Bottom 5 Worst RPGs You Ever Played

[Ismaul]

1. The Witcher
2. The Witcher 2: Assasins of Kings
3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
4. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Hearts of Stone
5. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

OSK found your alt lol

 

[Ismaul]

I played PoE well before GD. I bought GD on its release day. It is still on my HDD clocking at 1500 hours according to steam at this point with close to 10 characters max level and about half are well equipped.
I uninstalled PoE many months ago and was only sporadically playing it when a new league came out for the 2-3 years before that. Personally I always felt it was overrated. It is a decent game but people act like it is the be all and all of hack and slash games something I find highly disagreeable. The bloated skill tree alone makes it annoying, that every build will inevitably turn into a 2 or 3 button spam snoozefest outside of certain one shot bosses just just put the final nail in the coffin for me alongisde the utterly moronic currency system which cannot be called bloated anymore. Swollen rotten on the verge of bursting carcass would be a more apt description.

I really liked the skill tree. Requires planning, mastery, it's interesting.

As for the rest, trade is shit, I mostly played solo self-found, adn the challenge was nice. No 2-3 button spam snoozefest there.

 

[skaraher]

Mmmmmh

- Inquisitor
- Dragon Age II
- Oblivion
- Of Orcs and Men
- Skyrim

I will have to say tho, that I loved Alpha Protocol THIS MUCH.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Ultima IX will forever be the worst RPG I ever played through. Here we are 23 years later and I still hate that game. That's the only game I think of when I think of bad games. And depending on how old this thread is, I may have complained about Ultima IX in this very thread.

We never forgive and never forget. I will curse Ultima IX at every opportunity so that its infamy will never be forgotten, and the youth will hear the legends of how awful that game was.

Starting with the very first moment when you get control of your character: The camera controls are not inverted. You can't access the options menu to invert the mouse until you pick up your backpack. So I stumble all around the house, unable to look where I want to go, until I consciously slide the mouse opposite the way I would usually use it, to pick up my backpack, and then I get access to the options menu, and then I can finally use the freaking mouse.

It was an omen of things to come and I should have stopped there.

There was the puzzle dungeon where the puzzles were impossible to solve. Maybe partially due to really low frame rate, I just couldn't do the obvious solution because the puzzle kept resetting. Later I read that Richard Garriott played that dungeon, got sick of the tedium, and told the devs to cut the dungeon in half and just put the exit there. I got through the dungeon by stacking my inventory on the ground. Your swords and spears or whatever will stand perfectly balanced on the tip, and then you can climb on top of them. I created a staircase of swords so I could climb on top of the wall, and I ran to the exit.

And that's just the start of all the things I remember hating.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I don't really understand the hate for Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the base campaign was thrash, I never managed to push far into it before descending into coma...

But the system itself, it's modability and openness unleashed enourmous wave of creativity in people. Lots of quality modules have been created and new ones are still being released.

I spent probably around 200-250 hours playing the game with around 1% of that on the OC. If you take a moment to search for good stuff, you'll find plenty.

This will be a shocking revelation to many a gamer, but there's absolutely nothing unusual about not liking something and then just shrugging and moving on instead of spending literally hundreds of hours trying to make it good. It's the other way round.

Although I have a p strong suspicion that all these riveting "dude, skyrim is shiiiiiit -3/12 game, but that overhaul mod with big tiddies mod and better conifer physcis mod make it sweet, 864h clocked on steam" stories are just people liking the base game in the first place and trying to justify their poor taste for whatever reason.

 

[Lhynn]

I really liked the skill tree. Requires planning, mastery, it's interesting.

Its needlessly complicated. The overwhelming majority of choices are for really small passive bonuses. Troubleshooter does build complexity right, PoE is trash in that regard.

 

[Fargus]

I don't really understand the hate for Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the base campaign was thrash, I never managed to push far into it before descending into coma...

