You can say I'm not the most active user here so I'm not sure if this thread has been created yet and if it has then I apologize in advance.

Now, there are always games that you think to yourself "What do people find in that game". Whatever that game may be depends on the player, but when it comes down to naming so games I really do think there are some overrated games. Overrated games tend to be or else they wouldn't be bought, of course. Before I ask you all to name some games you think are overrated and some games that are indeed overrated, I'll name mines.

The first one would be Final Fantasy 7. I love RPGs and I have played many of them, but there's something about FF7 that I just don't find as special as other Final Fantasy/ies. The story was O.K, the set of characters don't mix in well and it just seem somewhat dull from start to finish. Yes, my favorite would be Final Fantasy with the complicated junction system and all.

Ugh... another game would be Halo 1-3. I am mind boggled about how the game has done over these past few years. I will admit, it open the doors for many first person online shooters such as Resistance, Call of Duty, Haze and etc, but I don't know, I didn't find anything particular special about it.

To keep it short and simple here are other games I believe are a little too overrated:

[The list coming soon, can't think right now]

While my brain comes back, tell me what games you think are overrated.

I'm going to pretend like I didn't read Magnus's post. Otherwise, I might have to get my bat.

Let's begin with the overrated games, shall we? Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 10, Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Donkey Kong Country, Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto Anything, Gears of War, Resident Evil 4, Half Life 2, all other critically acclaimed games that fall into the First Person Shooter genre, Madden pick a year, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero 3, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. And to pick something that isn't a game, but rather a game control scheme - dual analog.

That's enough for now I suppose. First, let's hit up on the Final Fantasy series. I like RPGs. I don't like all RPGs and many RPGs I never finish. Typically, the way I rate games, especially when looking at RPGs is "If I beat the game, it's pretty awesome. If I get bored and don't finish, something is wrong." That's not to say that there aren't games I haven't finished that aren't pretty awesome, but it's a general rule I like to use. Now, let's add this other piece to the mix: I own Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 3 (DS), Final Fantasy Chronicles (FFIV/Chrono Trigger), FInal Fantasy IV (GBA), Final Fantasy 3/6, Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy Legends 1/2/3, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever completed a single one of them. And these are the Final Fantasy games (for the most part; a few of those are just odd games I picked up) that I actually like. Specifically, Final Fantasy 7 is probably the most overrated game ever created. The battle system is nothing new. The story can't touch Final Fantasy 6. The characters are somewhat memorable, but only after you see their faces all over the Internet for a decade. I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing Cloud, Sephiroth, and Aeris in people's sig banners.

Next, let's hit on Halo, Half-Life, and every other First Person Shooter. No offense (this is just opinions after all), but who plays this trash? They give you a guy, they give you a gun, and you blow crap to pieces. Then to make it worse, they invent this "dual analog" nonsense. I see why. It's not a terrible idea for a mindless shooting game. What pisses me off is that now you have other overrated games like Oblivion, which are not first person shooters, using dual analog as their main control scheme. Dual analog was fine when confined to FPS, but now you're mixing the trash genre with my adventure games? That is no, and makes me angry. Before you know it, Final Fantasy will be controlled via dual analog. I just fail to see what is appealing about shooting stuff and why developers love this crappy, complex, and annoying control scheme so dang much. The only good thing that ever came out of Halo was the music. And the music should have been written for a better game.

Next, Madden. Here's my stance on sports games and TV programs. If you like the sport, go play it for real. I don't understand why people will sit in front of a TV and play make believe football, but won't go play the real thing. Why do people waste hours of their lives watching other people play a game when they could find out the score in 30 seconds when it's over and be playing their own game outside? I just don't get it. >_>

Guitar Hero. Music games are an interesting concept. Music games are fun occasionally. If you like Guitar Hero on the obsessive levels of some people then you need to go learn to play a real guitar and get off the game.

