RPG Writing Hall of Infamy

[anvi]

You leave my love alone!

 

[Neanderthal]

DA2. Utterly retarded plotting with a supposedly struggling protagonist being beset by hardships that never actually appear, he makes a fortune before going to the deep roads to make his fortune.
Utterly boring city with moronic factions that are all utterly unlikeable, no reactivity, worse characters I've ever seen, mcguffin introduced to make antagonists and protagonist obey but thou must.
Utterly no reason to be interested in the shit, 60 hours of playing errand boy in an unlikeable locale is fucking torture.

Still the zombie mum bit was bloody hilarious.

 

[anvi]

^ That is probably the worst RPG I ever played.

 

[Contagium]

Two Worlds

 

[Beastro]

Anything full of faux chaucerian thee's and thou's.

I dunno, if it was done like this I think I'd enjoy it:

 

[turkishronin]

b-but t-the funny flying skull lied to me, that's raw g-genius ;__;

FUCK OFFFFFFFFFFF

whoa this character is a succubus but she's pure and chaste
wow a brothel where people talk instead of having sex
revolutionary

 

[MpuMngwana]

Two Worlds

Verily, knave, thou hath offendeth me with thy words. Draweth thy blade!

Spoiler

In all seriousness, TW writing is very much terrible, but in a very charming and earnest way. I find the ridiculous faux-Shakespearean English and voice acting more wooden than Pinocchio much more enjoyable than something like POE's dry walls of text, even if they may technically be more competent.

 

[hivemind]

witcher 1 is only worth playing in polish or czech

 

[hivemind]

I played it 3 times

Once Czech with no subtitles

Once Czech with English subtitles

Once Polish with English subtitles

amazing game, honestly

I should replay it now that I think about it

 

[newtmonkey]

Bad writing in Two Worlds? YE GODS!

 

[Sarkile]

I also disagree with Dragon Age 2. There are definitely issues with the story including huge plot holes, but the story was probably the best thing about that game. I'm not saying that is such an accomplishment, but at least they attempted to sell a more personal story that wasn't about saving the world/universe.

 

[luj1]

Skyrim, Fallout 3-4, Pillars of Eternity 1-2, Torment: ToN, Tyranny, ME: Andromeda, DA: Inquisition, DOS 1-2

 

[howlingFantods]

As long as the story takes up no more than 10% of the time playing the game I can consider that a good story.
Any RPG in violation of this rule should be condemned to the deepest circle of hell.
Nothing irks me more than a GM who fancies himself to be the next Dostoyevsky. The same goes for CRPG writers.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Some quality candidates:

- Dragon Age: Origins: very solid background lore, but the in-game writing is horrible. Everyone talks too much, and about nothing. Clicking on some dwarf merchant gets you a 10 minute long expose about his whole freaking family, going back 20 generations. And then, the obviously evil characters like Logaine, the archdemon, etc, without any interesting blurred lines or character depth, the boy scout gray wardens, etc. Just terrible. Go either for massive great writing (PST, Witchers) or for brevity (Gothics, BG1, Deus Ex), never go for massive shit.

- Fallout 4: I had the misfortune of playing this after Witcher 3, and the drop in writing quality hits you like a wrecking ball. Dialogue wheel options like "I am hungry" and "I look for my son" make Mass Effect look like Shakespeare. Then you run into a guy wearing 17th century clothes and a laser musket, and ponder if this is just a satire on mental institutions.

- Divinity: Original Sin: Cat jokes, imp jokes, terrible jokes, more cats jokes, cat jokes inserted into tragic dialogue, cringy-worthy jokes. All of this might sound bad, but then you learn the main plot and it's so bad, the jokes seem less terrible.

 

[turkishronin]

Skyrim, Fallout 3-4, Pillars of Eternity 1-2, Torment: ToN, Tyranny, ME: Andromeda, DA: Inquisition, DOS 1-2

Tyranny was alright

 

[Robert Erick]

Mass Effect 3 is up there. I played 1 and 2 back to back in preparation for 3, and playing it just after that felt like I was punched in the face. The Star Kid is the easy thing to pick on, but the whole writing for the whole game was bad. Plot, dialogue, characters, descriptions, backgrounds, quests, everything. The jarring drops in quality were so obvious to me that I could notice them as they were happening, and the admittedly improved and even fun gameplay couldn't make me stop from thinking how poorly planned and executed the story lines and how badly written the dialogue lines were, and how phony was most of the voice acting. Garrus and Tali spoke like they were self-aware and doing an impression of their former characters, Wrex spoke like he was mentally challenged, Mordin did a 360 and decided to cure the genophage because uhh we had to tie up loose ends with the Krogan. And then there's the sidequests with serious implications that you never see unfold on-screen (resurrecting fucking dinosaurs), and the characters from side-material showing up (Kai Leng), and the massively story important characters and content being DLC and having no impact on the story (Javik, the Leviathan). There's a lot to say, but I'll stop there, you get the point. Also they made Miranda's ass flatter and smaller than it was in 2, and that's terrible.

