-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
What was the absolute worst game of 2019 you played?
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
Objectively probably Pioneer Mars. A completely unfinished, terribly performing and buggy mess.
Subjectively Supermash, the sheer frustration with that damned glitch mechanic just stands alone (the game simulates game breaking bugs in the minigame sequences). The basic mash concept is already on shaky enough ground, the glitch mechanic just douses it in napalm.
Subjectively Supermash, the sheer frustration with that damned glitch mechanic just stands alone (the game simulates game breaking bugs in the minigame sequences). The basic mash concept is already on shaky enough ground, the glitch mechanic just douses it in napalm.
I don't play all that many games, but this year the worst was easily Pokemon Shield.
Aside from the music and art direction, every single facet of that game is boring, undercooked, or just awful. It's one of the worst games I've played in a long time.
Second place goes to Sekiro. The stealth is fun, if little too easy, but I didn't enjoy the combat mechanics at all.
Aside from the music and art direction, every single facet of that game is boring, undercooked, or just awful. It's one of the worst games I've played in a long time.
Second place goes to Sekiro. The stealth is fun, if little too easy, but I didn't enjoy the combat mechanics at all.
Zanki Zero. Some of the concepts in the game are kind of cool (like characters getting bonuses against what killed them, although the game was kind of annoyingly designed around that concept), and the story starts off interesting, but then as the story climaxes it feels like it renders a lot of the early story completely pointless.
A lot of the survival stuff just kind of felt like it got in the way (I'm not huge on those types of games though). Like for most of the game I didn't have enough storage (even though I was upgrading it) for my items so I just had piles of stuff all over my base in an unorganized mess.
I also found the outcry for the censored content kind of funny because I never even managed to get one dating sim love scene for any character and I finished the whole game (felt like that whole thing could have been cut).
The game also had a whole story section before the final boss which I found hard compared to the rest of the game (even with the dialog fast forwarded it still took over 30 seconds every try). I ultimately just dropped the difficulty to finish it so I didn't have to keep jumping through the story sequence.
Overall the game was at its best when it was focused on the dungeon crawling which I found fun, and there were some interesting dungeons with some ok puzzles.
A lot of the survival stuff just kind of felt like it got in the way (I'm not huge on those types of games though). Like for most of the game I didn't have enough storage (even though I was upgrading it) for my items so I just had piles of stuff all over my base in an unorganized mess.
I also found the outcry for the censored content kind of funny because I never even managed to get one dating sim love scene for any character and I finished the whole game (felt like that whole thing could have been cut).
The game also had a whole story section before the final boss which I found hard compared to the rest of the game (even with the dialog fast forwarded it still took over 30 seconds every try). I ultimately just dropped the difficulty to finish it so I didn't have to keep jumping through the story sequence.
Overall the game was at its best when it was focused on the dungeon crawling which I found fun, and there were some interesting dungeons with some ok puzzles.
Last edited:
Death Stranding, but wouldn't call it "absolute worst", the game just didn't click with me. I can see why other people liked it.
Glad I haven't bought it. I wish Jupiter would just make another plain ol' Picross game. I don't need these obscure anime trappings.
I'm struggling to think of a straight-up bad game I played this year. In terms of new releases Far Cry New Dawn might be up there but it wasn't bad and since I don't ever play the series it still felt novel enough, but didn't go hard enough on the unique weapons. You get introduced to the saw-blade launcher and then spend most of the game with the same old weapons you always use in shooters.
On the old games front it's Kingdom Hearts re:Chain of Memories. The battle system plays even worse than the first game's and it wasn't long before I decided to just drop it and watch all of the cutscenes.
Last edited:
Oxenfree. Was it released this year? I don't think so, but it's definitely the worst game I've played this year. It's like the game was written and voice acted by people who have never actually interacted with another human being. (maybe it's more the fault of the voice director than actors) Every interaction is equal parts obnoxious and unnatural. A train wreck I couldn't look away from even though there was nothing appealing about it.
"...Sekiro
Outer Worlds
DMC5
Outer Wilds
Death Stranding
Fallen Order
Astral Chain..."
ResetEra wants to be spicy today. Okay.
Outer Worlds
DMC5
Outer Wilds
Death Stranding
Fallen Order
Astral Chain..."
ResetEra wants to be spicy today. Okay.
Hey thread asked for worst game you played, not bad game you played. Maybe they played only a few games, or only good games!
