Top 3 Underrated ARPGs

Whats Up everyone welcome back into MoarDotsGaming, I am kind of bored of the main stream games, because lately they are missing something. But that’s a different topic and today we are going to talk about what I think are the 3 MOST UNDER RATED ARPGS!

#1 Dragons Dogma

This game is a RPG masterpiece, its loved by all that played and game missed by many that didn’t get a chance or just didn’t think it would appeal to them.  If you enjoyed Skyrim or any kind of action RPG with character customization, fluid combat, gorgeous scenery and cross-skill systems, along with the odd bug here and there you will enjoy Dragons Dogma.

The game’s story is weak and it’s not really it’s strong point, something about a dragon who takes your heart, and now you are looking for stuff to figure out some other things to fight the dragon…. And…. I don’t know…. as you can tell I didn’t pay attention.  So if you are in it for the story you may be disappointed.

But besides the story, the RPG elements, character customization and the combat are fantastical, climbing up an ogres back to the top of its head to slash off its tusk never felt so rewarding!  All the bigger enemies you fight have some type of weak point or way to kill them. They Chimera for example kill the snake first, to get rid of the poison, also allows you to get in close for melee players, then kill the lion to get rid of the rage and then all that’s is the goat that becomes more defensive. This makes the fight A MILLION TIMES EAISER.

The game has 10 Classes more commonly known as Vocations, you start by picking one of the 4 of the Basic Vocations,

Fighter, your stick and board tank type

Strider an dual wielding bow user

mage, the vanilla spell caster.

Once you pick your class you cannot change it again until you make your way to the main city and change at the INN.

After you reach level 10 you can then choose an advanced vocation. These are Warrior 2H DPS in your face and break bones.

Ranger, focuses mainly on taking out enemies from afar with powerful long bows, snipes and deadly shots to the head.

Ahh the Sorcerer, if you thought magic in Skyrim was great, wait till you summon a tornado that towers the tree lines and sucks up enemies and throws out em out. Fun class to play.

And lastly for you hybrid players out there, you have the hybrid vocations. These are the mix of magic and melee 

Mystic Knight an OP paladin of sorts with the ability to enchant and cast homing spells, things cower over this vocation,

Assassin a poison dagger wielding with lots of explosives, you need someone disappeared you hire one of these guys, the last of the hybrid is

Magick Archer who wields a magic bow, so you don’t need to rely on arrows, just good gear, high magic and arrows that home in and explode !

To unlock all the vocations you need to farm and spend vocations points, I recommend unlocking a good amount because you can cross use different abilities that you unlock and give you an advantage while playing a sorcerer after playing a warrior. Tons of build and combinations to try, the class system is a lot of fun.

The game has so much to offer and it’s really one that should not be passed up, the combat alone is one of the games big drawing points and tops Skyrim in that area among others. If you can grab on steam while on sale it’s well worth the play though and subsequent playthroughs because there is a lot you can’t get done on your 1st playthrough. So New Game + is a welcomed treat, plus after you beat it you can go into speed run mode and see how well you do against others that beat it quickly.

So if it’s been on your digital shelf, check it out you won’t be disappointed.

#2 Kingdoms of Amular

Come on you didn’t see this coming? This game is criminally underrated, if you like Fable and Skyrim check off all your boxes because this has it all. Fun and interesting story, amazing combat, fun colorful graphics and a class system that hits home to the old days of WoW with endless more options to be the villain or hero you want to be.

The combat is tons of fun you can be a dual wielding rouge that stealth’s and backstabs or mix it with a mage, that blinks, drops some AOE and slashes their enemies to death. The customization and builds are fun and rewarding. Each weapon you use all has a different feel and the animations are pretty awesome to watch as you fight and dash around the screen.

Along with the neat combat system you will have something called the fate system that you can activate and use it tear your enemies a new one. You build this resource up over time from fighting and once unleashed can make even the most difficult of battles pretty easy. Definitely a power to keep in your back pocket for bosses and large groups of annoying enemies.

It’s been a while and I don’t really remember the story, but the gist, you were killed, you didn’t die and you are marked one of the ones that don’t have a fate. So now you are after some evil power to stop and thwart their plans from ending the world. Basic story but told very well with good voice acting and fun reading to keep you entertained. So if you are a story person, you should get some fun enjoyment.

