Reality

Cloud from FF7 - People complain that he represents angst or being cool for the sake of it, but I kind of enjoy his charather arc. I like that he lives thinking he is a famous soldier, but those memories belong to the deceased Zack. He kind of assumes that maybe he is a fully artificial lifeform (hence the controllability) during his depression phase. During the memory sequence, he realizes he was the helmeted minor grunt in those same scenes and is comfort in proof that he really existed after all. Maybe not the best payoff, but I like a ;lot of the little things along the way - even before the wheelchair, you can sometimes see scenes where other charathers who know things lie to keep up Cloud's fiction. Some of these charather interactions could even be interesting in a game with a less supernatural plot where the lying wasn't even based on supernatural reasons.

1: Kefka, Terra, and Celes from Final Fantasy 6. I've always low key resented this game as being too melodramatic for it's own good. I understand that they kind have arcs, but nothing really does it for me... not Terra struggling with being half esper and opening an orphanage, Celes attempting suicide, and Kefka, while entertaining as you'd expect from the bad guy role... isn't really entertaining enough imo.. I guess it's coming from a non-RPG experience and wanting things like the Twisted Metal's Caylpso or Banjo Kazzoie's Grunty as my entertaining bad guys rather than the the Tim Burton era Joker performance we get from Kefka. 2:Lewwyn God of exposition and to a lesser extent other Genalogy of the Holy war charathers. 3:Krystal from Star Fox - I feel like if you replay actual Star Fox Adventures... a lot of charathers (Fox himself) have really weird animations during cutscenes. Crystal's flightsuit costume from every game after Adventure also kind of comes out of nowhere, and I'd argue fits with the theme (white trench coat and handcherchief scarf) I'd argue that the existing Star fox 64 NPCs like Katt and Bill have more personality despite getting like 2 levels worth of appearances.

Neutral (Water, Electric, Dark,Steel) Resist 1/2 (Grass,Fairy,Rock,Flying,Ice,Psychic) Resist 1/4 (None) Resist 1/8 (Bug) Weak x2 - (Fire, Ghost) Immune - Ground(ability), Dragon(type),Normal(type), Fighting(type), Poison (item) This is how it should look normally - Knock off / Mold Breaker / Soak, etc can temporarily change things.

I change my mind on things but I think my favorite games are still Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - Of the Neversoft Games (1-4 and Underground 1-2) 1 and 2 have noticeably different balance physics for grinds and manuals, with a kind of grace period per new grind thing going on, as opposed to 3-4-UG having new grinds remember where you were balancing in your previous grind as well as a really weird and sudden change about 5 seconds in to how sensitive it is to swinging. I do like Reverts and Transfers, but most of the other stuff new stuff I feel like is either neutral or negative so eh. I do like the a lot of the level design in the later games, but I appreciate 2's more compact levels Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 - A lot of people like the sequel for having more ride options, but for me the big draw of RCT is that even though it's on the easy side, I always felt like each level had a competition besides the actual level goals - To make something more creative than Chris Sawyer's "starting ride" setpieces - This is really lacking in 2, because more of the parks start out totally empty, compared to in 1(and it's expansions) which usually have about 2-5 rides in a starting park. 1 also has raw creativity with its landscapes like the Glass Pyramid level, the Skyscrapper level, etc. I can't really think of anyting in RCT that fires you imagination like Three Monkey Park's triple racing roller coaster Worms Armageddon - My favorite of all Party Games, even though it's Turn Based >> Always a lot of fun because of just how random it can be, and how chain reactions with mines / gravestone explosion can hurt your opponent AND your self, and the out of nowhere "alliances" and betrayals happen naturally if one player gets the lead or if someone feels like goofing off. Lot of fun with the Cartoon voices and screams of the worms, can be fun using all the silly animal weapons OR measuring the Wind and carefully to do crazy trick shots with the basic bazooka. Even the movement is surprisingly comfortable, with both the backflip and Forward jump being steerable, and REALLY crazy things being possible with the Ninja Rope if you get used to It. I could write paragraphs about Puzzle games or Platforming games, but best genre and best palatte cleanser genre speak for themselves.

Playing Custom Battle (Gamecube) because I discovered a community that plays it online. I'm kind of waiting 2 weeks for Synaptic Drive (despite the disappointing artstyle) to come out so I can do the same thing with the same people.

