@@HappyH4ppyHappy Hmm, I would say it had one of the best stories out of the Persona game's I've played, but the Dungeon design was really repetitive, so could see why it put some people off.
truthfully, i didn't mind Tartatus, but i do understand why people don't like it. P4 and P5 have much better dungeons and at the very least, they don't feel like they are a drag to get though.
@@benjamintic3653 The battle system and music were the only things I really liked about Persona 3. It was a chore to finish the game. I think 4 is a lot better in terms of characters and social links, and I haven't played 5.
@@ZERO9098767 How do the ones in 5 look the same? They all have a set and unique design that I found enjoyable and memorable. Fair on 3 and 4 though due to randomly-generated dungeons.
@@Animefan8050 Persona 5 still has the Tatarus-like dungeon, Mementos. If we're talking about all of the dungeons in the games, then, Persona 3 and 4 both have dungeons that are unique, as well.
The Great Crystal - this dungeon took hours of my life. I went there several times, but my most scaring memory was when I first went to get Ultima, spent hours trying to get to her, even with a sketched map, and after I finally made it to the fight... I could not beat Ultima. I kept dying, ran out of healing items and was just so mentally drained from figuring out how to get to her.... That I ended up giving up, going all the way back out of the crystal, went to buy items and sh*t and then came back to do it all again. To this day, Omega is there waiting, getting rusty as I just couldn't bring myself to do it all over again.... That and Yazmat (he's still at half health on my saved game, waiting for me to finish him).
Once I got Yazmat down to his last bar and didn't notice he cast reflect on the party then one of Ashe's Restore All gambits triggered... Well, there was certainly a short glitch, but yep- in an instant all 50 bars refilled. Momentarily overclocked the games engine probably- the sudden value change of +49,000,000 HP. Talk about demoralizing. His doubled level effect remained as well... Good times...
It's a good thing that most of the Great Crystal isn't accessible until we complete the story part that forces us to go through it...otherwise this nightmare of a dungeon would be straight up unbearable. It's even worse that the nearest warp crystal is pretty much at the start of Giruvegan, the previous dungeon...which requires us to go through the Feywood first 🤦♂️
The Great Crystal was made to be a nightmare, I remember it being stated somewhere in the Ultimania for the game that they threw it in as a challenge...they certainly succeeded.
I like the cloisters, too. The only thing I have against Bevelle is that you can accidentally take a wrong turn at the end and miss the treasure. The Ice Cavern in FFIX has the same problem, too. Take one wrong turn and instead of a save point, you’re up against arguably the most difficult battle in the game.
All of the Cloisters are easy. The only thing that makes it annoying is the control. It's tedious because you have to stop on pointless platforms so you can lower your speed. If it wasn't for that, it would be just another easy one. Even easier since it's the easiest of the secret puzzles in the cloisters.
Draco Errarus last year I downloaded it on ps4 and started playing it again. This is exactly what happened to me. Got stuck in that battle for Idaho’s dam long lol
@@dracoerrarus4834 Actually, that part in FFIX is quite clever. There is a crossroad: on the right, there is a terrible storm; were as, on the left, there is a calm weather; if you go right it's your fault, because the game actually suggest you what the right turn is.
Andrea Cuozzo Alternatively, the right looks like the rest of the dungeon you’ve been going through, while the left has a warm light suggesting you’re stepping into a new area that is just as likely to have a boss. Sure, in retrospect I know what it is, but first time through was frustrating. A good design would have eliminated all doubt. The moogle could have been along the path. It could have been in a side room instead of after a fork in the road. They could have left some other hint that a moogle was in the left room, like a sign or moogle footprints. Cleverness just isn’t enough when a wrong choice sets you back at least 10-20 minutes to your last save.
I completely agree about FFXII's dungeon. That place nearly made me quit the game outright, back when it came out. I'm glad I stuck it through, but good lord, what a slog.
Thankfully, the worst part is only available on the second visit onward, but without a map, tons of annoying enemies, teleporters and all...Hell, I did the story part of the map blind and took a good hour and a half to do It!
In Tales of Legendia, the Japanese version was actually fully voiced for the whole game; the English version just got messed up because of a misunderstanding on the part of the localization team (they thought 'Character Quests' were just short sidequests, not the second half of the game, and so they set aside less money than was needed to pay the voice actors before the dubbing process began). Really fun video as always. Looking forward to the 7th gen video.
The great crystal the first time round isn't that bad, come out of a waystone portal, check the number, find another waystone, is it lower? Teleport, if not, find another one. Match that with the time honoured "hug the wall" technique and you're golden.
God I'm replaying FF12 right now, trying to 100% it for a second time for Zodiac Age and the idea of having to go in there again... trying to follow confusing maps online... I picked up FF10 again instead, lol, at least I only need to go through the cloister of trials for Bevelle once... 😓😓😓 Sickening. Who designed these dungeons lol...
Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts. You think most mazes are bad? Try a fully 3D one where you can't use most of your moves due to being underwater, and ending with the most annoying boss in the series. Also, for Star Ocean 3 I would nominate Planet Styx over the Firewall. Once you start it, you can't leave or go anywhere else until you're done. No recovery points, no shops, no saving. All enemies are as tough as the BOSS of the previous dungeon or worse, and it's a narrow pathway so they can't be dodged.
Nah, Firewall is definitely worse. At least planet styx can be fairly simple to just blaze through once you know the route and unlike firewall, it doesn't have an extra piece of dungeon tacked onto it's end and no stop and go waiting puzzles. The enemies are manageable once you know how to fight them and there are ways to avoid the icons even without the item that let's you just skirt by them.
Chernabog is more annoying than Ursula imo, but if you think about it they are almost the exact same fight, lol. I didn't have that much of a problem with Ursula as I did with Chernabog though.
You know a dungeon (read the Great Crystal) is bad when even someone, of all people, who brags about getting extremely good spatial orientation skills gets lost in there.
God, I got so lost in there the first time I played it that I had to use a guide. AND I NEVER USE GUIDES FOR MAIN QUESTS!! FF XII is a marvelous game but I completely removed that hellish dungeon from my mind, what a nightmare
...I liked the White Temple. Maybe because my memory is good enough?... In fact I was more stressed with the Red Temple, since it had that slow animation those arms from the floor had, without mentioning the hazardous red smoke. Yeah, I had float balls (saving money becomes exponentially easy), but the fact I had to uncurse myself going to a specific spot. That was more annoying than just being thrown at the starting point.
The great crystal is easy to navigate... If the path is angled down, you're running lower into the dungeon. If the path is angled up, you're running higher into the dungeon (I.E. closer to Ultima). I don't know how folks can't navigate that thing... it's easy even without a map. There are only a handful of "rooms" on each floor too. Not hard...
I love Legaia 2, even the sewers. The only complaint I’d have (if I remember correctly) is that there are keys you need that you can’t get until much later in the story. I’m not fond of being unsure whether I should be able to access a room or not.
Like this page and what I do here? Consider supporting me on patreon! www.patreon.com/davidvinc [0:36] - 10) Bevelle Cloister of Trials - Final Fantasy 10 [1:27] - 9) Uyuni Salt Lake - Shadow Hearts: From the New World [2:36] - 8) Wise Owl Forest - Dark Cloud [3:52] - 7) Ravine Caverns - Valkyrie Profile 2 [4:54] - 6) Firewall - Star Ocean 3 [6:05] - 5) The Waterways - Tales of Legendia [7:03] - 4) The White Temple - SMT: Nocturne [8:04] - 3) Gladius Towers - Rogue Galaxy [8:351] - 2) Darakin Sewers - Legaia 2: Duel Saga [9:53] - 1) The Great Crystal - Final Fantasy 12
#8 - Huh... I can't remember a single dungeon that was bad in Dark Cloud 1. :p It was more like challenging stuff like limited floors, weapons breaking, water, and death/party switching and limited items that were kind of painful... I tried hard to take in stride though. XD
I didnt mind the random generation, i just hated the side characters. The weapon progression system was long enough when producing *one* top tier weapon, but if you want to level each side character and give them decent gear too??? Jeebus
Eh, I don't agree with Wise Owl Forest being on here. Mostly because as somebody who plays alot of rougelikes otherwise (where much of the content is randomly generated, Nethack being a good example, Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, ect.), I'm not bothered with randomly generated dungeons. The point is to collect loot and level up. You only have to use Goro to press switches and knock the big boss down, you don't need him for the entirety of the dungeon. I'll grant you that having a random key item means there's another 2 key items taking up inventory space, which is annoying, but in Dark Cloud, you are supposed to be collecting spheres anyway to restore the world to it's former glory, so you need to clear the whole main section of the floor anyway, regardless of weather you have the needed key item or not.