Kingdoms is a vast game and promotes exploration, taking on the many side quests to level up and see all the nooks and crannies as you play, is a great way to enjoy the game. It can get repetitive and as you level and get better gear the challenge kind of falls to the way side, but the game itself is a gem that for most will stay unearthed and that’s sad.

The better news is, in August the remaster is releasing, its releasing for 39$ USD so if you have never played and started only hearing about it, I would wait out to August and get the revamped version with new combat, visuals and a few other treats. This game is highly underrated and really many others should check it out, so grab it on sale or wait for the remake, either way don’t pass this game up its another diamond in the rough.

# 3 Grim Dawn

The last on our list but one that needs to be covered. Grim Dawn is amazing as it is beautiful and complex, if you need your Diablo II fix and slower paced combat from games like PoE and Diablo III. Look no further, because Grim Dawn is another underrated game that many more people should check it out. It has in the last year or two started to gain more traction but it should be seeing a lot more, because it has tons to offer.

The combat is similar to many of your isometric systems that you play and that’s about where it ends, you get to choose 2 classes eventually and this makes the combinations endless. Want to be a battle mage or that poisons everything and withers things away, or a shaman that uses chain lighting to explode their enemies or how about a necromancer that summons dinosaurs (yeah, I know that last one got your attention).

The class system is amazing, very in depth with lots of complexities that can be quite confusing at times. But the community is awesome and reddit users and the main forums have tons of people willing to help and direct you to resources to help understand the game better so you can make your dino summoning bad ass.

The story is taking place in a dystopian future where humanity is on the brink of extinction and with you who almost died has nothing to lose is put up to the task to rid the world of if is many evils. The story will take you to deserts, mountains, forests and haunted mansions. I never feel like I am looking at the same scenery over and over again. The story is engaging and you feel for the areas that you are trying to help or eventually kill, depending on the choices you make as you play.

On top of the story you have a very fun and engaging loot system, where you feel very rewarded for taking down corrupted and monster totems, fighting rare enemies and beating story bosses. The grind is a lot of fun as you collect your class points and devotions you get from the corrupted totems to build out your dream class and tackle some of the hardest challenges in the game.

Grim Dawn like most ARPGs of its kind have different difficulties starting at normal, veteran, elite and ultimate. I highly recommend new players play on veteran because the difficulty from veteran to elite won’t be as a big a shock if you go straight from normal. On top of these modes it has a fun arena mode that you can play and for more rewards, higher difficulties and bragging rights that you  undead T-Rex can solo the bosses in there with no issues. There is also the shattered realms, which is a endless dungeon that gets progressively harder as you go and beat each floor. This is nice break from the other grinding that takes place and if you can get high up in the levels the rewards are very worth it.

Grim Dawn is usually on sale, and with the developers recently dropping the complete edition that has all the DLCs and main Xpacs you can get this usually for 50% off when it’s on sale, 30$ USD for 100+ hours of content is a steal if you ask me. It should be noted you can play with your friends, ONLY if you both have the same versions. So if you have the base game, but your friend has complete edition you can’t join up so be wary of that.

This is by far my favorite Isometric ARPG and it hits all the places when playing, and calls home to that Diablo II grind that DIII couldn’t quench, not to mention it was too colorful… there really was no cow level and that was sad. Grim Dawn doesn’t have one either but it gets everything else right.

Well folks there are the top 3 underrated ARPGs, there are more out there but I really wanted to cover these, because I keep going back to them and enjoying them. So if you never played, never heard of it, or having it sitting on a shelf, I hope this encourages you to give these master pieces a go! If you do end up trying any of these games or have played them, please leave a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences about them.

Garry’s Mod

Garry’s mod is one of my all time favorite games, in my top 5 for sure.

It’s a literal sandbox game that started out as a mod for Half-Life 2; with no point, no story, and almost no minimum requirements to play. The game can play comfortably on a literal potato computer. The graphics are nothing to write home about, and the base game can get pretty boring pretty fast. Like I said, the Base game; the modding/workshop scene is amazing. Almost every game mode in the game is “fan-made”; Hide and Seek, Prop Hunt, Murder, DarkRP, all of them are fan made, and the most used game modes in the game.

