Every now and then a game comes out that's doesn't quite fit in with the rest of its series; it does things a bit differently, and as such is the odd one out relative to its peers, which often means they get less love.

What "black sheep" of their series are actually great games in your opinion, and what about them makes them great to you?

Super Mario Sunshine.

- Best movement (besides Odyssey) of all Mario games, despite being released only 6 years after Mario 64.

- Lots of freedom in how you approach the Sprites.

- Blue coins, 100 coin missions, and mystery Sprites introduced some much needed challenge in a Mario game.

- The world of Mario Sunshine is among the most charming in the entire franchise, filled with various species of unusual creatures (e.g. Piantas and Nokis).

Also, I believe this game is also where Bowser Jr and Petey Piranha debuted (IIRC…?).

Bioshock 2. Best level design and combat.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Often one of the most hated FF games, but still very charming. I really love the graphics, the soundtrack, the use of weapons and jumps for puzzles, and the sound effects have a very nostalgic feeling.

Age of Empires 3

While the Home City feature is beyond underbaked and completely pointless, they nailed the card system! It added a whole new strategic aspect to the game. The gameplay is pitch perfect and the civilizations feel more unique than they ever did before.

The French are the strongest civ in the game, but the other civs are still a ton of fun to play.

AoE purists would prefer that 3 never been mentioned amongst 2, but 3 is still my favorite!

Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake, Shadows of Valentia

It plays completely different from standardized Fire Emblem (which overall features Shadow Dragon's AKA Fire Emblem 1 gameplay)

It's more grinding, with tons of skirmishes. It's a game that makes you deploy all your units, which makes it far less "iron man friendly"

Characters have classes with progression tiers instead of the more simple single-promotion class

You play two main characters in two mandatory different routes as well (something that only comes back in Radiant Dawn), and your army is split

Spell list is particular to each unit instead of equipament. Weapons don't have durability and are functionally stats boosters, instead of mandatory breakable items characters used when attacking. Physical classes have combat arts (only came back in Three Houses)

The game needs you to explore dungeons, it's the only entry in the franchise with dungeon crawling. You need to best the dungeons to promote your units


The fandom opinions are very mixed. But still among my favorite entries

Dmc2, yea its easy, yea it doesnt look as good as dmc1 But i liked dante's design. And the music whas great.

Solid 7.5 for me

Metroid Fusion (at the time) comes to mind. It's very linear, you are always told where to go, it has a lot of dialogue. All of these are very much at odds with the more open, isolated and free nature of Metroid and Super.

And yet, it's still an amazing game and probably my favourite 2D Metroid game ever. None of these aspects that supposedly are out of place in a Metroid game hold it down. It's quite the opposite: those are its biggest strenghts. Metroid Fusion is great BECAUSE it's linear and guided.

Zelda2 The Adventure of Link. Played it back in the day on the NES. Can be frustrating, most games were at the time, but so much to love about it.

1. First game I really thought I was having a real duel with the Darknuts and co. Controls felt great.
2. I like the combo of exploration in the overworld, then going side scrolling for action.
3. Palace music theme is still fantastic.

I will echo zelda II. and stuff.