One thing I want to say about GC is that while it is absolutely confusing as all heck, the storyline part actually isn't that bad. The second time through is a nightmare
I don't like boring dungeons like that sewer dungeon in Tales Of Legendia. Sewer dungeon in Legaia 2 had at least some challenge. Even Great Crystal in FF XII is more interesting to me because it actually tests your sanity.
Man, this video makes me wanna power up the old PS2 again, and play some of those crazy RPG's I barely remember a thing from Rouge Galaxy, but got some weird PTSD when you mentioned that Dungeon
I was hoping Legaia 2's sewer would be on this list, and I am glad it was! That is the only bad part about that entire game, primarily due to Maya still not having her voice yet. After she gets it back though, she is a monster!
Dark Cloud features several things you don't like, including procedurally-generated dungeons, puzzle elements you don't like, and characters you don't like, plus synthesis. The game was a rather experimental form and I personally think it did alot of things well. Sorry you didn't like, but I didn't really have the problems that you did and I don't know why. I mean, you're suppose to keep all of your characters strong, and for an extremely good reason: Teamwork. They're suppose to work together, as in the system in place to switch out. Toan is the well-rounded guy needed to put the towns and stuff back together, Xiao is the quick long-range fighter, and so on, and so on. You're not suppose to focus on just one. They complement each other by design, and you really need them for that in the bosses, ESPECIALLY the final one.
Aaaw but I really LIKE Randomly generated dungeons D: They don't promote exploring but they make grinding up your weapon far more fun because you never know what you'll get floor wise !!! And Wise Owl Forest, Floor 14, with a Sun Dew is literally one of the best spots to grind up your weapons ABS to Super power! There's a reason why I've maxed out the timer on Dark Cloud on probably 10 different game files! I can never put it down! The only part of the bullshit I agree with is the 3 different door keys, if only because they take up limited inventory space D:
As a kid, I spent 4 hours getting to Omega Mk. II in the Great Crystal...only to have it be asleep and unresponsive. Then, it took me 12 hours to get back out. I'm still scarred from that years later.
Fraggly of the Duma Faithful Yeah, you need to have defeated all Espers and the Yiazmat hunt needs to have been started. Some day when the remake is on sale, I’ll go back and finish it.
@@toblerone1729 Hm... The Great Crystal, sure, and definitely the extreme tier hunts (King Behemoth and up), but I'm not sure I'd agree in the general sense. I'll be playing the game again at some point before 2040; I'll see what I think then.
These videos are so in depth the viewer is under the illusion that David has replayed all the rpgs right before the video goes live. No one on the internet has come close to this kind of immersion with rpgs, this kind of seamless fusion. The minute Im no longer a victim of COVID job loss I’ll join on patreon. If there was justice in the world he’d make a living doing just this. Not to keep brown nosing, but give me one example of another TH-cam recreated doing not just this but being very witty and honest and extremely funny. Many others that try, like Eric Landon, have great intentions but I find them unwatchable. Pro Jared does great reviews, but they’re once a year now. Plus all his drama…Jeremy Parrish should have him on retronauts. Regularly. David’s channel is the heart and soul of rpg passion delivered by a natural for this kind of communication. A true artist in his own right.
I understand your point on the great crystal, especially back in the vanilla version where there is no speed up. However, after playing many boring corridor disguised as dungeons, it's definitely one of my favorite dungeons of all time!
When it comes to Dark Cloud's Wise Owl Forest, while I agree with you that it's probably the worst and most tedious dungeon in the game in terms of gameplay, I found it to have one of the better theme songs and be probably the most atmospheric dungeon.
when FF14 announced they were doing FF12/Tactics themed Raids... i was dreading it, thinking we'd see Great Crystal. thank god we didnt, i dont think i could handle that hell hole coming back.
Hello David! Just got into your videos, love them to death!! Felt i had to correct you since you are such an RPG expert: it's pronounced "Shin Megami ten-say". Keep up the good work!!
I never played Legaia 2, but when I heard the soundtrack played here, I immediately know Hitoshi Sakimoto worked on that. Makes me want to try that game.
Yeah Star Ocean 3 is one of my favorite RPGs but man there are loads of frustrating dungeons in that game. Especially for me was that damn maze forest with the monster trees where you get Roger... ughhhh you need a guide for that shit!
FFX and the cloister of trials caused myself and everyone i saw play the game to let out groans, especially the one you depicted here. When I played through the game a second time I had actually forgotten they were in the game and boy did that make me second guess my playthrough when I got to one. Dark Cloud caught my attention right after the PS2 came out with its Zelda like look and Soul Blazer like town building. After I got past the first city and realized its a copy and paste ordeal for the rest of the game I put that game to bed forever. Dark Cloud 2 is an amazing experience in comparison, fixing the first game's issues in almost every respect. I love the music from Shin Megami Tensei games and the soundtrack with Nocturne is awesome. That game was hard and I felt like it had some of the most difficult moments and places to get through on the PS2 (The matador for instance). Excellent list!
I love the shadow hearts series but the worst part of Salt Lake is that it's right before dropping a bombshell on you. One I'd say from Shadow Hearts 1 is this cavern one where you fight undead guys who whack you with guns, every area looks exactly the same, and there's no landmarks or map to help you navigate your way through. Another dungeon I'd have to say is the Abyss from Wild Arms 3, oh my lord that one is a pain. A 100 floor dungeon where past the half way mark you have enemies that can steal half your gold and run in the same turn, and another that can EJECT YOU OUT OF THE DUNGEON, which you have to start all over. And mind, the encounter rate is the highest in the game, topped by fighting a superboss at its end, twice!
I agree with this list for the most part though I'd say that Urssa Lava Caves is worse than the fire wall for one big reason: Difficulty spike. The first disk has you fighting mostly HP damaging enemies and MP damaging enemies don't deal much damage. In the Urssa Lava Caves they all deal heavy MP damage to you and if you didn't realize that running out of MP kills you, you're dead. Plus because of how narrow the maze is, you can't avoid any enemies. In the Firewall I just ran past every single enemy and it made things a lot less of a hassle. I do agree though, both of them are awful and both deserve to be mentioned in the list.
If it weren't for the no optional rule I woulda been surprised at the lack of Via Infinito, which starts as an AP farming joke and then becomes a real nightmare to trudge through even on high levelled characters
I always enjoy these top ten lists, great work David. I remember trying Bevelle cloister trials for something like two hours before I finally gave in and looked it up on a walkthrough =/
I listened intently and I noticed that literally every word regarding The Great Crystal also applies to FFXV's post-game dungeons. The only difference being is that instead of returning to one dungeon repeatedly they put one after the end of every dungeon in the game. I'm still waiting for the biggest JRPG developer to demonstrate that they know the difference between 'long' and 'difficult'.
Final fantasy X is LEGENDARY and ICONIC and if you can’t understand the cloisters then it’s cuz you’re just not avid enough to pass it. Luckily, there’s TH-cam now for those...struggling. Xoxo
Oh my god, it just hit me whilst watching these. I have a GREAT idea for a Top 10 list. Top 10 JRPG Water/Sewer levels that DON'T SUCK! Grandia and Earthbound come to mind, their sewer levels were relatively painless.