But the system itself, it's modability and openness unleashed enourmous wave of creativity in people. Lots of quality modules have been created and new ones are still being released.

I spent probably around 200-250 hours playing the game with around 1% of that on the OC. If you take a moment to search for good stuff, you'll find plenty.

Well you said it yourself. It's because of original campaign. OC was godawful, got progressively worse after each chapter. As a platform for mods NWN is actually great. And expansion campaigns were entertaining.

 

[Gradenmayer]

I really liked the skill tree. Requires planning, mastery, it's interesting.

Its needlessly complicated. The overwhelming majority of choices are for really small passive bonuses. Troubleshooter does build complexity right, PoE is trash in that regard.

The small passives instead of direct attribute allocation actually do a lot to prevent completely botching a build.
Whenever I set out to build an Ubertank, Melee glass Cannon, Hadoken mage- I just have to enter a keyword and build towards the big node, picking up whatever fits my style on the way. Always works out in the end.

It's not complicated, it just looks intimidating.

 

[deama]

For me I would say arcana a gothic tale, I was so excited to play it during release time, but once I finally played it I just could not believe what I was seeing, I had to play it for a few days just to make sure it all sunk in.

Gothic 3 forsaken gods comes close, but for that one I heard bad stuff about so I came prepared, it didn't hit as hard as arcana did.

 

[Hafnar the Jester]

People like it DESPITE gamebryo. It is a good game despite Bethderp's shitty iteration of that engine.

The only reason New Vegas is now fully fixed, with all its flaws eradicated, is because of how maleable the gamebryo is. Ten years from now, Outer Worlds will still be shit. Ten years after its release, thanks to the engine being susceptible to modding, New Vegas is a perfect game.

 

[Reinhardt]

This thread is just another "most overrated CRPG" thread.
Much more interesting would be "worst games you have completed".

The games mentioned probably wouldn't be that different. People seldom finish games they truly find terrible.

I mean, if I had to choose between playing Ruins of Myth Drannor in its entirety and killing myself... well, I'd play the fucking game, but I'd probably hesitate for like half a second.

But Ruins was a gud game!

 

[Lord_Potato]

This thread is just another "most overrated CRPG" thread.
Much more interesting would be "worst games you have completed".

The games mentioned probably wouldn't be that different. People seldom finish games they truly find terrible.

I mean, if I had to choose between playing Ruins of Myth Drannor in its entirety and killing myself... well, I'd play the fucking game, but I'd probably hesitate for like half a second.

But Ruins was a gud game!

If this is the hill you want to die on

 

[Reinhardt]

This thread is just another "most overrated CRPG" thread.
Much more interesting would be "worst games you have completed".

The games mentioned probably wouldn't be that different. People seldom finish games they truly find terrible.

I mean, if I had to choose between playing Ruins of Myth Drannor in its entirety and killing myself... well, I'd play the fucking game, but I'd probably hesitate for like half a second.

But Ruins was a gud game!

If this is the hill you want to die on

I've actually enjoyed its YUUUUUUGE dungeons. Tired of rooms 2x2.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't really understand the hate for Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the base campaign was thrash, I never managed to push far into it before descending into coma...

But the system itself, it's modability and openness unleashed enourmous wave of creativity in people. Lots of quality modules have been created and new ones are still being released.

I spent probably around 200-250 hours playing the game with around 1% of that on the OC. If you take a moment to search for good stuff, you'll find plenty.

Because I paid full price for it at release and what I got was the OC campaign.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

When you buy a game at full price on release day, you're supporting the developer and trying out something you've been wanting to try. When you buy a 5-year-old game on sale, you're getting in on all of the improvements that came since launch day. As a developer, I appreciate the former. As a gamer, I practice the latter.

