This is more of a rant than anything, but I feel like some truly incredible systems have been swept under the radar for the simple fact that they didn't sell as well as their competition, for a variety of reasons.
Some were simply overlooked, others couldn't hope to compete.
I used to think that more popular = better, but time and experience have taught me otherwise.
As much as some consoles truly deserve to be forgotten, trash such as the Philips CDi and Virtual Boy, others have been given some very unfair treatment.
This list isn't in any particular order, it's just some consoles that I feel didn't get enough justice, that I feel should've done better.
Here's the PRIME example of what I mean by underrated.
A system that was utterly destroyed by its competition (mostly the Playstation 2) and that fell victim to circumstance, that being the mistakes SEGA made with their previous hardware, such as the 32x and Saturn.
The Dreamcast had an incredible library of games, hardware more powerful than anything you could find in the market at that time, with its main competition being the outdated Playstation 1 and tons of features that would become standard on consoles in the future, such as online play, a proper web browser, full mouse and keyboard functionality, a microphone, and more.
The VMU may have been a little gimmicky, but it still worked well, and the controller feels phenomenal in the hand, with my only gripe about it being the location where the cable comes from (at the bottom).
The library had phenomenal games, from the arcade and original new experiences. Great racing games like the absolute bangers from SEGA itself such as Sega GT, Sega Rally and more, great arcade ports such as Virtua Fighter 3, Crazy Taxi and some incredible 2D conversions, great RPGs such Grandia II, Phantasy Star Online, Skies of Arcadia, the weird and incredible SEGAGAGA and of course, platformers, with the finnicky Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 being standout hits that despite being a little awkward at times, were still great fun.
SEGA may be out of the hardware space, but it went out with a banger.
The black American model is my favourite, but not with that controller.
Second system, 2 SEGA consoles.
As much as the Saturn was responsible for the decay in SEGA's image which eventually led to its downfall in the console hardware space, it was still an incredible system.
The main reason why the Saturn didn't see nearly as many games as the PS1 was how hard it was to develop for it, with it having two CPUs.
But make no mistake, those were two powerful CPUs and a really capable graphics processor. The only other home system at the time capable of such incredible high-quality arcade ports was the NEOGEO AES, which was just an arcade board in console form, so you know... Kind of cheating.
But the Saturn wasn't just good at 2D, even though it was incredible at it (the PS1's 2D mode was very limited and most games relied on drawing sprites in a 3D plane), it still had great looking and playing 3D games, with an analog stick controller even made for it when Night into Dreams released.
Last Bronx, Fighter's Megamix, Night into Dreams, Powerslave, Sonic R, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Panzer Dragoon Saga and much more were some powerful showcases as to how this system was capable of some really good 3D graphics.
With my favourite definitely being Burning Rangers, fun and really good looking.
Graphics are far from everything though, and the one criticism I see a lot and that's really quite undeserved for the Saturn is the lack of quality games, which simply couldn't be any further from the truth. One quick glance at SEGA Lord X's Saturn videos and that'll quickly change your mind.
I'm not trying to argue the Saturn could've ever beaten the juggernaut that the PS1 was, but it gets a lot of flack for reasons that simply aren't true.
Here's another system with the "Saturn Effect", one that gets laughed at simply for not having sold as well as the competition.
And what's even funnier to me is that when the 3DS first launched, the Vita legitimately looked like it could have surpassed it, and that wasn't just me. The PSP had been fierce competition for the Nintendo DS, and this time we were getting a wildly more capable system and again, with greatly enhanced multimedia capabilities when compared to its main competition.
But alas, a variety of factors made it fail, Sony itself being the main one.
Their complete disregard to this system's potential and ridiculous decisions were what ultimately sealed its fate. I'll never forget it when my friend paid $100 USD for an 8GB memory stick. It was outrageous.
Sure, the PSP had the same problem in regards to memory, but the older format Sony was using was already well estabilished and eventually we got Memory Stick to SD adapters, something that was not possible on the Vita, and the only thing that allowed you to use proper SD cards on the Vita was the SD2VITA, which requires a hacked system to properly work.
That in itself probably kept tons of people from buying it in the beginning, with me being one of them, which of course led to tons of developers simply refusing to make games for it, even if the potential was there, the hardware was there.
But it didn't matter, what we did get was more than enough to make the Vita an incredible system to own. There are so many great games, specially if you're a total weeb like me, that it's a no brainer wether or not you should purchase one.
