10 Worst RPG Video Games
There are much better ways to spend 100 hours.
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00:00Roleplaying games are, by their very nature, time-intensive affairs.
00:04Much grander than your average run-and-gunner, they require players to understand and utilise
00:08deeper systems, which in turn brings them further into their expansive worlds.
00:12The best RPGs have immersive stories, interesting characters and settings that can entrance
00:17and delight.
00:18So, if an RPG under-delivers in these key areas, you better not be dozens of hours in
00:22before you realise the grave error you've made by giving it the benefit of the doubt.
00:27I'm SciForWhatCulture.com and these are the 10 Worst RPG Video Games of All Time.
00:3210.
00:33Quest 64
00:35Maybe Quest 64 serves a purpose as someone's very first introduction to the roleplay genre,
00:39but if you're looking for a single scrap of depth or individuality, then you should
00:43look literally anywhere else.
00:44I mean, the fact that Imagineer couldn't think of a better name for their N64 RPG than
00:49Quest 64 is telling enough, and we haven't even made it past the box yet.
00:54The real issue is that Quest 64 makes no attempts to separate itself from other games
00:58or even the past.
00:59Its story is trite at best, its battle system is tired and its general gameplay is witheringly
01:04basic.
01:05Generic Protagonist Child, or as the game calls him, Brian, can wield the four standard
01:09RPG elemental spells, encountering new enemies is a standard affair of trial and error trying
01:14to identify their arbitrary weakness.
01:17Battles take place by interrupting overworld exploration a la Chrono Trigger, but the wildly
01:21swinging camera means that once you're done, it's all too easy to get lost and
01:25turned around in Quest 64's unremarkable world.
01:28There had been concerns that Nintendo's 64-bit machine and its cartridge system was
01:33going to struggle to produce compelling RPGs in that era.
01:36Considering that Quest 64 launched after the PlayStation Mega hit Final Fantasy 7, it did
01:40an indisputably good job of confirming that theory.
01:449.
01:45Digimon World 2
01:46Now, I don't have a whole lot of personal knowledge on the Digimon franchise, nor the
01:49various video games that the property has produced, but it seems as though the Digimon
01:53World series doesn't know what it is.
01:55Sometimes it's a Tamagotchi sim, sometimes a Mystery Dungeon clone.
01:58If you're a Digimon fan, then you might find something to like about Digimon World
02:022, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the most boring dungeon crawlers ever released.
02:06Mystery Dungeon games, by their very nature, just work a lot better on handheld systems,
02:10so Digimon World 2 inherently struggles.
02:13Rather than something you can pick up and play, it demands a steep time investment.
02:16The title marries slow and repetitive gameplay with its worst of bedfellows, insane difficulty
02:21spikes that demand players to grind to sweet heaven to stand a chance.
02:25Dungeon progression is tedious, and your monster running out of energy makes it all the more
02:28infuriating when you have to return to the beginning to start all over again.
02:32Moreover, it only takes a few hours before each dungeon you've completed starts to
02:36blur together in a haze of dull visuals.
02:39The phrase dungeon crawler never felt so apt for a game that is so painfully slow and uninteresting
02:44in every regard.
02:458.
02:46Hyperdimension Neptunia
02:47Hyperdimension Neptunia is set in an alternate timeline of game industry.
02:51This world is fractured, divided into regions that parody different parts of the so-called
02:55console war, such as Last Station, LWIAY and Leanbox.
03:00Fun right?
03:01Seems like an amusing thing to parody, considering that the console war itself is inherently
03:05ridiculous.
03:06What if I told you that's where the fun completely stops?
03:09Hyperdimension Neptunia really should have just cut the RPG elements out of its game
03:13as it has all the making of your regular baseline of trash for a visual novel.
03:17Underdressed, over-sexualised anime girls fill the title from top to bottom and spend
03:21their time chatting absolute nonsense.
03:24But you'll beg for this portion of the game back when Hyperdimension decides to drop you
03:27into some of the most underdeveloped dungeons you've ever seen and asks of you to essentially
03:31fill a quota of monsters defeated.
03:34This means slogging through the game's terrible, poor excuse for a turn-based battle system
03:38which, whilst it does have an interesting combo system, is basically left unexplained.
03:42It's sluggish and dull and feels ultimately tacked on, probably for very good reason.
03:47The promise of a game parodying the 7th generation console war could have actually made for something
03:51fresh, but Hyperdimension Neptunia's vapid and constantly sexist vibe makes you feel
03:55nothing but shame.
03:577.
03:58Mass Effect Andromeda
03:59The original Mass Effect trilogy can be called one of the biggest triumphs of the Xbox 360
04:04and PS3 era.