JRPG - I tend to prefer 3-4 as a party limit for a normal turn based RPG, and 6-8 if it's a Dungeon Crawler like Etrian Odyssey or Wizardry - anything larger should be saved for Tactics games rather than normal RPGs because I will just bench people at that point.

My pick for good (Hard) remakes that weren't in the poll Sid Meier's 1987 Pirates! to the Firaxis 2004 Pirates!:(very drastic overhaul even if the minigames are a bit much) Ocean Software's 1987 Head over Heels to the Retrospec 2003 Head over Heels (slight tweak to item system changes some puzzles) Free Fall's 1983 Archon to the Freefall Games 2010 Archon Classic (multiple maps, similar, melee is still fast but with less sniper wars)

I'm very harsh on the Tales series, but I've only played Phantasia and Symphonia . I understand that their is some kind of split into two gameplay styles (one more complicated) in the PS3 + and onward games but I never really looked into it beyond watching a series retrospective on youtube. It didn't seem prudent to invest more time after I disliked my first two. I think that Phantasia should not be used as a "hidden gem" SNES RPG - Compared to later games in the series, enemies lack any kind of super armor or Invinciblity frame mechanic (and this is still barebones only after knocking down bosses in Symphonia) and the mash to win is at it's absolute worst in that game. The PS3+ games look like they help with this problem, but not enough. I do think that it's story presentation is really good for the first two dungeons, but it becomes a lot more generic later on (vague FF6/Secret of Mana esque Magitech vs a Life tree as the original source of magic thing) and has a lot of backtracking for a short game (the unicorn quests right before getting overworld flight literally requiring on-foot traversal of the entire continent twice) - I think the Quintet RPGs and stuff like Front Mission Gun Hazard push it too far down the ARPG hierarchy to bother with.

Playing Crash Team Racing : Nitro Fueled I have never actually played the PS1 original, but I did play the PS2 Crash Kart game - from what I have read, the PS1 is considered a fairly famous game, and this remaster mostly uses it's mechanics, even though it includes both the PS1 and PS2 Crash's level and charather selection. I bought this game hoping to use it for local couch multiplayer, but compared to Mario Kart - it is near WORTHLESS for this. The skill cap is "too high" so it's only fun in Singleplayer. The main thing about Crash compared to Mario Kart is a vastly different Drift & Mini Turbo system - you have the turbo's themselves, but you also have a reserve meter that will continue to give you speed, giving you time to go into your next drift - The community and Developers FULLY intend you to snake on straightways and chain drifts through entire levels. (The time trial ghosts, weekly challenges, and Hard difficulty AI show this).-- Most annoying of all is tht Drifting after landing from a Ramp boost (blue fire) is SO powerful than it even creeps into playing on Normal Difficulty - the raw speed that the weaker AI manages just from chaining that for "only" 2-3 corners makes player performance on the rest of the course near-irrelevant until you are able to at least do as well on that single part of the track (this is mostly for later levels like Cortex Castle and N.Gin Labs). The game's singleplayer is also SUPER exhaustive, as you have to play every level 4 times (normal race, relic race, Letter Race, tournament Race) with options for 2 more (Gold and Platinum Relic Races) - The game has bosses, which are basically 1v1 kart races against opponets with INFINITE Items - they benefit from catch up, but take deliberetly kind of slow paths through the level. However, when first learning the game, some of them are excruciating (Pinstripe is probably my least favorite boss in any game period). - Of course the hardcore players have less of a problem because of chaining the entire level and just lapping them. I also feel like items are a little TOO powerful on normal playthrough (think of how Mario Kart has small spinouts for bannas/shells compare to the big one for things like Bob-omB) in crash, the Majority of items will have a big spinout (and It's confirmation bias, but I feel like the triple red shell is more common than it's single variant) and it's made worse because the focus on drifting means you will also probably go in the direction of your drift instead of at least make a little progress during the spinout... and getting hit before Ramps and doing a further lakitu reset penalty isn't a "1-2" levels in the game thing like in MK, but is bound to happen on just about every level in the game due to the more extreme level design. The game is also extremely finnicky with it's walls and bad terrain - of course you don't WANT to drive on Grass/Sand in Mario Kart either, but the acceleration is hit just a touch too hard and walls suck you momentum very suddenly instead of letting you get away with slight bumps - and it's it's a stark contrast to how driving over grass/sand with a "correct" reserve boosted chain turbo DOES still work without the full acceleration penalty. I feel like the car handling is a little mean spirited and requires insider knowledge for no good reason - if you do "brake turns' normally, you lose ALL of your turbo reserves, but if you hold down on the pad/stick then it's ALLOWED. It also means all the different charather types (acceleration/turning/all around/speed/drift) are redundant, because a Speed charather using these "down pad brake turns" can make tighter turns than a acceleration charather anyway. The game still lets you pick speed type stats independent of charather, so that's a plus I guess. Another thing that annoys me is some VERY janky OOB rules - landing on a fence/rail is nearly never accepted and will give you the full lakitu treatment, which makes most shortcuts into much more all or nothing that they should be. I think the positives of the game are amazing production values (the 52 charather have different victory animations PER costume) and the very large number of tracks (39) look great. Honestly I think I liked the game personally even though I lost hair over it, but I think I would recommend the old Sonic-All Stars Transformed over this if you wanted a game with slightly more involved drifting than Mario Kart, but still leaving some breathing room to klutz and have fun with it.

