Bad Games, the Finally
4. ‬Tower of Druaga: Nightmare of Druaga (PS2)
      You know, I have nothing intelligible to say about this one. I made the worst games list off games that simply left an impact on me, and this one happened to. The only thing I can really say is it is outclassed by a flash based game on the web that came out years before this one, yet wasn’t even good enough for me to finish or remember the name of. smurf this game.

3. Final Fantasy VIII (PSX)
      Our main character runs out of the room screaming at the though that someone might think about him after he dies. And no one ever brings this moment up again. And the scene happens because they presume Seifer, who they clearly saw willing side with and go with the sorceress, is dead. Is there any need for me to say more about this game? Because the writing doesn’t get any better then that.

      I guess I could add in that it is just as bad, if not worse, then FF VII in terms of character differences in battle. There are two things that determine what you do in battle, limit breaks and what GF you have equipped. Let’s not even bring up blatant Limit Spamming tricks with Aura later in the game.

      While we are on GF’s, Junctioning is trout. Yes, the system makes sense from a purely mechanical standpoint and is pretty straight forward. No, it makes no smurfing sense from an in-world stand point, and the game does nothing to try to explain it. Worse yet, it starts rendering magic pointless. Yes, you can find a way to actually use magic easy enough while keeping it functioned to stats. Though why? You junction your strongest spells to attack because you want to bludgeon people to death. And doing so is just as, if not more so, effective then actually casting magic. In practice and flavor this is just a waste of a system.

      Last thing I’ll say, and believe me, most people here know I”m able to rant about way more in this game, Drawing is a smurfing terrible way to get magic. If you like the card game it’s fine, but I hate it. Drawing from nature points works, but is still slow and time consuming and nothing more then busy work. The only non-frustrating way to get magic is by breaking down items. Moving on.

2. Record of the Agarest War 2 (PS3/360)
      The only game that I’m sadder to put on this list is the one that is going to follow this, but this one really hit me hard. Not just because it failed not only as a game, and as a sequel to Agarest War, but you could tell these guys put in the effort. This was not a lazy attempt, but just an utterly failed one.

      Not only was it switched from an SRPG to a JRPG, but they trying to hold on to the focus of unite attacks. How this translated was, from the beginning, you will be doing the same trout the entire battle, which will be lengthy as smurf, until you no longer need to look at the screen to play through the fights.

      The Characters just fall flat compared to Agarest War as well, and once again fail to even be well made characters in their own write. I’m not sure if it was just due to poor translation or not, but the dialogue just feels so unnatural compared to the last game, and it’s hard to give a smurf about these people because of it.

      Worse yet, they take essentially the main antagonist for most of the last game, and he just get’s slapped down like a bitch in the smurfing tutorial fight. That was just insulting to me. And again, I see what they were doing, and I can see all the effort they put into making this. But dear god did it fail.

1. Mana Khemia 2 (PS2)
      I originally planned to do this prior to top 10 rather then top 5. Though when I started thinking about it, I realized this had to be done after Mana Khemia. It does, to an extent, apply to Agarest War 2 as well, but more so with this game you would need to understand exactly why it was I loved the first game so much to understand why I despise this game so. When I sat down to write this entry, I actually got so mad thinking about it I wasn’t even able to focus on the typing anymore.

      The more objective reason I hate this game amounts to the same reason I hated Dante’s Inferno, and that was how shamelessly lazy the game was. This games combat is nothing more then a carbon copy of Mana Khemia. What makes it worse though was in this case it wasn’t even ripping someone else off, it was just a recycling of the last game that had made. There was nothing added to combat in this game to distinguish it.

      Even worse, they took the great character writing of the first game and went, ‘let’s take a single aspect of each character from the last game, and make a character who only possess’s that aspect’. Not only did they get lazy with programming, but even the writing lacked any semblance of care. Designs and art direction were lifted entirely from the last game as well.

      Dante’s Inferno may have been a shameless rip off, but Mana Khemia 2 is more then that. This game was the creators of one of the most unique plots in the realm of video games just deciding they didn’t give a smurf. I know a lot of people think this is odd to feel about a video game, but this is what people mean by betrayal. It’s really strange considering there had only been Mana Khemia prior to this, but the speed at which they got this insanely lazy is pure bulltrout. There is not a single excuse for Mana Khemia 2. Even the likes of FF VIII and Agarest War 2 don’t compare to my disgust for this game and everything it represents to me.


Special note: Some of you may be saying ‘but don't you hate Dragon Quarter' to which I respond NO SUCH GAME EXISTED!