TheyCallMeTheSwede wrote:I decide to list the ones I think is underrated, because I am too lazy to explain anything.
1. Sega Saturn
2. GameCube
3. 3DO
4. Sega Master System
5. Neo Geo Pocket
The Master System got a whole bunch of love here in Australia during it's hey day. It's still popular today for collectors, and there's plenty being bought and sold on eBay-AU.
It bombed in the US, but saw huge sales in NTSC-J and PAL regions.
Flak Beard wrote:
As far as underrated consoles go, I'm going to have to say the original Xbox. I can't recall how many times I've seen someone post on the internet the cliche argument that all it had going for it was Halo. There's a lot of great titles on the system and you'd have to be blind to miss them.
I am sick of hearing about Halo. playing through it now, I really cant see what is so great about it. Back in the day I used to play multiplayer on it often, and thought it was ok, but now as I play through the campaign I really dont see what is so great. Obviously it is a little dated at this point, and I would say it is good. I would never call it great though.
I would normally ignore this but you flat out ignored the last sentence of Flak Beard's post. Flak's got a valid point that deserves consideration. There were plenty of games that were unique to the original xbox like KOTR, The Chronicles of Riddick, Splintercell(I do realize that a lot of these are non exclusives if you count PC).
I don't really have much to say about the Saturn since I don't own one and never played one. From my perspective the console seems to be not underrated. The people who love the console make it known to everybody. The Saturn seems to be if anything held in very high esteem.
Gamecube. Sold almost as much as the others that generation, had the amazing Gamecube Player, and several amazing titles.
Also, to throw out one that hadn't been mentioned before, the WonderSwan Color. Never released outside Japan, awesome design, decent library (that could have used more shmups though), and made possibly the biggest dent in Nintendo's domination of the handheld market at the time, only matched by the PSP.
I don't consider Saturn or Dreamcast that underrated. Maybe at the time since I had a love affair with my N64 and PS2s, but nowadays I'd say they've both been vindicated by history. One is the Van Gogh of consoles- unsuccessful in it's lifetime, but became popular posthumously after people saw all of the amazing crap it had in store (Japan). Dreamcast is the John F. Kennedy of consoles- idealistic, fresh, shot down in it's prime.
MrPopo wrote:The life lesson here is jobs will come and go, but Earthbound will always be there for you.
pepharytheworm wrote:@CRTGAMER
Read all of Original_Name's and my post in this thread and if you still don't get it I will try to explain it to you.
Go through all that again? Please don't, trying to stay awake .............
We were discussing how we should define "underrated" because different people are basing their interpretations of what console was most underrated based on different interpretations of what it means to be underrated.
I see there being different categories of 'underrated'. In this type of community, Saturn is definitely not underrated. In mainstream consciousness, it's extremely underrated. The same goes for Dreamcast. I'd actually say in smaller, hardcore retro gaming communities, Genesis is a little overrated. Sega games are well represented in these types of communities but not in the mainstream.
I've always felt N64 and Gamecube were relatively underrated for their top tier libraries - in hindsight. N64 wasn't underrated when it was out, mostly because there were tons of fanboys backing it, but I feel history hasn't treated it as well as it should. I have a friend that maintains PSX had a superior library, but I think the disparity is so great it's not even worth comparing them. Super Mario 64, OoT and Goldeneye alone are games I consider categorically superior to anything on PSX. Then there's Xbox, which I consider extremely overrated as most of the good games can be found on PC. Halo was arguably better on PC. Gamecube has some of what I feel are the greatest titles ever made (Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, TP, SMS, Pikmin, and so forth) and a bunch of other great exclusives that aren't on PC, but rarely even ranks in the top 10 console lists on mainstream gaming sites, often finding itself below Xbox and Xbox 360. Unfortunately, I see Wii as being extremely overrated in the mainstream. But it doesn't really receive this in smaller communities, so it evens out.
N64 probably isn't that underrated, given a few titles always get mentioned, so I would have to give Gamecube the nod. It's often considered the 'least' great out of NES/SNES/N64/GC in hardcore communites, and gets written off in the mainstream.
