The beauty of video game series over movie franchises is that the number of entries can be equated with quality.
Not all games are given their due, likely due to being a bit weird or different, so today, it’s time to show love to the underrated gems of beloved franchises.
Some video game franchises took time to find their footing or reach an international audience.
Final Fantasyneeded seven mainline games to become a household name, which meant players outside of Japan had all kinds of bizarre older entries to play, varying wildly in quality compared to Cloud Strife’s adventures.
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Fortunately,even the dark and shriveled-up hearts of the video game fanbase can find love for the black sheep of beloved franchises. The public might not appreciate these games at large, but they deserve as much love as their esteemed siblings.
10Dark Souls 2
Shadows Die Twice
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin
Dark Souls 2is often considered the low point of the franchise, and it’s baffling that it’s given such a reputation when it’s so much better than its predecessor, as well as variouspretender Soulslikes.
Two words: Fast Travel.Dark Souls 2implemented a proper Fast Travel system that lets players play the game without spending 90% of their time running between locations.
The fact that it has a hub world with a blacksmith who is useful throughout the game means it’s already a step aboveDark Souls.
Who thought spreading the smiths across the game world and making players sprint through old areas to find them was a good idea?
9Metal Gear Acid
Dropping Acid
Metal Gear Acid
Konami has remastered a bunch of the 3DMetal Gear Solidtitles, but two have been mysteriously ignored: Metal Gear Acid and its sequel.
Combining stealth gameplay with turn-based deck-building,Metal Gear Acidwas a truly unique experience for the franchise, where the cards determined the approach for the mission.
The fact that players have control over two characters in both games also opens up the potential for dual gameplay that is missed in the coreMetal Gear Solidtitles.
Sure, theMetal Gear Acidgames have strange storylines, but all of theMetal Gear Solidgames have their oddball tendencies.
If anything, some of their bizarre scenes are lightweight compared to the end of Sons of Liberty.
8Batman: Arkham Origins
Batman Begins Again
Batman: Arkham Origins
TheBatman Arkhamtrilogy has some of the best stealth/action games of all time, yet there’s a fourth entry that is unfairly overlooked, one that explores the early days of Batman and the Joker.
Batman: Arkham Originshas more grounded villains than the other entries, with a group of assassins all hunting the Dark Knight throughout Gotham.
The less recognizable villains, coupled with the absence of themainstay Batman voice actors(no Mark Hamill or Kevin Conroy) also make it feel distant from the other games.
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The changes in cast and tone aside,Batman: Arkham Originsis still an excellent game and a worthy entry in the series. Those let down byGotham KnightsandSuicide Squadowe it to themselves to check out this early Batman adventure.
7Donkey Kong Country 3
Kidding Around
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!
Strangely, so manyDonkey Kongfans turn their noses up at the third entry in the series, as it improves upon the formula laid down by its predecessors, with a massive world full of secrets to uncover, tons of animal companions to use, all with the same razor-sharp platforming action.
It’s easy to blame the cast as the reason why fans dislike this game, as Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong aren’t playable in this entry. Instead, it’s Dixie Kong and Kiddy Kong taking the lead.
The developers probably should have made this a Donkey and Dixie adventure where they save Diddy, as much like Baby Mario in Yoshi’s Island, people reacted poorly to an infantile hero.
Playable characters aside,Donkey Kong Country 3is just as great as its predecessors and doesn’t deserve the hate that fans have given it over the years.
Still Waiting For Doom 4-63
It’s strange thatDoom 3, a game so distant from the other entries in the franchise, is held in higher regard thanDoom 64, which is the true successor toDoom 2.
The lack of attention is explained by the name.Doom 64was a Nintendo 64 exclusive from 1997 to 2020 when it finally received ports to other systems.
Doom 64 isanamazing first-person shooter, one that expanded upon the content of its predecessors without feeling like it belonged in a different genre, unlike its actual sequel.
The attitude towards Doom 64 has thankfully changed in recent years, thanks to the modern ports giving fans the chance to experience what they missed out on back in the 90s.
5Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Breaking Benjamin
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Let’s not beat around the bush:Mystic Questisn’t in the same league as the SNESFinal Fantasygames.
Those are some of the greatest RPGs of all time and still hold up to this day.
Despite this,Final Fantasy Mystic Questis still a greatentry-point RPGfor people new to the genre.
It’s a great fusion ofZelda-style dungeon exploration and turn-based combat, with impressive graphics for its era.
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One aspect in whichMystic Queststands alongside the other 16-bit Final Fantasy games is the soundtrack.
There’s a reason this game was featured in the Theatrhythm games, as its battle theme is an absolute banger.
4The Legend Of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
Weak Link In The Chain
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
For some reason, multiplayer entries inThe Legend of Zeldaseries never seem to catch the attention of fans. This is a shame, asTri Force Heroeson theNintendo 3DSdeserved more love than it received.
Tri Force Heroeswas all about three players taking on the role of Links, as they completed different stages and solved puzzles together.
The game definitely had a much more lighthearted tone, which might have worked against it, as the main plot involved breaking a curse on a Princess that prevented her from dressing stylishly.
It’s a shame thatThe Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroesdidn’t come out on theNintendo Switch, as its potential was wasted on the Nintendo 3DS.
The Switch’s bigger audience and greater focus on online play would make it a much better fit for the triple Links and their hilarious adventures.
3Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Let’s Go Eevee
Going Back To Kanto
Pokemon Let’s Go
The firstPokemongame on the Nintendo Switch drew the ire of the mainline fans, mostly due to its connections toPokemon Go.
On paper, theLet’s Gogames should have been highly desirable, being remakes ofPokemon Yellowon modern hardware.
However, the inclusion ofPokemon Go’s catching mechanics for the wildPokemonimmediately drew backlash from the fans.
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While theLet’s Gogames did sell over 15 million copies, they’re not in the top ten best-selling Switch games and Game Freak seems to be in no rush to make sequels.
Despite this, theLet’s Gogames are thebest pure Pokemon experienceson the Switch, certainly more so than the underwhelming Gen 8 games and the outright terrible Gen 9 titles.
Anyone who wants the classic experience needs to go back to the Kanto region and give theLet’s Gotitles another look.
2Persona Q: Shadow Of The Labyrinth
A Masked Odyssey
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
It’s easy to see whyPersonafans would ignore this game, as it’s much closer to theEtrian Odysseyseries in gameplay style than theShin Megami Tenseione.
WhilePersona Qand its sequel might lack the calendar and relationship systems of the mainline games,they’re still incredibly fun dungeon crawlers with combat systems that evoke the demon-summoning RPG titles.
More importantly, they’re inter-franchise crossovers.
This means fans get to see the casts ofPersona 3and4(and5in the sequel) interact with each other in ways that they never got to in the mainline games.
1Super Mario Bros. 2
Dreaming Of A New Mario
Super Mario Bros. 2
At this point, everyone knows thatSuper Mario Bros. 2wasn’t originally a Mario game and was a reskinned platformer that was made in collaboration with Fuji Television.
This is often used to dismiss the game outright: it’s not a true Mario game and its weirdness means fans should skip it.
Sure,Super Mario Bros. 2is the oddball of the franchise, but it’s still an excellent platformer in its own right, with tons of secrets to find and a variety of characters to use that fit multiple playstyles.
Considering there were only two Mario games released before this one (one of which was Japan-exclusive), it’s unfair to brand this game as being “too weird” for the franchise.
Mario is already a strange concept, but it’s not as if the sequel was going in some bizarre direction with the lore, considering how little there was before or even since its release.
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