For real, I'm not even a big fan of the game (mostly just because I find the controls too clunky and I don't like the time loop) but that take is crazy and so far off the mark. The game pretty clearly is an impressive feat of design, almost like a crazy impressive Rube Goldberg Machine.
Gotcha. OP asked worst game played this year and not released this year but didn't know if they meant the latter.
Outer Worlds was probably most disappointing released this year followed by Astral Chain. Not bad games, but considering their pedigree damn did they end up being snoozers.
I feel like threads like this fuel the hot take, shitposting part of Era but...
Life is Strange 2. The final episode did a lot to make me more positive on this game but holy shit Episode 4 was garbage and I just hated the way Daniel was often used as a plot device throughout the story.
Life is Strange 2. The final episode did a lot to make me more positive on this game but holy shit Episode 4 was garbage and I just hated the way Daniel was often used as a plot device throughout the story.
Tried my hardest to like Creature in the Well, but i don't think the core gameplay worked for me. It's probably more on the "not for me" side rather than just bad, i guess.
It's a really unique game, has great aesthetics, but simply didn't clicked.
Didn't played many actual 2019 released games tho.
It's a really unique game, has great aesthetics, but simply didn't clicked.
Didn't played many actual 2019 released games tho.
Kind of incredible that every major outlet was hyping Anthem and practically shoving it down our throats prior to it's release. Even giant bomb who had a dozen quick looks of the game which is embarrassing to say the least. You start to wonder how much these goombas were paid for that.
Probably either Yoshi's Crafted World or Borderlands 3. I at least finished Yoshi, but I haven't noped out of a game I paid full price for harder than BL3. Was excited to have something to play with my friend group too, and only two of them stuck with it, and even they admitted to not liking it much.
Pokemon sword is the worst mainline pokemon, the worst switch game, and the worst RPG of the last 10 years.
I watched the IGN review of this game and I assumed all the framerate stuttering was the video buffering...
Indivisible gets the honour of being the least good game I played this year but I'm sure it's going to eventually be Blacksad when I get around to it.
Pokemon Sword/Shield for me.
I really enjoyed the DS games, specifically HG/SS & B/W/B2/W2. B/W more so because the main characters were (slightly) older for once and having an entirely new set of Pokemon made things new and interesting.
Ever since X/Y, you can tell GameFreak has been time constrained and it shows with things being half-implemented. S/M was probably the best out of them, since most of the Pokemon were either new or regional variants.
SW/SH on the other hand is mainly older Pokemon brought back with some new regional variants and entirely new Pokemon. That and the supposed "improved animations & graphics" are laughingly bad. The frame drops in the Wild Area sometimes got even worse than the 3DS slowdowns when you had 3D enabled, and the Pokemon animations in that area are amusing in a bad way with the pop-in and movement of the Pokemon themselves.
Mix the lack of care that went into SW/SH and then the whole 'Dex thing (if you really like a Pokemon that isn't in SW/SH, hopefully you'll get a new/remake game that includes them, otherwise it's stuck in Home forever), and I stopped playing after getting to the third gym because if I have to spend a decent amount of time to get Pokemon in the end game that are viable competitively, playing a game where it's obvious to see the cut corners isn't worth my time when I have a ton of other better quality Switch games to play through.
I really enjoyed the DS games, specifically HG/SS & B/W/B2/W2. B/W more so because the main characters were (slightly) older for once and having an entirely new set of Pokemon made things new and interesting.
Ever since X/Y, you can tell GameFreak has been time constrained and it shows with things being half-implemented. S/M was probably the best out of them, since most of the Pokemon were either new or regional variants.
SW/SH on the other hand is mainly older Pokemon brought back with some new regional variants and entirely new Pokemon. That and the supposed "improved animations & graphics" are laughingly bad. The frame drops in the Wild Area sometimes got even worse than the 3DS slowdowns when you had 3D enabled, and the Pokemon animations in that area are amusing in a bad way with the pop-in and movement of the Pokemon themselves.
Mix the lack of care that went into SW/SH and then the whole 'Dex thing (if you really like a Pokemon that isn't in SW/SH, hopefully you'll get a new/remake game that includes them, otherwise it's stuck in Home forever), and I stopped playing after getting to the third gym because if I have to spend a decent amount of time to get Pokemon in the end game that are viable competitively, playing a game where it's obvious to see the cut corners isn't worth my time when I have a ton of other better quality Switch games to play through.
