This article is quite special, since it is both the third part of this series but also a union of the first and the second part, thus forming a trilogy and being such, in the list there are 32 games (10 in Act 1 and 11 in Act 2 and 3)!
As usual, each game in my "personal" ranking is not sorted by the ugliest game but by the game that has better soundtracks (subjectively speaking) than other games and I will put a specific soundtrack that I prefer most in each. game in the standings.
The lists are enclosed in the spoiler curtains, which, therefore, must be pressed in each of them to open (but also close) a long curtain with a lot of information inside them!
The idea of this article is not new, but at least 4-5 months ago, only for lack of time and desire, I could not do it, then in the end I got it into my head to do it, after having listened to some soundtracks some bad game that I will talk about in this article. Well yes, today I will want to talk about ten bad games but with soundtracks to be good for your ears.
Let's start from the lowest. Most of the games based on very famous and cult movies were just for making money and not looking after the rest, thus making these types of games painful and deceptive. And indeed Terminator 2 is, but be warned, there are two types of Terminator 2 games, one being a binary shooter (which is a good game), first released on Arcade and then converted to Super Nintendo, Amiga and Mega Drive and the other one is a platformer and I'll just talk about that game and tell you why is a bad game based on the cult movie. First of all, the gameplay is very repetitive and becomes boring after a few minutes, the graphics are horrible and poor, the sound effects are not that great and can be annoying to your ears and it is so short that you can finish it in an instant. Fortunately, the same cannot be done for the soundtrack and I chose the Genesis version because it has much more rhythmic music and is more pleasant to listen to (other than Super Nintendo).
It's a Painball simulator... very, very badly, for most of the aspects, with very raw and sparse graphics (we are talking about a 1998 game, we have seen much better), numerous bugs, music that do not go in loop, artificial deficiency (so high that the characters controlled by bots got stuck near doors and walls), places that have nothing to do with the typical fields of Paintball (from the desert to the spaceship), it is not possible to easily extinguish from enemies to allies since the sprites of the characters are practically a copy and paste, the practice mode is missing and also the flag capture, game engine so obsolete as to make the game completely "broken" and above all the gameplay is very boring... but, the only thing that saves it is the soundtrack. Of course, you don't expect this column to be suitable for everyone, because by its nature it is very rocking and slightly heavy, but after that you will get used to it. I know that there are other chapters after this too, which are nothing but cheap attempts to improve the original, you already know the rest of the story.
In this game, all we have to do is go through the tracks in each map of our choice with each truck available to drive. At the beginning it was to be called Midnight Race Clubun and to have in addition to trucks also motorcycles and sports cars, just a pity that in the end it was decided to restructure the game with laziness and reluctance and sell it like this, incomplete, with many shortcomings that are affected too much, including: the artificial intelligence of the opponents is missing, the trucks always remain stuck in the soil of the map due to the lack of gravity, you can run in the water without sinking, you can pass through obstacles and opponents because there is no collision, it is possible get out of the map easily, the speed increases infinitely when reversing, the graphic outlines of the lap time indicator and odometer protrude or are hidden by the edge of the box, one of the available circuits cannot be played, cannot be 'it is the police who come to arrest us and blah blah blah, a real digital abortion, but even here the only strong point it has is precisely the s column honors, with perfectly fitting music for that kind of game (or racing), just a pity that you can't listen to them while you play, again as a matter of laziness on the part of programmers to do something very simple.
