Overrated/Underrated Games

I've played video games for 35 years, spending most I my freetime playing RPGs and what not. I generally agree with the metacritic scores that games get or at least understand the rating that they get. But after playing and completing 200+ RPGs (mostly on console), there are two games that I can't fully understand the score they got.

Underrated - Rune Factory Tides of Destiny on PS3 (55 on metacritics) - I had fun platinum-ing this game from start to finish. The game's combat is janky but still very fun and they set aside the square based farming which might have turned off some people who are familiar to the harvest moon style of farming. I just saw that the user score is in the 8s, which is a bit more accurate to me. If you avoided this game because of the bad reviews, I'd recommend you reconsider.

Overrated - Tales of Symphonia (86 on metacritics) - The game starts with a bang, it is beautiful and it is engaging. But the second half is absolutely abysmal on all aspects. The story makes absolutely no sense and seems to have been written as they made the game. The world gets emptier as it goes and the story points are weak, one of the main characters trips and falls on something which ends up opening the way, three times. There's a second parralel world that is not talked about the whole first half of the game, the characters are all surprised by its existence and when you discover it, all NPCs talk like they always have known and they say that it is difficult to travel from one to another but you meet characters that are visiting the other world like it's vacation. The battle system gets tired after the first half. They give you a materia-like system and tell you to experiment, but you lose the "materia" if you unequip it, forcing you to look things up online because they don't give you enough of them even if you explore all paths and try to get everything. I could write about the bad things about this game for more time than it deserves. I liked the other Tales game I played (Xillia, Hearts r)... no games elicits more disdain than this game. One time, when talking to other gamers, the subject ended up on the Gamecube, and someone said "OMG, Tales of symphonia is my favorite game on the gamecube I used to play it all the time!" I asked him if he finished it, and he told me he never got to the second disc. I think that kinda explains the 86 it got.

I saw a post on reddit about a guy who found a bunch of RPG games and asked which one he should play and among them was Final Fantasy 10 and Tales of Symphonia and most comments pointed to Tales of Symphonia. Nothing really gets under my skin, I mean, to each their own, but I admit I got unreasonably worked up over that.

Can you think of games that are like this for you?

There is no such thing as "underrated" or "overrated". If you think a game is "overrated" you might as well cut to the chase and call it terrible. At least by that point you are being honest and aren't beating around the bush.

When you say a game is "underrated", you are just wishing that you had more people to discuss that particular or critics rated that said game higher with the former I argue it's better just to be happy with what you have. Every of heard of "it's popular, it sucks?" That's what happens when something lesser known becomes popular, what was once something that made you feel "cool" for liking is now annoying to see the very sight of, seeing memes and people who clearly don't have their heads straight discussing the very stories you liked. I argue everyone feels like this to varying degrees whether they want to admit it or not.

For the latter, critics don't even matter unless if you are a game dev or publisher, if you just play games all the review is there for is for whether or not you should purchase the game in question around the time of release. Game critics decades ago mattered since they were all that is avaliable but now everyone can review a game. At best, game critics can just be just be used for confirmation bias to see if there are others who enjoyed a "disappointing" game in a popular series but that's only if you are super desperate for confirmation bias.

Finally, at the end of the day, internet discussion is really just a turf war between people who view their favorite media as a religion and the pro wrestlers who think want to challenge them cutting a promo at a vein attempt to upsetting what is seemingly the status quo. People need a "safe spot" to write their "unpopular opinions". I might think games like the entire Zelda franchise, Silent Hill 2, Mass Effect 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 are "overpraised", there has to be that someone who needs to make a video or forum thread where it's okay to say they are not that great because deep down no one wants to recreate that Family Guy Godfather scene. As long as a game has some degree of popularity, there will be naysers just that with some games and media you need to look harder than others. I've even seen some people online say they don't like Tales of Symphonia that much and by extension Tales as a whole, once again it depends on where you look.

Edit, for your "people never got past the second disc of Tales of Symphonia" point. Lots of people discuss their favorite old games that way. Just look up any popular vid like say those GVMERS documentaries or any vid that discuss a dead dormant franchise almost everyone will go like, "I remember how awesome x was" or "this was awesome". No one if anyone will discuss the development stories the vids touched on or try to play the games recently. They just want to indulge in the fantasy, not be challenged in anyway. One of the many reasons why I quit using Reddit was because every time I brought up an older game, some guy would reply to me discussing his memories of the game then actually talk about the points I made regarding the said old game in question. I still get Youtube replies where someone is like, "I remember playing game x 10 years ago on my dad's PC" and it's like I don't care man, I don't.

