Patient Gamers

Hell yeah, the Army Men games are so dope. Terribly clunky, combat leaves much to be desired, mediocre map layouts but goddamn do I still find them fun. Specifically Sarge's Heroes, would love a switch port.

i feel like there are two ways to interpret this question. some games are unpopular because they're widely known, but considered to be not good, but others are merely niche games that never got widespread recognition.

for the former, Mad Max (2015) got mixed reviews and seems to have been generally regarded as MEDIOCRE, but i still keep coming back to it every so often. for the latter, I wanna plug an old PS2 game called Steambot Chronicles, that has never gotten the recognition it deserves. Its a steampunk mech sandbox rpg, and is legit fantastic, but my partner is the only other person i've met that has even heard of it.

Maybe not an unpopular game, but my unpopular game opinion is that I prefer Fallout 3 to Fallout New Vegas. Both are fantastic games, but I prefer the more bleak and desolate Capital Wasteland to the more lived in Mojave Wasteland. Plus I kinda liked the karma system of fo3.

Not a series but the Saboteur is an awesome AC/GTA clone set during WW2 that I never see anyone talk about

Edit: special mention for Klonoa 2. My dad picked it up for me when I was a kid and I recently replayed it. It’s a pretty challenging 3D platformer with a story that will draw tears

The most unpopular/niche game series I've really liked is the Princess Maker series. Japanese games which only received official English translations recently, niche genre (life raising sim), some silly fanservicey elements... but it reminded me of playing with dolls when I was younger, and in some ways the Sims series also.

Another series I liked which is much more well known but still has a small presence in the gaming consciousness is Star Fox. Character cameos in the Super Smash Bros series don't count.

Dragon Age 2. Lot's of people think it's the weakest game in the Dragon Age series and there is a lot to not like: dungeons and outdoor areas are largely the same recycled maps with different layouts, story was a bit lackluster compared to the previous title, party controls were a step down from Dragon Age Origins. I still enjoy it for the party dynamics and the main character dialogue wheel had more varied option that didn't along with previous Bioware titles that had the good, neutral, and evil/jerk responses.

SSX Tricky

My whole family has put in way too many hours, it's the only game where we actually are competitive against each other. Even my dad, who plays 0 other video games likes to play with us. I wouldn't say it's unpopular, just irrelevant today for most people, but not for us...

For a long time, we each had some PS2s to play, but not I emulate on the steam deck and and play even more than before. I've never had a game before where I actually try for high scores and practice.

My oldest brother is definitely the undisputed champion, but I can beat him when my favorite character, Moby, is maxed out, while his, Mac, is default level (which is the case and will remain the case on my steam deck)

Also, I still play Black Ops 1 zombies. I think they added more to the zombies in future games than I'm interested in. I own black ops 3 and hear that Shadows of Evil is amazing but every time I sit down to learn it, I just lose interest. Maybe there's extra friction because I'm usually playing solo.

Creeper World. It's like an RTS/TD type game that uses fluid dynamics that is always fun to go back to. The campaign writing and UI are just terrible but the gameplay is great and there are plenty of good community made maps to try.

I was genuinely unaware for a long time that P.N. 03 on the Gamecube was pretty strongly disliked, and now seemingly forgotten.

I love everything about this damn game - the ridiculous "inside a macbook" looking aesthetic, the Drum n Bass-esque soundtrack, the fact that it's a game based on getting a high score (which is probably the one game mechanic I miss the most in a lot of more modern games), what more could you want?!

Dynasty Warriors, They are my "Dumb fun" game. I usually just turn off my brain and "grind" even though I usually call out every game for grinding or unnecessary combat.

But something about that series makes me pick up every one and waste tens of hours just killing the same-ish soldiers over and over.

Not unpopular back in the day but it sure is now -- Battlefield 1943. I play on xbox all the time, the servers are still online and you can still find full lobbies. I've been playing it on and off for a decade. Its just chaotic low-stress fun.

Section 8 and Section 8 Prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(video_game)

A fantastic pair of games which died too quickly because everyone saw the power armor and thought it was going to be a standard run and gun Halo style game. When in fact it had a mechanic that required dropping shields with certain types of weapons before you could then use other types to penetrate the armor. It also had a power management mechanic allowing you to move faster or use other abilities if you had the power remaining to do so.

