Worst video game you've ever played?

[orchid]

i've played a lot of shitty games. some highlights i can think of are X-Kaliber 2097 (SNES), Victorious: Taking the Lead (NDS), an unlicensed King James Bible (GB) (it was only bad because of the ridiculous epilepsy risk [yes, epilepsy risk on a bible]), an innumerable amount of shovelware kids games for the Game Boy family, Jaguar Bomber (Watara Supervision), some smurfs game on the ColecoVision, Marlboro Go (Atari Lynx) (yes the cigarettes). i could go on.

...i can't say i actually went into any of those expecting to enjoy them though. i remember going into Resident Evil 0 expecting to really like it, but i could just not get into it. this was also 5 years ago and i'm sure i'd love it now, but that's all i can think of :P

[MarcieBee]

When I was a kid I was obsessed with RollerCoaster Tycoon. I played 3 platinum and openRCT2 a bunch, followed the release of RCT World, Planet Coaster and Parkitect (I ended up playing Parkitect since it was the only thing my laptop could run lol.) I saw there was a semi-port of RCT3 on the 3DS, and I spent ages looking for it. For whatever reason it was one of the rare games that wasn't available on the eShop, so if I couldn't find a physical copy I wasn't playing it. It took years and years until I finally found a copy at a retro gaming store in my college town. I used some trade in credit to get that and Final Fantasy 7 at the same time (because why not) and when I got home to play it it was... horrible! The controls, the mechanics, coaster building, interface, everything was awful. I returned it quick, even as a token of fulfilled childhood wants it wasn't worth it. As for Final Fantasy 7, it's one of my favorite games of all time, but it's no RCT 3DS.

I still haven't tried ThrillVille, I know thats a similar concept and it got a release on the original DS. I think BullFrog's Theme Park also got a rerelease on the handheld but don't quote me at that.

[greyskieshappymind]

I recently started playing Venetica, an RPG so entrenched in infantilisation that the only reason I'm playing is to see if I can do an "evil" route, but even that is dependent on whether the 0 that is my starting reputation can go negative or if people are just gonna be unenthusiastic to my general presence.

Here's what I've experienced so far: You play as Violet, an orphan, the old woman who took you in is angry that you dare ask about your parents. Assassins are sent after you, the town blames you and two villagers try to kill you. You survive because you're the "daughter of death" and you can resurrect yourself, which doesn't save Violet from being down for the count for whatever the town throws her way. (So far) at least the game doesn't make Violet "the chosen one", rather her existence herself is a threat to the antagonist, but nothing about this world gives Violet a compelling reason to actually be the one who takes him down.

For an example of the incredible writing, the first moral choice moment has you reading a man's last will out to his two grown nephews and choosing between honesty "it goes to the one who wants to build a brothel", or lying that "it goes to the one who wants to build an orphanage for all those orphans". Despite immediately after directly referencing the fact that Violet is the ONLY ONE in the village with no family.

If I had gotten this game any other way than free from GOG I would sob.

[candycanearter07]

I did the Back 4 Blood playtest waay back in the day, and hated it. Still got it in my library, and I'm glad I never bought the full game.

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam was genuinely the worst M&L game bc of it being infected by Sticker Star and I hated it as a kid. Dream Team was way better, but I had it digitally on my small original 3DS, while Paper Jam was on cartridge..

Oh, and Sonic Forces. That was probably worse bc I played it on switch.

[Seraphim]

AER: Memories of Old is janky as hell on the Switch and is generally very unclear about what you should be doing in case you get lost. A game like that is somehow originally priced €20, insane.

You are the first person I have ever seen who has also played AER!! I had a very similar experience. It was just unpleasant to play, and I remember being so sad that the flying felt so bad and unsatisfying.

In addition to that, I really have come to have a less love/mostly hate relationship with Persona 4. I think its gameplay and music are very good, definitely the most enjoyable parts of that game and good entries in the legacy of the persona games. But I have never seen a game so thoroughly not deliver on any of its narrative promises. Pretty much every character has an unsatisfying end in my opinion, reverting to where they were before everything built up throughout the game. Or it didn't commit to the natural conclusion of the its explorations of queer characters in Kanji and Naoto. And everyone I have ever met has loved the story and characters, much to my bafflement.

Digimon Survivors also lives on my list for much of the same reasons. The characters are really hard to sit through, and the gameplay in Survivors got very repetitive very quickly.

[TheDuke_11037]

A serious answer would probably be Persona 3, I genuinely hate that game so much. The gameplay is a worst version of press turn with one of the worst dungeons in Megaten, the characters are boring and flat, it's completely exposition dumps, and I hate the garbage excuse of a dating sim mechanic.

Could write pages on the problems with this game and it alludes me to why people praise it so highly.

