Underrated Games Thread

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Subject says it all.
I find Banjo-Kazooie Nuts And Bolts to be fairly underrated. I thought it was a great game in it's own right.

I know some, but the ones that comes to my mind right now:

FF XIII serie - Seriously, i know and i agree with almost 100% of the bad aspects that people complain about this trilogy but the way people put hate on every article/post i read about XIII impresses me. It is a game that surely fails a lot, specially if you compare it with the best games of the serie, but it's far from being an unplayable thing. People treat it like if it was the worse game ever released on RPGs history when, in fact, there are so many games that are far worse than it out there. Not to mention the fact that when the first game came out we did not have the amount of JRPGs for PS3 that we have nowadays.
I just don't get how a game that "it's not so good as its predecessors, but it's still a nice game" becomes "the worse crap, omg don't ever play this" just because it doesn't fit all the requirements that people requested it to have.

"New Super Mario" games - I think that this one too is a victim of "because i was so original and good in the past people throw me to the bottom of their game list because i am not as glorious as when the first ones were released". I see games like Super Mario 3D World, New Super Mario Bros titles (For 3DS, Wii and Wii U) and despite they not being as immersive as let say, Super Mario World was back in the days, i still can't see one single platformer that is as visually beautiful and fun as the ones that Nintendo still does.

I loved Nuts and Bolts, very underrated game, it was a real mistake to put Banjo and Kazooie in it and wish that it had a bit more freedom in the editor, but it's one of the best games I've played in recent years. If they just reused the engine to make an online battlefield game or an rpg that wasn't in an adventure world and that presented similar challenges in a different way, then they would have just made better versions of both Robocraft and TerraTech, which would have sold a lot more than advertising it as a Banjo and Kazooie sequel, as well as given it better reviews (which would have helped it sell).

I'm not sure if Deadly Premonition counts as underrated, but that's my definition of 'video game art', seriously meta gameplay mechanics (using horrid sudden quicktime events to create a dynamic relationship with the player in relation to it's story and atmosphere as opposed to a cheap way to integrate interactivity into cutscenes or fill space) mixed with an intriguing kind of bipolar atmosphere, it's like David Lynch and Tim Heidecker had a baby. Some people got it, a lot of people didn't.

I'll give you one more: Smuggler's Run 2/Warzones (depending on the platform). A game about checkpoint racing around mountains with crazy unrealistic but weighty physics, made by the same team who went on to design the 3d GTA games. I'm disappointed this series hasn't got another sequel and with the success of GTA, will never get one, but also that nobody seems to be asking about it or even seem interested in the idea yet it's still the best off-road racing game I've ever played, far better than any recent off-roading games and I've tried them all.

Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare

Zombie Panic Source, a mod for Half Life 2. Easily the best zombie shooter game around, and yet got so little attention...

I believe phychonauts to be a pretty underrated game. I don't know many people who have played it but it is one of my favorite games.

"Chains of Satinav" and its sequel: "Memoria". These are two of the best adventure games I've ever played, both with excellent writing and ambiance. Most of the publicity they've received has been quite good, but they haven't received a ton of it. The Chains of Satinav used a particular storytelling mechanism that I absolutely loved.

A few off the top of my head;

Mass Effect 3 - Even though it got great reviews from critics, the original ending sucked. Didn't stop me from loving the rest of the game, even the extended cut ending. The multiplayer had me hooked for quite a bit and was a ton of fun playing as the different races in the ME universe. The ending didn't ruin the series for me like it did to shallow minded gamers.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - One of the most underrated RPGs in the past few years. The art style, music, combat, lore and exploration are all great. I haven't finished the game yet myself (last time I played it was over 2 years ago, got about 70% through the game), but it was worth every penny I paid for it. Shame it didn't sell a lot of copies at launch or get much attention.

Batman Arkham Origins - Yes, it's not as good as Arkham City, but it's still a great game. The combat felt much more brutal in this and the story overall seemed a bit more darker than City's did for me. Plus, they made the Joker accurate in this game, a frail man and not a super powered behemoth.

Spec Ops: The Line. The ultimate subversion of military shooters. Maybe not "underrated" since critics freaking loved it, but not very widely known. Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy shooters but get sick of the dumbness in games like Call of Duty and Gears of War.

I got this game when it came out and hated it, though maybe it was because I went as an assassin character? I got so bored that the most fun I had was trying to slaughter guards much higher levels than me, it's way too easy.

Here is a game I would consider underrated along the same lines: Dragon's Dogma. Capcom's first rpg game like this and it's got some really nice battle mechanics you don't see in other similar games, it's got some weight to it and you can do some really funny stuff, like kicking/throwing other players. On top of this, it's got a nice difficulty curve and the voice acting/story is so bizarre and bad that it's actually quite funny.

My biggest highlight from this game was when a very old and feeble version of the king decided he wanted me dead, so I killed him by throwing bottles and other junk inventory at him from across the room. I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes.

It's biggest issues are that it isn't very intuitive, the menus can sometimes be a pain and there's a quest that fails or succeeds at random that can result in a very useful and unique vendor getting wiped from your game. Other than that, it's a lot of fun.

Albion - So underrated and obscure that I'd be pleasantly surprised to find anyone else who's played it. It's a beautiful and German RPG from the 90's and one of my all-time favorites.

Sonic 4 - Sure they're not as good as the originals, and the physics are wonky in Ep. 1, but they're still amazing games. And the fact that Ep. 2 got worse reviews than Ep. 1 is just crazy.

Sonic '06 - ...Just kidding.

Super Mario Sunshine

Luigi's Mansion

Okami
All three games were not exactly commercial success stories, but I still find them to be great games. Even if they had a few flaws here and there.

That game has a very interesting art style.

Yes it did. It was unique in a lot of ways. I remember it dominating my illustrations for quite some time as a kid, especially the cat people.

lords of the fallen is a highly good action rpg if you are a fan of fighting games or dark/demon's souls its highly recommended a great dungeon crawler.