Worst RPG

[Sonic#]

When I was searching for another RPG, I stumbled upon FFVII (of course...) and hearing how good it was, I really wanted to play it. No wonder though, all those fanbois (yes, I not y) talking 'bout how its THE best RPG ever made and there won't ever be better RPG. So yea, unless it was perfect, I'd be dissappointed. And so I was.

No, its still not the worst RPG.

I just hope your reasons are better than "it's got too many fanboys" or "it's overrated". Personally, I love the game, but I'll admit that it has flaws. However, calling it the worst RPG ever just sounds heavily biased to me. I mean even if I hated it, I'd still give it credit for making RPGs popular outside of Japan, and convincing companies to bring over many other RPGs.

The dissonance here seems to be between the "worst RPG" as the one which is dreadfully terrible for most people and "worst RPG" as the one an individual person can't stand. I took it as the latter, and the original post referring to our "least favorite(s) RPG(s)" seems to support that. LuciaOne refers to it as "my worst RPG," so she's taking that definition too. I can like or dislike a game quite independent of what contribution it made to gaming; I hate Command and Conquer, for example, but that doesn't negate its importance to the RTS genre. LuciaOne never made the latter announcement.

And I tend to agree with G1 here. FF7 became a powerful symbol of what RPGs could do, but I don't think that status is gained from the game's unsurpassed quality. FF7 was the right RPG on the right system at the right time; it was noticed through the combination of a decent system, distinctive polygon graphics, a good localization, and expert marketing skills.

That being said, its status is separate from its quality. And its quality is separate from individual reception. I personally think it's pretty important (not the most impactful game ever) and of good quality overall (they did some things right and some things wrong). How the game suits individuals is another matter entirely.

Finally, I suppose one could hate it for its status. If Grandia had been noticed first, we might not have had to put up with ugly polygons that looked worse than the 2D sprites they could've made for another generation. In that respect, Grandia is a prettier game.

So, succinctly, I think you're presuming shadows of people that haven't spoken up on this board. Unless LuciaOne clarifies her position to the effect you speak against, that is.

...

Another hate I just remembered: Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 for the SNES. I didn't play it terribly hard, but it's nigh impossible for me to figure out exactly what to do/where I am, and so on.

[Nobiyuki77]

Crystal Chronicles is only worth playing if you have some people over. I thought it was fun. It wasn't the best, but it was a good multi-player RPG.

It shouldn't have been called Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. It should have been called Seiken Densetsu 4. It does Seiken Densetsu multiplayer RPG gameplay far better than the real Seiken Densetsu 4 did...

[CatsWithMatches]

The worst one I played was Saga Frontier for the PS1. It's a shame, it had a lot of great ideas, beautiful music, slick visuals, and a relatively innovative battle system. It fell apart for me for two reasons. First, the battles were horribly unbalanced, with early boss fights not being anywhere close to fair. Battles should be interesting, challenging, and should grow the story and your characters. They shouldn't be so difficult that they are a serious obstacle to progressing in the game.

The other problem was that with seven stories for seven main characters (you could choose any of the seven at the beginning of game), it felt like they spread themselves too thinly, and didn't spend enough time making any of the stories worthwhile. Each characters' story and goals felt pretty meaningless and empty.

It's too bad, I wanted to like that game SO much.

[Werefrog]

It shouldn't have been called Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. It should have been called Seiken Densetsu 4. It does Seiken Densetsu multiplayer RPG gameplay far better than the real Seiken Densetsu 4 did...

Uh oh. Now Sonic#'s gonna have to come back to this thread and talk about Legend of Mana . I have to say that before I played Secret of Mana and knew how good multi-player RPGs could get, I really enjoyed Legend of Mana's multi-player gameplay. I remember my best friend, and I had a great time with it.

But yeah... Crystal Chronicles (for GC, I haven't played the DS one yet which is what these guys could be talking about) was a lot of fun to play with friends. It was hard for me to get people over who had GBAs (none of my friends seem to appreciate handheld gaming), but the few times that I got people together it was great.

Oh... Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure was great too! It was like a Zelda game that was all dungeons.

But... this is supposed to be about bad games...

I haven't played many horrible RPGs. I think a lot of people here have already heard my aversion towards Golden Sun because it seemed like a pale imitator to SNES RPGs. Still, it wasn't that bad.

[Syxx]

Hm.... If I had to pick one, it'd definitely be Final Fantasy 12. GOD THAT GAME TAKES FOREVER TO DO ONE THING!


I tried to play it when it first came out, I got to about level 30 with one character, while my other members where roughly 20-22, and I got slaughtered continuously.

The characters are memorable, if overly bland, the story has more holes in it than swiss cheese, and even the simplest of tasks take you at least a good 1-2 hours to complete. By the time I was halfway through the game, while TRYING to adequately level up my party members (which in itself takes WAYYY too long to do, if you ask me =/ ) I had already played 60 + hrs.



