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