Really the only thing hard about Wise Owl Forest is the volume of melee-unfriendly enemies there are plus how many of them can poison you. At that point in the game you’re still gimp, the only range character you have is Xiao and you aren’t wealthy enough to keep a healthy supply of bombs and antidote drinks. As for Goro being required to complete the dungeon and defeat the boss, that’s standard for the entire game, even though all you really need him for is the boss and switches that open doors (also standard for later dungeons and the ally you get there). Other than that the entire dungeon can be breezed through with Xiao assuming you’ve leveled her weapons up. The general rule is that the ally you obtain over the course of each dungeon is required to complete it and to defeat the boss. Now if we were talking about bosses, then I think I speak for all of us when I say **** the Ice Queen!
In Dark Cloud there were a few tricks to make the dungeons a lot easier. Namely you basically had to all but ignore everyone but Toan and Xiao. Goro was only really useful for hitting the switches and for making it easy to hit the Wise Owl Forest boss by hitting his feet. To do this you had to hit Utan's feet then simply switch to Toan and hit with his powered skill. As for FF XII and the Great Crystal I absolutely have to agree. The only way to get through it is to use a guide that tells you of exactly where to go using the teleporter numbers as a reference.
The one in Okage Shadow King is the worst to me. The Abyss Maze, I believe. I still haven't got thru it. Need to do a proper let's play on it, because I am so stuck I'll just suffer from the beginning again. Might luck out on the right path this time. I know I finished FFXII as a kid, I don't remember hating any dungeon. Other than Nabradia. I think I remember playing the Shadow Hearts FTNW one, not the best to play. I'm stuck in the mines in Rouge Galaxy and I just have bad memories of Dark Cloud. Good list you put together.
6:00 - I still can't understand how people think THIS is the best game in the Star Ocean series. My best guess is that many people didn't play Star Ocean 2.
I was wondering if Ff12 Guravagan was going to make it. That dungeon was beautiful but oh so dreadful...I remember being lost for hours in there. Even worse is when you finished the story part of it- I realized I had to go back if I wanted Excalibur and Ultima...the second time was truly the worse especially if you are not high level.
I don't have much problems with the trails in 10 expect the one in belvile like you said with the moving platforms. 12 tho the great crystal should have been called the boring crystal I mean my god the level design was terrible.
Honestly a few of these games I still own, play, and absolutely love, and I disagree with this video. Dark Cloud a relatively simple game they made harder by making you play as probably the worst character, while also letting you make the character better by playing as them. Rogue Galaxy is an awesome game and the towers are pretty straightforward, even more so when nearly every wrong path takes about 10 seconds to get back to where you were, and are very easy to clear, if anything is bad about the towers it's that the bosses are pretty weak, final fantasy x was pretty good, and the little puzzles were not that hard and didn't take that much time to solve, I could go on and on about a lot of the other games too, but if these games were your worst dungeons you should have played more games or maybe you just suck at video games and anything beyond Tetris is too much a challenge
Ahh the Bevelle Cloister of Trials... It used to take me a long time years ago, but theres a trick to 100% completing that area. In my mind, it was more of an homage to the fact that Bevelle was all about machina, defying their own teachings.
When I saw Rouge Galaxy in the thumbnail I knew you were going to talk about those towers. Also the .hack dungeon in your honorable mentions sucks, but .hack//G.U.'s Forest of Pain is far worse, still I'd say it's not as bad as some of the ones you put on the list. Oh and if you want an idea for another list how about worst completion challenge. .hack's got an item completion challenge that unlocks "after" you beat the final boss of the whole series. It's absolutely no fun collecting 700+ items with a 40 item carrying limit, the majority of which is filled up by your equipment and usable items, and at best getting 3 to 5 of those items per dungeon run. Even with a guide this easily takes 2 to 3 times as long as a casual playthrough of the games to complete. It's totally not worth it either as you get an ugly wallpaper for the game's desktop and some pretty uneventful cameo cutscenes.
SacrificAbominat Thrn there's that final dungeon...you know, the one where you have to constantly data drain, and therefore your infection level gets so high that there's always a chance you'll "crash" the game and lose everything :/.
@@wingedmirage4226 Yep and there's two of them, more if you count hidden dungeons for the special trade items. My first playthrough of the dungeon before the final boss was brutal because I was at level 87 when they want you to be at level 90 or above. Even if I got to the boss at the end of that dungeon he was able to wipe my party out at that level. The Last dungeon is actually a little bit easier since I think they throw more normal enemies at you on the later floors, the boss is also much easier by comparison to the other dungeon, but that data corruption is still pretty brutal if you aren't level 99. I only say G.U.'s forest of Pain is worse because it is far longer and the later floors throw some really frustrating enemies and bosses at you.
SacrificAbominat Ah, guess I blended the dungeons in my head. It's been a long time since I've played it. Haven't played the GU series, though I probably should. I got burned out on .hack after the cutesy anime with the wolf girl.
As I have gotten myself into the pokemon and zelda series from nintendo, I can see that the final fantasy series has such crazy places especially when the game takes away the map and compass and any other thing that helps you when they thought that "Oh now that the internet and youtube is a thing, lets take away that stuff from the game to force the player to use other sources to find their way in the dungeon." Did guide books exist for those games?
Wild Arms 3, The Abyss. It should definitely have been on this list. 100 floors, no saving, and a crazy hard boss at the end of it all, RaguORagula. If you lose, slog thru all 100 floors again.
yes, you may hate them if you don't love puzzle and tacking your time. just because you hate it, it doesn't mean everyone does. this is a classic and they were built at the end of the 90s. At that time the game world was not that advanced and manoeuvring your character in a 360-degree angle, was new to the game world. this puzzle may have been boring to you, but it helped a lot of people think about an event in their life and how they can solve them. p.s even if you say this worldes are fictionalised it still had an aspect that will connect you to the real world or similar event that you will encounter that will force you to behave in the same manner.
Actually, there is a critical flaw with Dark Cloud in general. In nearly every dungeon there is a floor that requires you to have completed a specific portion of the town above, but the pieces are acquired randomly, so it is possible to hit a spot that forces you to either restart or load a save from a few floors earlier because you can't continue. Wise Owl Forest is the most notorious for causing this problem because of both the size of the dungeon and how early in its progress you encounter this point.
Of course, the only reason I even watched the video was because of Dark Cloud being in the thumbnail and remembering its critical flaw. Overall, you come across as a whiny brat, which is sad because if you were in college when the PS2 was in its heyday you should've started back during the 16-bit era, and aside from the conveyor-belt tedium of FFX's Bevelle's Cloister of Trials I find nearly everything from the 128-bit era and newer not worth complaining about. Nearly every dungeon you complained about had secondary advantages if you weren't trying to do a speed run, namely getting you enough experience that the boss wouldn't wipe the floor with you. And most of the ones where you complained about the difficulty of backtracking if you ran low on items........they were in the late game, if not the final dungeon, and you should have such extreme amounts of cash available for buying items that your inventory should be nearly maxed out on recovery items, and if you're still running out then you're probably too under leveled to be there anyhow. You almost make it sound like your idea of the perfect dungeon is one where just entering it gets you piles of loot and a handful of items so all you have to do is walk forward a few steps and fight the boss. Makes me wonder why you even bother to play any games.
@@Razmoudah >.< took a moment for me to realize you were replying to yourself. I somewhat agree with you. Except I think tedious dungeons with backtracking are legit cancer due to boredom rather than difficulty.
@@Onshki: To me it depends more on whether they change anything before you go back to it or not. If there are new enemies, and better still new treasures, then I don't mind so much. The exception being Tales of Legendia as you essentially have to go through everywhere again (even if the enemies are much stronger now) in the post-game chapters, that one got very tedious. Then again, I am a Metroid fan, and every Metroid fan is very familiar with backtracking just to collect power-ups that they couldn't reach the first time, or three, through an area.