Not exactly my choice of an RPG that was supposed to be "One of the greatest ever made."

[Sonic#]

It shouldn't have been called Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. It should have been called Seiken Densetsu 4. It does Seiken Densetsu multiplayer RPG gameplay far better than the real Seiken Densetsu 4 did...

Uh oh. Now Sonic#'s gonna have to come back to this thread and talk about Legend of Mana . I have to say that before I played Secret of Mana and knew how good multi-player RPGs could get, I really enjoyed Legend of Mana's multi-player gameplay. I remember my best friend, and I had a great time with it.

But yeah... Crystal Chronicles (for GC, I haven't played the DS one yet which is what these guys could be talking about) was a lot of fun to play with friends. It was hard for me to get people over who had GBAs (none of my friends seem to appreciate handheld gaming), but the few times that I got people together it was great.

Oh... Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure was great too! It was like a Zelda game that was all dungeons.

But... this is supposed to be about bad games...

I haven't played many horrible RPGs. I think a lot of people here have already heard my aversion towards Golden Sun because it seemed like a pale imitator to SNES RPGs. Still, it wasn't that bad.

I've never played Crystal Chronicles, so I can't argue. I've seldom had anyone to play RPGs multiplayer with, and I can count the times I played Legend of Mana multiplayer with someone else on my hand. It was fun. Other than that, I don't really have any special insight.

[brightshield]

I think it was more the leap in technology than FFVII that made RPGs popular. People went nuts over the 3D aspect of FFVII, but people were already doing that based on the early "Ultra 64" screens of the FFVI gang in 3D before FFVII was even announced. FFVII just happened to be the lucky one that got released first.

I disagree. It clearly wasn't the graphics alone. The story and characters are what most people loved about FF7. Hence why the crappy FF7 compilation games sell so well... even Dirge of Cerberus....


If I remember right, Grandia came out on the Saturn in Japan the same year, and was every bit as good and graphically beautiful (albeit a different art style) as FFVII was. In fact, at the time, Grandia was touted as the FFVII-killer for the Saturn. It just never sold as well without that FF name. Plus, the Saturn just didn't have the Playstation drawing power.

Grandia didn't have what it took to become as popular as FF7. It was more of a "kiddy" RPG, and featured a 14 year old boy as the main character(by no means an insult, I love the game). One of the reasons FF7 sold so well was because it was one of the first RPGs to appeal to adults as well as kids. Xenogears might have had a shot of being as popular as FF7 though, as it was dark and serious as well. Although, maybe not. As it still featured 2d anime-like sprites, and the big thing back then was 3d character models


LuciaOne refers to it as "my worst RPG," so she's taking that definition too.

Oh I know. I'm not bashing LuciaOne for it either. I just want to hear some logical reasoning as to why she thinks it's the worst RPG ever. I mean, FF7 may not be perfect, but there's certainly games out their that did things worse than it did.


Finally, I suppose one could hate it for its status. If Grandia had been noticed first, we might not have had to put up with ugly polygons that looked worse than the 2D sprites they could've made for another generation. In that respect, Grandia is a prettier game.

Grandia had two shots though dude. First on the Saturn, and then on the Playstation. It didn't sell that well at all.

[localflick]

On the FF7 thing, I still feel strongly that it completely popularized the genre and had more impact than any other RPG title. Before FF7 the only RPGs I played and was even aware of for that matter were Shining Force and Lunar 2 for Sega CD which a friend loaned to me. And if you count Zelda I guess that too.

I liked them, but I didn't look to buy or rent RPGs because they were niche games that were high-priced, weren't easy to pick up and play (back then anyway) and there weren't many to choose from at all.

Fast forward to the late 1990s psx and there's vast selection of these games, some of which are Greatest Hits $20 titles, they are far more accessible and are no longer great games that go overlooked.

Grandia is a better game than FF7, and Wild Arms was really good too, but they came out here during that transition before 2000 when square released something crazy like a dozen games within the year, and when quality RPGs were still just starting to gain momentum, but were still pretty limited in terms of selection. For the people that knew to look for games like Grandia it was a good time, but the gamers I know along with myself weren't playing them. I would have loved for Grandia to have achieved the success that FF7 had... and I would have heard of it before 2002 and have enjoyed it much sooner.

FF7 marks the transition that made RPGs popular and accessible. The unfortunate side effect is that it made a lot of copycat games that I loathe, and I left that rant in another post.

I'm sorry to side track things so back on topic...

