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

[Alteiry]

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.

Man, their RTS game is so obscure I even forgot I've played it. I did enjoy the RPG side of it but the combat gameplay was a chore and I ended up just cheating to power through it.

[unfilteredJW]

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.

This is mine as well.

Great art style and the best 5 mans ever done.

[Lodreh]

Old NES game, "The Battle of Olympus"... it was great. The game play was Metroidvania but the items, creature designs, and Greek mythology mix just added to the wonder. It is probably one of only a handful of NES games I never completed. I am still stunned there hasn't been an update of this game since release.

[AcidicSyn]

Man, their RTS game is so obscure I even forgot I've played it. I did enjoy the RPG side of it but the combat gameplay was a chore and I ended up just cheating to power through it.

I just played Dragon Commander a few months ago, it was fun as hell lol. (Okay it was amusing as hell, maybe not the same thing). I did enjoy the later game when you could just solo the entire map as the dragon though. Was a really cool concept but was not balanced at all in either direction.

Another game, two in fact, I really enjoyed that I actually don't think was unpopular at all except within my circle of friends:

Black and White - I would leave this game running over night to let my creature grow and learn on the second island before moving on, loved this game so much and really REALLY wish we'd get another one. Universim just isn't scratching the itch the right way.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto (VERY specifically the base building. My friends loved playing Mecc vs Mecc deathmatch but hated base build)

[Flurryfang]

This is mine as well.

Great art style and the best 5 mans ever done.

Damm, for a second i forgot the 5 mans :O It really did have the best introducary dungeon of all MMOs O.o Stormtalon's Lair was a dungeon with raid mechanics and the best last boss fight i have ever seen in a dungeon.

[exsanguinate]

Bioshock 2

[rowaasr13]

Binary Domain. It really is a shame this game did not get all the love it deserved, in my opinion. I thought it had really fun third person cover shooter gameplay, the enemies were fun to fight against, the characters I thought were very likable, and the story was interesting. The ending even teases at a possible sequel but obviously we never got one which really is a shame. It makes me sad. I find myself going back to that game every once in a while just because of how fun it is.

I got Contra, but in 3D vibes from this - there's tons of "figure out attack pattern and dance along" with BD bosses. And considering how much I love this type of play in 2D - I had a blast with BD too.

One of my all-time favorites was Front Mission 4.
I wouldn't say it was completely underappreciated, but it had mediocre reviews and I think it may have been a bigger deal in Japan,

That's because its story didn't live up to standards of FM1-3. FM4 is good game gameplay-wise, but story was kinda boring compared to previous installments.

As said by others already, I too think HotS deserves more praise.
There's one more lesser known MOBA that I liked more than mainstream stuff -Prime World. Unfortunately it has so toxic community with impotent moderators and so prevalent "win first push and snowball from there or spam surrender button" mentality that I had to drop it despite its unique progression system with long-term character power growth.

Most of the other games that I love are not really "unpopular", but mostly just unknown today because they're pretty old by now and most people simply didn't had chance to play them. I really hope they get their remakes someday.
Star Control 2
Might and Magic 1-5 (i.e. entire old Corak/Sheltem saga)
Wizardry 6-8, especially 7.
Alpha Centauri (no, Civ BE dosn't count as "remake" it has a few Easter egg references to AC though)
TIE Fighter
Phantasy Star series before Online, especially PS4.
Langrisser series - there's relatively fresh remake for 1-2, but that's all for now
Princess Maker series, especially 2nd
Somebody already mentioned Shining Force

- - - Updated - - -

Super Robot Wars OG1/2 - GBA games. Its popular in Japan, but not in the rest of the world. Modding community is almost non-existent, compared to stuff like Pokemon. SRWJ got an english translation, I am very grateful for that. Wish we got SRWW full english translation patch.

You do know there's recent international releases for recent installments like V and X on Steam, right? Though I too would like to see remasters for all the older and not so older series like Z1-3. They had some remakes in past so I will hope they bring more official releases to PC in future.

[Amarys]

Black and White - I would leave this game running over night to let my creature grow and learn on the second island before moving on, loved this game so much and really REALLY wish we'd get another one. Universim just isn't scratching the itch the right way.

Yea. Black and White 2 was amazing. Can't believe nothing in the same vein hasn't come out for over a decade.

Other than that. I miss "old school" RTS and RPG games like Neverwinter Nights 2, Total Annihilation: kingdoms and such. The problem with newer games like that is that always seem to devolve into action based platformers or APM ultra fast paced competitive games in case of RTS.

[XDurionX]

95% of the games mentioned here were never unpopular.

[sil3ntearth]

My vote would be Hellgate: London a shame what happened to it overall. I lost the original disc i had

Holy crap! I think about that game more often than I probably should. I had such a great time in that game. That would be my vote as well.

[msdos]

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.

Yeah I'm seeing a lot of 10+ year old games in here. FF Tactics actually was insanely popular for it's time, dunno why people are putting that.

My choices: Project Zomboid, Banished, XCOM 2, Fallout 76.