And let's move on to one of the worst Super Mario games ever, Hotel Mario, released for Philips CDi. Why wasn't it released on Nintendo consoles? Since Nintendo had given up the collaboration with Sony to make SNES CD (which later became Playstation), it decided to collaborate with Philips and Nintendo gave the possibility to that house to use its most famous brands (Mario and Zelda) for CDi, you all know the rest, the games will be developed by Philips itself without a minimum of control by Nintendo and in the end I will come out crap, all of them, from the first to the last. Fortunately, Hotel Mario is a bit of a case apart and turned out to be the most successful game of all the Mario and Zelda chapters produced by Philips and therefore it turned out to be a good game. A simple game that can become addictive, so much so that it had been released on smartphones would certainly have been successful in spades and with a good basic idea, where we have to cross between one world and another where we have to close all the doors of each hotel, where elevators are often used to pass from one floor to another, also trying to collect coins around and crushing Goomba and Koopa Troopa, etc. How come it turns out to be one of the worst Mario games? Very simple, even if the basic idea may be interesting, in the end all you do is close doors and that's it, resulting in a continuous repetition between one level and another and the controls do not respond well, due to that damn Philips CDi joypad-remote control, which is frustrating, uncomfortable and imprecise and even the animated cutscenes don't help. What makes us not immediately abandon the game, however, is the soundtrack, simple and rhythmic, even if it is not really in a sea style but pleasant to listen to.
- Mario is Missing! / M's Time Machine ('92 & '93) -
This time we come to two games that are worse than Hotel Mario. Why did I put two in the same ranking? Because in the end, although they are separate games, they are nothing but the same game, with only a few differences. In fact they are both educational games (ouch!) with elements of Super Mario World, where Mario has to bring back the objects that have been snatched from the hands of historical characters from the clutches of Bowser, all using the typewriter of the time (I'm not kidding) and the other game where Bowser has a new castle built in Antarctica, from which he intends to use a large amount of hair dryers to melt the ice and sink the land, and sends his servants Koopa Troopa to steal precious artifacts to cities around the world to finance this operation. Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi will travel over there to stop him, but Luigi's hesitation will result in Bowser's kidnapping of Mario, so he has to save him. Why are they ugly, well... because they are educational games... okay, let's say things seriously, even if in these games they respect very well how historical events really went, complete with dialogues of historical characters, but if there is one thing that he did not tolerate in a Mario game it is the lack of fun and in fact in these games it is completely lacking, resulting somewhat boring and moreover they are so confusing that you do not know exactly what the heck to do and one other thing bad is that it lacks a real gameplay, a minimum identity that can make it memorable, not even that. Luckily there is the soundtrack to save us the day, that strangely the musical instruments used are not the same as in Super Mario World (only some and this can certainly be an advantage) and the music itself is well rhythmatic and some they are relaxing.
This is one of the few games where it is based on the movie which in turn is based on the Street Fighter 2 video game (what a strange inception). And if the film turned out to be crap, partly because of the choice of completely wrong actors to impersonate the famous characters of that brand and the whole film seems mostly amateur, then what will the game based on that film be like? Exactly! Also crap, but let's get there calmly: what makes it special is the fact that it is the only chapter of Street Fighter to use real stunts in the game, just like in Mortal Kombat, which could also be there, if only it weren't that they are the same actors in the film and in addition the animations of the characters turn out to be woody, moved, unrecognizable and badly animated, the story of this game is quite poor and does not follow the plot of the film well, horrible sound effects and inaccurate controls, really bad for the kind of game where you have to be quick and snappy in using combat moves. You could have left this game completely but not for its soundtrack, which is very 90's style.
I know I know, DOOM is not a bad game but I am referring precisely to some bad DOOM ports and in fact even the 3DO port is no exception. Although 3DO is a 32-bit console with CD support, what makes this game a bad port is given by some features: the game itself is very, very jerky and slow, making it almost unplayable, the graphics are not great at all, with very few colors on the screen and poorly dosed and also has a small game resolution, all to try squalidly not to overload the game too much. But surprisingly this port has the best soundtrack of all the ports present and is even superior in some respects to the soundtrack of the original, in fact it is nothing more than the same soundtrack as the original but remixed with a lot of metal and rock, appropriate music for that kind of game.
