So what I mean by unpopular is it didn't sell well and/or didn't review well. So this isn't a you like FF8 more than 7 kinda topic. Maybe for example you think The Surge is the best  in the Souls genre (not my opinion just an example)..Also why you think it is

With that said.

My first choice is.

Third Person Shooter: VanQuish.

VanQuish is an interesting game but I also feel it confused people and I can't fully blame them. Gears of War was the most popular in the genre at the time, so many games tries to rip it off from mediocre stuff like Fracture or awful Japanese games like Quantom Theory. So VanQuish just seemed like another cover based TPS. But notice in the genre listed above I didn't say cover based TPS. I said TPS. That's because there are two ways to play VanQuish. The wrong way and the right way. Wrong way you can still finish the game just fine but the right way is playing it like a Platinum Action game. PG games esp in 2010 were not familiar to most people so the game might have seemed like it had an identity crisis. VanQuish is a TPS but it's also like any platinum game where you chain combos and want to have nimble fingers to get the most out of the game. People at Platinum pioneered the stylish action genre and they add that to this game on top of really fun shooting. Making Bayonetta and DMC when at Capcom they'r eno stranger to using guns as weapons. When you play it like an action game, taking cover like GoW just won't do.

I am not shitting on GoW btw. They're good games overall and maybe the best cover based shooters but when it comes to just being a TPS I think VanQuish is best mechanically. There is a lot of flexability when approaching things much like a PG game. Tho the most fun out of VanQuish is the risk reward approach. In some ways I see it as a 16 bit Run n Gun game mixed with modern gameplay mechanics. You can slow time and shoot things mid air. The rocket sliding is a fantastic addition. Switching weapons on the fly and a variety of them. Enemies are varied enough to mix and match playstyles and weapons. EVen the melee is not just hittng with the butt of your gun but punch combos and even a spinning kick. You can back flip kick an enemy and mid air slow time and shoot several others!

The Valkyria Chronicles series is definitely an apex for SRPGs that doesn't get as much love as it should.

Great thread, and while my personal best TPS ever is RE4, Vanquish is still fantastic and one of my favourite PS3/360 games.

For me, Fatal Frame Mask of the Lunar Eclipse the pinnacle of the horror genre.
Hardly anyone played it as it was exclusive to Japan (though it's finally getting a global remake this March) but it's creeping dread, thick atmosphere, melancholy mood and slow burn pacing made it an amazing experience for me.

The King of Fighters XIII. It's well known in the fighting game community but relatively niche for general gamers.

I'd say it's a toss up between 999: 9 Persons, 9 Doors, 9 Hours (Zero Escape 1) or Virtue's Last Reward (Zero Escape 2) in the Adventure/Puzzle genre.
Tightest interwoven narratives created in the history of the medium + great "escape rooms" puzzles to figure out.

Turn based strategy. - Alpha Centauri. - Released in 1999.
Almost a quarter of a century later and I do not feel it has been surpassed... Every faction had personality, ideology, goals... But even the environment had personality, goals and an ideology.



I still play this game frequently.



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Sacrifice.
Third person real time strategy.


Another game that is almost a quarter of a century old. - Amazing voice acting, unique art... And just solid gameplay.

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Battlezone 2. - First Person Real Time Strategy. - 1998.


Absolutely solid title.

Metroid Series gets amazing reviews, yet the series usually has a hard time selling compared to other series of lesser critical acclaim.
Metroid is the Series that started off the Metroidvania genre. I know the series has gained in popularity over the years/decades due to Smash Bros, Amiibos, online fan flare, & high scores on metacritic's (and sites alike) database/s. But the games generally don't sell as much as they should... all though I may be out-dated and wrong in 2023 as Metroid Dread has sold more than any other Metroid game and I predict Metroid Prime 4 will be the best selling Metroid game up to date when that comes out.

CraZy PrEdiCtioN TiMe: I bet Metroid Prime 4 releases on a Friday in March 2024 along side the 'Switch Go'. Yes I bet the Switch 2 will be AR focused and called Switch Go and designed to get people up and out of the house, using AR and google maps interacting with other players like Pokemon Go. Nintendo are masters of 'indirect marketing' when people show off their (pokemon cards, Game Boy) to people outside (or indirect marketing to gusts who visit a household playing the Wii in their front room).
It would be cool if they also implemented pre-installed apps like an AR water-fight (or an AR light-gun-fight) in a park with other players.

I mean, they might not be the best-selling games ever, but it's a bit of a stretch to say the Metroid series is the "unpopular apex" of the Metroidvania genre.

Yeah, metroid is not a contender. Dread sold 3 million and the series has been going for 35 years. Multiple games and cameos in other Nintendo series and Smash bros. hardly unpopular.

I think when it comes to this topic I have to shout out Thumper. Interesting idea for a thread, by the way.

I looked up a video to put here, ended up hypnotized and watching the whole thing, because it's this game. The whole vibe just draws you in, it's so dense and so trippy, it's unlike anything else I've seen. The soundtrack, it's not the kind of music you'd expect from a rhythm game but in many ways that's exactly why it works so well, instead of the levels being designed around the music, it's the music that is designed around the levels. Hence the level design being absolutely stellar - I totally lost track of time, but when the player in the video got to the last stage, I knew it was the last stage just because of the level design, you really grow to understand it and it makes sense in a way that's hard to describe. And then the mechanics that are so fun and so deep while only using a single button on the controller. And then how ridiculously beautiful this game looks, even more ridiculous when you consider it's only 700MB and might as well run on a calculator at 60fps. Honestly I don't know how this game is so good but it is. Definitely the apex of rhythm games imo.