[Charbomber]

ok so there's this little game called 'mario'

[foxmosis]

actually if i'm being honest with myself, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels might be one of the worst games i've ever played lol

[sokil]

I did the Back 4 Blood playtest waay back in the day, and hated it. Still got it in my library, and I'm glad I never bought the full game.

i got into the playtest as well - right at the height of my left 4 dead obsession - and was initially so excited because the left 4 dead games are some of my favorites! NOPE. NOT THIS ONE. oh my god, back 4 blood was AWFUL. i get that playtests and betas are bound to have some bugs here and there, but this? this was actually unplayable. it was super laggy and just.... not fun whatsoever. everything about it felt so lifeless and bland (i recall someone made a really good video on this when the game launched, but unfortunately i can't remember who it was ). i also never bought the full game, thankfully.


my pick is definitely jurassic park: the game, made by telltale. i was a kid when i picked it up, and i thought it'd be somewhat similar to the movies since i loved those. boy, was i wrong. i think the story is actually supposed to be set sometime after the events of the first movie, and it managed to take everything enjoyable out of the whole experience. some of the tasks felt unnecessarily hard, and much of the game felt pointless. the story wasn't really interesting or engaging, and the "gameplay" that went with it would just leave me wanting to throw my xbox 360 off the roof yeah, needless to say, i absolutely hated this game. my poor mother must've listened to me complain about it for hours!

[candycanearter07]

i got into the playtest as well - right at the height of my left 4 dead obsession - and was initially so excited because the left 4 dead games are some of my favorites! NOPE. NOT THIS ONE. oh my god, back 4 blood was AWFUL. i get that playtests and betas are bound to have some bugs here and there, but this? this was actually unplayable. it was super laggy and just.... not fun whatsoever. everything about it felt so lifeless and bland (i recall someone made a really good video on this when the game launched, but unfortunately i can't remember who it was ). i also never bought the full game, thankfully.


my pick is definitely jurassic park: the game, made by telltale. i was a kid when i picked it up, and i thought it'd be somewhat similar to the movies since i loved those. boy, was i wrong. i think the story is actually supposed to be set sometime after the events of the first movie, and it managed to take everything enjoyable out of the whole experience. some of the tasks felt unnecessarily hard, and much of the game felt pointless. the story wasn't really interesting or engaging, and the "gameplay" that went with it would just leave me wanting to throw my xbox 360 off the roof yeah, needless to say, i absolutely hated this game. my poor mother must've listened to me complain about it for hours!

Yeah, B4B was a massive disaster no matter how you slice it. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it if it was good tho, since I associate it with an ex-friend from that time..
Also, it was laggy for me too but I had no idea if it was badly optimized or my computer was just bad :P

Funny enough, one of my favorite visnovel games is a Telltale game. I really liked MC:Story Mode as a kid (and still do now). Sure, it was campy, the gameplay was nonexistant, and had almost nothing to do with the real Minecraft Story, but my god it was a fun time and I'm glad people are starting to come around to it.

[myleszey]

I still haven't tried ThrillVille, I know thats a similar concept and it got a release on the original DS. I think BullFrog's Theme Park also got a rerelease on the handheld but don't quote me at that.

Theme Park was one of my most-played DS games, aside from maybe the Pokemon games. Very cool but also pretty bare bones compared to what exists now.

[Charbomber]

actually if i'm being honest with myself, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels might be one of the worst games i've ever played lol

I'm gonna be real, that game is pretty stupid but I wholly respect it anyways. First ever troll game, and it comes straight from Nintendo themselves. Truly honorable...

[GarbCat]

Honest to god Super Mario RPG Remake might just be it.. Or maybe Pokemon OR/AS, for similar reasons actually. I was a huge SMRPG (SNES) fan and I guess when a remake of it comes out just plainly called "Super Mario RPG" I shouldn't be expecting a lot of new stuff from it but mannnn it just kind of felt pointless. It really was "the same game" just with high fidelity 3D graphics. Playing SMRPG:R makes it very obvious that the average JRPG has been getting progressively harder since the 90s and it not having any extraneous difficulty options except for Easy just made it feel even more of a cynical  endeavor. I'm sure a lot of people really loved it, especially people who never played the original game... idk it just turned to ashes in my mouth. Such immaculately crafted 3D environments and scenery just to be a direct copy of the original, same feeling as a film with an inconceivable budget that turns out bad and has no cultural impact. IK SMRPG was made for a fledgling player to bridge the gap between more casual games and JRPGs but the game had a pretty big fandom 20 years in the making and a remake that does nothing new to the game except add 1 postgame boss feels... bad 
I'm not so much a Pokemon fan anymore but when I was in middle school I definitely was and OR/As similarly really disappointed me then too. That games probably the worse remake tbh but I don't care as much because I'm not into Pokemon. It was a pretty suffocating experience tho- much more wordy than the original, noticeably less challenging single player campaign, probably the most feature crept game in the franchise...
Maybe I just don't like remakes of RPGs LOL. At least I'm not into Persona I guess, its fans always seem to be suffering big-time from problematic remasters and remakes- then I'd be even more annoying!