Arcana heart( can’t wait for arcana heart 3 six stars), skull girls, P4AU and AQUAPAZZA. just got aquapazza on sale for $9.99 and I was so surprised at how much I liked it.
Body Blows
Aquapazza. It’s based on garbage Anime and the characters look awful, but the game has a surprising amount of style and charm, and it’s pretty solid. Because of how much emphasis it places on ground-based footsies, I believe it would be capable of garnering UNIEL levels of popularity in the West if only it weren’t based on Otaku pandering anime and didn’t have a shit netcode.
Other than that - Garou: MOW, VSAV, VF5FS, and MBAACC are criminally underrated.
Not really underrated.
Man, Garou was the shit.
Star Wars Episode III: The Game.
Before you knock me around, I might have been a noob at the time and was just looking at how cool it was for jedis to be in a fighting game, and the only person I fought was my brother (who I practically trained to fight, but by that time we were even in skill). But from what I remember, it was engrossing.
Between using the force, grabbing, lightsaber moves and outright kicking/slamming somebody (on top of tech/parry-game being included) damn…maybe that’s actually linear and I’m just getting hype cuz it’s star wars, but in my opinion that was the start of many more SW fighting games based on a decent system. Darth Vader was crucial, you could not go anywhere without getting that legendary old man stab. That shit is more stable than you think. And even though Ben Kenobi was similar they managed to separate their movesets a bit.They even had characters from the Extended Universe, one of em added some decent rushdown game. So what happened?
I don’t know much about the Clone Wars version that came later on. Maybe it fucked it up. You know what? I know what I’m buying from Ebay next. An xbox so I can finally play with Yoda (had the PS2 version) shit got me turnt up now…
Alot of people here have been saying Garou MOW is underrated, which I do agree with. I honestly feel like the West never gave the game a fair shot, and wrote it off as a 3S clone. It to some degree is a “bare bones” Fatal Fury, because there are elements missing from the game, but there’s still tons of depth to be seen regardless.
I’m putting down KOF2002UM as an underrated fighter. Reason being, as subjective as this sounds, I feel despite the lack of “Next Gen” graphics, the game plays way better than KOFXIII, and I spend tons of time playing XIII, 02UM, 98UM, etc…
I’m always going to say Battle Fantasia is super underrated. Bad netcode plus a niche aesthetic design put most people off from it, but it’s really solid, and this game is really why SF4 and Xrd are even around now.
I also keep seeing “VF” getting mentioned, but I’ll be even more specific and say VF4:Evo is great but underrated. Anyone who claims that the game is hard at all should go through the tutorial on this game. At that point, you won’t need a wiki or anything of the like, because then you’d be concerned about situational setups with whatever character you play as.
Allow me to ask this question: What are we doing about these said “underrated” games aside from mentioning them here? I mean yeah it’s cool we’re all talking about greatly overlooked games, and many have been saying the same game(s). Why can’t we put those said games out to the forefront? This thread has at least mentioned VSav, VF, SFEX2 (or some variant), MOW, and a few other games. Sure, not everyone is in an area with people who might be interested in non-SF/Marvel games, I get it. For those that are in good scenes, have you introduced some of these people to those games, and if so, how was the reception? Did you stream it perhaps? Shout outs to those that do those things. I’m not trying to bash/insult/etc anyone in saying this, I see potential, and I feel like these games can get the same amount of attention that BB/Xrd/TTT2 could get if those who are passionate about that underrated game (or games) put the time into them…
Any thoughts?
Well I’m part of the Savior community and from what I can tell, popularity is a very unpredictable thing. Yeah these games are good but being good isn’t enough. Gotta do something to stand out be it with Gameplay and or aesthetics, marketing, or just coming out at the right time. Devs can try their best and people can try to promote the series, but the consumer ultimately decides what becomes popular.
SFII for example meets every criteria I stated. Its gameplay pretty much created the genre, aestheticaly it’s characters offered something for everyone with them representing various countries and fighting styles and stages around the world. It came out at a time when there were really no fighters. It pioneered the genre and martial art movies were all the rage. So a game about fighting was perfect. And Capcom marketed the shit out of it.