Rage 2 probably. Everything about it felt dull and unpolished, like some low-rent forgotten game from years ago. It didn't even look nice.
I haven't played any bad games this year, but I didn't like Days Gone. I gave it a shot because I really like Sam Witwer, and while his performance was great, he didn't really have much to work with and the game surrounding him was just okay.
The Outer Worlds was my biggest disappointment of the year though. It's been a long time since I've been so let down by a game that I thought I would love by a dev who I have the utmost faith in.
The Outer Worlds was my biggest disappointment of the year though. It's been a long time since I've been so let down by a game that I thought I would love by a dev who I have the utmost faith in.
Gears V. Just a brain dead shooter with uninteresting characters.
I'm at the point where I'm done with the franchise. It needs an overhaul.
Runner Up: Elex. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Plenty of talking and when you're not talking you're running away from chicken monsters because that's what you're supposed to do see? Because unlike other RPGs you start off as a total wimp, which is great see? So until you reach level 10 you need to avoid combat and do errand missions to level up. And of course the combat's typical Piranha Bytes bad. Zzzzzzzzz.
I'm at the point where I'm done with the franchise. It needs an overhaul.
Runner Up: Elex. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Plenty of talking and when you're not talking you're running away from chicken monsters because that's what you're supposed to do see? Because unlike other RPGs you start off as a total wimp, which is great see? So until you reach level 10 you need to avoid combat and do errand missions to level up. And of course the combat's typical Piranha Bytes bad. Zzzzzzzzz.
Generation Zero
Left Alive
I'd probably include Anthem if I had played it more. I played only a few missions and thought it was "ok." I didn't play more because I was hoping my friends would eventually get the game. They never did. I guess under certain conditions that makes this my worst game of the year.
Left Alive
I'd probably include Anthem if I had played it more. I played only a few missions and thought it was "ok." I didn't play more because I was hoping my friends would eventually get the game. They never did. I guess under certain conditions that makes this my worst game of the year.
In a year where there have been a good number of titles I haven't finished yet, Kingdom Hearts 3 is the one title I haven't finished despite having all the time in the world for it at release. It was just that unengaging.
Other than that there's not been a lot of games I've played this year I'd call not good, but I kinda do want to extend a mild "honorable mention" to Devil May Cry 5. Don't get me wrong, it's going to end up somewhere on my GOTY list, but this is a game I found was - for better and for worse - carried by two fantastic combat systems with the bare minimum holding everything else together. Completely unmemorable level design, poorly mixed music, a pretty cookie cutter narrative and some of the most aesthetically bankrupt settings this series has seen. The fact that it's a GOTY contender for me despite those misgivings is a testament just to how good the combat actually is but I'm kind of left feeling like I wanted more out of this genre.
Other than that there's not been a lot of games I've played this year I'd call not good, but I kinda do want to extend a mild "honorable mention" to Devil May Cry 5. Don't get me wrong, it's going to end up somewhere on my GOTY list, but this is a game I found was - for better and for worse - carried by two fantastic combat systems with the bare minimum holding everything else together. Completely unmemorable level design, poorly mixed music, a pretty cookie cutter narrative and some of the most aesthetically bankrupt settings this series has seen. The fact that it's a GOTY contender for me despite those misgivings is a testament just to how good the combat actually is but I'm kind of left feeling like I wanted more out of this genre.
So it's a bit unfair considering it's originally from 2001, but Final Fantasy X is just a bit shit now -- aside from To Zanarkand. My least favourite FF of those I've completed (10, 12, the 13 trilogy and 15).
Playing through X-2 and the main story stuff is just as quickly forgotten but the annoying characters are not nearly as prevalent and the game has style.
Playing through X-2 and the main story stuff is just as quickly forgotten but the annoying characters are not nearly as prevalent and the game has style.
Probably Wolfenstein: Youngblood. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's just a weird entry in this series. The story is boring, most of the characters are dull, the gameplay feels worse than the others and gets repetitive quickly, and it also has MTX's.
Maybe it's better if you play it with somebody else, but even then I'm not sure.
Maybe it's better if you play it with somebody else, but even then I'm not sure.
Pokemon Sword. While Death Stranding frustrated me more often with its gameplay (seriously, who thought terrible traversal was acceptable for an open-world game?!), Pokemon Sword barely tries. Since it does the bare minimum possible, and plays it as safe as possible, it ends up being a game where nothing is memorable at all.