@@JetWolfEX: Off topic: I've never looked at a You-Tube review of a game before I'd played it myself. In fact, I always discount any review that is either purely positive or purely negative (unless there are a LOT of purely negative reviews) simply because they won't mention the negative/positive things in an unbiased manner. Maybe a feature that someone else doesn't like I'll greatly enjoy (Ar Tonelico comes to mind here), which makes knowing about the 'flaws' even more important. Now, if you compare Dark Cloud 2 to Dark Cloud 1 then yeah, 2 is an awesome game, but on its own it's only somewhat past above-average (it has a solid story that is told well, you actually have all of the player characters rather early on with none of them rendering others useless, and the combat system and game controls all work well). It is a fun game to play, as Dark Cloud 1 can be, and thankfully they put a check system in place to guarantee you can't get perma stuck like you could in 1, but I'd hardly consider it a must have (and I have a couple hundred games, not that I have the time to play more than a few hours into most of them). Rogue Galaxy can be a fun game to play. The story doesn't have much of the standard JRPG tropes (actually, in some ways it reminds me more of Star Wars than a JRPG) with some rather interesting secondary features. However, unlocking special abilities for characters can be very annoying at times (you have to use items to unlock them, and when you have three characters that can unlock two or three different abilities each and those abilities all need the same hard to get item you may spend a couple of hours trying to get past that choke, and frequently if you don't the next boss is going to laugh at you as it makes very short work of you, only for that item to become MUCH easier to find after you take the boss down, though that changes in the mid- to late-game as you'll normally just be powering up abilities instead of acquiring new ones), and the Insector mini-game can easily cost you 20 hours to fully complete, and there are special rewards for completing it (mostly unique outfits, though if memory serves, it has been over a decade, these outfits all give strong stat boosts which most outfits don't), and if you don't like hunting down rare monsters multiple times the Hunter Ranking and Weapon Growth systems will drive you bonkers. With the exception of becoming an Insector master the game can be very good, if you've got a lot of time available to invest in it and you're willing to put in the roughly 150 hours the game can take for a completionist playthrough.
@@JetWolfEX: On topic: Well, if he's like me then he finds the time by getting what games he can when he has a job and then when he finds himself unemployed again he finds himself with a LOT of spare time as it only takes a day or two a week to apply to every job opening within a workable (as in you will make enough money to be able to afford to drive to the job, or take public transit if that's available) range with little to nothing to do the rest of the week. That's where I've found most of my time for gaming over the years, however my PS2 collection alone seems larger than all of the games he's complained about dungeon design on for every console combined, and I mostly have JRPGs. His complaints are more than a little nitpicky for most of this video. He's sitting there complaining about some of the defining aspects of most of those games. To me he had two legit complaints out of ten 'official' complaints and a couple of honorable mentions. He didn't even mention MS Saga, where if the dungeon doesn't have a Mega G system in it that you'll need to create your own Mobile Suits (they're all from Gundam settings) it's either a slog fest, a special encounter barrage, or you have a some-what common random encounter enemy that is almost unbalancedly powerful, that you might even get to fight two of at a time, forcing you to use specific characters with specific build types to avoid frequent game overs. Oh, and don't forget that the MS's have a set amount of armor and a maximum HP potential, creating a limit as to how much abuse you can take at any given point in the game. That is a game where 80% or so of the dungeons are worth complaining about because of how the game overall limits your options of what you can do with the various characters. However, the game does have a great story, which is what I primarily play the games for and I'll tolerate a lot of other problems for a great story
"It's Dark"... You know, after playing Red Dead Redemption II, and, literally not being able to see a single thing in some areas at night, I don't think I can truly call any other game dark.
The worst thing about The Great Crystal to me is that you have pre-requisites to even get really into it. Like, I can get myself through just fine due to sheer amount of memory I have playing these kinds of missions/story bits, but the fact you need something else to even get the rest of the dungeons collectibles and that there is close to no hint as to what it wants makes this place an absolute CHORE. FFX Cloisters tho? I don’t think so. For someone who can start playing it for the first time, it’s presentable, but my god, when you go through it again, just to get the second cutscene or in case you missed something, it’s dumb. I especially agree to that idea because I’ve beaten the damn game 27 times in my life.
But the souls told you where to go in Nocturne, and the dead ends lead to good items. The "fastest paths" (there where multiple paths even) to progress where like 4 rooms also, heh..
Firewall is one of those dungeons that's actually super easy to get through... if you know what you're doing. It's been so long since the first time I played SO3 that I can't even remember my 1st run of that but I can see how people get frustrated going in blind. However, even though there's another dungeon after it you really shouldn't need to backtrack because your characters should be self sustaining in the field by then. As long as you have regeneration symbols that have been available since first arriving in Ellicor you shouldn't need anything else.
The sewer thing is actually kind of true. Even in Tales of Symphonia, while the sewer dungeon to sneak I to Meltolkio isn’t the most tedious dungeon, it is quite annoying.
I must be the rare exception that loves to grind in dungeons, making them less unbearable lol but I agree the great crystal can GTH! even in the remastered I thought HEY! overlay map not this time! but to my surprise we were once again shafted by SQUARE.
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Davids three laughing Kafkas
Every dungeon in grandia xtreme
"Dishonorable mentions, Persona 3: Tartarus".. soo like 90% of the game then? XD
It's either that boring maze or just going through repetitive high school shit for 95% of the game. Take your pick.
@@HappyH4ppyHappy Hmm, I would say it had one of the best stories out of the Persona game's I've played, but the Dungeon design was really repetitive, so could see why it put some people off.
truthfully, i didn't mind Tartatus, but i do understand why people don't like it. P4 and P5 have much better dungeons and at the very least, they don't feel like they are a drag to get though.
@@benjamintic3653 The battle system and music were the only things I really liked about Persona 3. It was a chore to finish the game. I think 4 is a lot better in terms of characters and social links, and I haven't played 5.
I enjoyed Persona 3 but yes Tartarus sucked. I wasn't a fan of Momentoes in P5 so a game where isn't basically Momentoes the game
"Imagine a dungeon where every room looks exactly the same", Oh you mean persona 3.
Persona 3? More like 3, 4, and 5. I never played the first two, so, I don't know about those.
@@ZERO9098767 How do the ones in 5 look the same? They all have a set and unique design that I found enjoyable and memorable. Fair on 3 and 4 though due to randomly-generated dungeons.
@@Animefan8050 Persona 5 still has the Tatarus-like dungeon, Mementos.
If we're talking about all of the dungeons in the games, then, Persona 3 and 4 both have dungeons that are unique, as well.
Watched lets plays of those and remember them to be corridors too.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories was the same. Every world's dungeon had the same design and only varies in shap.
The Great Crystal - this dungeon took hours of my life. I went there several times, but my most scaring memory was when I first went to get Ultima, spent hours trying to get to her, even with a sketched map, and after I finally made it to the fight... I could not beat Ultima. I kept dying, ran out of healing items and was just so mentally drained from figuring out how to get to her.... That I ended up giving up, going all the way back out of the crystal, went to buy items and sh*t and then came back to do it all again. To this day, Omega is there waiting, getting rusty as I just couldn't bring myself to do it all over again.... That and Yazmat (he's still at half health on my saved game, waiting for me to finish him).
Once I got Yazmat down to his last bar and didn't notice he cast reflect on the party then one of Ashe's Restore All gambits triggered... Well, there was certainly a short glitch, but yep- in an instant all 50 bars refilled. Momentarily overclocked the games engine probably- the sudden value change of +49,000,000 HP. Talk about demoralizing. His doubled level effect remained as well... Good times...
It's a good thing that most of the Great Crystal isn't accessible until we complete the story part that forces us to go through it...otherwise this nightmare of a dungeon would be straight up unbearable. It's even worse that the nearest warp crystal is pretty much at the start of Giruvegan, the previous dungeon...which requires us to go through the Feywood first 🤦♂️
The Great Crystal was made to be a nightmare, I remember it being stated somewhere in the Ultimania for the game that they threw it in as a challenge...they certainly succeeded.
I actually like the FFX Cloisters, but even I have to agree that Bevelle is abysmal, which is why I suggested it
I like the cloisters, too. The only thing I have against Bevelle is that you can accidentally take a wrong turn at the end and miss the treasure.
The Ice Cavern in FFIX has the same problem, too. Take one wrong turn and instead of a save point, you’re up against arguably the most difficult battle in the game.
All of the Cloisters are easy. The only thing that makes it annoying is the control. It's tedious because you have to stop on pointless platforms so you can lower your speed. If it wasn't for that, it would be just another easy one. Even easier since it's the easiest of the secret puzzles in the cloisters.
