Much like the defining generation thread, except let's place a spotlight on the games that did nothing and probably hurt the genre more than anything. So let your nerd rage out.
Printable View
Much like the defining generation thread, except let's place a spotlight on the games that did nothing and probably hurt the genre more than anything. So let your nerd rage out.
I don't know what turn-based RPG was the first to have me control one character and make everyone else full AI, but that.
Persona 1 for all generations. That game plays like shot so much, regardless of version, that it transcends generation. SMT I had aged leagues better than this game and it is much older. I really have no idea what the hell they were thinking and how they managed to hulks such a phenomenal series on top of it.
Final Fantasy XIII. Hate that game with a passion.
Final Fantasy IX on the PSone... with all the great games that came out around then, Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, ect... FF IX was the low mark of that time with awful character designs, some bordering on insulting (Quinna was completely insulting)... it had a horrid combat system that dragged like mud and did everything it could to hinder the player, from Trance being completely useless to the skill system that would not let you use all the skills you have learned... i really wanted to like the game, bought it on day one, turned out to be total rubbish, my major gaming letdown of that year...
Final Fantasy IX do what it want. :quina:
FFVI, FFVIII, FFXII
XIII isn't even the worst game in the series, let alone an 'entire generation'. Pretty ridiculous comment.Quote:
Originally Posted by FFNut
Even as much as I dislike FFXV, there are worse RPGs out there from this era. For example, Langrisser Re:Incarnation -TENSEI- is the worst reviewed RPG from 2016 with a score of 35. I haven't played it, nor heard of it, but that's terrible.
edit: tone came off harsher than I intended, sorry.
I mean, it's not as if this thread is subjective or anything
The thread title is 'The absolute worst RPG of every generation'. Not 'What is the worst RPG you've played?'Quote:
Originally Posted by Fynn
His comment didn't really offer anything within the context of RPGs as a whole, or of the generation as a whole. Just "lul FFXIII sucks." Like, come on dude.
But it does suck!
Nah, that would be the game that came out two installments later (XV) :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Fynn
XIII-2? Yes, that also sucks.
Love how people disregard the thread topic and use this as a platform to join the "FFXIII sucks" circlejerk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spuuky
Try staying on topic next time.
Can everyone please calm down and move on? Let's not derail this thread any further because it would be a shame if it suddenly closed.
NES Era - Hydlide, anyone who has read my "Bottom RPG List" will know I consider this to be one of the worst RPGs ever made. Bad combat, terrible UI, absolutely no sense of direction and purposeful design. The game is a poster child of how not to make a fun game.
SNES/Genesis Era - This was actually a tough one for me because I kind of feel this was the beginning of the Golden Age for the genre so there are very few games I outright dislike for it. I may say one of the various D&D titles that was mostly text, menus, and stilted writing. The core gameplay worked if you were into D&D rules but I simply feel that console RPGs had streamlined the experience into something better so it was a bit odd playing something that tried way too hard to capture the "tabletop experience".
PS1 Era - Again, a bit difficult to find something because this is the end side of the Golden Age of console RPGs. I would probably say Revelations: Persona. While I don't necessarily have the outright anger against it like Fynn, the localization disaster for Persona 1 was unfortunate and the gameplay is a wonderful example of a critical failure in unique game design. I don't consider it unplayable, but the PSP port is significantly better with the exception of the music. It's definitely a "tolerate it or hate it" kind of experience though.
PS2 Era - I'm conflicted here, while there are some seriously sub-par games from this era like Star Ocean 3, Suikoden IV, and Xenosaga Episode 2; I can't help but gravitate towards an old stand by for a more specific reason. That would be Final Fantasy X. While it is not the worst game on the system, with the three previous mentioned titles all deserving said title for bad writing and crappy game design, I kind of want to nail FFX for popularizing several terrible game design choices that inadvertently killed many of my favorite franchises for trying to ape it. The fact it's design was taken as the core for what will be the worst game of next gen for me doesn't help. Linear dungeon design, challenge and core battle mechanics built around the end/post game, heavier emphasis on good looking cutscenes over writing and good pacing, a story that tells more than shows, pointless customization, a OST that takes a backseat to mediocre voice acting, disjointed world design, and overall just bland. While it works as an intro title for the series and genre, its ideas are far too calculated and inoffensive to be gripping, and the few good merits, either under perform or are saved for the end after you've lost interest. Again, while it's not the most offensive title of the generation, it's influence on other RPGs of the era made it difficult to really like the genre until the fad it created had passed. If I'm just going for a straight up bad game though, Xenosaga Episode 2 it is because it's mostly a game design predecessor for my next entry.
