What is the worst written rpg in your opinion

I thought the story was the only good thing about Dragon Age 2.

Legend of Dragoon - The game should have been called, "Generic RPG Story #47: This Time Its Slower."

Bravely Default is my favorite game this year so far, but the story was garbage pretty much the entire way through. To me, that Egil chapter was so much worse than the halfway point thing. It was everything that's wrong with JRPGs.

But the comabt system shines sooooo well past the halfway point. Especially if you do the ridiculously brutal optional fights.

Resonance of Fate is an odd beast indeed. Most JRPGs - if not every JRPG that isn't this one - vastly overdo the exposition. RoF just leaves it out entirely and attempts to get the story across through the characters' perspectives. Kind of a third-person story telling. Sometimes it works, most of the time it's just incomprehensible. I admire it for trying something different, but the world and the plot really needed to be fleshed out a little better. Combat is awesome!

You'd think they'd want to come up with something less silly, given that they basically make up 50% of the total combat encounters for the first two thirds of the game.

@fetchfox said:

I've only played two Bethesda games (skyrim and fallout 3), but in both the main story line is horrible, and it's only the secondary exploration stuff that has the potential to save it? In Skyrim I guess it's the guild stuff. In fallout 3 it's the stuff tied to specific locations - I thought the big town/little lamplight stuff was kind of interesting, as was the stuff with the nuke and tenpenny towers. There's other stuff too, but you get the idea.

I mean I think it's probably evidence of something I feel is probably a good thing - giving individual writers, artists etc. or small groups creative control over distinct areas, because that's probably how they manage to fashion meaty side quests that hold the player's attention. On the other hand the quality of some of this stuff is often used as a defense for the lack of quality of the main storyline. And I think in some ways that makes me think even less of the "main" quests because they end up hardly seeming to tie in to the wider world at all.

This is really different to the original fallout games I think, which had a good balance of distinct areas with their own stories and atmospheres, but which still tied into the wider world and the greater story you were experiencing in some way. (incidentally this is partly, I think, where Kingdoms of Amalur fails in the other direction. None of the areas seem to have any distinct identity outside of the player and their quest/story. This is why actually the dlc stuff was the best stuff in that game by a country mile, as they were a bit more creative with that stuff).

@christoffer: Not trying to be an "um actually" sort of person but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_(folklore)

They're right up there with fairies and gnomes as classic ancient fantasy creatures. They're in a lot of the D&D books also http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Brownie

Quest for Glory V :D hehe

Aha, that explains it. That possibility didn't even cross my mind.

Not sure about just straight up worst writing, but I feel like Final Fantasy VII and Wild ARMS 2 both have awful translations. That reason alone is why I wish FFVII got remade.

On the J side, too many of the Tales Of games, Tales of Graces F being one of the largest culprits, if not the largest. I recommend going through the game just to experience how bad it is.

On the W side, 3D era Bioware got worse over time. DA2 was made in like eight months and they bragged about it. ME3 was made in seven self-insertion fanfics and they forgot the eight one that handled the ending. Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect 4 can of course surprise us and be well-written tolerable respectable features but until we know for sure, Bioware is still on that downward turn into being obscenely wanky.

That means you, mindlessly shitty space ninja outta nowhere. Both monitor and keyboard had to be taken away for cleaning after his appearance. Oh ME1 I miss you so, you damn fine game..

I'll say I haven't played a dumber RPG than the FF13.

I've been playing a lot of Divinity: Original Sin lately, and maaaan that game loves to waste a pretty interesting story with terrible dialog. It's actually kind of frustrating.

@quarters

The PC translation was fine and is the version currently available on Steam.

Yeap.

I'm sure there are actually worse games, but not many games just made me stop playing and not care about the ending more than the 2nd half of Braverly Default

@tothenines: It certainly had more memorable characters.

Oh! I just remembered! Tales of Vesperia is a hot piece of garbage when it comes to stories. Character motivations make no sense, the world is confusing, pacing is just the worst. So yeah. That ties with FF 13 for me.

