[Juneberry]

No matter what generation if's from, there's bound to be game gems that aren't well known sometimes. So, why don't we talk about some of our favorite games that could've been way more popular than they were?

My personal favorite that comes to mind is a GBA game called Car Battler Joe. It was a game focused on a young man with a love of armored vehicle racing/battles, with a storyline focused on reuniting a family and helping others through quests. It was just a really fun racing/car battle game, but I really loved the storyline to be honest... That made it worth way more than I think it was treated as.

[Darth-Apple]

Never heard of that one! I've always been a fan of smaller games. They have more character (and less of a commercialized appeal) to them. Nowadays they are becoming more popular, as game engines have come a long way and have made the game development process easier.

[Lain]

Eternal Senia: Probably not underrated by any means, but certainly underplayed. Take a look at the 97% positive on Steam. It's a free game and for the price of free, it's truly incredible for what it is. Cried like a complete bitch throughout.

One Way Heroics (+ DLC): Another incredibly game that isn't really 'underrated' but also underplayed. Randomly generated maps, 10min playthroughs, extremely basic gameplay, but you'll see how difficult it is to beat the game even on the easier modes. Oh, and the OST is great too. There's a Vita version as well apparently, but I have a jailbroken Vita and it's not listed on PKGj so I guess I can't play it :'( But maybe I can find the VPK files online somewhere...

RIFT: For what it was back in the day, it was probably the closest you'd get to a truly F2P WoW clone, and had way more on top of that, like the idea of dimensional rifts spawning randomly around the map and using those as like mini-events which players could still get some fancy gear, premium currencies, and add some more fun to the overall grind. I think I only invested about 20$ in the game because of some event, but I could have unlocked more or less everything for 5$ (Market/Auction house usage). That being said, if you grinded out the money, you could buy that feature for free, or at the very least, if you found a good guild with really friendly people (wasn't hard a few years ago, community is amazing) you could just use them as a middleman to sell off your wares and whatever you'd be crafting. I invested so much time into that game, I check in every now and then still to see the new content. Have a few maxed chars, but the game really isn't what it used to be. The devs (Trion) sold off the project to another company that doesn't really care much for the players and made it way more P2W, less expansions/content releases, and the community is more or less dead now. But shit, years ago it was incredible for F2P., you could still win PvP because there wasn't any gear that you couldn't get just from straight grinding, and you couldn't buy any 'better' gear. It was definitely underrated when it was in its prime, though. True WoW-like tab-targetting combat and raids, but the community was also a lot more laid-back than WoW and the big/small guilds alike were both really easy to get into, people were just looking to have some fun.

Trove: Also developed by Trion, was F2P initially, but over the years became much more P2W. But, for an MMO with free-building, it's still fantastic for that alone. Each biome had its own craftable items if you had the blocks (and recipes) for it. Recipe grinding took quite a bit of time but once you get to a certain level you'd be able to clear everything quickly (get some wings and jump + 20 boosts and you can fly across the map really quickly.) Neon Ninja was my main class. Again, over time it became very P2W so I can't really recommend it anymore for dungeon crawling where you get all the fancy gear because you need to first get to the level for that, then you also need good enough gear to actually be useful. Classes are bought with money and so is gear like flasks and whatnot.

RuneScape 07 (oldschool): Probably not unheard of or unplayed given they have millions of accounts registered, but there's a saying that RS players never truly quit the game; they just take very long breaks. Also certainly not P2W (although buying gold from Chinese bot farms is really cheap and membership does unlock a ton of content.) But, around Christmas 2019, I got really into it again then caught the flu. I had a fever dream where I was just endlessly grinding mining and just had such a bad time in that dream that I decided to quit again, taking it as a sign that I really shouldn't be wasting my time endlessly grinding.

The early FINAL FANTASY games: FFVI was my fave out of the first six, and VI was actually the U.S. release of FFIII IIRC. Lots of people know of their existence, but most people only ever mention FFVII, FFIV, FFXV and FFXIV in their top 5 lists. VI was incredible and they really perfected the whole combat thing while keeping the story fresh (or at least a bit different from the 1/2/4/5). Definitely underrated.

[Guardian]

RIFT: For what it was back in the day, it was probably the closest you'd get to a truly F2P WoW clone, and had way more on top of that, like the idea of dimensional rifts spawning randomly around the map and using those as like mini-events which players could still get some fancy gear, premium currencies, and add some more fun to the overall grind. I think I only invested about 20$ in the game because of some event, but I could have unlocked more or less everything for 5$ (Market/Auction house usage). That being said, if you grinded out the money, you could buy that feature for free, or at the very least, if you found a good guild with really friendly people (wasn't hard a few years ago, community is amazing) you could just use them as a middleman to sell off your wares and whatever you'd be crafting. I invested so much time into that game, I check in every now and then still to see the new content. Have a few maxed chars, but the game really isn't what it used to be. The devs (Trion) sold off the project to another company that doesn't really care much for the players and made it way more P2W, less expansions/content releases, and the community is more or less dead now. But shit, years ago it was incredible for F2P., you could still win PvP because there wasn't any gear that you couldn't get just from straight grinding, and you couldn't buy any 'better' gear. It was definitely underrated when it was in its prime, though. True WoW-like tab-targetting combat and raids, but the community was also a lot more laid-back than WoW and the big/small guilds alike were both really easy to get into, people were just looking to have some fun.

I remember friends raving about this one. Saying its going to be the WoW killer. I was too wrapped up into WoW to switch over, and now I have none of them...

Should have tried it then. If its more P2W I will definitely not try it now.

[MofaMF]

Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon on the N64

What a fantastic game! Me and my friends rate it in my N64 top and that's along with games such as ZeldaOT and Goldeneye .....

If you're looking for a platform adventure game with a mystical Japanese appearance, then I would definitely find a way to play it.

Also, as I love game music - this sits highly in my list!

[Kyng]

I think Crypt of the NecroDancer is quite underrated.

Not a lot of people seem to know about it - but, it's a weird mix of dungeon crawler and rhythm game. The object is to negotiate a monster-filled dungeon, killing monsters while sticking to the beat of the background music. It's not an easy game to get the hang of (you need to memorise all the attack patterns, and have them committed to your muscle memory so that you know instinctively how to deal with each monster) - but, once I got into it, I found that I enjoyed it a lot .