Asklemmy

Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System

It's not underrated or forgotten, but LOTR two towers.

Sentinel... From waaay back. Like, Commodore 64 age. I think it would be a perfect VR game, too.

Hunter: The Reckoning on the original Xbox.

Drakan series needs reboot. I played Drakan; Ancient gates. That game was so much fun. The seamless transition from fighting on a dragon to fighting on your feet. The next level spell casting where you had to trace out the symbol to cast. The lore felt really deep like there was a lot of secrets they never fleshed out and ever since I’ve had an itch that never got scratched.

Lugaru and Overgrowth.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Recently replayed Yakuza & it very much held up

Absolver. It was the precursor to Sifu, but with slightly slower and more methodical combat (more like a Soulslike, almost).

The coolest part of it is, as you play and fight players and NPCs, your character will slowly learn and unlock the moves that are used against them, which you can then put into your moveset and chain together with other moves to create your own style. If you don't want to do that, you can join a player-run school, and be given the fighting style of that school's master, which your character will learn as they use it.

The story mode is pretty short. It's mainly about PvP (although, before development stopped, it DID get a free DLC with a co-op dungeon run that's worth killing a couple of hours on). Of course, a PvP-focused game with nobody playing it isn't exactly the most entertaining thing to spend your time on, so- outside of a small collection of diehards- it pretty much stays a ghost town.

It had heart, it had ambition, and it had creativity. My friends and I were really hoping the success of Sifu would mean people might start going back and maybe breathing a little life into it, but that didn't happen. We hoped maybe they'd announce a second one, but that hasn't happened yet, either. It'll probably just be another Sifu. That one was a proven success, so it makes more sense.

The servers are still up for now. No idea how much longer it'll be supported. But, if you've got friends you can play it with, it might be worth looking into and seeing for yourself what the game offered, and what could've been.

theres a great little pvp wargame sim from the sega genesis era called 'Herzog Zwei'

it was perfect in its simplicity. deserves a reboot.

Yoku's Island Express. Before playing it, I didn't like pinball or search-action games (metroidvanias). I ended up loving it. I still don't really enjoy pinball on its own, but I now have a deep love for search-action.

An old PS1 fighting game called Unholy War. It had a lot of really unique mechanics I haven't seen since.

Kingdom Under Fire. Still one of my all time favorite army battler games

Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it's easily the most-fun shmup I've ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I've managed to 1cc the game, but I've never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it's even possible without a very specific strategy or something.

Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn't do the best job with it. Still playable, though.

Below the Root for C64.

I wish Toonstruck would get its remaster and sequel.

I want a modern Road Rash or Destruction Derby.

Rampage

Sigma Star Saga for the GBA. Really creative mashup of an RPG and a side-scrolling shooter, with a cool weapon-configuration system thrown in. Definitely suffered a bit from platform limitations, but there's absolutely more that could have been done with the core concept.

Shockingly good writing, too.

Fatal Racing

I waited to see if anyone mentioned it, but, POD. A old 1997 racing game from Microsoft built by Ubisoft. You can get the gold edition on GoG for rather cheap but I would absolutely love to see a remaster or remake. Unfortunately I would rather it not be made by Ubisoft as I don’t want to be forced into a separate account login setup from Ubisoft.

I don't even remember the name but the game where you run around a weird post apocalyptic world dueling with decks of cards. I would love a modern remake.

Edit: Phantom Dust!