What do you consider to be the Five Worst Written RPGs?

[Slothy]

For a game you all claim to hate so much you've probably spent an entire play-throughs worth of hours talking about it.

Yeah, not even close.

[Fynn]

I once did a whole article on why XIII is bad and I started it with a disclaimer saying that I know there are good things about the game and everyone can enjoy it if it's their thing. It's just not for me.

Seriously, none of my rants on XIII ever contained any personal attacks on anyone and I don't think you have to be stupid to enjoy it. It's obviously your problem if you feel that way about that and I'd appreciate it if you read my posts more carefully before you decide to make an off-topic attack on my opinion and how I express it just because you can't deal with it.

[Slothy]

Exactly when did it become necessary to state in my opinion whenever providing an opinion so people aren't confused? If people expressing their dislike for a game in threads asking for opinions on games bothers anyone that's on them.

[Night Fury]

The one that I'm thinking off the top of my head right now is probably Type-0. I really couldn't make any sense of what I played of it, the writing was so bad that I couldn't pick it back up.

[Galuf]

The one that I'm thinking off the top of my head right now is probably Type-0. I really couldn't make any sense of what I played of it, the writing was so bad that I couldn't pick it back up.

Well now i know someone agrees im gonna say it too. confusing as hell


no way im playing it twice thats just stuuuuupid to force that

[Night Fury]

I'm a bit of a simpleton though and I don't always like things like spelled out for me, but I think it was just a lot of overly complex stuff happening off the bat and I got a headache.

[maybee]

Final Fantasy XIII- one of the main reasons why I hate this game so much is that everything is in the manual basically. Like, how lazy can you get Square- Enix ? It felt visuals over story and adasjajah !

[Galuf]

i dont even care its not an RPG, its an mmo so... whatever.

Destiny. for a game as big as this was hyped to be it was expected to fall short of expectations. But im gonna tell you the story now. Oh no you have been dead but brought back to life. now go kill stuff and... oh wow a new character... never does anything. beat boss done. yep. and all the story is on a datalog like ffxiii. THAT ISNT ON THE GAME! its on their website. i guess the DLC improved the story a bit.
but yeah. not an rpg but horrible writing none the less. coming from the people who made halo youd think they could make a story.

also charactrr development? pffft even ff8 had more.

[Formalhaut]

Yes, we don't spend as much time developing VIII's cast. And? They are not, by some insane twist of fate, all tormented by their Dark and Troubled Past^TM. The story is almost entirely about Squall and Rinoa and there is no need to add some bulltrout character development with Zell suddenly not being racist anymore because he just didn't think friendship was real and Selphie trying to run away from her past where she used to be romantically involved with an international drug cartel owner. These characters are support characters and they don't need to be anything else because THE STORY ISN'T ABOUT THEM. Stating all characters in a story need to undergo the ridiculously overhyped process of character development is just baffling to me. It's like saying Harry Potter sucks because the Weasley twins and the teachers didn't have some tacked on development. Please, read more, people, I beg you.

I don't think anyone is saying every character needs an character arc; those take time to set up and implement. But some character development shows that people change during the story. The focus needn't be on them, but mostly static characters don't help. The greater they are in focus, the more jarring it becomes to me. Penelo in FFXII barely changes from the start to the end of the story. Some characters don't need explicit development; Fran is the 'wise' character of the group, and so doesn't really need much. I see your point; too many characters getting development makes things muddled. I would say too little strips the focus a little.

it's just pulled out of the creator's ass. If you're going to pull all this lore out of nowhere, at least make the terminology something meaningful. Cie doesn't mean anything. The l'Cie, fal'Cie and Cie'th are explained well enough, but since all this could be just called stuff like Crystal, Crystal's Chosen and Crystal Fiend, and there's no foreign language present in the game to warrant foreign terminology, this is just a blatant case of making up nonsense to make it sound cool.

I still don't really see the issue. What's wrong with borrowing a few words? Did you know, fal'cie is an anagram of 'sky', and the 'fa' part is derived from the Latin famulus, meaning 'servant'. They didn't just pluck the names from thin air, Fynn.

[Fynn]

Yes, we don't spend as much time developing VIII's cast. And? They are not, by some insane twist of fate, all tormented by their Dark and Troubled Past^TM. The story is almost entirely about Squall and Rinoa and there is no need to add some bulltrout character development with Zell suddenly not being racist anymore because he just didn't think friendship was real and Selphie trying to run away from her past where she used to be romantically involved with an international drug cartel owner. These characters are support characters and they don't need to be anything else because THE STORY ISN'T ABOUT THEM. Stating all characters in a story need to undergo the ridiculously overhyped process of character development is just baffling to me. It's like saying Harry Potter sucks because the Weasley twins and the teachers didn't have some tacked on development. Please, read more, people, I beg you.

I don't think anyone is saying every character needs an character arc; those take time to set up and implement. But some character development shows that people change during the story. The focus needn't be on them, but mostly static characters don't help. The greater they are in focus, the more jarring it becomes to me. Penelo in FFXII barely changes from the start to the end of the story. Some characters don't need explicit development; Fran is the 'wise' character of the group, and so doesn't really need much. I see your point; too many characters getting development makes things muddled. I would say too little strips the focus a little.

it's just pulled out of the creator's ass. If you're going to pull all this lore out of nowhere, at least make the terminology something meaningful. Cie doesn't mean anything. The l'Cie, fal'Cie and Cie'th are explained well enough, but since all this could be just called stuff like Crystal, Crystal's Chosen and Crystal Fiend, and there's no foreign language present in the game to warrant foreign terminology, this is just a blatant case of making up nonsense to make it sound cool.

I still don't really see the issue. What's wrong with borrowing a few words? Did you know, fal'cie is an anagram of 'sky', and the 'fa' part is derived from the Latin famulus, meaning 'servant'. They didn't just pluck the names from thin air, Fynn.

That's kind of the the thing - they didn't give that explanation, even in the datalogs. Style over substance, I tell you!

[Formalhaut]

They don't have to give you an explanation of every little bit of etymology in the game, Fynn!

[Fynn]

It could come in handy if it's this obscure, really.

[Galuf]

i pluck my names from Fynn air

[Vyk]

As an amateur writer I can totally stand behind Fynn's opinion. And while I haven't played the game, I know the exact same things would bother me. Just like watching The Spoony Experiment rip the plot apart. I agreed with everything Spoony hated in VIII and X, I have no doubt I'd agree with all his complaints in XIII

I think it helps that Spoony plays table-top RPGs, he knows how to create, and certainly to a degree how to write. If I remember correctly, Fynn is a writer. We can look at Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and while we may not explicitly be able to recreate masterpieces to their equal. We understand the formula. And knowing what to do is harder than knowing what not to do. And XIII did a lot of "do not do" type things

Akin to that is my big problem with Star Ocean 4. I was enjoying the game until the writing came around and bit the main character's personality off and puked up some whiny over-emotional badly acted 14 year old for a leader. It could have been written so much better. Final Fantasy X could have been written so much better. Final Fantasy XIII could have been written so much better

And I think for us writers and creators it stands out even more so because we see the matrix inside. The recipes that make it up, and we legitimately see the potential, and all the places it fell on its face, and its disheartening. So much lost potential. With their budget. Their art design. Their music. And even damn competent voice acting in most cases. They all deserve so much better in their writing. If you were to have Nobuo Uematsu compose a masterpiece for the score, why should the writer get off penning a 5th grader's fan-fiction for the plot?

[Fynn]

Exactly. XIII hurts so much because the ideas behind it actually have a lot of potential, but the end result is a cheap rush job that is just shallow.