That’s interesting! I’ve played it, but it may be the only choice game I didn’t finish not because I was stuck in any sort of failrun, but because I genuinely didn’t like it and was bored.
It’s always interesting how a game can be totally uninteresting to one person, and beloved by another one!
Though, with what you say, I’m glad I didn’t finish it. I’m not a fan of the “from birth to death” type of stories, and I didn’t know it was one of these.
I love the setting of the game, though!
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That’s fair. I usually don’t like them either - Cannonfire is a bit of an exception. I agree on the subjective nature of games. So much your opinion on a game can completely change in only a couple years. Heroes Rise was my first COG, and while I enjoyed it the first time through the series, I ended up finding the railroading too much through the second.
Interestingly, I wasn’t a huge fan of Fatehaven. I own the game and found the twist interesting, but couldn’t really connect to the characters (which is 90% of the reason I play COG) and found the humor a bit grating.
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Fatehaven IS a bit of a guilty pleasure, to be honest. I see it’s shortcomings, but I’m the opposite - I connect with the characters so much, I can get past that, and I really care for them. So much it has been a huge inspiration for me.
As for Heroes Rise, it remains one of my favorite CoG games, honestly. But I think I’m not too affected by railroading since I tend to replay these games in the exact same way every single time - same MC, same choices… in some games I vary the romance, but other than that I only have one playthrough. Because of that, replayability isn’t really a thing for me. I find joy in replaying the same scenario every single time.
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I have similar feelings about Cannonfire Concerto - it has flaws, but since I care about its characters I can look past the issues it has.
In the case of Heroes Rise, the railroading bothers me mostly because of the way the railroading is done. Skillful railroading, while not ideal, makes the player want to go along with the author’s path. With Heroes Rise, it always seemed to directly undermine the player’s agency and annoy them. You’d make a choice, and then the next paragraph would say “nope you choose something different”. For example, when you choose to patrol the streets, your character will say every new hero is doing that and then you’re forced to choose one of the other options. So why is the choice there in the first place? There were a lot of moments like that. That said, it does still hold a special place in my heart because of it being my first COG.
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Choice of Magics doesn’t get the love it deserves.
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I guess my playstyle is incredibly close to what the railroading would aim for, so I didn’t feel it because I actually chose that anyway!
I admit I didn’t play it. For some reason, it didn’t attract me
I think The Aegis Saga is by far one of the most underated titles here. Great world building and lore with a unique art style and stat system. It even had music (the one that comes up at the end especially is something).
I haven’t seen a better made game in a long while.
Most people (myself as well initially) I think were probably put off by the fact that you had two separate protagonists and would have probably skimmed through the 2nd in a bid to get back to the supposed “main” protagonist.
But if you actually pay attention to and invest in the world and stories of the two protagonists, you get easily one of the best stories published on this platform
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I’m unsure if it can be considered underrated, but Tin Star is one of my all time favorites and I barely see anyone talking about it.
Although, admittedly, it may be because of how old the game is. But I’ve loved it since my very first playthrough 
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I never see anybody talking about Saga of the North Wind and I still think it’s one of the best COGs I’ve played! Also, the Fog Knows Your Name, but you kind of need to be in a spooky/Halloween mood for max reading pleasure. 
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Have you tried Choice of Robots?
Hey, that’s my default mood!
@MoSalahscores I agree 
To me, it’s Vampire House from HG and Avatar of The Wolf from CoG.
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I also find the ending of Cannonfire Concerto utterly depressing, even though I do quite like some of the scenes there (I feel it would be better, though, if each scene showing the MC’s last meeting with a character or just what became of them were a page or two, instead of a paragraph, and had a choice at the end, but of course that’d be a great deal more work).
What makes the MC’s eventual death from old age so sad to me, however, is that they die all alone. There’s no one left that cares about them, as the MC has somehow managed to outlive everyone they knew. They die alone and unloved, with no one to hold their hand and nothing to comfort them but the memories of their long-gone glory days.
I feel that the ending doesn’t quite work and that might well be the reason — we control the MC for a very short period of their lives, yet we’re to assume that everything that matters happens during that time. It’s only natural that some things have to be glossed over, but I don’t think it quite makes sense that the MC would live for decades after the events of the game and yet have no other friends or lovers or children.
It’s most noticeable when the game specifically asks you about having lovers, near the end, and you get the choice to say that perhaps you’ll fall in love with someone in the future; the ending reveals that it never happened, in spite of the MC’s wishes.
The feeling I get is that it’s almost easy to imagine the MC ending up a Baby Jane or Norma Desmond, forever obsessing over that last wartime tour. None of this is to say that it’s a bad ending, but personally it leans more towards psychological horror than just being bittersweet. 
Of course, it’s been forever since I last played the game and there were routes I missed back then, so it might be that I just got particularly unlucky with my endings.
(And now I wonder if I shouldn’t have posted this rambly post in the game thread instead… 
)
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Some others that get infrequently mentioned are The Last Wizard (far less popular/mentioned than other games by Lucid?), The Saga of Oedipus Rex (really, a wonderful game by Jacic) and Scarlet Sails by Felicity Banks. All these three are very nice games, which are probably overlooked by those new to the site…
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Yeah, I’ve played it once. I like it, though it’s far from one of my favorites. But it was pleasant.
Though well, my character became immortal since I chose transferring their mind into a robot. So no real death there.
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I just played through “Thieves’ Gambit: Curse of the Black Cat” for the first time. It’s on the short side, but really fun and well-written, imo. It should probably get more praise than it does.
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I agree–that’s a fun one, and one of the first ones I played. It bounces right along with energy, and has some short but interesting little byways to explore on later playthroughs.
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I absolutely love that one!
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I’m still a big fan of Metahuman Inc.! They had a fun twist on the skills design, and generally I just love eldritch corporations as a concept.
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Aether - life as a god
Silverworld
Metahuman inc
Choices of robots
Versus 1 and 2(sigh still feel a pity that 3rd part got cancelled)
Paradigm city(sigh again for part 2 getting cancelled)
Versus 3 and Paradigm City 2 got cancelled?
Its been years without any news my friend , i think it bodes ill rather then well.