 

[Vlajdermen]

I remember a bit in the nier automata demo going something like this:

I've never worked with anyone before, this is kinda fun

Emotions are prohibited

Ghaaa!

...or however you spell that autistic animu grunt

 

[Yosharian]

Mass Effect 3 is up there. I played 1 and 2 back to back in preparation for 3, and playing it just after that felt like I was punched in the face. The Star Kid is the easy thing to pick on, but the whole writing for the whole game was bad. Plot, dialogue, characters, descriptions, backgrounds, quests, everything. The jarring drops in quality were so obvious to me that I could notice them as they were happening, and the admittedly improved and even fun gameplay couldn't make me stop from thinking how poorly planned and executed the story lines and how badly written the dialogue lines were, and how phony was most of the voice acting. Garrus and Tali spoke like they were self-aware and doing an impression of their former characters, Wrex spoke like he was mentally challenged, Mordin did a 360 and decided to cure the genophage because uhh we had to tie up loose ends with the Krogan. And then there's the sidequests with serious implications that you never see unfold on-screen (resurrecting fucking dinosaurs), and the characters from side-material showing up (Kai Leng), and the massively story important characters and content being DLC and having no impact on the story (Javik, the Leviathan). There's a lot to say, but I'll stop there, you get the point. Also they made Miranda's ass flatter and smaller than it was in 2, and that's terrible.

But the gameplay was way better!

(It wasn't)

 

[Yosharian]

My vote goes to anything written by Jennifer Hepler

The romance scenes between Merrill and Hawke in DA2 have to be seen to be believed, simply atrocious writing

 

[Sigourn]

JRPGs.
The excessive anime/manga/Jap culture tropes/jokes makes many of these games insufferable. I've realized it's no coincidence that the ones I like the most are the ones with:

• Minimum amount of cutscenes: essential cutscenes for advancing the story.
  
• Minimum amount of dialogue: essential dialogue that fleshes out characters, no inane babble.
  
• Minimum amount of NPCs: essential characters for the story, and/or characters that give out neat clues and info about the world.
  
• No kid characters in your party. Mostly because having kid characters leads to inane babble about pretty much anything.

So stuff like Vagrant Story, Dark Souls (and basically anything FromSoftware you could say), even Nocturne, is great for me. Koudelka is another game that was fantastic in this regard: IIRC you come across less than 10 characters in the entire game, three of which are your own characters; sadly I thought the game was mediocre, but it gets big recommendation points for being very un-JRPG like in its setting and tone. I've yet to play Parasite Eve but I'm pretty much it will be like Koudelka (hopefully with less mediocrity when it comes to the gameplay). Dungeon crawlers ofc fit into this too, it's why I think Wizardry's writing (or lack thereof) is so much more appealing than other contemporary western RPGs.

My issue with JRPG writing is the same I have with Baldur's Gate: it relies heavily on tropes and jokes, so it's a massive hit or miss. People love Minsc, but I personally cringe whenever I hear his stupid lines.

 

[anvi]

In all seriousness, TW writing is very much terrible, but in a very charming and earnest way. I find the ridiculous faux-Shakespearean English and voice acting more wooden than Pinocchio much more enjoyable than something like POE's dry walls of text, even if they may technically be more competent.

Are we 100% sure that TW1's dialogue wasn't supposed to be a joke?

 

[deuxhero]

I like that so few people even remember Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Defect Andromeda were a thing that nobody has mentioned them.

For the eastern side: Fire Emblem 14 (If.../Fates). Even with the actual translation this game's writing is atrocious, but with the official translation it's literally, non-metaphorically, a series of bad jokes.

 

[c2007]

Mass Effect 2 Human Reaper. Literally facepalmed.

Mass Effect 3. It was ok, on rails but I was on with the direction, nagging problems all along the way and then StarBrat and the Kobayashi Maru.

Casey and Mac go to the top of the list.

 

[Contagium]

Aeon of Sands - The Trail. I would've been fine if the game had no writing whatsoever. Every dialogue sequence was just one bad joke after another. Hopefully the next games in the series keep the same gameplay but lose the retarded humor.

 

[newtmonkey]

"Pillars of Eternity drives me up the wall." Newtmonkey gazes in the distance, like he's thinking of what to say next. He sighs and looks straight at you. "Every other character talks like a retard, they do. Bones and fish, they are. Flying in the air, darting back and forth, never settling nor slowing." He fidgets from side to side, nervous at the implications of what he's said. "I'm tempted to just skip all the dialog." He looks down to the floor, satisfied but somehow not.