Board 8 > What are some games that are underplayed?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not underrated, but underplayed. Like not enough people played them, or they flew under the radar. There's so many releases these days it's hard to keep track of everything.

I really liked a game called Later Alligator. It's an adventure / puzzle / visual novel where every single character is an alligator, and you go around Alligator New York City and do alligator things. It's visual style was so unique and beautiful, and it had great music to go along with it, and it's something that really stuck with me throughout the years.

Hypnospace Outlaw is dope too. You play as the internet police, and you have to go around moderating 90's geocities pages. It's so unique and hilarious, I love it. Definitely worth looking into if youre nostalgic for that era of the internet

I will second both of those games

I'm lucky in that most games I consider to be underplayed eventually blow up later on. Nier is the biggest example. Disco Elysium as well.

oneshot

Final Fantasy VIII

Im pretty sure Hypnospace significantly outdid its sales expectations, I wouldnt call that underplayed at all. I mean its not just getting a sequel, it also has a whole spinoff game out

Suikoden V
Radiata Stories
Dragon Quest Builders 2

Furil. Slick as hell game that could probably be most concisely described as a boss rush with a hybrid of hack-and-slash and bullet hell gameplay. Also hiding one of the best and most memorable stories I've ever encountered in an indie game.

I'll also throw out TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children, an SRPG with one of the most insane cost-to-content ratios out there. Some of the deepest character customization you'll ever see, dense and challenging missions, a monster taming system, and quite a bit of other stuff I know I'm forgetting offhand. There's a certain type of gamer for which I think it would be a strong contender for their favorite game ever - the only thing keeping it out of my own personal top ~10 is that the translation can be a little rough at times and make the story a bit hard to follow.

Oh to add an answer instead of just naysaying, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa

I fully admit i forgot dragon quest builders got a sequel

Was Furi really that good? I played a couple hours of it, beat a couple bosses. Seemed fine

Code Atma for sure. Though I'm biased since I worked on that.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Oh to add an answer instead of just naysaying, The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa

preferably games that are underplayed and good

Cloudbuilt. Awesome little speedrunning 3D platformer that I rarely see talked about, beyond its awesome soundtrack.

Agree with Later Alligator. Fantastic game as well that I figured would have been talked about more.

Snatcher

KamikazePotato posted...

I'm lucky in that most games I consider to be underplayed eventually blow up later on. Nier is the biggest example. Disco Elysium as well.

*Fingerguns*

Nier was my favorite game on the 360. Nowadays, though, I'd probably go for a newer Harvest Moon (because Stardew Valley came along and cannibalized the corpses of all the good ones before it.)

Void Stranger

Wandersong. One of the best indie games from the last 5 years

I almost said Cloudbuilt.

My vote here is going to go to Ato. Pixel-art metroidvania that showed up in my library from I'm-not-sure-where and I tried out one day when I decided to grab a random title in my backlog. Turned out to be surprisingly good. Sadly, I never went back and finished it, but it's remarkably well done and has only a couple hundred reviews on Steam.

TBF, I can generate quite a few other metroidvanias I've played that don't have a ton of reviews and are still decent to play. Alwa's Legacy, Tomomi, 8Doors...while it doesn't suffer for reviews, I also think Afterimage is being tremendously overlooked for 2023 releases.

Dicey Dungeons.

Have sunk so many hours into this game. Excellent presentation and music, super fun and intuitive gameplay, often goes for like $2 and has received free DLC. Works really well as a portable Switch game to play in small spurts.

Pocket Crystal League ++ (basically a free Pokemon themed Inscryption fangame)

Lord of the Rings: Conquest (LotR Star Wars Battlefront)

Hunted: The Demon's Forge (co-op RPG with a great loot system and puzzles)

ONRUSH (MotorStorm style game which somehow bombed even though it's one of the most unique racing games)

Crash Bandicoot 4 (surprise entry: it was underplayed for what was expected to be a huge hit, should be on the same tier as Super Mario Odyssey IMO)

Surskit posted...

Dicey Dungeons.

Have sunk so many hours into this game. Excellent presentation and music, super fun and intuitive gameplay, often goes for like $2 and has received free DLC. Works really well as a portable Switch game to play in small spurts.

Ah yeah nice one. I remember being addicted to that for a few weeks.

Another fantastic one is Slice & Dice, though difficult to judge properly whether it is underplayed.

No One Lives Forever

I thought Freedom Planet 2 delivered like a near-perfect Sonic-like 2D platformer experience, a big improvement over the original in most ways, and it went just totally ignored by the gaming public for some reason and I have no idea why

That's the underplayed game that comes to mind right now in terms of "this game's niche of people who would like it is way bigger than who actually played it"

Mischief Makers.

New games?

I played a game called Feeble Light a few months ago.
It's a SHUMP with good music and neat art style.
It's sort of a rogue lite? But not really.

