10 Worst RPG Video Games
There are much better ways to spend 100 hours.
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00:00 Roleplaying games are, by their very nature, time-intensive affairs.
00:04 Much grander than your average run-and-gunner, they require players to understand and utilise
00:08 deeper systems which in turn brings them further into their expansive worlds.
00:12 The best RPGs have immersive stories, interesting characters and settings that can entrance
00:17 and delight.
00:18 So, if an RPG under-delivers in these key areas, you better not be dozens of hours in
00:22 before you realise the grave error you've made by giving it the benefit of the doubt.
00:26 I'm SciForWhatCulture.com and these are the 10 worst RPG video games of all time.
00:32 10.
00:33 Quest 64
00:34 Maybe Quest 64 serves a purpose as someone's very first introduction to the roleplay genre,
00:39 but if you're looking for a single scrap of depth or individuality, then you should
00:43 look literally anywhere else.
00:44 I mean, the fact that Imagineer couldn't think of a better name for their N64 RPG than
00:49 Quest 64 is telling enough and we haven't even made it past the box yet.
00:54 The real issue is that Quest 64 makes no attempts to separate itself from other games or even
00:58 the past.
00:59 Its story is trite at best, its battle system is tired and its general gameplay is witheringly
01:04 basic.
01:05 Generic protagonist child, or as the game calls him, Brian, can wield the four standard
01:09 RPG elemental spells.
01:11 Encountering new enemies is a standard affair of trial and error trying to identify their
01:15 arbitrary weakness.
01:17 Battles take place by interrupting overworld exploration a la Chrono Trigger, but the wildly
01:21 swinging camera means that once you're done, it's all too easy to get lost and turned
01:25 around in Quest 64's unremarkable world.
01:28 There had been concerns that Nintendo's 64-bit machine and its cartridge system was
01:32 going to struggle to produce compelling RPGs in that era.
01:36 Considering that Quest 64 launched after the PlayStation Mega hit Final Fantasy 7, it did
01:40 an indisputably good job of confirming that theory.
01:44 9.
01:45 Digimon World 2
01:46 Now, I don't have a whole lot of personal knowledge on the Digimon franchise, nor the
01:49 various video games that the property has produced, but it seems as though the Digimon
01:53 World series doesn't know what it is.
01:55 Sometimes it's a Tamagotchi sim, sometimes a Mystery Dungeon clone.
01:58 If you're a Digimon fan, then you might find something to like about Digimon World
02:02 2, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the most boring dungeon crawlers ever released.
02:06 Mystery Dungeon games, by their very nature, just work a lot better on handheld systems,
02:10 so Digimon World 2 inherently struggles.
02:13 Rather than something you can pick up and play, it demands a steep time investment.
02:16 The title marries slow and repetitive gameplay with its worst of bedfellows, insane difficulty
02:21 spikes that demand players to grind to sweet heaven to stand a chance.
02:25 Dungeon progression is tedious, and your monster running out of energy makes it all the more
02:28 infuriating when you have to return to the beginning to start all over again.
02:32 Moreover, it only takes a few hours before each dungeon you've completed starts to
02:36 blur together in a haze of dull visuals.
02:39 The phrase 'dungeon crawler' never felt so apt for a game that is so painfully slow
02:43 and uninteresting in every regard.
02:45 8.
02:46 Hyperdimension Neptunia
02:47 Hyperdimension Neptunia is set in an alternate timeline of game industry.
02:51 This world is fractured, divided into regions that parody different parts of the so-called
02:55 console war, such as Last Station, Louis and Leanbox.
03:00 Fun right?
03:01 Seems like an amusing thing to parody, considering that the console war itself is inherently
03:05 ridiculous.
03:06 What if I told you that's where the fun completely stops?
03:09 Hyperdimension Neptunia really should have just cut the RPG element out of its game as
03:13 it has all the making of your regular baseline of trash for a visual novel.
03:17 Underdressed, over-sexualised anime girls fill the title from top to bottom and spend
03:21 their time chatting absolute nonsense.
03:24 But you'll beg for this portion of the game back when Hyperdimension decides to drop you
03:27 into some of the most underdeveloped dungeons you've ever seen and asks of you to essentially
03:31 fill a quota of monsters defeated.
03:34 This means slogging through the game's terrible, poor excuse for a turn-based battle system
03:38 which, whilst it does have an interesting combo system, is basically left unexplained.
03:42 It's sluggish and dull and feels ultimately tacked on, probably for very good reason.
03:47 The promise of a game parodying the 7th generation console war could have actually made for something
03:51 fresh, but Hyperdimension Neptunia's vapid and constantly sexist vibe makes you feel
03:55 nothing but shame.
03:57 7.
03:58 Mass Effect Andromeda
03:59 The original Mass Effect trilogy can be called one of the biggest triumphs of the Xbox 360
04:04 and PS3 era.