My hunch is because they're too hard for people. If you die, you're dead and done and you start a new save in those games.
For Project Zomboid, people can't get over the learning curve. This guy on twitch has been boiling rags in the game for like a month because that's all his brain can handle in an open world that doesn't stack you up with quests and directions.

XCOM if you make mistakes attrition slowly eats away at you until you have to start your save over.

Banished is Knights and Merchants, but hard economically.

The thing about Fallout 76 is people straight up don't give it a chance. They will play Valheim, but they won't play Fallout 76 and Fallout 76 you do everything you do in Valheim but it's 20x better (minus sailing the open seas, that is the main draw of Valheim).

People really don't like games unless a UI with a radar and map and a talking head appears and starts feeding you way points, quests and items. You'd be surprised by how many people don't like sandbox games.

[Kallisto]

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

Honestly, I never got how RE4 was considered by many the greatest in the series while 5 was outright hated. The two games are 99% the same. Play the same, enemies are mostly the same down to the burlap sack chainsaw guy and overly military final third.

[SirFinlot]

You do know there's recent international releases for recent installments like V and X on Steam, right? Though I too would like to see remasters for all the older and not so older series like Z1-3. They had some remakes in past so I will hope they bring more official releases to PC in future.

Steam ones are Region Locked (or whatever it's called), I can't buy them on Steam. "(This item is currently unavailable in your region)"

Tho I did play X at "my friends" place, who "managed" to get it running.

Didn't like it much. Tables, tables, tables everywhere, result tables, damage tables, tables, more tables!
It was so damn slow. You queue up attack, shit flashes and tables popup with damage!

SRWJ was the best for me. Events were fast and clear. UI was minimal and clear.
The only critique I would have or it is upgrades and skills points sticking through playthroughs. SRW OG1/2 had it reset on New Game+.
Oh and puzzle missions. Felt mandatory.

[Kumorii]

Honestly, I never got how RE4 was considered by many the greatest in the series while 5 was outright hated. The two games are 99% the same. Play the same, enemies are mostly the same down to the burlap sack chainsaw guy and overly military final third.

Agreed, I never understand RE 4 fans in that regard... Especially when they say 5 and 6 ruined the series. 4 was the game that fundamentally changed the game into 5 and 6...I never found the design of 4 good on it's own either... grey and brown, boring enemies...then you get to a fkn castle with knights and using siege weapons. It went off the rails... 5 is pretty tame compared to 4 in that regard.

[Shaiandra]

Most of the other games that I love are not really "unpopular", but mostly just unknown today because they're pretty old by now and most people simply didn't had chance to play them. I really hope they get their remakes someday.
Princess Maker series, especially 2nd

I've loved Princess Maker 2 since the late 90s, but I'm pretty sure I can understand why it wouldn't be popular.. For a long time I've deemed PM2 as "my favourite game that isn't fun", as odd as that may sound. I do love the planning and options and such, but it can totally get tedious, especially when you're at a point that grinding enemies is by far your most efficient source of income.

Around the end of 2018 I bought all the Princess Maker games that I saw on Steam, which were PM1, 2, 3, and 5, but 1 wasn't as good as 2 which is understandable, while I found 3 extremely disappointing, and 5 was taking forever and I gave up after a couple hours...

I haven't looked into that Princess Maker "board game"-like game that came out for Switch later. Nor did I look into Ciel Fledge which was supposedly inspired by PM2..

[Rampant Rabbit]

Anyone have games like that?

My game has to be C9 (Continent of the Ninth)
An instanced MMORPG with an amazing combat system that reminds me of my younger years when i used to draw stick figures fighting eachother in a piece of paper.
The combat + combo system is amazing

I relogged and re-downloaded the game today, after many many years
Last time i played was on Wrath of the Lich king when i was on the burnout phase of WoW.

This is the game's steam charts today:

That game is not unpopular, it's dead.

[Orange Joe]

- 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.

As someone who loved other Metroids but didn't even pick up other M. It's because Other M was more of a ATE than game. (just my opinion and one I heard shared by many others.

Mine was FF8. I still consider it the best FF game. Junction was very easy to figure out and once you did you could make yourself op as hell

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Apparently it killed the franchise, or so I hear. I dunno why, I absolutely loved the game.

Prince of Persia 2008. Maybe it was popular, but all I know is it never got any follow-up and the series seemed to go back to the Sands of Time story right afterwards.

[BeepBoo]

That game is not unpopular, it's dead.

"all-time peak: 2811"

Seems pretty unpopular to me?

On-topic: front mission 4 was the only front mission I ever played. It was pretty enjoyable; solid 7/10 at the time. I saw some other FPS-lite game that is out which had Wanzers in it (Left Alive) and found out it was in the front mission universe. I would have preferred a true front mission game myself.

[Aliven]

Jade Empire. It's the best and most unique game Bioware ever made but almost nobody played it that I know of. Now it's all DA and ME, which is extremely frustrating as I can't stand those games.

Agree but JE was bioware RPG to the numbers - travel the world with a ship and gather companions with 3d combat. The setting and stories were neat and you could end up as a truly fucked up villain.