It's been a long time since I played it, but what bothered me wasn't so much the twist at the end, but rather how 1/2 to 2/3 of the game take place in an area that is completely irrelevant to the actual plot. Correct me if I'm wrong or remembering poorly, but the main thing you are supposed to care about is the attack on the ship and the well being of your family and getting back to them. Then as soon as you are off that planet after the bulk of the game being there it never matters again. All the characters, towns, their war, etc... completely irrelevant. The game could have been 20 hours shorter easily.

I'm always torn on DA2. I like how they wanted to make it character focused rather than world focused. And as much as people complain about Anders doing that thing he does regardless of your relationship with him, I like that fact since it goes to show that there are some people that you just can't change. To me that made the character more realistic than if I can make him do my very whim just by talking to him enough. That being said, the game really should have just ended with the Arishok's story arc since the entire last act of that game feels rushed and only exists to set up for DA3. A very poor setup that feels forced and cheap.

Except for Critical Mode. Fucking fuck Critical Mode.

(I was on board with the writing, though.)

I find nearly all writting in video games relatively bad due to the fact that I read books, but aside from being a snobby dick about it I'd have to go with Two Worlds, but in the kinda so bad it's good way. Love that game :)

@thomasnash: Then you should really try Fallout: New Vegas. It was made by Obsidian and features far superior writing.

I see what you mean by having different groups tackling separate pieces of the story. For some of the Assassins Creed games it is very noticeable that the real world and the animus world are made by completely different teams... with the real world part being the worst.

Your picks are literary gems in comparison with stuff like Metal Dungeon and Grotesque Tactics. But the real winner here, as is the case with pretty much every "worst of" RPG category, is Agarest. That steaming pile of shit is the worst at everything, and if that sounds like hyperbole, go play it and tell me I'm wrong. The worst story, the worst characters, the worst gameplay, the worst setting, the worst, worst, worst.

To be fair pretty much every JRPG story is trash.

Enchanted Arms

@sparky_buzzsaw: I will only defend Agarest on the combat (well, Agarest Zero anyway since it's the only one I've played). The way attacks are chained reminded me of Hoshigami only actually playable.

@junpei said:

Combat mechanics are usually the highlight of any JRPG I've noticed. That and sometimes art direction. Stories always end up being some standard fantasy anime garbage, or incredibly convoluted anime garbage.

Also to note is the music. Some JRPGs have FANTASTIC music.

Sudeki for the original Xbox. The story was kept together by the loosest of threads, and needs a ridiculous amount of suspension of disbelief; all of which was thrown out when you beat the game and get a horrendous ending.

I'm sure there are some JRPG's from the 80's and 90's where it's hard to tell if the source material actually made sense at some point but was screwed up by the translators, or if the translators did what they could with some terrible material. When it comes to games I know for sure that the source material was pretty shitty, I'd say Diablo 2 and 3. I'm not a big fan of the writing in the Mass Effect series either, but I wouldn't call it the worst (but I was damn near close to stop playing Mass Effect 1 an hour in or so when all the options as you reveal your dream to the senate thing were terribly written and especially made no sense considering the mission you had just been assigned).

Krater is up there too. I absolutely love the music, but the writing was not good at all, though I guess part of that was because the game tried to evoke a specific kind of Swedish 1930's comedy, known as pilsnerfilm (I haven't managed to find a English translation of this, but it's fairly close to slapstick) which I've never liked either.

Oh, and I guess Mars: War Logs, but I haven't seen how the retranslation turned out, and it seems like the original translation from French was really poorly done.

I've been playing 13-2 recently because there's fuck all else to play right now and i'd have to agree with you. I havent beaten the game (I got to the part where doctor Hope robotnic asks me to go after the chaos emeralds) but the plot is laughably bad even for a Final Fantasy game. At least it makes fun of the stupidity on occassion with random time peroids that have nothing to do with anything (they might contribute towards alternate endings but like I said I havent beaten the game) so there's that.

Lightning Returns looks equally as dumb but I kind of want to play it because the battle system seems somewhat interesting.