04:05 With the story of Commander Shepard and crew concluded, fans would have to wait a full
04:09 seven years for the next instalment.
04:11 Mass Effect Andromeda may well be most famous for the glitchy state it launched in, including
04:15 but not limited to its nightmarish inability to render faces properly.
04:20 Texture pop-ins happened regularly at launch, as did a lot of gameplay freezes as players
04:24 explored the new open world landscapes.
04:26 The issues were deeper than mere bugs though.
04:29 The game was also criticised for its slow plot that retread too much familiar ground
04:33 and didn't offer enough variety to set it apart from the original trilogy.
04:37 The open world elements use a lot of copy and pasting to fill them and the same can
04:40 be said about the game's side missions.
04:42 Even if the combat was more fluid, it just didn't feel like the next big step that
04:46 we were all waiting for and thus Andromeda hit the deck with a big dull clang rather
04:50 than took flight.
04:52 The title's poor reception temporarily put the franchise on ice so that Bethesda Edmonton
04:56 could instead focus on the new IP Anthem.
04:58 However, since that game also flopped, it seems that not all is lost and a follow up
05:02 to Mass Effect Andromeda may at least be on the way.
05:05 6.
05:06 Final Fantasy XIV - Version 1
05:08 If you're forced to wipe your game from the face of the earth and start again, that's
05:12 probably a good indicator that you've created something pretty awful.
05:16 This one ends well, but Final Fantasy XIV was dragged through broken glass to get there.
05:20 Performance issues were one of the biggest problems that caused FFXIV's downfall, although
05:24 that's not forgiving the game's frankly terrible interface.
05:27 It looked nice and there was clearly some degree of fun to be had, but it was buried
05:31 under technical troubles as well as what appeared to be a pretty severe degree of grind.
05:35 Square Enix extended the game's trial period multiple times to keep players involved, but
05:40 behind the scenes big changes were happening to try and save face in the long run.
05:44 Players that stuck with Final Fantasy XIV saw the in-game story culminate in a world-ending
05:49 event that resulted in the servers being turned off.
05:52 A month later, the alpha test for Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn began.
05:57 Built from the ground up and helmed by a new director, this 2.0 version of the game was
06:01 much more in line with player expectation.
06:04 Since its re-release in 2014, Final Fantasy XIV has gone on to become one of the most
06:08 successful MMORPGs of all time.
06:11 A rather large pendulum swing considering the original version cost Square a lot of
06:15 money and a lot of player faith.
06:17 5.
06:18 Overlord - Fellowship of Evil
06:20 In 2007, Codemasters released Overlord, and whilst it didn't set the world on fire, it
06:25 was a warmly received comedy fantasy romp.
06:28 Players assumed the role of an evil warrior, growing and commanding their multi-talented
06:32 minion army like the twisted version of Pikmin.
06:35 So the case is with success, further entries in the fledgling IP were commissioned.
06:39 A sequel and two spin-offs all came in 2009, to surprisingly decent review scores, before
06:44 all went quiet on the Overlord front until 2015.
06:48 Overlord - Fellowship of Evil was, instead of the next-gen follow-up, yet another spin-off
06:52 for the franchise and it brought drastic changes to the existing formula, taking the series
06:57 to a top-down perspective and turning the variety of options down to near zero.
07:02 Fellowship of Evil is the most boring Diablo clone you can imagine, in both its dull gameplay
07:06 and its brown and red "visual design".
07:10 All the fun of the minions from the previous instalments is now reduced to unnecessary
07:14 fluff since Fellowship of Evil requires no more than mashing the attack button for 7
07:19 hours.
07:20 You pretty much never even need to grab loot and upgrade your character as the challenge
07:23 is already hysterically low.
07:25 Director Rihanna Pratchett claimed the game was "its own entity" and doesn't stop
07:28 Overlord 3 from existing, but considering the franchise has laid completely dormant
07:32 for the last 7 years, we may be inclined to disagree.
07:35 4.
07:36 Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood
07:38 Sonic Chronicles, if you're pessimistic, can be looked at as yet another example of
07:42 Sonic Team saying "anything Mario does, we can also attempt".
07:46 Considering that the core ideal of Sonic the Hedgehog is momentum, it may seem like the
07:49 franchise and the turn-based JRPG system are at odds with each other.
07:54 Thus, developers Bioware tried their best to create combat that tried some new things.
07:58 Sadly, the end result is a messy, overbearing and hand-holding experience that quite simply
08:02 was not fun.
08:04 The battle system requires intensive use of the DS's touchscreen, which gets old fast,
08:08 but even worse is that you also have to use the touchscreen to move Sonic around the world,
08:12 which is immediately cumbersome.
08:14 Slap this on top of a bunch of empty and pretty uninspired settings that rarely make good
08:18 use of Sonic's established style and you're on a fast track to a bad time.