And finally we arrive at the third position and certainly could not miss a (bad) Sonic game, Shadow the Hedgehog, a game starring one of the most beloved characters of Sonic, Shadow, who originally appeared on Sonic Adventure 2. In this game will have to go through levels with different missions, which can be good, evil or neutral and depending on the player's choice, which will affect the story of the game and access to certain areas, but above all the identity of Shadow himself. In addition to making the game long-lasting, the infinite possibilities will eventually lead to ten different conclusions. In short, the only chapter of Sonic with this type of mechanics and certainly could be an excellent game on all cards, just a pity that the game was destroyed precisely by how it was made. The graphics look too similar to Sonic Heroes, which is bad considering that game was released two years before this one. The controls are bad and the camera as well, the level design is not great at all, this game is so full of platitudes and stereotypes that it tries to make the game more adult simply by adding firearms and vehicles and environments forcibly dark and blah blah blah I don't want to continue, because I'm bored too. However, even here the soundtrack is one of the strong points of the game, with rock music and other musical genres that accompany the entire environment of the game well.
Second position, another bad Sonic game and this time I talk about the most obvious Sonic '06, in fact I could not put it, since it is also the most hated Sonic chapter by fans, even more than Shadow the Hedgehog. The game was supposed to be a reboot of the Sonic saga, where they tried to give a whole fresh air to the Sonic brand, but unfortunately it is the realization that punishes it completely, also because of Sony and Microsoft that will force the Sonic Team to have to complete it. development in a hurry and having to release it just as a PS3 and Xbox 360 launch game and in fact the game turned out to be... badly done, but fortunately not as terrible as many think it and in fact if Sonic Team had taken more time to make it better, it could have been a good game but let's see why it is bad: the game physics is hideous, so much so that it is possible to walk in the loop of the death, the plot and the dialogues are rather stupid, most of the missions are boring, repetitive and tire easily, many levels are often too scripted to be easy to complete, the camera unmanageable and frustrating, the loading of levels i is too long, bad controls but not too much and blah blah... we understand each other. Here too, the soundtrack saves him and in my opinion that kind of soundtrack is better than that of Shadow the Hedgehog, which although some music on Sonic '06 is varied, ranging from calm to frenetic music, are well calibrated and rhythmic, to be optimally catchy for your ears.
And in the first position I put a game that for sure no one would have bet on it, that is Kurushi or Intelligent Qube. What's it about? The game takes place on a longitudinal platform in three dimensions. On this platform, whose characteristic is to present itself in the form of a grid of squares on the surface, rows of cubes flow much higher and heavier than our character, who, however, thanks to his particular skills, must destroy as many as possible. before the row of huge cubes crush him and knock him off the platform (which is suspended in thin air). But for sure you are complaining about me and telling me this is not a bad game. Although it is certainly not a mediocre game but not a great game either, what leads me to rank it is precisely the fact of being repetitive always doing the same thing and which can therefore be tiring after a few puzzles, with almost no change between a puzzle and another that can excite the player and completely anonymous graphics. What saves him then, but obviously the soundtrack and it's so bright and magical that it doesn't seem to come from this game but maybe from some Disney movie, since the soundtrack is purely orchestral and being a great lover of orchestral music, that's why I put it in the first position.
I tell you right away that ... it was not easy to write this article, as it was rather difficult, both to carefully choose the games to be ranked and to dedicate their description and I can safely tell you that many games that had to be ranked have been removed.
This is the remake of the first Hydlide and they tried to completely modernize the game, introducing a realistic world (which is generated at random) using "photorealistic" graphics. Too bad that the hardware on which it is used is not able to withstand all that complexity that it is asked to manage and the framerate drops to about 5 FPS and even the mechanical movement of the protagonist does not help. Fighting with bosses is certainly not a walk in the park, also due to the slowness of the protagonist's response. It could be considered a run-down clone of The Legend of Zelda and indeed it is. The soundtrack is... good, let's say. It's not really one of the soundtracks I would gladly re-listen to, but it's not that bad to listen to either.
It is a bad platformer with an anthropomorphic kangaroo more stereotyped than ever, who has to travel in an endless world of random elements, both in cartoon style and real ones, not only the characters but also the setting itself. Despite being called Kang Fu, no moves are mentioned regarding Kung Fu. But worst of all is the Game Over screen, complete with a photo of a kangaroo skeleton in the middle of the desert, truly creepy! The soundtrack is... weird (not to say a little bad) but catchy.