It's annoying but that's how it is. I've mostly given up on internet discussion specifically trying to "prove" things to others because of everything I mentioned.

As a casual/shovelware/experimental/small indie fan, I can relate about the underrated. However, I try to think that it is just people’s opinions, every game impact the person in a certain way, even if it is only a hype trend. Concerning bigger names that evaluate the game, they have sometimes to give high rates to not lose future opportunities with the game publisher/devs.
It does not bother me anymore, as most games that I play are not considered "gaming" for most people. For me it works better to see reviews than to see rates, since I can grasp information about the game that may make me uncomfortable.

There is no such thing as "underrated" or "overrated". If you think a game is "overrated" you might as well cut to the chase and call it terrible. At least by that point you are being honest and aren't beating around the bush.

When you say a game is "underrated", you are just wishing that you had more people to discuss that particular or critics rated that said game higher with the former I argue it's better just to be happy with what you have. Every of heard of "it's popular, it sucks?" That's what happens when something lesser known becomes popular, what was once something that made you feel "cool" for liking is now annoying to see the very sight of, seeing memes and people who clearly don't have their heads straight discussing the very stories you liked. I argue everyone feels like this to varying degrees whether they want to admit it or not.

For the latter, critics don't even matter unless if you are a game dev or publisher, if you just play games all the review is there for is for whether or not you should purchase the game in question around the time of release. Game critics decades ago mattered since they were all that is avaliable but now everyone can review a game. At best, game critics can just be just be used for confirmation bias to see if there are others who enjoyed a "disappointing" game in a popular series but that's only if you are super desperate for confirmation bias.

Finally, at the end of the day, internet discussion is really just a turf war between people who view their favorite media as a religion and the pro wrestlers who think want to challenge them cutting a promo at a vein attempt to upsetting what is seemingly the status quo. People need a "safe spot" to write their "unpopular opinions". I might think games like the entire Zelda franchise, Silent Hill 2, Mass Effect 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 are "overpraised", there has to be that someone who needs to make a video or forum thread where it's okay to say they are not that great because deep down no one wants to recreate that Family Guy Godfather scene. As long as a game has some degree of popularity, there will be naysers just that with some games and media you need to look harder than others. I've even seen some people online say they don't like Tales of Symphonia that much and by extension Tales as a whole, once again it depends on where you look.

Edit, for your "people never got past the second disc of Tales of Symphonia" point. Lots of people discuss their favorite old games that way. Just look up any popular vid like say those GVMERS documentaries or any vid that discuss a dead dormant franchise almost everyone will go like, "I remember how awesome x was" or "this was awesome". No one if anyone will discuss the development stories the vids touched on or try to play the games recently. They just want to indulge in the fantasy, not be challenged in anyway. One of the many reasons why I quit using Reddit was because every time I brought up an older game, some guy would reply to me discussing his memories of the game then actually talk about the points I made regarding the said old game in question. I still get Youtube replies where someone is like, "I remember playing game x 10 years ago on my dad's PC" and it's like I don't care man, I don't.

It's annoying but that's how it is. I've mostly given up on internet discussion specifically trying to "prove" things to others because of everything I mentioned.

Seconding this argument! Boiling down your perception of popular opinion into what is underrated or overrated is, at the end of the day, seeking affirmation for the difference between that and your personal opinion. If you did or didn’t like something, that’s totally fine.

Lately, I’ve been having many moments where I rate something very different from the HLTB/Metacritic/Google’s X% of people like this game scores. At first I was like OP, wondering where this discrepancy was coming from. But at the end of the day, the discrepancy is the development of your personal taste in what you like or value out of video games, and [hopefully] the development in how you engage with them. Can you see the flaws in something you like? Do you like it despite these flaws? Can you see something for what it was 30 years ago? Not that anyone’s under obligation to do these things, but it might be more meaningful to unpack why this discrepancy is here.