PS3 Era - Final Fantasy XIII, was it really a surprise? Of course not, I even recorded a crappy parody song to describe my dislike of this game. While there are certainly other games with worse writing and gameplay within the genre for this era, none of them had the financial backing to make them feel quite as insulting as XIII. Shameless pandering to FF nostalgia, brain dead dungeon design that looks pretty but lacks any substance to make it memorable, characters oozing with so much angst you could figuratively squeeze a Mexican Daytime Soap Opera out of them, a story that goes out of its way to strip away any meaningful themes the premise could have had, emotionally manipulative writing with zero substance, a mostly unlikable main cast with schizophrenic priorities, bad pacing in both story and game play, a mostly non-existent supporting cast, a cartoonish main villain, a literal deus ex machina ending that completely breaks the moral and theme of the story and would take two games later to actually make right, a gimmicky battle system that didn't work when Xenosaga Ep. 2 did it and they still found a way to strip away more tactical choices from the player, and the fact the main director threw a childish fit and blamed the fans for not liking it, despite all of its flaws that everyone else on the development team has the balls to be up front about, is the coup de grāce against this title. No AAA title has ever insulted my sensibilities as a writer or as an amateur game designer as much as this game has. It is to Final Fantasy what A.I. is to Steven Spielberg's directing career, a poorly conceived and manipulatively written affair that goes nowhere and ultimately does nothing but waste the audiences time.
Current Era - Much like the defining thread, I don't have an answer yet. While I've played a few RPGs on the current console generation, I feel it's too early to king "crappiest RPG". I feel like many of the games I have played are simply retreads of what was popular last generation so in a sense, I could say they are all underwhelming in their own way. I might say FFXV honestly for simply being a bit too basic for my taste and suffering from similar writing problems as XIII though it's less distasteful for me and I feel they at least made a likable core cast; but the game certainly never wowed me either beyond not being as much of a train wreck as I feel a game with its development history would lead you to believe. In some ways, it's like Duke Nukem Forever, where we were originally promised the moon and stars but instead settled for a fairly inoffensive but generic experience with the flavor of the franchise, though in DKF's case, I feel Duke's flavor of style has not aged well in the slightest. Course the console cycle is still young and I'm sure something worse will come from it. We do still have the VII Remake to dread/look forward to and Xenoblade 2 seems to have already disappointed everybody I know in some way. Hell, I'm still salty about Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so perhaps when I finally get around to playing that...
Oh look, yet another person using this thread as an opportunity to join the "FFXIII sucks" circlejerk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
Nowhere in your post are you discussing Final Fantasy XIII within the context of other JRPGs of the PS3 era, nor are you discussing what makes it the worst within that genre in that particular generation.
How about you try adhering to your own thread topic, instead of using this as an opportunity to bash a game you dislike?
edit: tone came off harsher than intended, sorry.
Dude, don't ask a question and then criticise everyone who gives an answer you don't agree with. They're completely entitled to say FFXIII. You haven't got uppity about any other answer given, and they have had just as much or little explanation, so seriously, just let people dislike a game and stop picking out FFXIII responses for every single reply you make. And I say this as not only a moderator, but also as a fan of FFXIII.
That's not what the thread topic is about. The thread topic isn't "What is the worst RPG that you've played from each era?" It's "The absolute worst RPG from each generation."Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
Everyone is entitled to say FFXIII sucks, but this isn't the thread for it. In fact, even though I think FFXV sucks, I defended it in my very first post in this thread because bashing a game that you dislike isn't what this thread is about.
And if it is what this thread is supposed to be about, then the title and opening post are misleading.
If you legitimately expect people to state that an RPG they never played is the worst RPG of a generation then you're just being absurd. I expect you're fully aware people will rate based on their opinions they have gained by actually playing the games, and are just being difficult for the sake of it. Please stop posting about this matter, if you have any issues with it make a thread in Private Feedback.
Well I see I stirred up a hornets nest. I will give my full list by generation.
Reminder this is just my personal opinion and isn't scientific by any means. Also my tastes may differ than others. For instance I hated Mass Effect, but loved Dragon Age. As the poll in the threads show more people liked Mass Effect more. I am just not a very spacey guy.