04:05With the story of Commander Shepard and crew concluded, fans would have to wait a full
04:09seven years for the next instalment.
04:11Mass Effect Andromeda may well be most famous for the glitchy state it launched in, including
04:15but not limited to its nightmarish inability to render faces properly.
04:20Texture pop-ins happened regularly at launch, as did a lot of gameplay freezes as players
04:24explored the new open world landscapes.
04:26The issues were deeper than mere bugs though.
04:29The game was also criticised for its slow plot that retread too much familiar ground
04:33and didn't offer enough variety to set it apart from the original trilogy.
04:37The open world elements use a lot of copy and pasting to fill them and the same can
04:40be said about the game's side missions.
04:42Even if the combat was more fluid, it just didn't feel like the next big step that
04:46we were all waiting for and thus Andromeda hit the deck with a big dull clang rather
04:50than took flight.
04:52The title's poor reception temporarily put the franchise on ice so that Bethesda Edmonton
04:56could instead focus on the new IP Anthem, however since that game also flopped it seems
05:01that not all is lost and a follow up to Mass Effect Andromeda may at least be on the way.
05:056.
05:06Final Fantasy XIV Version 1
05:08If you're forced to wipe your game from the face of the earth and start again, that's
05:12probably a good indicator that you've created something pretty awful.
05:16This one ends well, but Final Fantasy XIV was dragged through broken glass to get there.
05:20Performance issues were one of the biggest problems that caused FFXIV's downfall,
05:24although that's not forgiving the game's frankly terrible interface.
05:27It looked nice and there was clearly some degree of fun to be had, but it was buried
05:31under technical troubles as well as what appeared to be a pretty severe degree of grind.
05:36Square Enix extended the game's trial period multiple times to keep players involved, but
05:40behind the scenes big changes were happening to try and save face in the long run.
05:44Players that stuck with Final Fantasy XIV saw the in-game story culminate in a world-ending
05:49event that resulted in the servers being turned off.
05:52A month later the alpha test for Final Fantasy XIV, a Realm Reborn, began.
05:57Built from the ground up and helmed by a new director, this 2.0 version of the game was
06:01much more in line with player expectation.
06:04Since its re-release in 2014, Final Fantasy XIV has gone on to become one of the most
06:08successful MMORPGs of all time, a rather large pendulum swing considering the original version
06:14cost Square a lot of money and a lot of player faith.
06:175.
06:18Overlord – Fellowship of Evil In 2007, Codemasters released Overlord and
06:23whilst it didn't set the world on fire, it was a warmly received comedy-fantasy romp.
06:28Players assumed the role of an evil warrior, growing and commanding their multi-talented
06:32minion army like the twisted version of Pikmin.
06:35So the case is, with success, further entries in the fledgling IP were commissioned.
06:39A sequel and two spin-offs all came in 2009, to surprisingly decent review scores, before
06:44all went quiet on the Overlord front until 2015.
06:48Overlord – Fellowship of Evil was, instead of the next-gen follow-up, yet another spin-off
06:52for the franchise and it brought drastic changes to the existing formula, taking the series
06:57to a top-down perspective and turning the variety of options down to near-zero.
07:02Fellowship of Evil is the most boring Diablo clone you can imagine, in both its dull gameplay
07:06and its brown-and-red quote-unquote visual design.
07:10All the fun of the minions from the previous instalments is now reduced to unnecessary
07:14fluff since Fellowship of Evil requires no more than mashing the attack button for seven
07:18hours.
07:19You pretty much never even need to grab loot and upgrade your character as the challenge
07:23is already hysterically low.
07:25Developer Rihanna Pratchett claimed the game was its own entity and doesn't stop Overlord
07:293 from existing, but considering the franchise has laid completely dormant for the last seven
07:33years we may be inclined to disagree.
07:354.
07:36Sonic Chronicles – The Dark Brotherhood
07:38Sonic Chronicles, if you're pessimistic, can be looked at as yet another example of
07:42Sonic Team saying, anything Mario does, we can also attempt.
07:46Considering that the core ideal of Sonic the Hedgehog is momentum, it may seem like the
07:49franchise and the turn-based JRPG system are at odds with each other.
07:54Thus, developers Bioware tried their best to create combat that tried some new things.
07:58Sadly, the end result is a messy, overbearing and hand-holding experience that quite simply
08:02was not fun.
08:04The battle system requires intensive use of the DS's touchscreen, which gets old fast,
08:08but even worse is that you also have to use the touchscreen to move Sonic around the world,
08:12which is immediately cumbersome.
08:14Slap this on top of a bunch of empty and pretty uninspired settings that rarely make good
08:18use of Sonic's established style and you're on a fast track to a bad time.