There was a thread on here sometime last year that asked a similar question: “why are people giving so many 10/10 scores?” As Civilwarfare is saying, with the democratization of reviewing games, anyone can give a perfect score to anything. The worst game you’ve ever played is a 10/10 to someone on here. But I think a large part of that and most ratings is (1) people rating things based on nostalgia for something they played years ago and by extension (2) people giving blanket scores to something they just generally liked. It is much, much easier to give something a score and not back it up with why you feel that way than to critically engage with something and then boil it down to a score. Finally, the most granular you can get on HLTB is a 20-point scale. Most of the time, there is just not enough nuance in peoples’ reviews or scores, but they all get fed into the same averages and metrics.

Developing your personal taste is going to take a long, long time, and at some point it’s going to be pushed on by what you think popular opinion is. If you just want a community of people who agree with you, you can easily find that on somewhere like Reddit or TikTok, but at the end of the day, regarding video game scores, it’s okay that yours isn’t the same as the averages we see online. Small caveat though is case some weirdos are misconstruing this, but decreasing a score after seeing a woman, person of color, or LGBTQ+ person in a video game is fucked and not what I mean when I say that developing your personal taste is a good thing and that you should own it.

Those are tricky terms, mostly because folks often don't read them properly and in context. Saying something is under or overrated is not the same as saying it is great or terrible, but rather that there is a significant delta between your perception of the game and the general perception of the game by others.

I'll use Outer Wilds as my example game. It's a great game in so many ways, and it's highly praised just about everywhere you look. I really disliked some of it's gameplay mechanics and bits of narrative, and that brought my opinion of it lower than the mainstream opinion. Thus, I consider it overrated. Not bad, but overrated. There's a difference.

Edit: I'll add after seeing some of the other replies that there absolutely is something a bit narcissistic about these terms. It may just be better for us to say we liked or didn't like a game, because if you say it's overrated that really only applies to you and folks who agree with you. Kind of silly really. You don't get to label a game under or overrated for anyone but yourself, so all you are really doing is adding your drop to the opinion bucket.

Ooof, this place is so serious. I just wanted to discuss games.

@Mods (if any), you can delete this thread, it's a misfire. I didn't find a way to do it myself if it is possible.

Ooof, this place is so serious. I just wanted to discuss games.

@Mods (if any), you can delete this thread, it's a misfire. I didn't find a way to do it myself if it is possible.

This made me chuckle audibly. To be fair, I did discuss a game in the midst of my overly serious hair splitting.

Ooof, this place is so serious. I just wanted to discuss games.

@Mods (if any), you can delete this thread, it's a misfire. I didn't find a way to do it myself if it is possible.

Welcome to my world, every time I try to start a meaningful discussion, 9 times out of 10, things never go my way.

Seconding this argument! Boiling down your perception of popular opinion into what is underrated or overrated is, at the end of the day, seeking affirmation for the difference between that and your personal opinion. If you did or didn’t like something, that’s totally fine.

Lately, I’ve been having many moments where I rate something very different from the HLTB/Metacritic/Google’s X% of people like this game scores. At first I was like OP, wondering where this discrepancy was coming from. But at the end of the day, the discrepancy is the development of your personal taste in what you like or value out of video games, and [hopefully] the development in how you engage with them. Can you see the flaws in something you like? Do you like it despite these flaws? Can you see something for what it was 30 years ago? Not that anyone’s under obligation to do these things, but it might be more meaningful to unpack why this discrepancy is here.

There was a thread on here sometime last year that asked a similar question: “why are people giving so many 10/10 scores?” As Civilwarfare is saying, with the democratization of reviewing games, anyone can give a perfect score to anything. The worst game you’ve ever played is a 10/10 to someone on here. But I think a large part of that and most ratings is (1) people rating things based on nostalgia for something they played years ago and by extension (2) people giving blanket scores to something they just generally liked. It is much, much easier to give something a score and not back it up with why you feel that way than to critically engage with something and then boil it down to a score. Finally, the most granular you can get on HLTB is a 20-point scale. Most of the time, there is just not enough nuance in peoples’ reviews or scores, but they all get fed into the same averages and metrics.

Developing your personal taste is going to take a long, long time, and at some point it’s going to be pushed on by what you think popular opinion is. If you just want a community of people who agree with you, you can easily find that on somewhere like Reddit or TikTok, but at the end of the day, regarding video game scores, it’s okay that yours isn’t the same as the averages we see online. Small caveat though is case some weirdos are misconstruing this, but decreasing a score after seeing a woman, person of color, or LGBTQ+ person in a video game is fucked and not what I mean when I say that developing your personal taste is a good thing and that you should own it.