I'll tell you the plot, there's a basketball player named Shaquille O'Neal who walks into a dojo on his way to a charity basketball game in Tokyo. After talking to Leotsu, a martial arts master, Shaq travels to another dimension, the Second World, where he must save a boy named Nezu from the evil mummy Sett Ra. Nice filth as a plot! But that's not what I want to talk about. Believe it or not, this is not a basketball simulator, but a fighting game. And what's the worst thing in a fighting game? Desynchronized game controls! Especially when trying to perform a combo and this makes it not a little complicated to defeat the opponents. And when you try to be strategic, using the moves with the right timing, it will lead to defeat, but with continued side kick, victory will be assured! The soundtrack is beautiful but it could have been done better, but you can still hear it.
A bad rip-off of Naughty Dog's Uncharted, among other things, even badly copied, so much so that only Episode 1 of Unearthed exists. It sucks so much that it doesn't even deserve a detailed description, just see it with your eyes to better understand what kind of game it is. The soundtrack leans a lot on the style of Saudi Arabia, which fits us a lot for the type of game.
A damn and monotonous walk simulator with dinosaurs, in a nutshell! Where you control the character whose plane crashed on one of the Jurassic Park islands, where dinosaurs still roam free. The purpose? Escape the island, of course! And as in Virtual Hydlide, they wanted to make everything as realistic as possible, thanks and only to physics, without even any scripts, resulting, therefore, a tremendous confusion in perfectly controlling the movements of the character, especially his arms when we take in hand. an object. Even the most basic puzzles, such as making a ladder out of boxes, take more than a fair amount of minutes to complete, as you have to be careful not to touch a box the wrong way, otherwise it will turn over and you will have to rearrange all the boxes. The controls are set very badly, where you have to be a contortionist to be able to play well. Dinosaurs have a handful of them out there and they have pretty stupid artificial intelligence. The character who continues to breathe and talk about every hell of a thing she finds around, even a very banal stone. The soundtrack, although not the same as the film one, is still well suited for the type of game, very orchestral and atmospheric but generic!
Ok! I don't follow the Marvel universe and I don't know that character, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about his videogame transposition. Not only is it objectively done badly, but it's also one of those games that are more frustrating, to necessarily make a tough game, but wrong. Any solid thing in the game kills you, like a wall, a point, a pole etc. and it all boils down to a trial-and-error, that is, try again a few times to be able to understand how the heck exceed a certain level. And it's not even much of a sliding shooter, it tastes too much already and it's flat and monotonous! And it is a game released near the beginning of the SNES era, 1990, where at that time and even before, there are games of the same genre done much, much better than this one. The soundtrack is not bad at all and makes good use of the Nintendo 8-bit sound chip, the same one that composed Plok (SNES) and Time Trax (Genesis).
Uncle Fester relaxes in a garden chair and discovers that the Addams family have been kidnapped by aliens and he will have to try to bring them back, original! At first glance, it may look like The Legend of Zelda, complete with an upward perspective. The following issues are: base enemies have too many hit points and hinder him all the time, Fester is super slow and can't move diagonally, 3D mazes are pretty flat and dull, some enemy bullets can cause Fester to slow down even more and the game barely references the Addams Family, lacking even the kind of comedy we know of. Here, too, the soundtrack is gorgeous, maintaining the musical style adopted by Sunsoft for the Nintendo 8-bit, as for its other games on the same platform.
And after Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda on Philips CD-i could not miss. Why did I put them both in the same position? They are the same game, as they were developed simultaneously, but what differs them is that one is played with Link to save Zelda and the other is played with Zelda to save Link. There are too many ugliness in these games, starting from cutscenes that seem made with Microsoft Paint, poor and messy controls, Link and Zelda are very slow and heavy as a boulder, a continuous confusion and inconsistency of the level design of each level, where you do not know exactly where to move, the rupees are collected only by touching them with the sword, you risk talking to a non-player character unknowingly, the shield mechanics are poorly designed, you die too often unjustly, the bosses can be defeated in one fell swoop (if you use the right items) versus non-boss enemies and the ending... sucks! But the soundtrack is beautiful and a lot too, luckily!