Last, Zelda. How it pains me to list a game from my favorite series on the most overrated list. This game took Ocarina of Time, which I don't consider overrated at all (I believe it deserves everything it gets), made it prettier, gave it a deeper story that barely makes sense, let you kill stuff on your horse, gave us cool new items that you never use, and gave us some of the worst (and one of the best) dungeons ever designed for a Zelda game and sold it to us. The music is Ocarina of Time 1.5. And the difficulty level can't even be called a "difficulty level" because it's not difficult at all. It's not a bad game, it's just not better than what we already have. I'd go as far as to say it's probably the worst of the 3D Zelda games, but even most professional reviewers call it the greatest Zelda game ever made.

Now, that ends my rant on overrated games. However, while I said I wouldn't, the MOTHER fan within demand that I speak. So, I must acknowledge that Magnus did indeed post before me.

I don't think anyone is denying that Earthbound simply swaps out the typical weapons, items, status ailments for more "modern" or "realistic" terms. However, I believe that is part of the reason why it is appealing, or was in 1995. If you go back even further, to MOTHER1, this was a new concept. Nowadays, it's not all that unusual to see an RPG, or any game, set in a modern time period or in the everyday world (the new SquareEnix game The World Ends With You comes to mind), but when this series began it was a new idea. Even when MOTHER2 was released, it was still rather fresh. Around the same time, games like Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger were being released. None of them star a young boy in America (since that's basically what Eagleland is) who fights off snakes and runaway dogs and crows with his baseball bat. Suddenly angry old man are attacking ou and the taxi cabs want to kill you. Street signs come alive and a cult wants to paint the world blue. Even among the titles we have today, there is no game like Earthbound. The battle system is rather generic (it does have the one key feature, the scrolling health bars, to set it apart) and it's all text based. The graphics could arguably have been pulled off on the NES. The story, without knowing background information or playing all three games, isn't really all that special. It's the setting and overall unique feeling the game has that brings people in.

In addition, I think it's impossible to deny that NOA ignoring MOTHER and its fans has done nothing but make people want the games even more. I'm positive that if NOA would simply release the games then you'd quickly see the "Earthbound fanboys" disappear for the most part. There would still be a community, but right now the community is held together on the idea that "we want MOTHER in America" so what happens to us if we get it?

As for topping lists, that goes with what I wrote in the last paragraph. Earthbound doesn't top charts without the charts being noticed by MOTHER fans. MOTHER 1, 2, and 3 didn't all make it in the top 25 of NSiders's Top 100 Games List without MOTHER fans noticing that there is a list being made and taking action on it. When every MOTHER fan votes for MOTHER in every poll, we top them constantly. Take the recent NP. They ask for votes via email. How much you wanna bet Earthbound is #1? Starmen.net posted about the poll and ask people to vote. I voted for the game before they even posted it. Nintendo Power once called the MOTHER community "the most dedicated fans in gaming" and I think these are the kinds of events that prove it. We want the games enough that we...infiltrate every kind of anything you could possibly imagine. If it could help us get the games, we do it. Perhaps the MOTHER community's dedication to the games is what makes them appear to be "overrated".

It doesn't take long to find someone who has no clue what MOTHER is even among gamers. I explain who/what Ness, Lucas, New Pork City, Onett, and/or the Franklin Badge are to people playing Smash Bros almost every day. I think it's hard to say a game is overrated when the vast majority of people don't even know it exists. Meanwhile, it doesn't take long to find a person who rarely playes games, and never plays RPGs that can tell you that Final Fantasy 7 is the greatest RPG ever made.

madasivad took mine. So there.

Please note:  I'm not making this 'argument' in order to attack any one person or idea or video game.  I'm writing this because in the posts above, I'm seeing a trend of using the term Highly Overrated in order to say that a popular game is actually 'bad', but without much reason other than they're popular.


I think we need a clearer definition of what 'Highly Overrated' should mean.  Personally, I see it as a game whose fanbase is relatively small, but rave about the game so much that it's frequently rated high on their top game lists, and most fans of the game would rate it in the high 90s out of 100, and yet for the people who aren't a fan of the game, they might rate it much lower.