As a result all the Halo/COD bro's bounced off the game because the few of us who took the time to understand and master those mechanics would just absolute wreck their faces. This unfortunately also included many critics/reviewers. Which results in a whole lot of "this game sucks". In this case the bliss of ignorance killed both games.

I enjoyed them immensely if briefly. They died too soon.

Aranock-Online; Still available, but nothing like its earlier days, predictably.

I used to log in to armorgames.com to play shitty browser flash games occasionally. There was one "mmo" game called Rise of Mythos. It was a deck building collectible card game. I would play it for a few days then forget about it for 6 months. Over time I had a cool deck from years of occasionally logging in, never spent money on it though. Then one day I logged in and it was gone. I would have paid some money to keep it around.

New Super Mario Bros U. Many people may hate it for being the same as the others NSMB games but it was the first Mario game I played and I very much enjoyed it. I revisit it to collect all the star coins.

I played the hell out of this video game called Axis and Allies that I found for like $5 in cheap games section of Office Max around 2008. I've never heard anyone talk about it or share my experience. I'm sure it wouldn't hold up if I played it today but back in '08 I was a pro.

its playerbase fell off so hard, but i still really liked nickelodeon all star brawl. hopefully a sequel comes out sometime

Azure Dreams. A PS1 Konami game that mixes elements of RPGs, roguelikes, dating sims, and creature collectors.

I've never known anyone else IRL who's heard of it, but it's always been at the top of my favorite games list.

Does Diablo 3 count? It got panned at launch and I do understand why. The story was predictable and dumb. Making the whole game revolve around a damn auction house made it unsatisfying. But man, the game itself played so well - I loved smashing my way through a dungeon as fast as I could wiping whole screens at a time. And they did do "loot 2.0" with the expansion, which killed the auction house and made the gear you picked up actually worthwhile sometimes.

Diablo 4 feels kinda meh to me by comparison.

I feel like I'm guilty of this within the Borderlands series -- I love all the things about 2 that OG fans seemed to dislike, namely Anthony Burch's writing and the weapons spread, and I actually think 3 is pretty respectable as a shooter; it's a lot of fun to play, it's just a weak sequel to 2. The things that fans seem to love about The Pre-Sequel (the ice and the butt slams and the new player characters) left me cold, and I think the first game pales in comparison to the second.

Guild Wars 1. Unlike other MMOs it is entirely separately instances in combat, the level cap was very low, it had a focus on narrative storytelling, and a max parysizr of up to 8(depending on area of the game). It also came from the era where subscriptions were the model for MMOs and it didn't require (or even have) subs. You just bought the game and you got to play. There were multiple campaigns (basically separategames worlds with different proffestions and skills) that you could cross between with any of your characters assuming you owned that campaign. Very different game from gw2.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It's your typical Ubisoft open world game, boring gameplay even on extreme difficulty but the world is so beautiful, and I love just driving around the map with no HUD.

Shepherd's Crossing 2, for the DS. I've put a truly ridiculous number of hours into it over the years, and keep coming back.

It's not popular in the farm sims because a key part is butchering your meat animals so you can feed your dogs.

Gallop Racer (psx)

It's about racing and breeding horses.

"Newer" titles of the series (ps2) also had the element of raising/training the horses.

The collab with G1 Jockey on the PS3 also had those obstacle course racing included.

My dad loved betting on horses (he got it from his father), and loved the game.

It was simple game of racing horses with some fine details mixed in (when to gallop, correct positioning and timing, and etc.)

The best thing about the series is that the list of horses are already laid out, so you know which ones are the strong ones in a particular course except for the secret horses that you only get through winning particular races in a particular order throughout the horse's career.

The endgame though is through breeding the horses, which is another element of euphoria when winning the genetic lottery.

Sometimes when I miss it, I just play it on my phone (through an emulator) and it's always been a fun experience.

If you like the toy soldiers idea you may want to check out HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed.

Eternal Card Game - basically an online MTG clone. It's always been small, and the userbase has been gradually shrinking since it started. I still think it's a great game though.