And when the hacking scene eventually caught up, it gave us the option to use standard SD cards, made getting rare games easy and turned into a powerful emulation powerhouse, with native PSP backwards compatibility.
I still think the Vita is a better handheld than the Switch if you don't care about getting all the latest titles and simply want value for your money. The amount of great titles it has, the amount of homebrew support from its loving community, and the amount of things you can do with it, make it more than worth it.
Alright, alright. This one is hard to justify. It was too expensive and the games even more so.
But if you had money to wipe your ass with back then, this was the best possible choice for getting an actual arcade quality experience back then, something that may not be so important today, but was a huge selling point back then.
Whenever an SNK arcade port popped out in other systems at the time, be them 16 or even 32 bit systems, they always drew comparisons to the NEOGEO and that was for good reason. This thing was a BEAST with a great selection of SNK titles (something that would appeal very much to us latinos), the absolute banger hardware and even its great controller which I got the opportunity to try out a couple of years ago. The HORI Mini Fighting Stick I had doesn't even hold half a candle to this.
While this one was never truly hated or laughed at, it unfortunately couldn't compete with the SNES or Genesis, which is sort of fair, seeing as how it's an 8bit system (with 16bit graphics) that came out in '87.
Still, it's sad to see it get ignored this badly, it had a great variety of shmups, great ports of fighting games and some great RPGs, such as the long-running Ys series that started here.
And even more importantly, it was the first console (that I know of) with a CD-ROM add-on, which brought even more games at higher qualities, with one of them being one of my favourite entries in the Castlevania franchise of all time:
Those visuals are simply astounding for such an old system that didn't really cost that much more than its competition, and that soundtrack is honestly incredible, made possible by the CD add-on.
And last but not least about this wonderful system:
It got an honest to God portable version of itself, that played the same games and came out just one year after the original monochrome Gameboy. Sure, it was expensive, but... Just... WOW.
The Game Gear brought Master System quality games to the palm of your hands, but that was years later and the Game Gear was already an old system.
Oh yeah, and the Vita was good for multimedia by 2011 standards. This thing though, was all you need by 1990 standards:
And here's another one showing how much SNK cared about nothing but the arcade, and I'm not complaining.
Sure, unlike the NEOGEO AES, this one actually got some RPGs and other such games, it wasn't focused entirely on fighting games and shmups, but it still had them... And they played GREAT!
This little system was ergonomic and had the best analog stick in any portable console (and perhaps any console) I've ever used. It's so clicky and nice, I love it.
The game library was small and a good chunk were colorfied variants of the first NeoGeo Pocket, but despite being small, it had more quality than some systems with way more games.
It was also fairly cheap back then, making it not a very dumb option at all, unfortunately that has changed now, with it being not only hard to find, but also hard on your wallet. It's still one of my favourite handhelds of all time, and the games are so good I play them today not only on emulators in handheld systems, but even on my PC with its bulky 32 inch 4K monitor.
SEGA Master System.
Why just a mention and not an entry? Because this is only underrated in certain parts of the globe, with the United States being the biggest culprit.
The Master System sold so well down here in Brazil thanks to SEGA's partnership with TecToy and the great games, that it's still officially produced and sold by TecToy.
Picture I took in 2017, you can still find SEGA consoles alongside newer ones.
But seeing them be treated so harshly in American retro gaming circles is a little sad. SEGA may not have tried as hard with it on the North American market, but it was still a great little system that was more capable than the NES.
However, it's clear why it failed up there. Being a good system isn't everything as the other entries in this list have shown. It lacked support from SEGA there, it lacked games (with Europe, Brazil and Japan getting way more) and it just simply lacked a hard enough push into the American market, something that was likely not even possible until 1989 with the Genesis due to Nintendo's market dominance.
It's still something I highly suggest checking out on an emulator, being very impressive for its time with some great games.
And hey, you can easily buy a modern looking one if you're from Brazil. I don't recommend it, seeing as how these models are way worse than the original ones we got in the 80's and 90's, but it's still something that sells and something I see tons of parents getting for their children so they start of playing some actual decent games instead of the piles of mobile trash we have and without having to fork out R$2000 for a PS4/Xbox One or R$5000 for a PS5/Xbox Series.
I'm not one of those parents, but as a 20 year old, I'm glad my 6 year old brother is addicted to Sonic thanks to emulation. Mom's phone is now full of those new Genesis ports because of him.
Thanks for reading, I have even more consoles I could list but I don't want to write a book for a post. Have a great one!