I feel like Thracia is surprisingly easy given it's reputation. Dismount swords only > many unique E rank swords, including enough non lord locked rapiers for everyone if you really like capturing. Also Many of the Thracia indoor maps tend to have 1 or 2 tile hallways. Fatigue - I think you get too many S drinks, tbh. Also you will get forced refresh on a few charathers when every 4th chapter has low-deployment limit and you end up with charathers refreshed indirectly. Big Melee people take a ton to fatique. Compared to a player phase focused game like New Mystery or Conquest... you can kind of meatgrind the enemy's with big enemy phase units with only slightly more difficulty than the well known easy games in the franchise. Othin and Halvin will probably be the best at this, but I had about 6 other people who were close enough to take constant advantage of the terrible generic enemy stats in this game.

I just remembered that I like Ribbit King more than Hot Shots Golf - using the live Frogs as Golf balls is fun in a cartoony alice in wonderland way, and the game's pretty funny. It also lets you have huge amounts of aftertouch and easy to visualize big midair curve shots, and I have a better feel for how Frogs hope after bouncing than golf balls bounce.

Most of my underrated games are retro games that … stayed retro instead of getting to participate in today's modern retro boom, which I guess qualifies certain games as evergreen or something. The things I MUST mention though PURE (2008) - My favorite non Neversoft Tony Hawk Extreme Sports game, even over SSX and Microsoft Skate - it is ATV and it is more Racing than tricking, but it does a TON and is a much more involved game than It appears on the surface. Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim - I have to fight my impulse to either hype it up or to begrudgingly admit that their is a logic to the "cult" indirect RTS being Dungeon Keeper is fair - But Cyberlore's Majesty should never be forgotten or underestimated. It is the kind of game that has stuck with me since childhood, that I've written 1200+ word reviews for, and I still buy certain games just on the promise of Majesty-like gameplay. Interstate 76 - The whole "Car-combat" sub genre was kind of short lived, and it's rare that you see people talk about anything other than Twisted Metal. (Vigilante 8 and Cel Damage even has an HD version on steam and switch) But Interstate 76, is one of the more unique ones in being on PC, having a huge modding community, a more story-heavy approach, good musical themeing. - It is somewhat disorienting in modern day with it's controls and it can spaz out a little if you hit slopes you aren't supposed to like the map border cliffs , but once you get the hang of it the gameplay is still fairly solid (although enemy count is lower than the more arena based console games in the genre) Puzzle Games - I say Puzzle Game master race as a comedic hyperbole, but I also do really think that the best ones DO make it the best overall genre in videogames. Will always be underrated overall, because you gotta look past a lot of cheaply made or simple casual matching games or item-key adventure-puzzle games that don't require much logic. I remembered while typing that we had this topic in January. I guess I also really like playing coin-op games on MAME, but it's hard to split the line between popular at the time / ignored by retro boom making it disqualified as underrated. The seriously important ones for me are Tokyo Wars and Alien Front. Which aren't even imitated (very vaguely in Earth Defense Force) - the tank Genre is dominted today by more sim-ish than arcade gameplay which I've always felt was a shame and I would buy something I felt was suitably close in a heartbeat.