Draco Errarus last year I downloaded it on ps4 and started playing it again. This is exactly what happened to me. Got stuck in that battle for Idaho’s dam long lol
@@dracoerrarus4834 Actually, that part in FFIX is quite clever. There is a crossroad: on the right, there is a terrible storm; were as, on the left, there is a calm weather; if you go right it's your fault, because the game actually suggest you what the right turn is.
Andrea Cuozzo Alternatively, the right looks like the rest of the dungeon you’ve been going through, while the left has a warm light suggesting you’re stepping into a new area that is just as likely to have a boss. Sure, in retrospect I know what it is, but first time through was frustrating.
A good design would have eliminated all doubt. The moogle could have been along the path. It could have been in a side room instead of after a fork in the road. They could have left some other hint that a moogle was in the left room, like a sign or moogle footprints. Cleverness just isn’t enough when a wrong choice sets you back at least 10-20 minutes to your last save.
I didn't fully read the title of this vid
So I saw "top 10 worst rpg" and saw the thumbnail and was almost triggered 😝
It got me too 😄
Rogue Galaxy was too good to be true at the time tbh
same here
Same AF lol
Saaaaaaame
Dude, I'm never gonna play more than half of these games, but I could listen to you and your arms talk about them all damn day
I completely agree about FFXII's dungeon. That place nearly made me quit the game outright, back when it came out. I'm glad I stuck it through, but good lord, what a slog.
LOL I watched just to confirm that The Great Crystal was number 1
I think Great Crystal from FFXII is by far the worst dungeon in all the PS2 rpg era
Ridley Grey I love that game but that is the worst dungeon ever.
Absolutely! especially if you are trying to get that secret esper.
It and the pharos when you try to face a certain hunt
Thankfully, the worst part is only available on the second visit onward, but without a map, tons of annoying enemies, teleporters and all...Hell, I did the story part of the map blind and took a good hour and a half to do It!
Exactly
Rogue Galaxy is a classic
the towers are a good concept that hadn't really been used in years. on the other hand, they made them FAR to long
Insectron mini game is what I really love😂
@@agungfirmansyahmuhariri2066 yup
The Towers just took forever to complete. I liked them being the opposite of each other though.
Currently playing through it again and honestly I feel like all the dungeons are slightly too long but other then that it's one of my favs
I have actually experienced most of these dungeons here, and can attest that yes, they were pretty awful.
In Tales of Legendia, the Japanese version was actually fully voiced for the whole game; the English version just got messed up because of a misunderstanding on the part of the localization team (they thought 'Character Quests' were just short sidequests, not the second half of the game, and so they set aside less money than was needed to pay the voice actors before the dubbing process began).
Really fun video as always. Looking forward to the 7th gen video.
You think they’ll ever do a remaster of the older Tales games?
@@bluecoin3771 They're doing a remaster of Symphonia, so it's definitely entirely possible that the others will eventually follow.
The great crystal the first time round isn't that bad, come out of a waystone portal, check the number, find another waystone, is it lower? Teleport, if not, find another one. Match that with the time honoured "hug the wall" technique and you're golden.
Heh, Tales of Backtrackia.
God I'm replaying FF12 right now, trying to 100% it for a second time for Zodiac Age and the idea of having to go in there again... trying to follow confusing maps online... I picked up FF10 again instead, lol, at least I only need to go through the cloister of trials for Bevelle once... 😓😓😓 Sickening. Who designed these dungeons lol...
I love the addition of karma from tales of the abyss. Thank you for this
Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts. You think most mazes are bad? Try a fully 3D one where you can't use most of your moves due to being underwater, and ending with the most annoying boss in the series.
Also, for Star Ocean 3 I would nominate Planet Styx over the Firewall. Once you start it, you can't leave or go anywhere else until you're done. No recovery points, no shops, no saving. All enemies are as tough as the BOSS of the previous dungeon or worse, and it's a narrow pathway so they can't be dodged.
What? Atlantica wasn't bad at all ...
Usually, I would agree, except Atlantica does not count as a dungeon, since it is a world. Kingdom Hearts technically doesn't do dungeons.
@@SoulboundAlchemist Dungeon is just a generic term used to describe a level or platform dude...
Nah, Firewall is definitely worse. At least planet styx can be fairly simple to just blaze through once you know the route and unlike firewall, it doesn't have an extra piece of dungeon tacked onto it's end and no stop and go waiting puzzles. The enemies are manageable once you know how to fight them and there are ways to avoid the icons even without the item that let's you just skirt by them.
Chernabog is more annoying than Ursula imo, but if you think about it they are almost the exact same fight, lol. I didn't have that much of a problem with Ursula as I did with Chernabog though.
That Shin Megami Tensei Song everyone is looking for is called Real Map Large Universe. You’re welcome.
To be fair I feel like I hated every dungeon in Star Ocean 3
Dark Cloud huh? The owl forest wasn't really that bad it was the fact that you had to level grind your new party member. Lots of repair powder needed
You know a dungeon (read the Great Crystal) is bad when even someone, of all people, who brags about getting extremely good spatial orientation skills gets lost in there.
God, I got so lost in there the first time I played it that I had to use a guide. AND I NEVER USE GUIDES FOR MAIN QUESTS!! FF XII is a marvelous game but I completely removed that hellish dungeon from my mind, what a nightmare
Oh lord, I had forgotten complete about that damn Star Ocean rolly hell... thanks for reopening my scars david
Technically the firewall is an extra area so you don't actually have to do it. With that said I really hated the Mosel Ruins.
...I liked the White Temple. Maybe because my memory is good enough?... In fact I was more stressed with the Red Temple, since it had that slow animation those arms from the floor had, without mentioning the hazardous red smoke. Yeah, I had float balls (saving money becomes exponentially easy), but the fact I had to uncurse myself going to a specific spot. That was more annoying than just being thrown at the starting point.
The great crystal is easy to navigate...
If the path is angled down, you're running lower into the dungeon.
If the path is angled up, you're running higher into the dungeon (I.E. closer to Ultima).
I don't know how folks can't navigate that thing... it's easy even without a map.
There are only a handful of "rooms" on each floor too. Not hard...
I love Legaia 2, even the sewers. The only complaint I’d have (if I remember correctly) is that there are keys you need that you can’t get until much later in the story. I’m not fond of being unsure whether I should be able to access a room or not.
Yeah, I loved legaia, both 1 & 2.
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[0:36] - 10) Bevelle Cloister of Trials - Final Fantasy 10
[1:27] - 9) Uyuni Salt Lake - Shadow Hearts: From the New World
[2:36] - 8) Wise Owl Forest - Dark Cloud
[3:52] - 7) Ravine Caverns - Valkyrie Profile 2
[4:54] - 6) Firewall - Star Ocean 3
[6:05] - 5) The Waterways - Tales of Legendia
[7:03] - 4) The White Temple - SMT: Nocturne
[8:04] - 3) Gladius Towers - Rogue Galaxy
[8:351] - 2) Darakin Sewers - Legaia 2: Duel Saga
[9:53] - 1) The Great Crystal - Final Fantasy 12
#8 - Huh... I can't remember a single dungeon that was bad in Dark Cloud 1. :p It was more like challenging stuff like limited floors, weapons breaking, water, and death/party switching and limited items that were kind of painful... I tried hard to take in stride though. XD
I didnt mind the random generation, i just hated the side characters. The weapon progression system was long enough when producing *one* top tier weapon, but if you want to level each side character and give them decent gear too??? Jeebus
Eh, I don't agree with Wise Owl Forest being on here. Mostly because as somebody who plays alot of rougelikes otherwise (where much of the content is randomly generated, Nethack being a good example, Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead, ect.), I'm not bothered with randomly generated dungeons. The point is to collect loot and level up. You only have to use Goro to press switches and knock the big boss down, you don't need him for the entirety of the dungeon. I'll grant you that having a random key item means there's another 2 key items taking up inventory space, which is annoying, but in Dark Cloud, you are supposed to be collecting spheres anyway to restore the world to it's former glory, so you need to clear the whole main section of the floor anyway, regardless of weather you have the needed key item or not.
