The new millennium brought with it many great video games. Many of them went on to become great successes, leading to new franchises that continued well into the next two decades.
On the flip side, many great 2000s games have been forgotten about over time. Some of them didn’t sell well, while others are forgotten installments in long-running series that have greater games within them. Regardless, these games deserve more recognition today.
Beyond Good & Evil is Ubisoft’s Diamond in the Rough
A large water monster lurks behind Jade in Beyond Good & Evil HDImage via Ubisoft
A cult classic from Ubisoft, Beyond Good & Evil incorporates a lot of different genres into one game. It was a sci-fi tale about an investigative journalist fighting back against hostile aliens, combining stealth and action gameplay with a unique alternate future filled with spaceships and talking animals.
Ubisoft has tried to get a new Beyond Good & Evil game out for years, but multiple delays have caused the original game to fade into obscurity. Who knows when Jade will go on another mission?
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem Showed Nintendo’s Dark Side
Image via Nintendo
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem was a rare horror game published by Nintendo, the company’s first M-rated game. It follows multiple characters across various time periods, each fighting supernatural forces that drive them insane, with the game changing depending on how crazy each character becomes.
CBR Exclusive · Nintendo Quiz WHICH NINTENDO LEGEND ARE YOU? Press Start to Play From the dungeons of Hyrule to the cold reaches of space, Nintendo’s universe is bursting with legends, oddballs, and cosmic eating machines. Are you a brave-hearted adventurer? A relentlessly upbeat pink blob? A hypercharged electric mouse? Or the bounty hunter who needs no one? Twenty questions. One legendary result. Let’s find out who you really are.
Link
Toad
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu
01
It’s a free Saturday. What’s the move, hero? Your ideal morning is basically your origin story.
02
A big bad enemy is blocking the path. You: How you handle danger speaks louder than any character select screen.
03
How do you roll, style-wise? Your fit is your lore.
04
There’s a puzzle blocking your way. Your approach? Every dungeon has a puzzle. Every person has a method.
05
Most important question: what’s your meal of choice? Truly the most revealing question in this quiz.
06
You discover you have a secret power. What is it? The power you imagine says everything about you.
07
Dream HQ — what does yours look like? Where you recharge says a lot about who you are when no one’s watching.
08
What’s your actual biggest weakness? Even legends have a weak point. Courage is admitting it.
09
The group needs a leader. Do you step up? Leadership style reveals the true final boss of your personality.
10
Halfway! What truly gets you out of bed every morning? Core motivation. This is the real 1-UP.
11
You just totally wiped out. In front of everyone. The fall doesn’t matter. The bounce-back is everything.
12
There’s a mystery item chest! You hope it contains… The upgrade you want is the upgrade you already are.
13
It’s game night with the squad! What are you doing? Social energy = final form revealed.
14
How do people honestly describe you? Your reputation is just your vibe with a narrator.
15
Preferred method of getting around the world? Your travel vibe is basically your whole personality in motion.
16
What does being a hero actually mean to you? The real final dungeon is a philosophical one.
17
How do you want history to remember you? Every legend leaves a mark on the world map.
18
Someone has been seriously getting in your way. You: How you handle adversaries is basically your combat report.
19
In a Smash Bros. match you are the one who… The Smash meta never lies about character.
20
The final boss is right there. This is THE moment. GO! Twenty questions led to this. No saving now.
The Legend Has Been Chosen YOUR NINTENDO LEGEND
Your scores are revealed below! The character with the highest number is your Nintendo alter-ego. Read their profile to discover your true gaming legend destiny.
Link
Toad
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu
You’re the chosen one who never asked for the title but took it anyway. Brave, methodical, and quietly carrying the weight of an entire kingdom on your shoulders — you prefer action over words and wisdom over brute force. People rely on you completely, and somehow you always find the right key for the right lock. You don’t show off. You just show up. Every single time.
You are the backbone of every group, and everyone secretly knows it. Enthusiastic, loyal, and somehow always the first one to show up when things go wrong — you make everyone around you feel capable and energized. You don’t get enough credit, and you genuinely don’t mind. You run into danger at full speed with a smile on your face and a war cry echoing behind you. Legendary support energy.
Highly competent, quietly intimidating, and deeply independent. You don’t need a team, you don’t need applause, and you definitely don’t need anyone telling you how to handle the Metroids. You’ve survived situations that would end anyone else, and you did it alone, in silence, with zero complaints. Underneath the armor is someone with more depth than anyone in the room — they just rarely get to see it. Their loss.
You look like pure joy and you are pure joy — but don’t let anyone mistake that for weakness. You absorb everything life throws at you and come back stronger, cuter, and somehow even more powerful. You find delight in everything, you’re beloved by literally everyone, and when push comes to shove you will inhale a god and become that god without breaking a sweat. Chaos wrapped in a smile.
