What games can you recommend that didn't get the appreciation that they deserved?
I've been recently been thinking about Arkane Studio's Prey which is a immersive sim, with a pretty good rogue like dlc, that probably has one of the strongest hooks of any game I've played. If you liked Halflife, System Shock, or Deus Ex it's definitely worth a play.
Are there any titles that might not have been commercially successful that you feel everyone should give a shot?
Agreed on the holy trinity. But even though you're devout to the holy trinity, sometimes there are temptations.
Illusion of Gaia is that cool friend you haven't seen in a long time who shows up, and you bond and reminisce like you haven't been separated at all. Then you discover Illusion of Gaia has friends you haven't met, and they roll together in a cool club called The Soul Blazer Trilogy.
My favorite thing about Illusion of Gaia has to be the fact that the manual contained a complete walkthrough of the game, at least in the North American release. Unless it was the same energy as "the dumb Americans ~(who invented the genre and introduced it to the East)~ don't understand RPGs, so we'll make Mystic Quest really simple and dumbed down for them" I don't know why they did that.
Also, I was like 13 when I got my used copy of Soul Blazer...is there a more melancholy game on the SNES?