Hidden ge -- gee, what happened?!

[Steven]

What are some lesser known games that either

A. You hoped would be a hidden gem but turned out disappointed by

or

B. Thought qualified as a hidden gem upon initial play but when later revisited you realized not really?

Of course, this is all opinions because we all won't agree, but I'm curious to hear everyone's choices.

For me, falling under category A, Nosferatu. Really had high hopes for this one and turned out so disappointed. Insane difficulty and annoying control prevented this from being the hit it could have been.

Falling under category B, Prehistorik Man. Loved it when I first played it for 15-20 minutes in 2006. Recently replayed it more thoroughly last month and while it isn't terrible by any means, I find it disappointingly slightly above average at best. For years I always wondered whenever people talk about hidden gems why this game rarely comes up. After revisiting it I can see why. A middle of the road type platformer.

What are some of your nominations?

[celerystalker]

There are loads of these, but I'll just toss out one of each at first.

A. Stormlord for Genesis looked like it might be a quietly awesome platformer/action game. It's really sloppy and repetitive, and while some screenshots looked cool, its actual art is all over the place from excellent to rudimentary, and fror a game called Stormlord, your character is weak.

B. Thundercade for NES. I went back to it recently, planning on posting it as game of the day, as I remembered it being an underrated shooter. Playing it again, it was a lot choppier than I remembered, with sloppier graphics as well. I wouldn't say it is terrible, as I eventually had a little fun with it after adjusting to its scrolling, as I still like its powerup system with getting different sidecars for your motorcycle, but it just isn't that great.

[TonyTheTiger]

Obscure JRPGs are notorious for this. For whatever reason each one attracts a small but vocal fanbase and more often than not the game turns out to be mediocre at best.

[Edmond Dantes]

My candidates for Category A:

Echo Night for PS1 -- Now, even before they became suddenly popular, I had learned to associate "From Software" with "makes good games," being one of the first people to appreciate King's Field and Shadow Tower (tho the latter definitely has some issues). So naturally when I learned they did a horror game set aboard a haunted ship, I was all over it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a game where.... basically you were wandering around turning the lights on. I wish I was kidding. There was an interesting story and a few tense moments, but it wound up being more like "an adventure game with some horror elements" rather than an outright scary game.

Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within for PS1 -- Now, I had played and lovey-doveyed-to-deathy-weathy the original SNES Clock Tower (the PS1 sequel--simply called "Clock Tower" in the US--continues to elude my price range) so when a friend happened to get his mits on this and we sat down to play it.... well unfortunately, it kinda sucked. Being both a victim of bad design choices (lots of "walking dead" scenarios where you pretty much have to restart the game) as well as an unfortunate attempt to pander to the Resident Evil crowd by taking a paranormal-themed game and suddenly making it about shooting zombies, it wound up being more a thing to gawk at than to play.

and for Category B:

Bubsy -- I never understood why this gets labeled one of the worst games of all time, as its not THAT bad--its mediocre, playable but without accelling at anything. What's weird is as a kid I absolutely LOVED this game, like almost obsessively, but somehow.... not so much anymore. Now Bubsy II on the other hand is garbage. I never liked that, not even as a kid.

mentioned in a previous thread, Aero the Acro-Bat. Again as a kid, I loved these games. Now? Well, they're both still playable and competent platformers (there's a third game called Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel which I never got to play so I can't weigh in on that) but they're not exactly super-special-awesome. Also, my childhood self would've called the second game superior. My adult self begs to differ--the first game felt more focused and well-designed, while the second feels like an attempt to just put any radical 90s thing in the blender and hope it works.

[kupomogli]

Do games that people consider great games count? Some "legendary RPGs" don't deserve the praise they receive.

Vagrant Story. The games level design, storyline, music, and graphics are all great. The gameplay has potential but it's broken.

Valkyrie Profile. Doesn't have a good storyline if you just play through the game, the hidden story of the game is in a side quest that requries you to do specific things at certain times during very specific months essentially requiring a strategy guide, the dungeons aside from a few are a couple screens and are nothing more than grinding zones, the gameplay has literally no depth and it's pretty much a button masher where you press the buttons in a specific order and timed in a certain way to do the most damage and increase your combo meter to do your lengthy special attack that you'll watch over and over again every turn. The combat is flash and cool at first, but the repetition is ridiculous.

Legend of Dragoon. Flashy attacks, Mass repetition. You have no spells or abilities outside of dragoon form. You either attack, using your single addition, defend, or use an item, that's it. You'll see the same attack over and over and over. Once you get the final addition, not only is that the only attack you'll ever see the rest of the game, you'll be taking more damage than a dragoon form making turning into a dragoon except for one character who can't use additions pointless.

Vagrant Story because of how broken it is is one of the worst despite performing well every where else, Valkyrie Profile is just a bad game, and Legend of Dragoon isn't bad, but it's not good, yet these are some of the most widely praised RPGs on the PSX. I'd also place Final Fantasy 10 on this list as well, but not on the same level as these games, that game is atleast a bit better, but still. I could point out how bad that game actually is and you'd have people who ignore its issues because it's Final Fantasy, the same as people will ignore the issues with these games because they're widely praised and I'm a single person, so they don't like to actually think that one person could be right. If you've played the games, just think about the complaints rather than immediately grabbing your rose tinted glasses and acting smug.