Secret of the Stars 2-party system could have been a neat idea if it was better utilized throughout the game.
However, most of the time, the secondary party was only useful for gathering extra treasures. Even then, it was pretty much junk that wasn't worth the effort, except for one that had a Moon Drop inside (the extremely rare full MP recovery item). All plot scenes had to be accessed by the main party, and of course all boss fights were behind barriers only the main party was allowed to cross.
But suddenly in the final leg of the game, they give you four mini-dungeons that only that second party can enter, to get some key items. Then in the last dungeon, you need both parties because each can only unlock one color barrier.
I don't think Evermore was all that bad, it just wasn't the Mana game people wanted it to be. Certainly in the translation scene we've seen much worse games that were clearly passed over for quality reasons.
I personally couldn't stand to play Lord of the Rings for SNES for very long. Awful, tiny graphics (that would've been okay on Genesis, but I'd have expected more out of the SNES graphics capabilities
). Off-centered hit detection that made combat frustrating. Passwords (they should've banned in RPGs by the SNES era
). The only apparent way to heal characters besides items was to get a game over. (they also lied when they said it was the first multiplayer RPG. It came out after Secret of Mana, Yaiba (I think it's RPG, maybe just action, but haven't played it much), if not more Japanese games I can't remember. But that's a minor point.)
Lagoon. I'm probably not the only one who thinks the soundtrack was the only good thing about it.
I tried playing Ys for NES. It's like the game was designed for you to save-spam. I got as far as the dark cave with almost no visibility. If an enemy sneaks up on you, it can drain your entire HP in less than a second. Nice game otherwise, but that cheap difficulty really kills it. Not sure if the other versions were any kinder.