I’ve wasted hundreds of hours in the game, some of those being the best memories I’ve ever had. I’ve made tons of friends through the game and it’s fun team-player game modes. If you get the game and only play it for the sandbox mode, you’re going to get bored really quick, and probably lose interest. If you play the game for the fan-made content and to have fun, you’re can easily waste hundreds of hours. With even just one friend playing the game, it can be the best game in your library.

I do wish the game would get an update to improve the look of the User Interface, but it’s based on Half-Life 2 so there’s a limit to what they could do before it loses focus on what it came from. After wasting over 200 hours in the game, I can’t really say anything bad about it.

9/10 – I shit in the sandbox.

Skyrim – VR

Skyrim VR is not worth the $60 it asks for if you already own the original game or the Special Edition. If you get the game on sale it is completely worth it. The game is hard on your legs because it’s, as we all know, an enormous and extremely long game. The game can easily be over 50+ hours, and that is A LOT of standing. If you want to play Skyrim VR from a chair you can EASILY change the one setting in the ‘.ini’ file.

The graphics mostly hold up; I definitely recommend some mods to make it look better, and you can’t really play the game without a better lighting mod. The standing-over-the-map way you look at it is honestly a great idea, but you move way too slow in it. The Level Up system is just as horrible as in the original game, and the only thing that actually gives me motion sickness. The running/stamina feels a lot lower in this instead of in the original game, but that might be because I’m “immersed” as the character.

The independent movement of the arms during combat is absolutely the best; you can use 2 separate spells at the same time, or a one-handed weapon and a spell at the same time against 2 different enemies. The fact that you can’t remove someone’s limbs when fighting (especially in Virtual Reality) is disappointing, but there’s a mod for that. Being able to shoot arrows as fast as you physically can make even hard, overpowered bosses easier to deal with. Sneaking is ABSOLUTELY where the game’s immersion takes the cake, especially in a mission that requires you to sneak like; Diplomatic Immunity, being in Dwemer Ruins, or any of the Assassin/thieves guild missions.

I’ve noticed myself using the horse drawn carriage far more in this version of the game than any other version of the game. Combat is one of the strongest things in this game, and you can easily immerse yourself and forget about the real world. Overall I love this game, and can’t wait to waste a sh*t ton of my time in it.

8.5/10 – It’s alright.

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

I’m a person that started their RPG video game “career” in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, and TES5: Skyrim, so ‘forcing’ myself to go back and try Morrowind is something new. The game is very dated with a great story, complex DnD style combat, and incredibly bad movement. The character creation and DnD aspects of this game are amazing and play perfectly into the story. The combat desperately needs an explanation if you’ve never played this game before.

Starting out the game is very similar to the 4th and 5th games; A prisoner that gets released some way or another and starts their journey as this great god amongst men. You start in a small town, and if you don’t pay attention to the ‘tooltips’ or read your journal, you will get lost and waste a lot of unnecessary time. There’s a lot of things in this game that I wish they would bring into the later games; the persuasion button when you’re bartering, the minimap, the journal and building custom spells. I know there’s technically a journal in the later games, but they’re not used or nearly as necessary as the one in this game.

I love the way you get directions and the fact that you absolutely have to read notes. Directions are fantastically bad in this game and it makes it so much more fun. You’re told “There’s a tree to the north east that looks like a fire hydrant, to the left of that about 400 feet there’s a lever that activates the next mission” you really have to pay attention or else you’re not going to get anywhere. Having to rely on yourself and the way you interpret things allows you to feel like you’re actually doing something, rather than just following a waypoint on a map, and completing a mission.

Going through the story, you’re sooner or later going to need combat; with the game made to simulate DnD, it’s very hard for a new player to get into. When making your character you have to abide by DnD rules. You’ll only hit your target depending on that skill, even if you’re less than a foot away from your target. Magic is awesome in this game, same as basic combat it’ll only hit if your perk is high enough, but you can build your own spells. If you have enough skill in your magic, and enough money you can make a spell that never misses, one shots anything, and costs way too much Magika.

The game is f*cking amazing; with a great slow story, awesomely boring combat, and even better magic. The game also has an amazing modding scene, almost as good as Skyrims, and is getting a mod/style remake INSIDE Skyrim. I recommend this game night and day, but it’s still got it’s flaws.

8/10 – Kill those f*cking Cliffracers for me.