One thing I want to say about GC is that while it is absolutely confusing as all heck, the storyline part actually isn't that bad. The second time through is a nightmare
Rogue Galaxy has some nightmares like that.
I always thought that Dark Cloud was a legend of Zelda fan game because of the cover
oh yeah FireWall in Star Ocean was baaaaad.
I didn't think it was THAT bad. If anything, I think Styx was worse
I don't like boring dungeons like that sewer dungeon in Tales Of Legendia. Sewer dungeon in Legaia 2 had at least some challenge. Even Great Crystal in FF XII is more interesting to me because it actually tests your sanity.
Sewere dungeon in the first legiaia was no joke either
god the fact that shadow hearts ftnw is even remembered these days makes me so happy. ;_; and full agreement on the great crystal...
Man, this video makes me wanna power up the old PS2 again, and play some of those crazy RPG's I barely remember a thing from Rouge Galaxy, but got some weird PTSD when you mentioned that Dungeon
Everyone's favorite dungeon theme: Sewers
Everyone's favorite puzzle mechanic: anything that has to do with managing elevations.
I was hoping Legaia 2's sewer would be on this list, and I am glad it was! That is the only bad part about that entire game, primarily due to Maya still not having her voice yet. After she gets it back though, she is a monster!
Dark Cloud features several things you don't like, including procedurally-generated dungeons, puzzle elements you don't like, and characters you don't like, plus synthesis. The game was a rather experimental form and I personally think it did alot of things well. Sorry you didn't like, but I didn't really have the problems that you did and I don't know why. I mean, you're suppose to keep all of your characters strong, and for an extremely good reason: Teamwork. They're suppose to work together, as in the system in place to switch out. Toan is the well-rounded guy needed to put the towns and stuff back together, Xiao is the quick long-range fighter, and so on, and so on. You're not suppose to focus on just one. They complement each other by design, and you really need them for that in the bosses, ESPECIALLY the final one.
Aaaw but I really LIKE Randomly generated dungeons D: They don't promote exploring but they make grinding up your weapon far more fun because you never know what you'll get floor wise !!! And Wise Owl Forest, Floor 14, with a Sun Dew is literally one of the best spots to grind up your weapons ABS to Super power!
There's a reason why I've maxed out the timer on Dark Cloud on probably 10 different game files! I can never put it down! The only part of the bullshit I agree with is the 3 different door keys, if only because they take up limited inventory space D:
Your videos are just the basic ones I like were now a days youtubers are over the top, you got yourself a subscriber.
As a kid, I spent 4 hours getting to Omega Mk. II in the Great Crystal...only to have it be asleep and unresponsive. Then, it took me 12 hours to get back out. I'm still scarred from that years later.
Did you ever figure out how to wake it up?
Fraggly of the Duma Faithful
Yeah, you need to have defeated all Espers and the Yiazmat hunt needs to have been started. Some day when the remake is on sale, I’ll go back and finish it.
FF12 Great Crystal - I agree 800% about it being the most infuriating dungeon among PS2 JRPGs!
Going there mapless is almost suicidal, it took me a good hour and a half to navigate the story part of the Crystal (this is without a map!)
@@toblerone1729All I'm gonna say is THANK FUCK for walkthroughs! ... And it was still the most difficult-to-navigate dungeon I'd ever seen.
Me too, I think someone in Square Enix was feeling a tad sadistic when designing the levels of FFXII back in the day
@@toblerone1729 Hm... The Great Crystal, sure, and definitely the extreme tier hunts (King Behemoth and up), but I'm not sure I'd agree in the general sense. I'll be playing the game again at some point before 2040; I'll see what I think then.
Arve Eriksson I had fun with behemoth king and even hell wyrm but yiazmat was just cancer
Any randomly generated dungeon when you are RNG cursed. I've had major RGD disasters.
These videos are so in depth the viewer is under the illusion that David has replayed all the rpgs right before the video goes live. No one on the internet has come close to this kind of immersion with rpgs, this kind of seamless fusion. The minute Im no longer a victim of COVID job loss I’ll join on patreon. If there was justice in the world he’d make a living doing just this.
Not to keep brown nosing, but give me one example of another TH-cam recreated doing not just this but being very witty and honest and extremely funny. Many others that try, like Eric Landon, have great intentions but I find them unwatchable. Pro Jared does great reviews, but they’re once a year now. Plus all his drama…Jeremy Parrish should have him on retronauts. Regularly. David’s channel is the heart and soul of rpg passion delivered by a natural for this kind of communication. A true artist in his own right.
I understand your point on the great crystal, especially back in the vanilla version where there is no speed up. However, after playing many boring corridor disguised as dungeons, it's definitely one of my favorite dungeons of all time!
When it comes to Dark Cloud's Wise Owl Forest, while I agree with you that it's probably the worst and most tedious dungeon in the game in terms of gameplay, I found it to have one of the better theme songs and be probably the most atmospheric dungeon.
I mean post game dungeon is a 100 floors hell
@@pablo8286 The whole point of that dungeon was to be tedious though.
@@IncarnationOfNeutrality You've got a point there
when FF14 announced they were doing FF12/Tactics themed Raids... i was dreading it, thinking we'd see Great Crystal. thank god we didnt, i dont think i could handle that hell hole coming back.
Hello David!
Just got into your videos, love them to death!! Felt i had to correct you since you are such an RPG expert: it's pronounced "Shin Megami ten-say". Keep up the good work!!
I never played Legaia 2, but when I heard the soundtrack played here, I immediately know Hitoshi Sakimoto worked on that. Makes me want to try that game.
It's a good game def not as good as 1 characters wise but the combat is top notch
I played and beat Legaia 2 and remember nothing about it.
Try playing it again, if you want to refresh your memory. But try to cook in it. That was always fun to me.
yeah, you just don't like dungeons where you have to think or use your own memory or draw a map.
Just because you suck at it, doesn't mean they are the worst.
Yeah Star Ocean 3 is one of my favorite RPGs but man there are loads of frustrating dungeons in that game. Especially for me was that damn maze forest with the monster trees where you get Roger... ughhhh you need a guide for that shit!
The mine made me rage quit
Damn beast section
FFX and the cloister of trials caused myself and everyone i saw play the game to let out groans, especially the one you depicted here. When I played through the game a second time I had actually forgotten they were in the game and boy did that make me second guess my playthrough when I got to one. Dark Cloud caught my attention right after the PS2 came out with its Zelda like look and Soul Blazer like town building. After I got past the first city and realized its a copy and paste ordeal for the rest of the game I put that game to bed forever. Dark Cloud 2 is an amazing experience in comparison, fixing the first game's issues in almost every respect.
I love the music from Shin Megami Tensei games and the soundtrack with Nocturne is awesome. That game was hard and I felt like it had some of the most difficult moments and places to get through on the PS2 (The matador for instance). Excellent list!
I love the shadow hearts series but the worst part of Salt Lake is that it's right before dropping a bombshell on you. One I'd say from Shadow Hearts 1 is this cavern one where you fight undead guys who whack you with guns, every area looks exactly the same, and there's no landmarks or map to help you navigate your way through. Another dungeon I'd have to say is the Abyss from Wild Arms 3, oh my lord that one is a pain. A 100 floor dungeon where past the half way mark you have enemies that can steal half your gold and run in the same turn, and another that can EJECT YOU OUT OF THE DUNGEON, which you have to start all over. And mind, the encounter rate is the highest in the game, topped by fighting a superboss at its end, twice!
I agree with this list for the most part though I'd say that Urssa Lava Caves is worse than the fire wall for one big reason: Difficulty spike.
The first disk has you fighting mostly HP damaging enemies and MP damaging enemies don't deal much damage. In the Urssa Lava Caves they all deal heavy MP damage to you and if you didn't realize that running out of MP kills you, you're dead. Plus because of how narrow the maze is, you can't avoid any enemies.
In the Firewall I just ran past every single enemy and it made things a lot less of a hassle. I do agree though, both of them are awful and both deserve to be mentioned in the list.
Nice series of videos!
I do wonder, though, if Best Dungeons videos are coming sometime.
