I think I got the game because of the hype - and I'm not sure if I'd actually even seen The Matrix before playing the game. I suspect I had, but I don't remember anymore. Anyway, I didn't watch the sequels until some years ago, so probably more than 15 years after release. I knew the game was connected to them, but obviously I must also have missed a lot of things.

The consensus often doesn't align with the critical reception and this seems especially true with Suikoden. I think Suikoden 4 is the only game in the series that wasn't received well by the community.

OT:

Shinobi PS2. Simple and honestly not that good. But enjoyable, stylish, and memorable.

Resident Evil 5. This was the beginning of Capcom's end imo, but I did really enjoy Versus Mode and spent countless hours playing it in 2009 and 2010. Co-op was a lot of fun.

Lost Planet 2. Somewhat unique and fun co-op, a mid game otherwise. One of my main Japanese online friends from Resident Evil 5 also played this game, and he was the world's number 1 in some missions. Being no.1 on the leaderboard was required for the Platinum trophy, so he recorded the video of how it's done and shared it with me and my brother to help us get the platinum (He intentionally slowed down just enough to ensure we can beat his time lol, but I wasn't a trophy hunter or a big fan of the game, so I didn't even attempt).

I guess calling these games mid is a stretch and they're at worst good. Who gets to decide the quality of a game anyways? Online forum consensus? GameRankings/Metacritic/Opencritic? Are high 70's and low 80's "mid"?

The true winner for me is a bike racer called "Speed Kings". It sits at a mere 60 Metacritic and yet it's one of my favorite racers of all time and way better than Burnout in my book. Two other games that critics (and maybe the consensus? Idk) hated that I liked are Mythologies Sub-Zero and Ninja Shadow of Darkness.

Yeah RE5 is one of those games where I do like the style and combat, but the forced co-op and lack of scariness do let it down a bit.

It's enjoyable, but a massive step down from RE4.

Re5 was the last in the series i had so much fun with.  It's the best co op game/action adventure co op I've played. I spent so much time online doing multiple runs . There hasn't been a game like that since. 

I did have some fun with it, but I would rather have played it solo as for me the co-op wasn't appealing.

It did have some cool setpieces though, and as an action game it worked well for the most part.

Just finished LotR: War in the North. It's very linear and the combat can be messy, but it's a decent Action-RPG.

Turok: Evolution. I spent a lot of hours playing this back around release - both single and multiplayer. I've revisited it a few times over the years as well. Hoping Nightdive will remaster it at some point.

Now now, let's not be greedy. Actually making the game available somewhere would be a great start.