NES Era: Really don't have one here as I stuck to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest for the most part. Didn't venture far away from those.
SNES Era: I will say Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Not a huge surprise here but it just seems like it was either rushed, or incomplete. There may be a good game there... I didn't play it.
N64: Quest 64. Not a bad game, but I was always getting turned around in the maps and back tracking. Just made any dungeon crawling annoying.
PS1: Here I played Breath of Fire, but went away from the RPG genera for a while until the re release of the old FF brought me back in so I don't have one here.
PS2: Dark Cloud. Just didn't enjoy the pure dungeon crawling and it felt repetitive. It was cool to be able to rebuild the town in the image you liked, but it felt like a grind to do it.
XBox: I can't remeber which one but it was one of the Harry Potter games. It looked like fun, but it was just glitchy and I lost interest fast.
XBox360: Is it safe to say Final Fantasy XIII again? This is the worst game Square has ever produced in my humble opinion. The main cast was annoying as all. You had zero freedom. It was dumbed down to the lowest for the casual RPG fan, and it felt like if I put down my controller I could still beat the game without playing it. I could write a novel on it but I will leave this here. Yes I did play and finish it. The time Hope says worst birthday ever. I just thought about the kids who received that game for their birthday. It was insulting to old school gamers who grew up with titles like The 7th Saga who knew what a game over screen looked like.
XBox One: This one is still to be determined as I still have FF XV and Earthlock Festival of magic in my backlog ready to play, and I have been sinking my hours into a Modded out Skyrim.
The 1990s- Quest 64. Such awful gameplay. I agree with Flynn with Persona One being bad too.
The 2000s- Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. Bad gameplay, bad characters, bad voice acting, bad story.
2010- Today- Eternal Sonata and Final Fantasy XIII. Eternal was silly, and FF XIII had no basic towns, was on rails linear, and had a messy storyline and an obnoxious main cast. I prefer more linear games than open world, but FF XIII's linearity was just..... insane. I don't think I'm jumping on any FF Fandom Bandwagons here by voting FF XIII here- otherwise, I wouldn't admit that I'm a massive fan of FF II- which is considered to be the worst of the series.
Keep in mind I can only really speak for games I've played or at least seen someone play as I have no real way to judge games otherwise. There are critically hated games that I've enjoyed despite knowing they are considered bad. I also have never sought out rpgs that have been considered bad, so everything on my list might still be good.
Nes era: final lap twin. It was a racing rpg on the turbo grafx that i enjoyed, but it's basically the only rpg I played back then. I've only ever played newer versions of the more well known rpgs of that era.
Snes era: Final Fantasy IV. This is a bit biased because I played it after both the did remake and FF VI. Again, I don't have a lot of experience with this era.
Ps1 era: Quest 64 probably takes it based on gameplay I've seen, but I've never played it. Otherwise, I'm going to go with Legend of Dragoon. That could change whenever I get around to playing it more, but I've started it so many times and just lose interest.
Ps2 era: Dark Cloud. Just couldn't get into it.
PS3 era: Probably Star Ocean IV. Most of that era I didnt really feel we were getting a lot of great rpgs, but that one was one of the few I never finished. Blue Dragon and FFXIII almost had it because neither of those I've found enjoyable on subsequent play throughs, but Star Ocean was one I never liked and usually forget about.
This was hard to do and made me realize how little I've branched out in terms of rpgs.
Another person aboard the FFXIII train! I was seriously disappointed with it.
I can honestly say I've enjoyed the RPG's Ive bought over the years so i don't think any should warrant a place for different generations.
There's only two generations I can probably take from. The two games would be FFVIII and FFXIII. VIII I can forgive somewhat for a decent first disk and the excellent triple triad. XIII on the other hand I found so offensively bad that it has cautioned me off buying new full priced games ever since.
Just thought of a game for the SNES worse then Mystic Quest.