If it weren't for the no optional rule I woulda been surprised at the lack of Via Infinito, which starts as an AP farming joke and then becomes a real nightmare to trudge through even on high levelled characters
I always enjoy these top ten lists, great work David. I remember trying Bevelle cloister trials for something like two hours before I finally gave in and looked it up on a walkthrough =/
I enjoyed Dark Cloud and Final Fantasy X, this seems to be less about this guys in ability to beat and complete these games then the actual gameplay.
I listened intently and I noticed that literally every word regarding The Great Crystal also applies to FFXV's post-game dungeons. The only difference being is that instead of returning to one dungeon repeatedly they put one after the end of every dungeon in the game. I'm still waiting for the biggest JRPG developer to demonstrate that they know the difference between 'long' and 'difficult'.
Final fantasy X is LEGENDARY and ICONIC and if you can’t understand the cloisters then it’s cuz you’re just not avid enough to pass it. Luckily, there’s TH-cam now for those...struggling. Xoxo
Oh my god, it just hit me whilst watching these. I have a GREAT idea for a Top 10 list. Top 10 JRPG Water/Sewer levels that DON'T SUCK! Grandia and Earthbound come to mind, their sewer levels were relatively painless.
Couldn't have picked a more perfect #1...
so glad that fixed that in the zodiac age with the minimap button
@Crystal Phoenix well when u consider the fact that said overlay is your only means of easy navigation in rooms where the map is disabled.............
Having to walk back to the entrance of dungeons AFTER finishing them in Legendia was zzzZzZzzz...such a god awful decision.
Really the only thing hard about Wise Owl Forest is the volume of melee-unfriendly enemies there are plus how many of them can poison you. At that point in the game you’re still gimp, the only range character you have is Xiao and you aren’t wealthy enough to keep a healthy supply of bombs and antidote drinks. As for Goro being required to complete the dungeon and defeat the boss, that’s standard for the entire game, even though all you really need him for is the boss and switches that open doors (also standard for later dungeons and the ally you get there). Other than that the entire dungeon can be breezed through with Xiao assuming you’ve leveled her weapons up. The general rule is that the ally you obtain over the course of each dungeon is required to complete it and to defeat the boss. Now if we were talking about bosses, then I think I speak for all of us when I say **** the Ice Queen!
In Dark Cloud there were a few tricks to make the dungeons a lot easier. Namely you basically had to all but ignore everyone but Toan and Xiao. Goro was only really useful for hitting the switches and for making it easy to hit the Wise Owl Forest boss by hitting his feet. To do this you had to hit Utan's feet then simply switch to Toan and hit with his powered skill.
As for FF XII and the Great Crystal I absolutely have to agree. The only way to get through it is to use a guide that tells you of exactly where to go using the teleporter numbers as a reference.
Ah the Great Crystal, you need to draw your own map of the area to navigate this giant maze
Yeah, had to download a map of the great crystal so I could find the shit without getting lost.
The one in Okage Shadow King is the worst to me. The Abyss Maze, I believe. I still haven't got thru it. Need to do a proper let's play on it, because I am so stuck I'll just suffer from the beginning again. Might luck out on the right path this time. I know I finished FFXII as a kid, I don't remember hating any dungeon. Other than Nabradia. I think I remember playing the Shadow Hearts FTNW one, not the best to play. I'm stuck in the mines in Rouge Galaxy and I just have bad memories of Dark Cloud. Good list you put together.
6:00 - I still can't understand how people think THIS is the best game in the Star Ocean series. My best guess is that many people didn't play Star Ocean 2.
Or the last hope... Or any of them other then the new one (sorry new one was trash 2)
I was wondering if Ff12 Guravagan was going to make it. That dungeon was beautiful but oh so dreadful...I remember being lost for hours in there. Even worse is when you finished the story part of it- I realized I had to go back if I wanted Excalibur and Ultima...the second time was truly the worse especially if you are not high level.
I actually love DARK Cloud 2. That game made randomly generated dungeons and it was amazing!
I don't have much problems with the trails in 10 expect the one in belvile like you said with the moving platforms. 12 tho the great crystal should have been called the boring crystal I mean my god the level design was terrible.
I agree. Rogue Galaxy has shitty dungeons. It's a shame because the game is great
Going to the sewer in Legaia 2 the second time was even worse. I couldn't even clear those horrible torch puzzles without a strategy guide
This video triggered me lol Dark cloud was my favorite game but good video man I liked your opinion on the other games
The Great Crystal was a horrible challenge back in the day. Even today, that we have access to online maps of that zone is quite difficult to follow
Honestly a few of these games I still own, play, and absolutely love, and I disagree with this video. Dark Cloud a relatively simple game they made harder by making you play as probably the worst character, while also letting you make the character better by playing as them. Rogue Galaxy is an awesome game and the towers are pretty straightforward, even more so when nearly every wrong path takes about 10 seconds to get back to where you were, and are very easy to clear, if anything is bad about the towers it's that the bosses are pretty weak, final fantasy x was pretty good, and the little puzzles were not that hard and didn't take that much time to solve, I could go on and on about a lot of the other games too, but if these games were your worst dungeons you should have played more games or maybe you just suck at video games and anything beyond Tetris is too much a challenge
Ahh the Bevelle Cloister of Trials... It used to take me a long time years ago, but theres a trick to 100% completing that area. In my mind, it was more of an homage to the fact that Bevelle was all about machina, defying their own teachings.
When I saw Rouge Galaxy in the thumbnail I knew you were going to talk about those towers. Also the .hack dungeon in your honorable mentions sucks, but .hack//G.U.'s Forest of Pain is far worse, still I'd say it's not as bad as some of the ones you put on the list.
Oh and if you want an idea for another list how about worst completion challenge. .hack's got an item completion challenge that unlocks "after" you beat the final boss of the whole series. It's absolutely no fun collecting 700+ items with a 40 item carrying limit, the majority of which is filled up by your equipment and usable items, and at best getting 3 to 5 of those items per dungeon run. Even with a guide this easily takes 2 to 3 times as long as a casual playthrough of the games to complete. It's totally not worth it either as you get an ugly wallpaper for the game's desktop and some pretty uneventful cameo cutscenes.
SacrificAbominat Thrn there's that final dungeon...you know, the one where you have to constantly data drain, and therefore your infection level gets so high that there's always a chance you'll "crash" the game and lose everything :/.
@@wingedmirage4226 Yep and there's two of them, more if you count hidden dungeons for the special trade items. My first playthrough of the dungeon before the final boss was brutal because I was at level 87 when they want you to be at level 90 or above. Even if I got to the boss at the end of that dungeon he was able to wipe my party out at that level. The Last dungeon is actually a little bit easier since I think they throw more normal enemies at you on the later floors, the boss is also much easier by comparison to the other dungeon, but that data corruption is still pretty brutal if you aren't level 99.
I only say G.U.'s forest of Pain is worse because it is far longer and the later floors throw some really frustrating enemies and bosses at you.
SacrificAbominat Ah, guess I blended the dungeons in my head. It's been a long time since I've played it.
Haven't played the GU series, though I probably should. I got burned out on .hack after the cutesy anime with the wolf girl.
@@wingedmirage4226 G.U. got remastered recently, so you can play it on the PS4 or PC. Yeah Legend of the Twilight, the anime, wasn't that good.
As I have gotten myself into the pokemon and zelda series from nintendo, I can see that the final fantasy series has such crazy places especially when the game takes away the map and compass and any other thing that helps you when they thought that "Oh now that the internet and youtube is a thing, lets take away that stuff from the game to force the player to use other sources to find their way in the dungeon." Did guide books exist for those games?
#10: This maze interrupts the DVD menu known as FFX
#9: "I hate puzzles"
...
Wild Arms 3, The Abyss. It should definitely have been on this list. 100 floors, no saving, and a crazy hard boss at the end of it all, RaguORagula. If you lose, slog thru all 100 floors again.