08:22 Unlike Sonic platformers being an RPG, Dark Brotherhood is dialogue heavy, which has its
08:27 ups and downs.
08:28 The characters are well written and we actually do get a few cool story moments that affect
08:32 the lore of the Sonic universe, such as some info about Knuckles' past, but unfortunately
08:37 it's too few and too infrequent for a 16 hour RPG and the story amounts to very little.
08:43 This includes a cliffhanger ending because the Chronicles series starts and ends with
08:47 this one failed experiment.
08:49 3.
08:50 Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantasy XII was defined by its very
08:54 open environment and its experimental battle system, which was closer to an MMO than a
08:58 traditional command based system.
09:00 Final Fantasy XIII flipped all of this on its head, returning to a more familiar kind
09:04 of turn based battle system and, for whatever reason, turning essentially every area of
09:09 the game into a long, empty hallway.
09:11 What sets RPGs apart from other genres should be the player's desire to get invested into
09:15 the game's world and the fact they are left to do so how they see fit.
09:19 Square certainly believed in Cocoon as they announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be
09:23 just one game in an entire collection of titles from that world.
09:27 From a player perspective however, the world and thus the game feels very shallow as there's
09:31 nothing to do, nowhere to explore and no one to talk to.
09:35 Apparently the game opens up after chapter 10 but the simple fact is that if I have to
09:38 invest 25 hours into your title before it gets good then… well that's 25 hours I
09:43 could be investing into literally anything else.
09:46 Additionally, Final Fantasy XIII's overblown writing would feel like a parody if not for
09:50 the fact it takes itself seriously.
09:52 Almost every character in the game is hideously boring or alarmingly annoying and sometimes
09:58 both.
09:59 Looking at you, Snow.
10:00 2.
10:01 Two Worlds
10:02 The Xbox 360 wasn't exactly a console known for its RPGs and so Two Worlds was a rare
10:06 case.
10:07 Regrettably, it billed itself as the Oblivion Killer, hoping to outdo the Elder Scrolls'
10:12 latest major hit.
10:13 That's a bold claim for anyone to make but Two Worlds was setting itself up to disappoint
10:17 a lot of people with the level of hype it was generating.
10:20 It's not a great sign if you avoid paying for a professional recording studio and do
10:24 it all in house and it's an even worse sign if you have the same approach to writing your
10:28 game.
10:29 It's a roleplaying game, story and script are some pretty key factors and thus Two Worlds'
10:34 plot was both poor in content and delivery.
10:37 It doesn't stop there though as the game itself was tragically undercooked when it
10:41 arrived with the constant streams of bugs of all kinds.
10:45 Objects popping into existence, textures vanishing, NPCs walking through solid objects and all
10:49 of that is before getting to the combat that caused the framerate to chug.
10:53 But Two Worlds did deliver on some of its promises, it did include horseback combat
10:57 unlike Oblivion.
10:58 Unfortunately, this mechanic feels more like balancing glass vases on skateboards on your
11:03 forearms with how bad the controls are which means that the chugging yet insanely easy
11:07 on foot combat is a better option 100% of the time.
11:11 So yeah, take that Oblivion.
11:14 1.
11:15 Luna - Dragon Song Those of us in Europe may not have ever heard
11:18 of the Luna RPG series before because it never came to our part of the world despite some
11:23 decent success during the 90s on the likes of the Sega CD and Sega Game Gear.
11:27 The final game in the series, Luna Dragon Song is the only entry we've ever had.
11:31 Disheartening because even after a 10 year wait since the previous game, it absolutely
11:36 sucked.
11:37 Luna Dragon Song goes the total opposite way to games like Quest 64 and in an effort to
11:41 mix up the formula innovates in ways that nobody wants.
11:44 The most painful of these is admonishing the player for sprinting by making them take damage.
11:49 Sure, maybe I could understand that there should be a punishment for avoiding battles
11:52 in the overworld but this also applies to, say, the hallway of your local inn.
11:57 Is there carpet covered in upturned thumbtacks or something?
12:00 Maybe we wouldn't be running away from enemies if your battle system wasn't an uncomfortable
12:04 mess.
12:05 Even Quest 2, 20 years earlier, let me select a specific target out of all of those on screen
12:10 so why can't you Luna Dragon Song?
12:12 Further features include saving dev time by turning town exploration into literally a
12:16 map that you select the building you want to enter, a total lack of voice acting and
12:20 animations that cause the game to lag.
12:23 You know what Japan?
12:24 You can keep this one.
12:25 And that's the list.
12:26 Let us know down in the comments below what you thought of this video and of any other
12:30 terrible RPG games you've experienced.
12:33 Make sure you like this video, subscribe for more, hit the notification bell and share
12:37 it with your friends.
12:38 I'm Sy from WhatCulture and have a good week.