Let's get to it!

10. Sword of Vermilion (Genesis)

I'll give it credit, it looks and feels a lot like Phantasy Star 1; 2D overhead towns, 3D dungeons, and a similar style of music.But it also sports the Worst combat system ever invented.Imagine the overhead combat of Zelda 1.Now make the hit detection total crap and have enemies literally swarming the screen, sometimes draining your entire health bar before you can even react.Yeah.Imagine how fun Super Mario Brothers would be if Mario had a 50% chance of dying every time you jump and you'll have some idea of how fun Sword of Vermilion is.

9. Unlimited Saga (Playstation 2)

I'll let one of our many FAQs speak on this one.

perhaps trying to prove that people don't just buy their games for pretty graphics, square released this. "see? people will buy ANYTHING with our name on it!"

Yes, Square did away with the graphics this time and presented us an RPG environment with all the appeal of UNIX.Towns are nothing but menus, everywhere that ISN'T a town resembles a simple board game, and combat just has you rolling a single slot machine reel over and over again to do absolutely everything.The overall lack of animation (everyone gets a whole 3 frames of it, if even that) only "enhances" the experience further.Throw in an oddly soothing soundtrack and you have a game better suited to use as a sleeping aid than as anything you'd want to actually play through.

8. Quest 64(Nintendo 64)

This one might not have been so bad if it delivered promised elements like shops and party members.A decent soundtrack, a minimap for the winding dungeons and toning down the extremely frequent fights may have helped too.But as is, this is just a slow, boring mess.To this day, I still wonder what posessed me to sit through the whole damn thing.

7. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (Playstation 2)

I'm all for original ideas, but when they do nothing but hinder the fun you're better off without them.Case in point, Dragon Quarter's awkward experience system requires you to fight your way through the game, then, once you hit a boss you can't beat, restart FROM THE BEGINNING and use your unspent experience points in the next game to - hopefully - stand a chance this time through.Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Throw in a ridiculously sloppy plot, a slow, clumsy combat system and the game actively punishing you for using your dragon abilities (which were, oh, an INTEGRAL part of the previous games) and it's easy to see why Capcom's left this series for dead.

6. .hack//CLICHEWORDS (Playstation 2)

As if the crappy plot and repetitive game structure weren't bad enough, they broke it up into four discs and sold each one seperately for full price for no good reason at all.Even better, the game makes no attempt to hide this; throw in Part 3 or 4 and you'll be able to rewatch ANY cinema from the previous games.It also appears that the trend of unnecessary sequelization is catching on; when games like
Halo start cutting off abruptly halfway through the story and promising the conclusion in a sequel it definitely doesn't bode well for gaming.Here's a hint boys: making a trilogy or quadrilogy doesn't automatically guarantee you a spot in history next to the Star Wars trilogy, now knock it off.

5. Final Fantasy X-2 (Playstation 2)

How do you rub a bad game and an empty wallet in my face even more?With an even worse sequel!If you're going to make a direct sequel to a Final Fantasy game, at least make it one of the good ones.Oh, right, sorry.I forgot about Advent Cash-in for a second there.Tell you what boys, just lay off the sequels from now on and save us all some embarassment.

4. Tales of the Abyss (Playstation 2)

Continuing everything that brought the series to ruin after the first two games.Namely, dumbing down combat to mindless buttonmashing and making all your characters whiny morons and then expecting you to give two shits about them when they find out that their lives suck.Even better, the game's still trying to beat another dollar out of the dead horse of mocking religion.Just give it up; it wasn't clever in 1994 and it still isn't in 2007.Stop jerking off to Neon Jello Emofest already and write a real story.

3. Xenogears (Playstation)

Just how gloomy and excessively tragic can we make THIS?Not one single minute went by that Square wasn't thinking that during development of Xenogears.If it's dark and shocking it's probably in there somewhere.Murder?Entire villages at a time. Split personality hero committing said murders?Oh yes.Cannibalism?Yep, that's there too.Torture, cloning, and misguided revenge?Roger.A gear which uses the cockpit as a bullet despite the fact that such a thing is ridiculous and nobody in their right mind would build it?RAD!There's nothing inherently bad about dark elements in a story, but when they start appearing every five minutes they lose their effectiveness and it just gets tedious.It's even more ridiculous when half of said plot elements just seem to be thrown in because it's "cool" rather than because it makes any sense within the context of the story; the gear with the bullet cockpit and the out-of-the-blue-then-immediately-forgotten Yggdrassil IV subplot sum that up rather nicely.

The second disc in particular is one of the worst things I've ever played."Hey, let's just skip the gameplay and have a bunch of dialog with the occasional boss fight!"You know, guys, if you're coming up on a deadline and your game is only half-finished you should probably consider delaying it.Better yet, just don't release it at all; at least that'd save us the embarrassment of Xenosaga, the only game series to nix shops and then bring them back as a "new feature" in the sequel.I'm actually not kidding.

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Dogshit Saga (Playstation 2)

Twice the doom and gloom of Xenogears and the worst kind of use-the-opposite-element gameplay on top of that. Not to mention that it missed the "Christianity is evil" cashwagon by a good six years, so even its plot twist is hackneyed (and can be seen coming fifteen seconds into the intro).But most of all, the plot is split into two stand-alone discs sold for $50 each, a la .hack.Yeah, it's everything I hate about RPGs smashed into one convenient and overpriced package.Good job Atlus.

1. Super Columbine Massacre RPG (PC)

While I'm loath to give this game any recognition and would rather just let it fade into obscurity, I made an exception just this once.There's no way I could justify not having this on a worst RPGs list, and anything less than the #1 spot wouldn't do any justice to the shit stain it's left on gaming in general.It's singlehandedly turned the indy gaming community into a laughing stock, and when shit magazines like Game Informer start running glowing three-page reviews of it, it only serves to bring shame to mainstream gaming as well.

That said, I utterly refuse to play SCMRPG.I refuse to even look at more than two screenshots of this disgrace.So, instead, I'm going to review it based solely on its title.

Super - This word implies that something in the game is better than other games, or that it makes an older incarnation of a series look miniscule in comparison.Hell, remember how big of a leap Super Mario Brothers was over regular Mario Brothers?Here, though, you lose either way.Not only is there nothing even remotely "super" in this game, but the thought of it being an "improved" followup to another game about two spree killers is infuriating, to say the least.

Columbine Massacre - A shooting spree that resulted in thirteen deaths and twenty three injuries before the two gunmen took the chicken shit way out and killed themselves.Not only are they not worthy of admiration, they certainly aren't worthy of getting their own video game glorifying their actions.Do you know why World War 2 shooters are so popular?Neither do I, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that they all center around fighting scum like these two.

RPG - My favorite genre is scarred forever with this abomination.Wonderful.With games like Doom and Quake where the only real motivation is shooting things, getting the occasional mod created by a psychopath who shoots up a school is to be expected.But the genre that brought us great games like Lunar, Suikoden and the early Final Fantasy titles?Forever tarnished by some idiot in southern Colorado with a pirated copy of RPG maker.Thanks a lot, shithead.

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There you have it, my picks for the worst RPGs of all time.You may be amazed at the lack of Final Fantasy VIII or X, considering how much I've complained about them in the past.Don't get me wrong, they're both piles of shit, but as this list proves, there are far worse games out there.