10 RPGs You Should Definitely Skip

The RPG genre is one of the biggest and most varied in all of gaming. They can come in all shapes and sizes.

Some feature turn-based combat, even from Western developers. Look at Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Sometimes it just takes a team of French developers to deliver an old-school Final Fantasy experience to become one of the greatest games of all time.

However, games like Expedition 33 are often the exception, not the norm. There are countless RPGs out there, and for every good one, it feels like there are dozens upon dozens of bad ones. With that being said, these are the worst of the worst that you should avoid at all costs.

10

Sports Story

Such High Hopes, All Down The Drain

2017’s Golf Story was one of the biggest surprises of the year. It’s a charming, excellent golf RPG that feels like a natural successor to the Game Boy Color’s Mario Golf.

News of its sequel adding additional games made it one of the Switch’s most anticipated games, leading to its eventual release. It even got a marquee spot during a Nintendo Direct.

Unfortunately, Sports Story is one of the most disappointing sequels I’ve ever played. It lost all the heart and charm of its predecessor, resulting in a disjointed, broken experience that was not worth the wait.

9

Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom

Removing What Made Its Predecessor Great

While on the topic of disappointing sequels, let’s talk about Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom.

Its predecessors were cult classic tactical RPGs that combined the best of strategy and role-playing games. Inexplicably, Circle of Doom removes the strategy part of the equation and goes all in as a hack-and-slash combat-centric game.

As a result, everything that made Kingdom Under Fire unique and enjoyable is arguably gone, resulting in one of the most disappointing Xbox 360 games ever released.

8

The Legend of Alon D’ar

PS2 Shovelware at its “Finest”

The PS2 is filled with great RPGs that are a blast from the get-go. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Deus Ex, The Bard’s Tale; these are all certified bangers.

Legend of Alon D’ar is a certified dud.

On the surface, there are some good ideas here. Being inspired by Final Fantasy’s Active Time Battle is a good idea, but the execution is atrocious. Having different actions take different amounts of time is miserable to execute. Add in the fact that there’s no style or personality in the game, and you have the recipe for an RPG that you need to avoid at all costs.

7

Demon Skin

No Skin Off My Teeth

If you’re advertising a “brutal hack and slash game with challenging combat” in the 2020s, you need to deliver. We live in a world of countless Soulslikes; there’s nowhere for a bad game to hide.

Demon Skin is a bad game that suffers from the worst possible fate for any combat-centric RPG: it’s boring.

Despite lots of good ideas at play, they never really come together. With so much competition in the genre, you’re better off spending your time elsewhere.

6

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance

Fine on PS3, A Disaster on Vita

First things first: the PS3 version of Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is okay at best, even if it has gimmicks through the PlayStation Move controller. The Vita version, on the other hand, is terrible.

It should be a slam dunk: adapting a mobile hack-and-slash action RPG to a handheld device seems like an easy win. Maybe it’s the curse of the Vita? Maybe it’s the limitations of a launch game? Whatever the reason, one thing is clear. Dragon Hunter: Alliance is arguably worse than bad: it’s forgettable.

5

Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale

A Natural 0

Remember when I brought up Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance at the start of this list? Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale should have followed in its footsteps, especially launching as an Xbox Live Arcade game during its heyday.

Instead, the gameplay drew more inspiration from the 2003 Xbox-exclusive Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes, an average-at-best hack-and-slash. That said, Daggerdale’s gameplay will have you missing out on average-at-best video games.

There were too many enjoyable hack-and-slash games back in the day to overlook the issues here. What we got here is a dull story, boring combat, and bland graphics. Thanks, but no, thanks.

4

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance

What A Waste of a Legacy

Okay, so after Daggerdale borrowed from the wrong Dungeons & Dragons game, surely the game literally called Dark Alliance would be better, right? Well, about that.

Despite being billed as spiritual successors to some of the most iconic RPGs of all time, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance completely missed the mark. To call this game a massive disappointment is an understatement.

Good news, though: the game was delisted last year, so this one is pretty easy to avoid.

3

Two Worlds

It’s Totally Not Elder Scrolls, Guys!

Look, I get it. We were all riding that high from Oblivion a year prior, so when Two Worlds came around, it was natural to be excited. “Oh wow,” my friends said, “it’s just like Oblivion, but there’s multiplayer!”

So here’s the thing: no one is saying that Bethesda games are bug-free. However, Two Worlds manages to make Oblivion perfectly polished and without jank.

The voice acting is worse (that’s impressive considering Oblivion has like five voice actors), the graphics lack the wow-factor we became used to on the 360, and its massive world is completely squandered.

2

Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars

Don’t Answer the Call

Serbian developer Quotix Software has only one game under its belt that I can find, and it’s Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars.

On the surface, it looks like a 3D version of a classic action RPG from the late 90s or early 2000s. The problem is that the game was released in the late 2000s. Take a look at the landscape of RPGs following the release of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Pompolic Wars is stuck in the past in terms of its story, its gameplay, and its ideas. Add in countless glitches, and you have a disaster on your hands.

1

The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes

A Classical Tabletop RPG to Miss

Speaking of an outdated RPG experience, The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes should have the sauce. It’s honestly an excellent tabletop RPG experience at heart, but that’s where the good news ends.

All of its ideas are stuck in the past and have more in common with games from the late 2000s and early 2010s. Rather than moving forward with the times, The Dark Eye is content to be stuck in the past.

Now, we live in a world where Diablo 2 and Classic World of Warcraft are alive and well. Having said that, it’s important to know that the gameplay in those games is timeless. The Dark Eye would have been boring even 20 years ago.