 

[Atlantico]

My V worst/disappointing RPGs

I — Dungeon Siege
II — Deus Ex Invisible War
III — Neverwinter Nights OC
IV — Trails in the Sky SC
V — Mass Effect 2

 

[Reina]

Those below, rather than being absolutely worst, should treated more like: disappointing. I try to avoid utter rubbish, but sometimes, even accomplished developers release a turd, but some games I try to like and finish, despite their obvious flaws:

1. Dragon Age: Inquisition: I could somehow get myself to like DA2 with all of it's problems, but pathetic writing and villain, MMO-style design and modern politics shoved in my face forced me to abandon my DAI playthrough midway. It has some good parts, but overall... ugh. Disappointment.
2. Gothic 3: how could Piranha Bytes drop the ball so much. Combat alone, combined with atrocious level scaling make this game unplayable in the long run. I really wanted to finish it, tried thrice (last time just recently, after finishing Archolos) but could not.
3. Neverwinter Nights: OC. Nuff said. I remember how decieved I felt back in 2003, jumping to NVN right after watching trailer on my BG2 disc.
4. Diablo 3: look how they butchered my boy
5. Tales of Zestiria: another example of devs dropping the ball. To put story this mindnumbingly boring in JRPG is... mindboggling.

 

[Kruno]

1. Dragon Age 2
2. Dragon Age Inquisition
3. Arcania - For me this really took the cake. Corridor level design in a "Gothic" game, water downed gameplay, zero depth. 2.1 on this thing before I just tossed it.
4. Deus Ex 2
5. Cyberpunk 2077 - Promised far too much, loved the Keanu appearances, but the story felt rushed and the game felt incomplete. It might by ready by the year 2077 if modders are really into fixing it.

 

[JarlFrank]

I don't really understand the hate for Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the base campaign was thrash, I never managed to push far into it before descending into coma...

But the system itself, it's modability and openness unleashed enourmous wave of creativity in people. Lots of quality modules have been created and new ones are still being released.

I spent probably around 200-250 hours playing the game with around 1% of that on the OC. If you take a moment to search for good stuff, you'll find plenty.

I'm one of the biggest NWN haters on the Codex so let me explain:

- single character D&D with non-controllable companions kinda sucks
- extremely slow RTwP where one action is performed every six seconds; slowness is exacerbated by the fact that you only control a single character, which means you only make a single gameplay decision every six seconds
- everything else is extremely slow too: opening chests, disarming traps, resting etc... all of these have six second countdown timers
- walking speed is pretty slow too so traversing a large map takes a lot of time
- the visuals are extremely ugly even compared to other 3D games of its time... heck, even compared to 3D games 5 years older than NWN; drab textures and a very blocky grid-locked layout are to blame

 

[rusty_shackleford]

- the visuals are extremely ugly even compared to other 3D games of its time... heck, even compared to 3D games 5 years older than NWN; drab textures and a very blocky grid-locked layout are to blame

and they made kotor using the same engine less than a year later which actually looks good

 

[Van-d-all]

Not much point discussing shoestring tiny games for $1, so out of the known ones:

1. Fallout 4 - I expected everything about plot to be abysmal; characters, dialogues (if they can be even called that) so I didn't even bother, but when even the fucking base building served no purpose whatsoever except crafting and aesthetics, this game just takes the cake of having almost everything fucked up. Credit where credit is due though, it does have the best 3d non-fantasy open world environment of a large city with almost all buildings enterable, nothing else, and not like it changes anything.

2. Dragon Age 3 - Even with constant map reuse and major split from the DA1 atmosphere, DA2 at least had it's moments, but this game is just a mixture cringeworthy characters, shit open world level design & fetch quests. Zero surprise it killed the franchise.

3. The Outer Worlds - While only few things are outright shit (itemization, most characters), it's the lukewarm soylent green unremarkableness which is most annoying. Generic as it gets, but with the praise it got I fear it's just the first of many to come.