It's one thing when a game is loved by ONLY a set amount of people and disliked by most everyone else, and it's another when that game is rated 'normally' even by its fans, and yet people who AREN'T fans can relate and have a good time playing it as well.  I don't think anyone can just say 'WELL, this game is popular BUT I DON'T LIKE IT, so it's an overrated game'.  That's simple conjecture.

The definition I hold, 'a game that's rated highly by its fanbase, but lower by those outside of it', is the reason why I feel that even after all of the explanation, Earthbound and the other two Mother games are still 'highly overrated'.  Yes, it's different....that doesn't change being overrated.  The differences are cosmetic, either in text/story form or in graphic/character form, but essentially it's the same basic, underlying framework.  The reason I point that out is because 'true RPGs' are typically NOT-mainstream, and are almost always destined to be niche games if only for the fact that they require you to spend hours doing menial tasks such as LEVEL GRINDING, and even something as simple as distributing equipment/items and even skills for some games.  Not everyone wants to put in that much effort just to advance plot.  That's the basic idea of MOST RPGs outside of Pokemon or MMORPGs - you work your butt off to see more text or FMV/FMA cutscenes.  Which is fine for some part as long as the story's good, but that doesn't change how the game plays, and who likes or dislikes it because of that.

So automatically the game is cut off by any gamer who already doesn't care about RPGs.  They might look into it BECAUSE of its differences, or possibly even because they know how popular it is --- that's the main reason I'M playing it, after all.  But if I'm feeling it, when I'm a person who CAN stand RPGs, then especially the people who can't are going to realize sooner than later that it's still an RPG, and a very tough one at that.  That's why I compare it to FFIII....I got rid of that game because the moment I was powerful enough to take out the first area's enemies with decent ease, I was thrown into an area that more or less started me back at square-one, like everything I did was worth nothing.  If they were a little more gradual in introducing harder enemies, I might have stuck with it, but the instantaneous change was practically insulting.  Earthbound isn't too far off, although it's definately not quite as bad.....and yet, even not being as bad, JUST being an RPG is going to be a turn off for a lot of people.


And that's more or less it.  It almost sounds like 'highly overrated' is sometimes being used as a euphemism for 'I hate that game' here, but I don't think that's the case with this game.  I don't think the game even needs to be defended from being labeled highly overrated.... it's no secret that the main fanbase of Earthbound is highly obsessed with the game, while everyone else who isn't can sometimes be found scratching their heads, or just not playing the game at all.  Even myself, going into the game with an open mind, already 'tolerant' of most basic-RPG-designs(grinding), and actually being more interested in the game this time around......even I have a hard time wanting to go on.  But my labeling the game as HOR doesn't mean I hate it - it just means that despite all of the attention the fans give it, I'm still not convinced.  And I really do feel that's the exact definition of HOR: the obsession that the fans have for that game does not translate well or at all for those who aren't a fan of the game.

I don't think it takes even a SPORTS-FAN to like Madden, or any sports game - it's more of a casual experience.  It's not made just so people won't go outside and play the real thing(especially if the real thing requires a lot more people to be around), it's mostly for people who want to live out a fantasy of playing the sport professionally, in front of crowds of people in an official stadium, when they otherwise can't, or don't want to in real life.  Like it or not, most people at least know about sports, and can relate to the games made about them...it's not impossible for someone who's not into sports to like or buy a sports game.  I've even heard of people who bought the Wii version of Madden because they liked how it used the controller...that's an extreme case, but it was the game-playing aspect that brought them to it.  Can the same be said about Earthbound, that people can relate to what's going on, and be drawn in by the game-play?  I really don't think so.  They might relate in part since the game attempts to make it more like real life, using bats, yo-yos, etc as weapons and in a modern-day world rather something COMPLETELY different....even I definately appreciate that.  But I don't think that anyone can pick it up, get into it, and keep with it, and eventually rate it as high as its fans can.

