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.

Shadow Man. It was definitely shit, but I played it for so many hours. The mood and the scale of it was incredible, but the controls and gameplay were sorely lacking. Even so, I found it incredibly immersive.

Russian Fishing 4. I’m not an IRL angler whatsoever but I love games that lean hard into real gear and simulation (as much as possible in a video game).

Rf4 just has a good chunk of content and feels good. The other fishing games out there are a joke in comparison IMO.

It’s unpopular because of grinds and the fish spawning, but I chalk it up to real life …sometimes, the day isn’t yours right?

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.

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

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.

Been playing Hero’s Hour recently from the itch summer bundle. Never played any Civilization style games before but this one is really fun.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Revelations: Persona.

No, the Persona series didn’t start with 3. There were three episodes before it (one 1, and two 2s 🤓 [did I mention the prototype, Shin Megami Tensei: If?]), and Revelations is the Americanized version of the very first Persona, with characters suddenly becoming hamburger-eaters in an American town, and at least one of them doing a reverse Michael Jackson.

Even for the elitists who spit on what the series has become under the direction of Katsura Hashino, Revelations isn’t liked that much, thanks to the localization and the amputated Snow-Queen quest. Nevertheless, I enjoy this game partly for its peculiar 90s charm (dubious localization included; it was the style at the time), and partly because of the qualities that survived the ocean crossing, like the OST and that sweet, grindy hardcore gameplay.

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.