Worst RPG: I bought a copy of Unlimited Saga for $2 because I heard it was a bad game and like a commuter looking at a car wreck I wanted to see just how bad it was. It's really bad. So much so that I took it to a Gamestop for a trade-in (something I would usually not do since you'll almost always get a better selling price on ebay) and they wouldn't take it because it sells for so cheap. So I gave it to the clerk and about a month later he was laughing telling me how he couldn't get rid of it, and he's stuck with it now.

[Sonic#]

If I remember right, Grandia came out on the Saturn in Japan the same year, and was every bit as good and graphically beautiful (albeit a different art style) as FFVII was. In fact, at the time, Grandia was touted as the FFVII-killer for the Saturn. It just never sold as well without that FF name. Plus, the Saturn just didn't have the Playstation drawing power.

Grandia didn't have what it took to become as popular as FF7. It was more of a "kiddy" RPG, and featured a 14 year old boy as the main character(by no means an insult, I love the game). One of the reasons FF7 sold so well was because it was one of the first RPGs to appeal to adults as well as kids. Xenogears might have had a shot of being as popular as FF7 though, as it was dark and serious as well. Although, maybe not. As it still featured 2d anime-like sprites, and the big thing back then was 3d character models

I can go along with you until that last sentence there, when everything unravels.

There's a sort of paradox going around. I'll try to make it clear, and then you can tell me whether I'm wrong or right.

There's two chains of events that are possible here, and I'm not sure how the chains interact with each other. There's chain A, which was cited earlier, which goes like so:
1. Final Fantasy 7 came onto the scene.
1a. It used 3D graphics.
2. FF7 caused widespread enthusiasm for 3D character models in RPGs.
...
3. As a result of this and other factors, FF7 revolutionized the RPG genre.

Your chain B, however, reverses 1 and 2 in chain A.
1. There was considerable enthusiasm for 3D graphics over all other forms of graphics.
2. FF7 came onto the scene.
2a. FF7 used 3D graphics.
...
3. As a result of FF7 using 3D graphics and everything else, it was seen as a really great game and an example of what later RPGs could do.

Why was FF7 was the big thing? It used 3D graphics. But what made 3D the big thing? FF7. Both arguments appear valid, but they don't work together.

My position, bluntly, is this: there was considerable enthusiasm for 3D games before FF7 came out, but it wasn't the only kind of graphics that was out there. There was also enthusiasm for increasingly beautiful 2D graphics ala Mega Man 8, which came out within a month of FF7.

There are RPGs which came out around the same era as FF7 which fit the criteria of 2D sprites. Xenogears, Persona, Super Mario RPG, Star Ocean, Wild Arms, Breath of Fire III, Tales of Destiny.... Now, some of these games are next-gen, some not. Some are really good. Some are only decent. Some had broad appeal. Some didn't. What they have in common is that they all show a predisposition for beautiful 2D graphics both before and after FF7 was released. FF7 may well have signaled the transition to 3D graphics. But before and after its release, that was not the only choice available, the only potentially popular mode of RPG. 3D wasn't inevitable.

So basically, what this amounts to is that I don't think that FF7's hegemonic idolatry was inevitable. FF7 was opportunistic, and other games could have filled that role of shifting a change, but did not due to a variety of factors (including marketing, production values, brand name, and so on).

[Jenner]

... I'm glad everyone hates FF7, it makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Finally, I am not alone.

I hope you're all not just pretending to not like FF7 to be cool like me.

[Nobiyuki77]

... I'm glad everyone hates FF7, it makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Finally, I am not alone.

I hope you're all not just pretending to not like FF7 to be cool like me.

Die.

... just kidding.

For me, FFVII is a very nostalgic experience, and there is some quality gameplay hidden underneath the vague, angsty plot. Well, it certainly beats the snot out of FFXII anyway.

I hated FFXII. I hate hate hate HATE FFXII. *turns off Kefka voice* The game completely falls apart about half-way through in a new disease I've seen in lots of JRPGs lately that I've dubbed "Grandia 3 syndrome". The story frequently forgets where it was going and feels like they had some ideas, ran out of them about half-way and just pull the rest of it out of thin air. The licence board system can *beep* right off. FFXII is a mess of a game.

[Dragonmaster Lou]

Eternal Sonata on the 360 no contest. Some of the most annoying characters ever, and the worst RPG story ever by far. Even worse than the original FF. 95% of the story is filler, and it's not even interesting filler. Then the main plot comes in and tries to deep and complicated, when in reality it's shallow, rushed, and very poorly told. If the gameplay was great it could made up for the poor story and characters, but sadly it's only average at best. Most of the game you're stuck watching a boring story that winds up being mostly filler anyway.

Damn, I'm on the midst of plugging through Eternal Sonata on the PS3 right now... Now you've got me depressed (actually, I do like it so far, but I do agree there seems to be a lot of filler and tries to be over sophisticated).

