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- Image of Pandora's Tower, courtesy of Ganbarion.

Top 5 Best Underrated RPGs

Originally posted on Total Apex Gaming
By Matthew Lewallen | Last updated Jun 13, 2025 12:06 AM ET

One of the most popular forms of gaming is the genre of role-playing games (RPGs), which tasks players with taking on the roles of characters in an all-encompassing setting (often having to gain “experience” to boost statistical attributes and/or interacting with NPCs to progress the story). While titles from the Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda franchises are extremely well-known and celebrated, it’s important to showcase some less prominent titles that players might want to seek out for themselves.

5. Shining Force II (1994)

Developed as an indirect sequel to 1993’s “tactical” RPG title Shining Force for the Sega Genesis, Shining Force II offered a notably more advanced presentation that greatly expanded on the first entry’s graphical, gameplay, and narrative components (including an arguably more interesting and appealing assortment of heroes and villains). Of particular note is Shining Force II‘s much larger in-game world that allows for free roaming and backtracking in lieu of Shining Force‘s linear format, as well as a revamped promotion system providing two different methods to upgrade character classes.

4. Alundra (1997)

Taking key elements from The Legend of Zelda series in general (and the obscure Genesis entry Landstalker in particular), the action/adventure-focused RPG title Alundra for the Sony PlayStation features the then-unique gameplay mechanic of entering into other characters’ dreams to explore abstract locations based on their own psyches. However, another element setting Alundra apart from The Legend of Zelda and Landstalker is its focus on much darker/headier themes than commonly featured in the fantasy settings seen in those two IPs, such as death, depression, and existentialism.

3. Demon’s Souls (2009 / 2020)

Image of Demon’s Souls, courtesy of FromSoftware.

Originally created and released for the PS3 back in 2009, and eventually remade for the PS5 in 2020, Demon’s Souls is a notoriously challenging action roleplaying game (ARPG) that was designed as a spiritual successor to FromSoftware‘s previous entries in the King’s Field series…yet, as I alluded to before, the title is still largely overlooked compared to the Dark Souls trilogy. This is especially unfortunate since the Dark Souls games (and, by extension, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring) are all founded on various gameplay and narrative elements that Demon’s Souls established beforehand.

2. Pandora’s Tower (2013)

Previously discussed as a “hidden gem” for the Nintendo Wii, the ARPG Pandora’s Tower was brought over to North America in 2013 via the “Operational Rainfall” fan campaign (along with fellow Wii ARPGs Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story). Again, the game features an extremely gloomy (and, in parts, outright morbid) setting that also owes a certain amount of inspiration from Demon’s Souls before it, with an equally similar emphasis on environmental puzzles, materials gathering, and boss chambers that need to be reached and unlocked at the end of each key location.

1. Sea of Stars (2023)

Image from Sea of Stars, Courtesy of Sabotage Studios

Developed as a purposeful visual, mechanical, and storytelling-focused throwback to classic turn-based RPGs including Illusion of Gaia, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the 2023 title Sea of Stars was Sabotage Studio’s follow-up to The Messenger from 2018 (itself an obvious partial homage to the NES-era Ninja Gaiden action series). Especially noteworthy is Sea of Stars‘ fairly complicated and multilayered narrative, as well as its various references and “Easter eggs” tying back to The Messenger (with the former outright confirmed to be a prequel to the latter).

Parting Thoughts

“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality; we create it to help us find ourselves.” – Terry Brooks.

“There is art and beauty and power in the primal images of fantasy.” – Guillermo del Toro.

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” – G.K. Chesterton.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure, self-determined, self-motivated, often risky, forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world.” – Mark Jenkins.

This article first appeared on Total Apex Gaming and was syndicated with permission.

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