Reading so many user reviews on here over the past 3 years and it really is easy to see that most will just make baseless claims without any evidence to back up their point. Sometimes, I wonder if they even played the game in question at all. You spend so many hours with a game and all you can write is a paragraph if even that? That just gets me suspicious.

But at the end of the day, regarding any online discourse, a narrative will begin and it's up to the majority of people to decide if they want to believe it. I just wish the majority wasn't so gullible.

I've just come to realize that when it comes to mainstream entertainment, I'm just not going to agree with majority. Either is something overpraised or overhated with very little inbetween.

Sticking to the original question first, I have many gaming hot takes, I've played a ton of games in the past 2 years which are very highly regarded that I just couldn't see the appeal for. Without getting into too much detail because I could discuss all these games for hours, for me Doom 2 and 3 are overrated, the classic Tomb Raider games, a lot of the Halo games, Shadow of the Erdtree, Metroid Prime 2, Hades, and Oblivion just from the top of my head. I don't think these games are bad or don't deserve any praise, I just know what games I like, I have my own personal taste and those just aren't it for me. I don't have nearly as many underrated games, the only one I can think of right now is Kirby Star Allies which I rather enjoyed.

Getting into the deeper discussion here though, I completely agree with EchoEcho, Civilwarfare, and MeowZeDung. Overrated and underrated is more of a "this game is/isn't for me". People play games for different reasons, there's tons of different genres and play-styles so every person who plays a decent amount of games likely has games they believe to be overrated or underrated in their eyes. I won't get mad at someone for disliking one of my favorite games. One thing I think happens too often is that a lot of people just follow the review crowd, if a game is extremely popular and highly rated surely it has to be an amazing game right? Sometimes I think people review games higher than they actually enjoyed the game because of the pressure, I'm sure it isn't a major issue in game reviewing of course, but I think people should be less afraid to express distaste for a popular game they maybe didn't enjoy. That's something I've personally gotten better at doing recently, I try to rate games purely off of my personal enjoyment as well as other related factors, trying to ignore any mass popularity or raving reviews the game may have.

At least those are just my immediate thoughts on it, I haven't been around reviewing and playing all these games for as long as others have on here.

I'm not specifically a big brain person but all the other people responding more in depth into this are pretty true. You either like something or you don't like something. It doesn't matter what the general consensus of Metacritic or Steam tells you.

It seems a lot of people are talking about reviews here so I'll chime in on that. There's some games I'm just too afraid to even touch right now because I feel I'd just be extremely disappointed like I have in the past. Seriously, if I see something on Steam that has a 95% or more (Overwhelmingly Positive) rating, I'm going to stick close to my chest to see if I like the game personally, but many times it's not been the case. As somebody who until recently has played Indie/Boomer Shooters almost exclusively, I cannot tell you how many games I didn't like in that genre. And yes, there's not a lot of middle ground when everyone agrees on something and sometimes I look at these reviews and as people said, they've only said one sentence, a meme or trash talk. I've come to let go of bias in terms of playing something especially whether the game is by a publisher or developer people don't like or if it's something I didn't like, but it's hard to do that sometimes when it feels with so much content that's on the internet you've been trained to think in a more cynical way (Example: My negative feelings about Microids). I like to think positively about things, but it's so easy for the internet and game reviews to get you down.

My advice for this whole underrated/overrated thing, you like a game or you don't and you shouldn't feel bad for feeling this way about things. I'm a person who plays Fallout 76 with my friend on weekend nights sometimes, I have a really awesome time with that game and if I only listened to the overall reception and stuck with that I would have 1: Never given it a chance and 2: I would have been being dishonest with how I feel about it. And I've done this with MANY games. Fortnite is one of my favorite multiplayer games now ever since I gave it a try because it's so casual and not extremely competitive compared to other games. So, I'm mostly with everyone else who is diving deeper into the discussion, but sometimes it can be disheartening to want to play something but you feel pressured not to play it because of what the popular reception might be. I've certainly felt this and I really tried to stay away from that crap when going into a game. Give things a shot and see if you like them.