4. Pillars Of Eternity - The try-hard of try-hards. Boring snorefest of uninteresting lore dumps, toppled with those backer self inserts (arguably the worst backer content to put inside the game to date). No amount of nostalgia can save it.
Mass Effect: Andromeda - Was supposed to be Pillows, but I forgot this little fucker, and given 5 picks, it has to get here. A stinker by design. While even the popamole ME1-3 had an occasional decent quest or a story gradually shifting from off-brand Star Wars to it's own thing, this release was doomed from the start. Game abandoned everything it had established, to bring a fresh start just to make it into a wet fart of new, even more uninspired alien races in a generic setting. The premise of new galaxy and first contact was butchered so hard, I was genuinely amazed it was possible.

5. Torment: Tides Of Numenera - Just a major nothing burger. The setting (PnP) itself is decent, and the premise is there, but gradually it becomes apparent that even the main mechanic of tides overshadowed dev capabilities, and it makes barely any difference turning the game into a set of loose, somewhat interesting stories, without any meaningful gameplay to stick them together.
Final Fantasy XIII - Again, had to switch to something worse. Exercise in futility. Cutscenes connected by corridors. Probably the worst game design I ever saw, so much so, there's not much to say beyond the fact it's barely even a "game" at all.

 

[dkaiser]

5. Gothic 3
Not completely unplayable, especially with community patches, but damn, what a crushing letdown it was. I admit that such a huge open world was impressive at the time and the story seemed interesting at first, but I felt something was wrong the very moment the game started: the intro cutscene ended and suddenly I was in a middle of a fight with a huge pop-up box explaining the interface in the way. I actually looked up a playthrough on Youtube to make sure it wasn't a glitch.
The game itself is nothing like the originals. The interesting quest design and story progression of the originals were replaced with something more akin to MMOs, with numerous settlements but without a single memorable one. The story quickly becomes a scrambled mess, with three paths to choose but none of which making any sense. I think they actually mixed up some of the plot points between them and didn't have time to fix it. The combat system is just a click fest with the balance turned on its head - you can free entire villages from orcs from the very beginning, yet the forest wildlife stays a mortal danger for quite some time. They didn't even bother to come up with some explanation why the nameless one is back to square zero - they just took away your equipment and skills and that's it. And I won't even talk about the bugs and glitches - the very thought of that one escort quest with the utterly broken AI that couldn't walk over a rock on the ground brings my blood to boil.
I’ve heard Arcania is much worse. Not even touching that.

4. Deus Ex: Invisible War
This is what happens when you take a work of art and try to adjust it to a wide market. While I can understand some of the simplifications, I cannot possibly imagine the thought process behind the universal ammo and lack of hit areas (I guess it's because it's hard to aim with a controller? Although I think most Xbox-era shooters did have hit areas). The story and writing are a disgrace - while the original is a masterpiece in this regard, Invisible War has a dull, uninspired setting, stupid and unplausible factions, the dialogs on par with a fanfic a 12-year-old would write (spoken by voice actors less expressive than a cashier telling me my total), mails and notes that couldn't be more than a two or three sentences long because console gamers don't like to read lenghty texts on their TVs. On top of all that, it fancies the typical mid-2000s graphics, which I'm allergic to, and throughout the earlier locations, I was wondering why everything takes place in some huge-ass complex and when was I going to see the outside... only to realize that these locations *were* supposed to be outside. It's unacceptable.

3. Restricted Area
I was reminded of its existence recently when someone posted it in the obscure RPGs thread. I actually got this game years ago when it was fairly recent. I still think the setting and visuals were kinda cool and the very concept of Diablo with guns and cyberimplants had some potential, but the game itself looks like the developers just gave up after the initial stage of production. It has whole two types of environment (desert and bunkers) and just a couple types of enemies but there could be just two as well - melee and ranged, as there are no real differences between them. The levels drag for far too long and when you finally finish one, it turns out that the next one is pretty much the same. The game does nothing to introduce any kind of variety - if you thought Diablo was just pointing and clicking with not much else, try Restricted Area. Pistols are better than shotguns and rifles. I assume the game isn't very long but I gave up before finding out for sure.