You do get a feeling of accomplishment when you're done with the Great Crystal
And that's what made it my fav dungeon!
yes, you may hate them if you don't love puzzle and tacking your time. just because you hate it, it doesn't mean everyone does. this is a classic and they were built at the end of the 90s. At that time the game world was not that advanced and manoeuvring your character in a 360-degree angle, was new to the game world. this puzzle may have been boring to you, but it helped a lot of people think about an event in their life and how they can solve them.
p.s even if you say this worldes are fictionalised it still had an aspect that will connect you to the real world or similar event that you will encounter that will force you to behave in the same manner.
Actually, there is a critical flaw with Dark Cloud in general. In nearly every dungeon there is a floor that requires you to have completed a specific portion of the town above, but the pieces are acquired randomly, so it is possible to hit a spot that forces you to either restart or load a save from a few floors earlier because you can't continue. Wise Owl Forest is the most notorious for causing this problem because of both the size of the dungeon and how early in its progress you encounter this point.
Of course, the only reason I even watched the video was because of Dark Cloud being in the thumbnail and remembering its critical flaw. Overall, you come across as a whiny brat, which is sad because if you were in college when the PS2 was in its heyday you should've started back during the 16-bit era, and aside from the conveyor-belt tedium of FFX's Bevelle's Cloister of Trials I find nearly everything from the 128-bit era and newer not worth complaining about. Nearly every dungeon you complained about had secondary advantages if you weren't trying to do a speed run, namely getting you enough experience that the boss wouldn't wipe the floor with you. And most of the ones where you complained about the difficulty of backtracking if you ran low on items........they were in the late game, if not the final dungeon, and you should have such extreme amounts of cash available for buying items that your inventory should be nearly maxed out on recovery items, and if you're still running out then you're probably too under leveled to be there anyhow. You almost make it sound like your idea of the perfect dungeon is one where just entering it gets you piles of loot and a handful of items so all you have to do is walk forward a few steps and fight the boss. Makes me wonder why you even bother to play any games.
@@Razmoudah >.< took a moment for me to realize you were replying to yourself.
I somewhat agree with you. Except I think tedious dungeons with backtracking are legit cancer due to boredom rather than difficulty.
@@Onshki: To me it depends more on whether they change anything before you go back to it or not. If there are new enemies, and better still new treasures, then I don't mind so much. The exception being Tales of Legendia as you essentially have to go through everywhere again (even if the enemies are much stronger now) in the post-game chapters, that one got very tedious. Then again, I am a Metroid fan, and every Metroid fan is very familiar with backtracking just to collect power-ups that they couldn't reach the first time, or three, through an area.
@@JetWolfEX: Off topic:
I've never looked at a You-Tube review of a game before I'd played it myself. In fact, I always discount any review that is either purely positive or purely negative (unless there are a LOT of purely negative reviews) simply because they won't mention the negative/positive things in an unbiased manner. Maybe a feature that someone else doesn't like I'll greatly enjoy (Ar Tonelico comes to mind here), which makes knowing about the 'flaws' even more important.
Now, if you compare Dark Cloud 2 to Dark Cloud 1 then yeah, 2 is an awesome game, but on its own it's only somewhat past above-average (it has a solid story that is told well, you actually have all of the player characters rather early on with none of them rendering others useless, and the combat system and game controls all work well). It is a fun game to play, as Dark Cloud 1 can be, and thankfully they put a check system in place to guarantee you can't get perma stuck like you could in 1, but I'd hardly consider it a must have (and I have a couple hundred games, not that I have the time to play more than a few hours into most of them).
Rogue Galaxy can be a fun game to play. The story doesn't have much of the standard JRPG tropes (actually, in some ways it reminds me more of Star Wars than a JRPG) with some rather interesting secondary features. However, unlocking special abilities for characters can be very annoying at times (you have to use items to unlock them, and when you have three characters that can unlock two or three different abilities each and those abilities all need the same hard to get item you may spend a couple of hours trying to get past that choke, and frequently if you don't the next boss is going to laugh at you as it makes very short work of you, only for that item to become MUCH easier to find after you take the boss down, though that changes in the mid- to late-game as you'll normally just be powering up abilities instead of acquiring new ones), and the Insector mini-game can easily cost you 20 hours to fully complete, and there are special rewards for completing it (mostly unique outfits, though if memory serves, it has been over a decade, these outfits all give strong stat boosts which most outfits don't), and if you don't like hunting down rare monsters multiple times the Hunter Ranking and Weapon Growth systems will drive you bonkers. With the exception of becoming an Insector master the game can be very good, if you've got a lot of time available to invest in it and you're willing to put in the roughly 150 hours the game can take for a completionist playthrough.
@@JetWolfEX: On topic:
Well, if he's like me then he finds the time by getting what games he can when he has a job and then when he finds himself unemployed again he finds himself with a LOT of spare time as it only takes a day or two a week to apply to every job opening within a workable (as in you will make enough money to be able to afford to drive to the job, or take public transit if that's available) range with little to nothing to do the rest of the week. That's where I've found most of my time for gaming over the years, however my PS2 collection alone seems larger than all of the games he's complained about dungeon design on for every console combined, and I mostly have JRPGs. His complaints are more than a little nitpicky for most of this video. He's sitting there complaining about some of the defining aspects of most of those games. To me he had two legit complaints out of ten 'official' complaints and a couple of honorable mentions. He didn't even mention MS Saga, where if the dungeon doesn't have a Mega G system in it that you'll need to create your own Mobile Suits (they're all from Gundam settings) it's either a slog fest, a special encounter barrage, or you have a some-what common random encounter enemy that is almost unbalancedly powerful, that you might even get to fight two of at a time, forcing you to use specific characters with specific build types to avoid frequent game overs. Oh, and don't forget that the MS's have a set amount of armor and a maximum HP potential, creating a limit as to how much abuse you can take at any given point in the game. That is a game where 80% or so of the dungeons are worth complaining about because of how the game overall limits your options of what you can do with the various characters. However, the game does have a great story, which is what I primarily play the games for and I'll tolerate a lot of other problems for a great story
LoDarkDark Cloud's dungeons look the same but ask any player if they are every bored with them? No. Never.
"It's Dark"... You know, after playing Red Dead Redemption II, and, literally not being able to see a single thing in some areas at night, I don't think I can truly call any other game dark.
Hahaha
The worst thing about The Great Crystal to me is that you have pre-requisites to even get really into it. Like, I can get myself through just fine due to sheer amount of memory I have playing these kinds of missions/story bits, but the fact you need something else to even get the rest of the dungeons collectibles and that there is close to no hint as to what it wants makes this place an absolute CHORE.
FFX Cloisters tho? I don’t think so. For someone who can start playing it for the first time, it’s presentable, but my god, when you go through it again, just to get the second cutscene or in case you missed something, it’s dumb. I especially agree to that idea because I’ve beaten the damn game 27 times in my life.
But the souls told you where to go in Nocturne, and the dead ends lead to good items. The "fastest paths" (there where multiple paths even) to progress where like 4 rooms also, heh..
Firewall is one of those dungeons that's actually super easy to get through... if you know what you're doing. It's been so long since the first time I played SO3 that I can't even remember my 1st run of that but I can see how people get frustrated going in blind.
However, even though there's another dungeon after it you really shouldn't need to backtrack because your characters should be self sustaining in the field by then. As long as you have regeneration symbols that have been available since first arriving in Ellicor you shouldn't need anything else.
The sewer thing is actually kind of true. Even in Tales of Symphonia, while the sewer dungeon to sneak I to Meltolkio isn’t the most tedious dungeon, it is quite annoying.
I must be the rare exception that loves to grind in dungeons, making them less unbearable lol but I agree the great crystal can GTH! even in the remastered I thought HEY! overlay map not this time! but to my surprise we were once again shafted by SQUARE.
I didn't mind the Great Crystal, maybe because I played the Zodiac Age with the speed up on. The rewards were at least very worthwhile.
I agree the FFX Trials are Tidus...
That's a good one haha
Tyedus
Ha
@@DynamicCGaming no
Very Tidus indeed. * insert Tidus laugh here *
At least the Great Crystal had cool BGM. I hope they fixed it in the remake. :3
I hesitate to call any Cloister of Trials as dungeons, mainly because dungeons to me require there to be battles that take place. The trials have none