Has the return of the most hated cat in the gaming world, after many years of absence after the disastrous Bubsy 3D, finally been re-evaluated? No! The poor longevity, the only three bosses present, the painful level design of certain levels, the wool balls are of no use at all, if not to make as many points as possible and the poorly maintained graphics (it looks like a game for PlayStation 2), for the high price it has, it completely kills the desire to be able to re-emerge one of the many videogame characters from the dusty oblivion. The soundtrack was composed by the same who composed for Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and for those who have already played it, you will hear the very catchy musical style loud and clear!
Of all the Metal Slug games released, this is just the worst of all, a freak of nature! But that was just the problem of being three-dimensional, which is not at all familiar to Metal Slug. It has really bad graphics, despite being a 2006 game, as well as horrible graphics models, the gameplay is boring and quite easy, the collisions don't work as they should, and it's so short-lived that it has no replay value. It doesn't even have Multiplayer mode, which is one of the key features in a Metal Slug. The soundtrack reproduces in full style the 2D chapters of Metal Slug and this is more than positive!
Since I'm talking about music, why not put a musical game? It's not quite a bad game, but when compared to others from the same Wii series, such as Wii Sports and Wii Fit, this is objectively inferior. A musical game where the maximum challenge is to move the Wiimote haphazardly, so the real challenge element is completely missing and therefore has a poor longevity and replayability, useful just to play idiot among friends at a party, but if yes look for even a minimum of challenge, better play something else. Wii Music was to remain a tech demo and not become a full-price release game.
Initially it was to be published in August, then postponed due to the little desire to complete it and also some of my psychological problems that prevented me from doing most of the things I wanted.
Did you know all the various Endless Run games that have become popular thanks to Temple Run 2? Here, Pepsiman managed to anticipate everything, even if in the wrong way. This is a bad game released in the last years of PlayStation 1's life, too bad it has bad graphics (where most of the objects, obstacles and NPCs use 2D models), the controls are awkward and slippery, a bad Level Design and the game is short. The music, while being repetitive to exhaustion (to make matters worse, some music has glitched sounds intentionally inserted), is very catchy and very funky in style, although quite repetitive due to its leitmotif.
Internet connection required throughout the game, this means that if the servers are down, you can no longer play. Many features present in previous games have been removed and / or facilitated, no agricultural zones, automatic saving (this means that you cannot undo what you have done), rather limited artificial intelligence, continuous server stability problems, DLC contents too expensive and every single region is stored on the server you played it on, so if the server is down, you will have to wait or start a new region on a different server. Dear EA, thank you for ruining another historical franchise... otherwise, excellent music, orchestral and relaxing, well suited to the type of game.
It is mainly based on the inclination of the GBA, like WarioWare: Twisted, but unlike the latter, this game, in the result, has not been able to exploit this mechanic well. It could have been a nice game, if only it weren't quite repetitive, the Level Design is pretty mediocre and forgettable and relying on tilt can be frustrating and confusing. Then it has no replay value and that the whole game seems to have been developed in a hurry, with obvious lacks, repetitions and poor longevity. Much of the soundtrack is quite good (among the exceptions is that of the Final Boss, too repetitive) and very consistent with the game atmosphere and is composed by the same composer as Sonic Advance.
Take the mechanics of a typical Gacha game and combine it with Mario Kart and get this! A horrible combination... besides the fact that I HATE all Gacha games, but details! If you love the Mario Kart series so much, ignore it completely, I can assure you that you will be disappointed, for the following reasons: It is on autopilot for the whole game, Internet connection required to play, there are even more clones of the same characters than in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Multiplayer mode is bad and to unlock some content you have to pay the monthly subscription worth 5 dollars. For the rest of the faults, find out for yourself. For the rest, the music is not bad (I mean the original ones from Mario Kart Tour), although I expected better.