2. Fountain of Dreams
After learning that it was supposed to be a sequel to Wasteland and that it's a post-apocalyptic cRPG set in Miami, my enthusiasm peaked - just to be quickly extinguished by harsh reality. After creating my party and having basically no information about anything, I went to wander around the worldmap just to find out that the world is laughably tiny and Miami is the only city in the game. There are some quests to do but 99% of this game is grinding the same type of enemy. Grinding and praying to God that you don't die, as the game is straight-up unfair towards you - the first Wasteland is child's play compared to Fountain of Dreams. I've read that after you've grinded enough, you can go to the clowns klowns base and even have some chances of survival, but I only have one life and didn't waste enough of it to ever reach that point. You could as well just throw a dice and say that you lose when you roll less than four - the same amount of fun and you’ll save on electricity. The only single good thing about this game is the cover art.

1. Fallout 3
Enough said.

Dishonorable mentions:
Beyond Divinity - maybe not as terrible as people say, but gets very boring very quickly and suffers from being a sequel to a better game.
Scavengers of the Mutant World - I like the setting and at least it's a bit more managable than Fountain of Dreams, but definitely not something I would go back to
Two Worlds - more like two hours, that's how long it held my interest
Oblivion - I found it immensely dull and boring

 

[samuraigaiden]

5) Suikoden 2 - Shitty graphics, boring story, repetitive AF.

4) Xenoblade Chronicles - Offline MMOs should just be outlawed.

3) Monster Hunter 4 - Grind to grind to grind to grind. Did I mention grind?

2) Persona 4 - Dating Sim RPG designed to appeal to mentally ill teens.

1) Chrono Trigger - Unoriginal slog of a game with too easy combat and no real personality.

Spoiler

Nah, this is my real list:

World of Warcraft - All the shitty RPG trends are in this game. Every single one.

Quest 64 - The only good thing I can say about this one is that it's very short.

Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse - Plays like an unfinished Steam indie shovelware, but it's actually a PS2 game.

Seal of the Pharaoh - A dungeon crawlers that distills it's RPG mechanics down to icons that barely make any sense.

Orphen: Scion of Sorcery - Everything annoying about Anime and JRPGs, plus a truly mind boggling combat system.

Honorable mentions:

AD&D Slayer - FPS RPG that mixes Doom and Dungeon Master while successfully removing anything that was good in both games.

Virtual Hydlide - One of the weirdest and most alienating games ever created. In a bad way.

Ultima II - The many cool ideas are completely overshadowed by the insane grind for money and retarded way you level up.

 

[Sykar]

I don't really understand the hate for Neverwinter Nights. Sure, the base campaign was thrash, I never managed to push far into it before descending into coma...

But the system itself, it's modability and openness unleashed enourmous wave of creativity in people. Lots of quality modules have been created and new ones are still being released.

I spent probably around 200-250 hours playing the game with around 1% of that on the OC. If you take a moment to search for good stuff, you'll find plenty.

I'm one of the biggest NWN haters on the Codex so let me explain:

- single character D&D with non-controllable companions kinda sucks
- extremely slow RTwP where one action is performed every six seconds; slowness is exacerbated by the fact that you only control a single character, which means you only make a single gameplay decision every six seconds
- everything else is extremely slow too: opening chests, disarming traps, resting etc... all of these have six second countdown timers
- walking speed is pretty slow too so traversing a large map takes a lot of time
- the visuals are extremely ugly even compared to other 3D games of its time... heck, even compared to 3D games 5 years older than NWN; drab textures and a very blocky grid-locked layout are to blame

You forgot the horrible OC.

 

[toro]

The Age of Decadence
Disco Elysium
Fallout 4
Pillars of Eternity
The Outer Worlds