Now lets look at Vampire Savior. Gameplay’s awesome, but the pevious entries in the series borrowed from SFIIT (especially the first one ) so the series had already been dismissed as a “SF clone with monsters” hence the joke “SF holloween edition”. Aesthetically I think it’s awesome but people at the time were like "WTF is this shit? Not everyone was into the horror/fantasy theme. Marketing pfft what marketing? Most people including myself only found out about the series via MCV. And when the series came out The Alpha series came right behind it. Utilizing some of the very mechanics used in Darkstalkers. So now we have Street Fighter games that play like Darkstalkers. Like why play Darkstalkers when you have the famous Street Fighter series that has a spin off that plays like it. And the sales show that. So Savior really never had a chance. Despite it being considered a good fighter by most.
Project Justice. The one button supers and goofy characters got a lot of my non-fg friends to give fighting games a shot.
Awesome game that had the bad luck of being released around the same time as MvC2.
Yep that’s what was Capcom’s problem back then. Releasing way too many fighters back to back.
There’s tons of games that borrow from other fighters, that doesn’t really prove much imo. Both Tekken and DOA borrow elements from Virtua Fighter (I can break that down if needed), but the latter isn’t as popular as the former two games mentioned.
As for marketing, yeah the Darkstalkers series wasn’t marketed at all in the West (okay maybe a bit), but that was then. The producer/consumer relationship is totally different now then it was in say 1998. That isn’t to say that there’s no room for improvement. I knew about the series when it first came out, and I understand that there are those who became familiar with DS via Capcom crossover titles. Why can’t that be used as an advantage for Capcom? Marvel has done (and is doing) the same thing with their Marvel characters that are in UMvC3. Every character damn near has a movie out, or one is being made with them in it. Even the “least popular” Marvel character in that game is apart of the marketing. Capcom could’ve used that same concept, but actually work on games that make UMvC3’s Capcom characters more popular. Well, I guess they’re doing it for some, but not others. I mean Phoenix Wright comes out with new games, but when’s the last time Arthur was put in his own game? Even Sega listened to their fan base and did things like bring back Taka Arashi (sumo wrestler) and port the most recent version of VF. SNK did the same thing with the recent KOF reboots. Why can’t Capcom? I’m pretty sure on a list of 10 Capcom fighters that aren’t SF4 and Marvel, DS has got to fall in there as a popular fighting game franchise…
@Jinxhand. Right lots of fighters borrow from one another. But Darkstalkers got shited on for doing so for whatever reason. Maybe it was because it’s from the same creator of SFIIT. IDK. As for crossover appearances, the characters they used to represent Darkstalkers may have been detrimental to the series. Especially in UMVC3. Like Darkstalkers has a Bruce Lee Werewolve, A Vampire that turns you into a woman, A Zombie rockstar which probably sounds awesome to the average gamer. But all people see in these crossovers are a “Kawaii” Catgirl and Zombie girl ( Damn you UMVC3 ) and a sexy Succubus. Which gives a different impression.
I agree… At least in MvC2, you had Anakaris and Bulleta (and Morrigan…). Demitri was in both SvC Chaos and CFJ. Jedah made an appearance in CFJ as well. Honestly, I don’t understand why characters like Jedah can’t make more appearances in Capcom’s newer fighters. I’d like to see that new character that was developed for the new DS in a cross over title at least. Lei Lei is pretty badass, too, but in UMvC3 they didn’t really display that imo.
SvC chaos and CFJ were ass so very few played those games. Also I believe some characters are more popular amongst Japanesse fans I.E. Morrigan and Felicia, so that’s why they get the crossover appearances. Where as American favorites like J. Talbain and Jedah aren’t as popular in Japan, hence why they get shafted.
If everyone knows what DS is, how can it be underrated? It’s just that people didn’t give a fuck about playing it.
And with that said, all I’m trying to say is that Capcom can at least attempt to give people a reason to give a fuck about playing the game again…
Isn’t that what underated is? A game that is considered good but for one reason or another it went largely unknown and/or unplayed? And outside the FGC Darkstalkers is unknown excluding Morrigan which most casual gamers believe to be an exclusive character to the MVC series. But I don’t want to derail the thread just talking about Darkstalkers so that’s all I’ll say here. We can continue this discussion in the Vampire thread if ya want.
Ki
Actually that usually means underappreciated rather than underrated. A game like Okami is another example, critically acclaimed but poor sales, very few played it. Darkstalkers is a little of both. Only hardcore fighting game players know about darkstalkers, ask a person on the street and they would have never even heard of it. When it came out it was frowned upon for being too anime, weird, oh and the street fighter with monsters so it was underrated. Now it is virtually unknown except among fgc who think it is a gem but never play it.
Anyways Capcom fucked up with promoting this series, which as much as I love street fighter (my first love), is their best work.
How is KI underated?