You’re electric — literally and figuratively. Bursting with energy, fiercely loyal to your people, and always ready to give everything you have for the ones who matter. You’re small but your presence fills every room you walk into. You compete hard, play harder, and your enthusiasm is genuinely contagious. People may underestimate you at first glance. They don’t make that mistake twice.
Poor sales at launch caused Eternal Darkness to fade into obscurity during the GameCube era. But that doesn’t change the fact that it remains a solid horror game and a unique footnote in Nintendo’s history.
Ico Was the Start of a Legacy
Gameplay from Ico video gameImage via Sony Computer Entertainment
Before Shadow of the Colossus, the team behind that masterpiece made Ico, which featured many of the same storytelling and design techniques. It tells a simple story about a boy named Ico, who must escape a castle with his new friend Yorda.
Ico received just as much critical praise as Shadow of the Colossus, but didn’t achieve the same kind of financial success or longevity among gamers. But the game remains one of the best of the PlayStation 2 era and shows that environmental storytelling is just as effective as the traditional kind.
Ikaruga Got Its Flowers With More Releases
Image via Treasure
Bullet Hell games like Ikaruga are always reliable fun thanks to their visuals and challenging gameplay. The game’s main gimmick was switching between black and white mode, which allowed the player to absorb bullets of the same color.
Over the years, Ikaruga received multiple ports and is now considered one of the best games in its genre. But like many games that set genre precedents, it has been forgotten in favor of its contemporaries.
Jet Set Radio is Ready For a Relaunch
Jet Set Radio gameplay on DreamcastImage via Sega
The Dreamcast has several underrated games during its short lifespan. Jet Set Radio was one of those games, with a cel-shaded art style and simple but addictive platforming gameplay that made it fun for everyone.
Sega plans to revive many of its dormant franchises, including Jet Set Radio, in the near future. This could mean that this Dreamcast gem could finally return to the spotlight it rightfully deserves.
Max Payne Fired Off in a Big Way
Image via Rockstar Games
Max Payne was a gritty and stylish neo-noir action game that combined graphic-novel-style storytelling with bullet-time mechanics, making the gameplay exciting and the narrative intriguing to follow. The success of the game led to a critically acclaimed trilogy, but no new games in the series have been released since then.
Both Rockstar Games and Remedy Entertainment have said remakes of the first two games are on the way. Until then, the original 2001 game will remain a forgotten masterpiece whose legacy will be unfortunately tied to the lackluster 2008 film adaptation.
Okami Paints an Unforgettable Picture
Okami is one of Capcom’s most beloved artistic wonders.Image via Capcom
Like Ico before it, Okami was both a fun game to play and a grand artistic achievement, showing that video games can be just as thematically satisfying as movies and television shows. Unfortunately, that artistic praise didn’t translate to a high number of players.
Okami may not be making waves in the video game world, but Capcom still seems to believe in the white wolf. In addition to appearances in other Capcom games, a new installment is in development, but no release date has been set.
Perfect Dark Was a Rare Gem
Joanna Dark fires her way through an office in Perfect Dark (N64)Image via Rare
Back in the day when Rare made games for Nintendo, they followed up the excellent Goldeneye 007 with Perfect Dark. An espionage thriller with a sci-fi twist, this game featured equally excellent single-player and multiplayer modes that everyone could enjoy.
Unfortunately, the series has floundered ever since Microsoft purchased Rare. After an Xbox 360 remaster, Perfect Dark hasn’t had any new games since, and a reboot was recently canceled. This leaves Joanna Dark to flounder in obscurity again for who knows how long.
Image via Eidos
The original Thief trilogy was one of the early pioneers of the stealth genre. The second game, The Metal Age, expanded on the original’s cyberpunk setting and quiet but effective gameplay mechanics to deliver a sharp sequel to the 1998 original.
Over the years, several other stealth action games have come around and stolen Thief’s crown. A failed reboot and a VR game haven’t done the franchise any favors, so it’s easy to forget how influential The Metal Age was.
Vagrant Story Got Lost in the Square Sauce
Image via Square Enix
Vagrant Story was an action RPG from the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics, and even shares that game’s main world: the fantasy land of Ivalice. However, this game focuses less on party management and places greater emphasis on dungeon crawling and customization, while still retaining the magic and battle systems players are familiar with.
This results in a game that stands out from the Final Fantasy series, despite not receiving as much recognition. Square Enix has also not made any returns to Ivalice in quite some time, so it looks like the story of Ashley Riot will be confined to the original PlayStation era.