Tecmo Secret of The Stars. This one was a rare miss for Tecmo who usually was known for tackling a genre and knocking it out of the park. The game was plain awful beyond all compare.
i liked ff13 too lol
i liked that it was an unexpected change from a formula i was pretty tired of tbh
and once you understood the battle system it was fun
if i wanted to inject the emotions of the characters into the player i dont know if i would've done anything differently, its one big long chase
anyway
snes: i didnt like 7th saga
psx: i found xenogears p. much unplayable. terrible battle system and disjoint art styles threw me out of the experience
ps2: i dunno nothing really bad here but if i had to pick i'd say kingdom hearts because their feet are too big and it makes me uncomfortable
ps3/xbox: fable i guess. oh no wait, it was dragon age origins. so unemotional i may as well have been playing solitaire.
ps4: dex. i was pretty disappointed but maybe i never gave it enough of a chance cause i played the beta.
I may switch out Dark Cloud for Unlimited SaGa. I'd have to try playing it again to know for sure, but i remember hating it.
Also, I think I'd put the psp in the same era as PS3, and I just remembered Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. I feel that would probably be below Star Ocean for me.
NES: Hydlide is a pretty solid answer so I'll go with that.
SNES: Man I really don't think Mystic Quest is good at all. It's bland and dull.
PS1: Persona 1, particularly the North American version, is awful but I'd have to go with Beyond the Beyond simply because it's cliche to the point of parody. Shadow Madness and King's Field are good second picks.
PS2: Star Ocean 3 is full of awful JRPG tropes but the combat is fun. For me it's gotta be Shining Tears. Ugly and boring.
PS3: Yeah FFXIII is pretty bad and a failure of game design but it works competently and has passion behind it. Enchanted Arms is pretty not-good though, full of cringey anime tropes that unlike series like Hyperdimension Neptunia or the Atelier series, isn't absurd enough to be endearing. Though for my money the worst RPG of this era is Star Ocean 4. A game of lowest common denominator weebs and an example as to why JRPG's kinda fell from grace for a while.
I really liked Dark Cloud/Dark Chronicle, it's closer to a proper roguelike than most of the games being slapped with that term nowadays.
I actually kind of liked Enchanted Arms. A lot more than SO4.
I'm still debating about SO4. I own it, but got only far enough into the game to realize that I was going to have to switch to Japanese audio if I was going to make it through it. I then got distracted by better games.
Star Ocean 4 kept me entertained for 600-700 hours. The sheer amount of stuff to do in the game, the Platinum trophy, the music, the worlds, all of it gave me more then I could ask for with my money. I haven't had a single RPG for PS3 that I did not enjoy. If I had to choose then maybe Atelier Rorona because the time limits are way more strict but truth be told I can't really associate it with the word "bad" or "worst" because it was still so good as a game that it kept me interested and introduced me to the rest of the series.
PS3/360 era, I was smart enough to avoid FFXIII because I knew all the complaints would ring true to me. So having not played it, I can't vote it, but I probably would since it's arguably worse than my two other most hated games in the series, and for similar reasons to why I hate those games. But the worst RPG I played that generation was Spectral Souls 3. Basically a mobile game for a console. It's a tactical RPG, but only in the barest sense. I've played other Spectral Souls games and some of its off-shoots, through emulation on PSP and such. They're all pretty terrible. I think they're from Idea Factory, who only rarely makes tolerable RPGs in my experience. They're more of a quantity over quality type of company, much like any mobile developer, only they mostly focused on console games for some reason
And oh god. People bringing up Star Ocean 4. That game could easily be on this list as well. But at least someone behind it tried...
I almost think I'd appreciate Star Ocean IV now if I played it. It would just be the gameplay that would more interest me now. I still can't get behind the characters and story though.
I don't know. I think I conclusively proved in my LP from a few years back that Mystic Quest is damaging to ones mental health.Quote:
Originally Posted by FFNut
Though that is true, Secret of the stars makes it look like a masterpiece. One I would suggest could run up against Superman 64 for worst game ever.
Beyond the Beyond is definitely the worst of the PS1 era. That game is dull, slow, and cliche beyond belief. I'll have to think some more about other generations, there are too many options to consider.
Mass Effect 1 for PS3/360 era. It spawned two vastly superior sequels so that's good but all on its own, it's just a KOTOR ripoff with worse characters, voice-acting and plot. The Paraogn/Renegade system was a joke in this game since the choice was Bootlicking Boy Scout or Rabid Racist.
Gameplay is just abysmal, consisting of exploring samey worlds, identical buildings and trying to play a shooter that thought it was an RPG.
I'd sooner play FFXIII to ME1 any day of the wee. At least it's nice to look at, listen to and is occasionally fun to play.