Even when we're talking about the 'smaller circle' of RPG-gamers, I think Earthbound could possibly still be overrated.  If it were confined to that one genre, I think it might have a chance at being rated highly "naturally", legitimately....but the obsession is still there, and people go out of their way to rate it high and try to persuade others to rate it highly as well, so it still becomes a game that fans highly appreciate, but even some other RPG-gamers won't give the time of day, or at least, rate as high.


I don't think all popular games are also 'highly-overrated'.  "Highly Overrated" implies that the game is not as highly-rated by the majority of the people, and therefore won't be liked 'as well' by the majority of the people.  But if the majority of the people rate it highly, only a minority can say that it's rated too high, whereas if the majority of the people rate it low, then only a minority of the people can say its not rated high enough.  Therefore, more people who don't like it, will see it as being highly-overrated by the people who do like it, ESPECIALLY if the ones rating it high are also highly-obsessive of the game, and make a big show of that.  Earthbound is definately one of those games - its fans rate it VERY highly, even over other newer or quote-unquote 'more innovative' RPGs, and yet it's still not a game everyone can stand to play.


I still feel like I'm not getting my point across(even after writing all of THAT), so I'm just going to answer some questions I'm sure I'd be asked:


Do you feel that all popular games are highly overrated?  No.

Do you feel that all popular games are legitimately good?  No.

Do you think highly overrated games are always bad games?  No.

What do you think it means for a game to be highly-overrated?  I think that the game is loved a LOT by its fans, but that, more than likely, very few people outside of that fanbase can buy the game and also love it just as much.

Why be worried about highly overrated games? Despite how much its fans like the game, if you're persuaded into buying it based purely on fan-obsession, you might be very disappointed.


I feel like I have to say this again: I don't hate Earthbound, but there's no way I can say that the game is NOT highly overrated.  It's fanbase's obsession and determination is almost proof enough....if they were more casual about expressing it, less rabid, I'd say it'd be rated high naturally....but not after hearing about what some do to make sure it's rated high.  Wanting the games to be localized so we can legitimately play them is one thing....I can actually agree on that.  But obsessively defending and sometimes attacking others for having a different opinion, as well as constantly publishing it as being rated-highly in hopes of roping other people into liking it....that's something much different, and it's exactly what's going on.  I'd almost change my opinion and start actually hating the game JUST because I know how obsessive people are about it....I'd hate to do that, but that's where I'm leaning on now at the moment.

  I knew what you were talking about.

Final Fantasy 7 was pretty overrated. I once said that I didn't see what the big deal was with Final Fantasy 7 and all they did was look at me like I killed someone.

Two games that easily come to mind are Metroid Prime and Super Metroid. Sometimes they are praised a bit too much in my opinion. Like Super Metroid being referred to as the golden standard for Metroid. It's a good game and all, but to me, it's not anything golden maybe silver. Plus, the game just builds on the plot from previous titles and reoccurs on the same planet as the first Metroid game. With that being said, I don't find its setting and plot to be completely original when it comes to the Metroid universe.

As for Metroid Prime, many make too much of a big deal about it being the first 1st person Metroid game. I also like it how fans rank it as being deeper than Metroid Prime 3 Corruption plotwise, which the latter seems to be above Metroid Prime in that regard to me. Metroid Prime felt a bit unoriginal too, in terms of settings on Tallon IV. The Tallon Overworld, for instance, reminded me of Crateria in Super Metroid. Then there's the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid and the wrecked Frigate in Metroid Prime. The Magmoor Caverns remind me of Norfair a lot as well.

Both games look overrated when it seems some Metroid fans basically just acknowledge Metroid Prime and Super Metroid as being the greats of the series, when clearly there are far more greats in the Metroid Series.

Ocarina of Time, nuff said. To be honest, Metroid Prime 2, it's a re-hash of every Nintendo game from the past twenty years.