Published by LJN? Mh! Good start... the game is based on the board game of the same name and the main problem with this game is that it barely represents that board game it is based on. In fact, the part where one player draws and the other tries to guess what he/she is drawing is missing, making it more like a banal game of goose and with only four minigames, one uglier than the other. Simply put, it's an incomplete game! The soundtrack is composed by the great Tim Follin and you can already understand from his name.
Wario Land 4 was already disappointing, this is even more so! The main problem is that it relies too much on the Touch Screen, which does not blend well with the 2D Platform controllable with the physical buttons of the console, resulting in a Platform with continuous interruptions due to the Puzzles manageable with the Touch Screen, where some of I find these minigames quite boring and repetitive. Then I got the feeling of playing a cheap game, especially from the opening scene of the game. The soundtrack isn't quite Wario's style, but it's still catchy!
The worst chapter of the entire saga, with the failed attempt to transition the series from 2D to 3D, then with a bad camera, badly colliding objects and the style of gameplay (which has always worked well in 2D) mixes badly with the 3D, still carries the same critical issues as the previous chapter, it makes no sense that X (Mega Man) should be unlocked far ahead, the story is weak, unoriginal, full of plot holes, non-sense moments and continuous contradictions, adding the bad and childish dialogues (and English dubbing). The awful Level Design, rather lazy and that makes it look more like a 2D game than 3D and the boss fight is bland, boring and too long. I do not add anything else, otherwise I dwell too much. The soundtrack is not bad, but some music is bland and forgettable, not quite the best in the Mega Man series but not the worst either!
A successor to Mega Man? Um... no. The game is based on the obsolete "Trial-and-error" to unnecessarily extend its longevity, Tutorials too invasive, useless and stupid, despite being based on Mega Man, it does nothing to improve it and reports defects of those games that were solved a long time ago, such as the lack of the Megabuster and Wall Jump. The Level Design is mediocre, the graphics are worse than a Dreamcast game or early PS2 games. If you really want to play a great successor to Mega Man, play Shovel Knight!
This game is much closer to New Super Mario Bros. than previous chapters of this saga (even M & L: Paper Jam has the same problem), with a very generic story, all non-player characters and enemies they are generic (the usual Toads, Goombas, Koopas, Boos, Shy Guys and others), the absence of a memorable Partner and the final Boss is the usual Bowser. The combat system, where it is mainly based on stickers, that if on paper it is a good idea, it is in the result that it is a disaster: To attack, you need stickers and once they are exhausted, you will not be able to do anything, especially in Boss battles, where there is no escape, thus becoming a continuous and annoying trial-and-error. Even some rather difficult and long levels to complete do not help, thus becoming a continuous backtracking. Otherwise, the soundtrack is excellent, catchy and quite spot on for the style of play.
This is a Mario Party rip-off (both are developed by Hudson Soft). So, it's not quite as bad as many have defined it, but I would define it mostly mediocre, nevertheless it has the following critical issues such as: It is not possible to play every minigame at the end of the turn, you have to stop in a minigame square to do it. Only 4 playable characters (Mario Party 1 has 6), no training mode, frequent and long loading, the use of cards instead of dice makes everything more complicated and long than necessary. The soundtrack is quite pleasant and also cartoonish and atmospheric, thus giving a great feeling of lightness, well suited for that type of game!
Not all Tetris games are nice and I wanted to choose this one released for Philips CD-i, a nice combination in ugliness! For a 1992 home console game, it could offer a little more, such as the ability to play in two players (the Game Boy version has it and came out in 1989) and / or some other game mode, making the whole game repetitive and monotonous, that if it were not for the fantastic, atmospheric and dreamlike soundtrack and the beautiful backgrounds on the landscapes, this game would be forgot instantly.
- Conclusion -
I can assure you that writing the article was not easy and it took me much longer than I imagined. Anyway, let me know through your comment any lack and / or error present and I'll see if I make some adjustments, anyway, thanks for reading! ^^