I found it to be awesome but it's only got 2 reviews on Steam lol
It may be better rated and known on another service though I don't know.

every indie game i like is underplayed tbh

but if I had to pick just one I'd say Phoenotopia: Awakening, a massive, deep, 2D action-adventure-RPG (not technically a metroidvania but it's got those vibes). It's one of those games that seems so packed with things to do and secrets that it's practically impossible to experience it all. Very, very hard combat by default but with very granular difficulty options that let you do things like change which attacks consume stamina or whether healing items can be used from a menu or must be used in real time. Beautiful spritework. Interesting story that unfortunately ends on a cliffhanger that will never be followed up on, because of course it does. one of the games of all time for sure.

*looks at my game library*
uhhhh all of them?

for this year i'd like to heavily pressure people to pick up these ones especially:

All things considered PARANORMASIGHT has done incredibly well, as a virtually indie vn that Square Enix somehow decided to publish yet didn't even bother marketing. Better than Centennial Case (also underplayed) and also the best game they've released this year tbh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUO4isKRg4Y

Ghostpia Season 1 is an incredible solo-produced full animated visual novel (presented like a tape or dvd of an anime miniseries, basically) that harnesses tonal whiplash very well. It's a game overloaded with personality that is absolutely making my top 5 for this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdAEjRJjZgo

Affogato is a unique mix (or blend, rather) of what should've been fully incompatible gameplay concepts, being somewhere inexplicably in between Cherry Tree High Comedy Club and VA-11 Hall-A, with themes derived from Persona 3/4/5, adapted in a way similar to Anodyne but if it had reverse tower defense elements with card mechanics. Has surprisingly fantastic japanese AND chinese dubs, it actually does have a bit of a following in china itself since it's from a small indie studio helmed by a popular Bilibili-based content creator but it hasn't really had much traction elsewhere. Oh yeah also the soundtrack is super catchy, so much jazz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptJU98mL7UI

Alice Escaped and Glimmer in Mirror are two metroidvania-lite titles with very vibrant visuals, released around the start of the year. The former's inspired a bit by games like Rabi-Ribi as well as Ice Climbers and has a wonderland-themed setting as you'd expect. Soundtrack's also a bop. The latter is an incredibly beautiful Hollow Knight clone that also, rather clearly, derives some influence from Ori. It's still unfinished but the foundation already puts it on top of countless other clones out there. Neither is really at the level of being worthy of being considered genre-defining but both are very well made given their statuses as near solo developed games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzt7pb_ryV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTtGiW_QUGE

Volcano Princess is NOT an underplayed game objectively, it randomly turned out to be the best selling indie game in china this year. But same as Affogato, I think most gamers anywhere else don't even really know of its existence so I'll count it anyway. It's just a very respectable raising sim, basically, with a lot of features packed into it that you just don't see otherwise in the genre, which has been seeing an unseen renaissance lately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPzzhcQBw9s

Cave Fictions is weird lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WioNWX2d-og

Sailing Era has been kind of successful tbh but i think a lot of people are still unjustly writing it off as an Uncharted Waters ripoff when it is honestly on par with peak uncharted waters, introducing some truly great and innovative features. filled to the brim with deep mechanics, very satisfying gameplay loop, and just really polished in general, it has to be said that this team have really outdone themselves here with their unofficial entry. i've mostly played the switch version and surprisingly not only is performance unexpectedly well optimised, controls are also very straightforward despite the game very much seeming like micromanagement w/menu hell at first glance (and really, it kind of is, that's part of why it appeals to me lol) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjMy9O8_tSE)

I still haven't gotten onto the full release yet but even then WORLD OF HORROR is already my favourite horror game of the generation. A true old-school masterpiece that is already very acclaimed but I think could still be more than that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS8jIwzGp8U

finally, it's not out in english yet and isn't quite dead in the water as of yet, but i want to mention that despite being on mobile, Aster Tatariqus is a literal must-play for fire emblem fans, and is legitimately almost on par with Engage. Featuring an involved storyline, a >200-song soundtrack mostly from Shimomura and just a level of polish totally unseen in mobile srpgs otherwise, i'm really hoping this game doesn't bomb on global https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXxJPv-XURc

MrSmartGuy posted...

Snatcher

lol. Might as well throw Panzer Dragoon Saga up there too. Its insane that theres a whole entire 10/10 JRPG from 1998 that nobody will ever have access to. Sega is just sitting on this absolute home run, but refuses to do anything with it

UF8 posted...

Aster Tatariqus is a literal must-play for fire emblem fans, and is legitimately almost on par with Engage.

not to be mean but these are contradictory statements

Sunless Skies

Kenri posted...

not to be mean but these are contradictory statements

arguably true but i meant in terms of its systems and technical polish as a mainline console game rather than... the things it fell short in. engage's combat rules

Custom Robo

Asuras Wrath

I'm gonna add Huntdown to the list because I never really heard anyone talk about it. I'm pretty burned out on 80's nostalgia, but Huntdown was a breath of fresh air. It's an excellent Contra clone where every stage has a ton of little details, and all the enemies and bosses have so much personality. There's a ton of weapons, killing enemies always feels incredibly satisfying, and the soundtrack rocks so hard. If you liked Blazing Chrome, you gotta check out Huntdown.

Labyrinth of Refrain and Labyrinth of Golaria.

Never hear any one talk about these.

After giving this some thought, I'm gonna mention Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Still need to finish it myself. I was enjoying it, but got distracted by other things.

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee