you find a stick?

This was like 3 years ago lol. Tough finding sticks now due to MS Flight Sim. Although if you have a Micro Center near you, or some other pc parts store, I was in one prior to Christmas and they had a bunch of flight sticks. That was right in the middle of the drive for them.

[desertlizard]

dante's inferno should have a prequel or sequel for that matter, GOW clon my balls

[Biggles Worth]

Final Fantasy IX
Maybe the Steamworld series.

[Neuroticaine]

ROFL you are incredibly naive.

A full-fledged xpac is going to generate massive profits.

One tenth the amount of people that bought Diablo III bought Reaper of Souls. There wasn't enough long term interest to keep supporting the game by creating more expansions. In the fact that it didn't live up to their long term hopes, yes, you could say the game was a failure. But in terms of commercial success, it is one of the most profitable things Blizzard has ever created, and had a content life span just as long as Diablo II while completely dwarfing it in sales.

We get it. You hate the game. But it was not a failure.

- - - Updated - - -

quake tbh. i dont get why it went out of fashion

Quake 4 came out at a time when the military shooter boom was getting started and probably didn't fair too well against the competition at the time.

With the success of the Doom reboot and Doom Eternal, I wouldn't be surprised if id is considering a Quake reboot.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Divine Divinity, the isometric, Diablo-style RPG released in 2002 by Larion Studios that eventually spawned Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Literally don't know anyone else who played it, whether IRL or online.

Well now you know one, I also played their other Divinity games, like ego draconis, beyond, etc. I just never got to play the RTS hybrid, though supposedly it's worth it to slog through it just for the inter-mission RPG stuff.

Edit: Another one from my "less known" list would be the spellforce series. Also the old sacrifice game, I only ever heard John Bain talk about it, otherwise I've never heard anyone mention it.

[Flurryfang]

1: Wildstar. I never understood why people did not play it just for the artstyle and humor. I know it had some bad systems, but god is there a lot of MMOs who are doing alright today, that are so much worse than Wildstar. That game deserved better and i hope the team found some people who understod how much good stuff they made.

2: Heroes of Might and Magic 5: Most people know Might and Magic, but its mostly MoM 3. But in my opinion, MoM 5 is nearly as great as 3 if not better and i don't get why it does not have a cult following like 3 has. Its a shame, that the Might and Magic francise is left to rot as it is, but god was there some good Might and Magic games that needs more respect.

[Cosmic Janitor]

1: Wildstar. I never understood why people did not play it just for the artstyle and humor. I know it had some bad systems, but god is there a lot of MMOs who are doing alright today, that are so much worse than Wildstar. That game deserved better and i hope the team found some people who understod how much good stuff they made.

I think the boldet part is your answer. They also made the mistake to target a hardcore audience (though most people probably didn't pay attention to that) when their graphics would have attracted fortnite kiddies easier.

[Flurryfang]

I think the boldet part is your answer. They also made the mistake to target a hardcore audience (though most people probably didn't pay attention to that) when their graphics would have attracted fortnite kiddies easier.

Ohh i get why it did not become mainstream, but the artstyle and humor is what people love about games like Ratchet and Clank, Jack and Daxter and even some parts of Warcraft 3. I don't think it would ever be one of the big MMOs, but that it had to shut down i never got. There had to be enough people out there, whos jam was that, for it to keep going like so many bad asian MMOs.

[Zephire]

- Timesplitters series. It is a crime that they are not a popular series. Still to this day I consider these games especially TS 2 and TS Future Perfect to be my favorite FPS games of all time. The gameplay, the characters, the music (god, the music...), and the amount of unlockable content these games had was just amazing. Whenever a discussion comes up talking about how games are today I bring up TS 2 and TS Future Perfect as prime examples of how games should be made in terms of content.

Man, I have never owned a console but that game, it was just a blast to play when visiting friends. Completely forgotten it. Timesplitters and Unchartered 2 (or 3? don't remember) are great games.

I'm sad to say that I don't really play anything unpopular...

I guess Megaton Rainfall would fall into that category but it's a single player short game so... It's a really cool game, could imagine it being great for VR, about you being some kind of divine entity or accending to godhood. Do recommend

[zealo]

There's a lot of people in this thread mentioning games that are actually reasonably popular for what they are.

Just because a game is older now, it doesn't mean that it weren't hugely positively received when it came out.

Things like mainline Final Fantasy games, to take an example from above, does not belong anywhere near a thread like this.

[Hellobolis]

homeworld series.

sacrifice. storydriven RTS where you the commander play as a 3rd person unit on the battlefield yourself, with surprisingly good voice acting and style. (got a feeling a remake or inspired by game like this would do pretty well today)

[Cosmic Janitor]

Ohh i get why it did not become mainstream, but the artstyle and humor is what people love about games like Ratchet and Clank, Jack and Daxter and even some parts of Warcraft 3. I don't think it would ever be one of the big MMOs, but that it had to shut down i never got. There had to be enough people out there, whos jam was that, for it to keep going like so many bad asian MMOs.

Many people enjoy MMOs at least to some degree for immersion (as these are games you generally want to sink hundreds of hours into), I doubt many people have tried to immerse themselves in Ratchet and Clank to that degree. I loved banjo and kazooie back then as well as nice funny puzzle-platformers, but I wouldn't want to play an MMO in that style. Then there is also the trend that scifi MMORPGs tend to perform worse than the usual classical fantasy setting, at least I can't think of many compared to the dozens of fantasy setting MMORPGs that survive to this day against all odds. Unless you make them straight up shooters like Destiny or create pseudo scifi settings by dousing them in fantasy like Star Wars, most of them tend to fail rather quickly. I think it's because alot of people yearn for the simplicity in these settings and in games they don't have to suffer the drawbacks of that.

You are right though, I'm kinda surprised that they didn't milk it to death, as the server costs have been going down, so it's kinda weird that they didn't keep the corpse around. Maybe their contracts were bad or something, I mean even some browser MMORPGs survive to this day.