Actually, one thing I hate about most RPGs these days is that they try to get all serious and sophisticated with an overly psychological plot using various obscure terms and references. Sadly, it's really hard to pull that off (Xenogears is the only game I know of that did it). Most of the time it just makes things boring, makes the player think "WTF!?" and makes you feel like the creators were using "big words" just for the sake of using "big words."

I do miss the more classic RPG style where you have a baddie (and it can be a relatively deep and complex baddie) that you need to smack around to save the princess/world/etc. Or as someone else so put it, "Every RPG can be beaten by finding the right long-haired bishie and beating the snot out of him."

[Angelalex242]

The worst RPG period is Quest 64. Boring as hell. I never finished it. And from me, that's saying something. I NEVER leave games unfinished.

[Nobiyuki77]

The worst RPG period is Quest 64. Boring as hell. I never finished it. And from me, that's saying something. I NEVER leave games unfinished.

I've never played it, but I can at the very least say that it definitly wins "Worst RPG name ever". ^^

[brightshield]

There's a sort of paradox going around. I'll try to make it clear, and then you can tell me whether I'm wrong or right.

There's two chains of events that are possible here, and I'm not sure how the chains interact with each other. There's chain A, which was cited earlier, which goes like so:
1. Final Fantasy 7 came onto the scene.
1a. It used 3D graphics.
2. FF7 caused widespread enthusiasm for 3D character models in RPGs.
...
3. As a result of this and other factors, FF7 revolutionized the RPG genre.

Your chain B, however, reverses 1 and 2 in chain A.
1. There was considerable enthusiasm for 3D graphics over all other forms of graphics.
2. FF7 came onto the scene.
2a. FF7 used 3D graphics.
...
3. As a result of FF7 using 3D graphics and everything else, it was seen as a really great game and an example of what later RPGs could do.

Why was FF7 was the big thing? It used 3D graphics. But what made 3D the big thing? FF7. Both arguments appear valid, but they don't work together.

3d graphics were in demand back then. Every other RPG on the Playstation at that time was using 2d sprites though. Mario 64 and Resident Evil were already getting the 3d craze into full swing. FF7 proved that RPGs could effectively utilize 3d character models(and 3d FMVs), and be just as serious and dark as something like Resident Evil.


... I'm glad everyone hates FF7, it makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Finally, I am not alone.

I hope you're all not just pretending to not like FF7 to be cool like me.

Actually, it's one of my favorite RPGs.

[DragonmasterDan]

Any time you have a poll like this you have to take into consideration the era it was released in and the intent behind the product.

Quest 64 is a bad game for example, but it was aimed at kids, it wasn't trying to be an epic scale RPG.

A game like Miracle Warriors is bad, but that's mainly because it's dated (it's the first JRPG ever released in the US).

There's a lot of games that come to mind, but they're based on annoyances and problems with the games themselves that made them unplayable, or a total lack of direction or fun.

[Kizyr]

Plus, the absolute worst RPGs probably never got a wide release. If you ask people to tell you the worst movies of all time, for instance, you're more likely to get a list of the worst movies that got a wide release, or the most overrated movies, rather than an actual list of the worst.

For instance, I contend that Say It Isn't So is the worst movie ever made, and Doogal comes in as the second-worst. But neither got very wide releases (thankfully) so they're unlikely to come up on anyone else's list; it's pretty much by accident that I saw either one of these. KF

[Monde Luna]

So true so true... To bad I can't change the thread title to: What's your least favorite RPG. That would be more accurate.

[AlexofBurg]

Not getting all the hate for FFVII. For obsessed fanboy, there's someone who hates it because it's "overrated". Can no one like/dislike it for it's quality? I think it's ambitious and fantastic, though deeply flawed (mostly in translation; with an updated translation, it would help tremendously). But, even with its flaws, it's still my third favorite RPG, behind L:SSSC and L2:EB.

I find it very difficult to hate on the genre. I can ususally find something to like about any RPG, but I must say that the new ones are quite frankly getting old. For instance, I couldn't get into Lost Odyssey due to it's blandness, and I thought Blue Dragon was wholly ridiculous (XBOX360 has probably the worst RPGs ever, though I'm gonna be a sucker and pick up the new Star Ocean because I like the series). But all of these definitely don't contend for "worst RPG" or even "least favorite RPG".

The absolute worst in my experience is 7th Saga. It's not really THAT bad, but it's just too damn hard for me too get more than a couple hours into it. But again, I stress that it's hard for me to hate on the genre. Now, first person shooters, I'll diss all day. Not RPGs, though. Never RPGs.

[Shiva Indis]

I don't hate FFVII, I'm just really ambivalent towards it. Everyone loves it, so I won't.

But to stay on topic, Legend of Dragoon is probably my personal worst. I bet there are people here who remember it fondly, but for me it straddled the line between being laughably bad and just plain awful. Pretty cutscenes though.