08:22Unlike Sonic platformers being an RPG, Dark Brotherhood is dialogue heavy, which has its
08:27ups and downs.
08:28The characters are well-written and we actually do get a few cool story moments that affect
08:32the lore of the Sonic universe, such as some info about Knuckles' past, but unfortunately
08:37it's too few and too infrequent for a 16-hour RPG and the story amounts to very little.
08:43This includes a cliffhanger ending because the Chronicles series starts and ends with
08:47this one failed experiment.
08:493.
08:50Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantasy XII was defined by its very
08:54open environment and its experimental battle system, which was closer to an MMO than a
08:58traditional command-based system.
09:00Final Fantasy XIII flipped all of this on its head, returning to a more familiar kind
09:04of turn-based battle system and, for whatever reason, turning essentially every area of
09:09the game into a long, empty hallway.
09:11What sets RPGs apart from other genres should be the player's desire to get invested into
09:15the game's world and the fact they are left to do so how they see fit.
09:19Square certainly believed in Cocoon as they announced that Final Fantasy XIII would be
09:23just one game in an entire collection of titles from that world.
09:27From a player perspective, however, the world, and thus the game, feels very shallow as there's
09:31nothing to do, nowhere to explore and no one to talk to.
09:35Apparently, the game opens up after Chapter 10, but the simple fact is that if I have
09:38to invest 25 hours into your title before it gets good, then, well, that's 25 hours
09:43I could be investing into literally anything else.
09:46Additionally, Final Fantasy XIII's overblown writing would feel like a parody if not for
09:50the fact it takes itself seriously.
09:52Almost every character in the game is hideously boring or alarmingly annoying and, sometimes,
09:58both.
09:59Looking at you, Snow.
10:002.
10:01Two Worlds
10:02The Xbox 360 wasn't exactly a console known for its RPGs and so Two Worlds was a rare
10:06case.
10:07Regrettably, it billed itself as the Oblivion Killer, hoping to outdo the Elder Scrolls'
10:12latest major hit.
10:13That's a bold claim for anyone to make, but Two Worlds was setting itself up to disappoint
10:17a lot of people with the level of hype it was generating.
10:20It's not a great sign if you avoid paying for a professional recording studio and do
10:24it all in-house, and it's an even worse sign if you have the same approach to writing
10:28your game.
10:29It's a role-playing game, story and script are some pretty key factors, and thus, Two
10:34Worlds' plot was both poor in content and delivery.
10:37It doesn't stop there, though, as the game itself was tragically undercooked when it
10:41arrived with the constant streams of bugs of all kinds.
10:45Objects popping into existence, textures vanishing, NPCs walking through solid objects, and all
10:49of that is before getting to the combat that caused the framerate to chug.
10:53But Two Worlds did deliver on some of its promises.
10:56It did include horseback combat, unlike Oblivion.
10:58Unfortunately, this mechanic feels more like balancing glass vases on skateboards on your
11:03forearms with how bad the controls are, which means that the chugging, yet insanely easy
11:07on-foot combat is a better option 100% of the time.
11:11So yeah, take that, Oblivion.
11:141.
11:15Lunar Dragon Song
11:16Those of us in Europe may not have ever heard of the Lunar RPG series before because it never
11:20came to our part of the world despite some decent success during the 90s on the likes
11:25of the Sega CD and the Sega Game Gear.
11:27The final game in the series, Lunar Dragon Song, is the only entry we've ever had.
11:31Disheartening because, even after a 10-year wait since the previous game, it absolutely
11:36sucked.
11:37Lunar Dragon Song goes the total opposite way to games like Quest 64 and, in an effort
11:41to mix up the formula, innovates in ways that nobody wants.
11:44The most painful of these is admonishing the player for sprinting by making them take damage.
11:49Sure, maybe I could understand that there should be a punishment for avoiding battles
11:52in the overworld, but this also applies to, say, the hallway of your local inn.
11:57Is their carpet covered in upturned thumbtacks or something?
12:00Maybe we wouldn't be running away from enemies if your battle system wasn't an uncomfortable
12:04mess.
12:05In Quest 2, 20 years earlier, let me select a specific target out of all of those on screen,
12:10so why can't you, Lunar Dragon Song?
12:12Further features include saving dev time by turning town exploration into literally a
12:16map that you select the building you want to enter, a total lack of voice acting and
12:20animations that cause the game to lag.
12:23You know what, Japan?
12:24You can keep this one.
12:25And that's the list.
12:26Let us know down in the comments below what you thought of this video and of any other
12:30terrible RPG games you've experienced.
12:33Make sure you like this video, subscribe for more, hit the notification bell and share
12:37it with your friends.
12:38I'm Sy from WhatCulture and have a good week.