Worst RPG you've ever played.

[Tria]

Drakkhen, Phantasy Star III (well, I've pretty much hated every Phantasu Star, but that one is definitely stand out), Faria, Tales of Symphonia, Kingdom Hearts, Lost Kingdoms, Spectral Souls (PSP)...Dear lord, the list goes on.  But luckily there are more good RPGs that Ive played than bad ones.

[Ashtrot]

FF2 - Attack your own characters to level up? Retarded. I wanted to play through it, I really did. But it just ground at my patience way too much.

Lufia: Ruins of Lore - I knew I shouldn't have expected another Lufia 2. And I didn't. It still disappointed me, and has the extra disadvantage of being a totally shitty game on its own merits. Depressing.

Monster Hunter: Jewel Summoner - Whoever thought that having characters yak about stupid bullshit for 45 minutes at a time with 15 minute gameplay segments in between is a retard.

[Persona2007]

Lunar: Dragon Song - ruined a great memorable series for all

[Lord Scottish]

Of all the RPGs that I've played, there are only two that I dislike: Quest 64 and Tao's Adventure.

Q64 was actually the first RPG other than Pokemon that I ever played (unless you count Zelda, which I know most of you don't) and even then it felt unfinished - when I got to the end I was like, "Wait a minute...that's all there is to it?"

Being a fan of Other Life: Azure Dreams (never played the PSX version) I was really looking forward to Tao's Adventure, but the game failed to incorporate those things that made it's predecessor so addictive (like, you know, your monsters actually making a difference in combat). It felt dumbed down even compared to a game that I know many of you felt was pretty dumbed down in the first place. Pathetic.

[Dincrest]

Oh snap... despite my assertion that Tecmo: Secret of the Stars is the worst RPG ever, Ashton had to remind me about Lufia: Ruins of Lore.  Oh my goodness, that game must have done everything in its power to piss me off.  I'm surprised I actually endured it for 14 hours.  

I know all sewer and desert dungeons in RPGs are the absolute most annoying, but the sewers in Lufia: Ruins of Lore take the cake.  

Lufia was good, Lufia 2 was a masterpiece, Lufia: The Legend Returns for GBC was a joke, and Lufia: Ruins of Lore for GBA was utter crap.  The Lufia series could have been an A-list series, but it's gone completely down the toilet.

[Bernhardt]

despite my assertion that Tecmo: Secret of the Stars is the worst RPG ever, Ashton had to remind me about Lufia: Ruins of Lore.

I actually enjoyed Secret of the Stars for what it was. A retro bare-bones RPG without any real plot or characterization. Despite that, I actually had fun just walking my characters across the map, through dungeons, and the simple text-based battles. If you enjoy Final Fantasy IV, you should be able to enjoy this, too. That's the closest thing you can compare it to.

The reason I hated FFX-2 was because it feigned contemporariness when it was actually supposed to be retro; trying to be what it really was not. Not to mention that I always got killed when after changing job class during battle. Battle system was just damn frustrating; the game's only real positive is that battles at least played fast.

[Prime Mover]

Hmmm, I prepared a multi-page rant about Chrono Cross and SO3... but I realized that it can be summed up pretty simply:

They suck, I hate them, fuck you Mitsuda.

[Eusis]

They suck, I hate them, fuck you Mitsuda.

Huh? What's he got to do with anything besides composing music for CC?

Honestly, I always find it kinda ridiculous how half the time people list perfectly good games as being the 'worst' they've played. I can understand disappointing, overrated, or at least worst you've taken the effort to actually beat, but worst you've played period? Either you guys are only focusing on what really let you down, or have made good choices in what you play.

[Prime Mover]

Huh? What's he got to do with anything besides composing music for CC?

I'm a composer, music is definitely one of the most important things to me in a game... and needless to say, I was emberressed to play the game because of the music.

Honestly, I always find it kinda ridiculous how half the time people list perfectly good games as being the 'worst' they've played. I can understand disappointing, overrated, or at least worst you've taken the effort to actually beat, but worst you've played period? Either you guys are only focusing on what really let you down, or have made good choices in what you play.

There's probably quite a bit of all you said, actually. It's hard to tell. But CC was the game that made me the most angry after I played it. Not just the ending, mind you, but the whole thing. I think that's a pretty fair judgement of "worst", in my opinion. I could go into a lot of technical details as to why I thought it was such a badly constructed game, but I'd either bore people or make them upset, which isn't really the point here, is it? I'll recognize that more effort was put into it than ET for Atari, but that doesn't neccessarilly make it any better.

[MeshGearFox]

which isn't really the point here, is it?

This entire topic is flamebait, so why the hell not, dawg :3

[Bernhardt]

Huh? What's he got to do with anything besides composing music for CC?

I'm a composer, music is definitely one of the most important things to me in a game... and needless to say, I was emberressed to play the game because of the music.

REALLY?! I thought Chrono Cross had a lushously live-sounding soundtrack, especially for a PSX game, especially for its time, and even now! I'd say it's even better quality than soundtracks for some PS2 games, one example: Okage ~ Shadow King. I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that O ~ SK's soundtrack was better audio quality than CC. I'll try and even think of better examples. Why, I like Breath of Fire V ~ Dragon Quarter's soundtrack alot, and you can say it was rather sophisticated, but I can still say that the audio quality of synth used was less than the audio quality used for CC. (And, of course, right now, I'm thinking this in British as I type).

Now, if you didn't like the style that CC's soundtrack was done in, that's one thing; it's just that, not every RPG has to have a classical orchestral-style soundtrack, either, you know?

[Eusis]

While the PSX was trumped by the Saturn and newer systems, it's still high enough quality-wise in audio that the PS2 wasn't a /huge/ jump over it. Helped there was always the potential to stream audio.

The N64, on the other hand...

[Alisha]

wow do i even wanna touch this thread?

ill bite

dragon quest 8

FF XII

its almost ironic that both games provide you with the opportunity to gimp yourself. but DQ8 made it worse by having a story that bored me to tears. ffxii's story was interesting but marred by horrible gameplay.

[Eusis]

wow do i even wanna touch this thread?

Your fingerprints were already all over it.

Late Addition: Actually, I have to concede something - games that aren't genuinely horrible, but may've been bad/different/whatever enough to ruin the series. Example: the latest Sonic games. I imagine, objectively, they aren't really that much worse than your average Nickelodean-based or other such licensed game. However, this is SONIC, not Spongebob. Sonic games were once examples of great gaming, they shouldn't be reduced to such drivel. Suikoden IV and BoF:DQ can be similar because, regardless of how good/poor they were, they both were installments that screwed over their respective series. V had a lower budget as a result, and we haven't even seen a new BoF since DQ, even though depending on who you ask and how you look at it it's arguably the best game in the series.

Heck, I could really carry this viewpoint to it's extreme and label FFX as the worst RPG I've played even though I loved it. However, I didn't love how many future RPGs like SH:C copied it's model and are more or less roads between cutscenes, without any real sense of exploration granted.

[Dincrest]

Eus- if you're going to go with drastic changes ruining a series, Shining Force by a longshot, man.  Any non-SRPG Shining Force game has been terrible.  

I've already mentioned that Lufia's another series that could have become an A-list series, but after the joke that was Legend Returns and the abomination that was Ruins of Lore, there's no saving that series.  One masterpiece, one good game, and two shitpiles?  Odds aren't in Lufia's favor.