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marurun
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"Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by marurun Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:38 am

I've had RPGs on the brain, lately, and I got to thinking about bugs in RPGs. What are some of the "buggiest" (as in stuff doesn't work as advertised or is simply missing) RPGs you've played and what kinds of bugs did you encounter?

I want to highlight one of the classic TG-16 RPGs, Cosmic Fantasy 2. The RPG is mechanically not at all outstanding. It's pretty bland with a high encounter rate. The only thing it has going for it are some snappy character graphics and some humorous story segments that Wrecking Designs managed to not thoroughly destroy. It plays like a fantasy RPG but technology gets introduced (you're on a backwards planet in an otherwise advanced universe). There is a neat story turn near the end that I found pretty cool, especially when I was young. But the bugs, oh man!

The game has items to cure poison and petrification, but no enemies will actually poison or petrify you. Attack damage is pretty much a set number except when you can barely damage enemies (1-4 dmg). Also, enemies cannot use spells. They just hit you for regular damage. That's it. They can't even crit. This makes battles pretty boring, though once you've figured out which enemies can do how much damage to you battles become pretty mechanical. It feels like there was a lot more planned for this game. The trappings were put in place but the substance never followed.

*edited to clarify
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Re: Buggiest RPGs you've played

by MrPopo Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:50 am

Most of those don't sound like bugs, but rather poor design choices. I would have expected it to be something like someone who isn't me chiming in with Cyberpunk 2077 (whereas I just had two CTDs in my entire playthrough to the end and no other issues).
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Re: Buggiest RPGs you've played

by Gucci Mon Oct 04, 2021 12:23 pm

CP2077 was and still is a disaster.

But my first thought when I saw “Buggiest RPGs” was Bethesda. I don’t even need to point out a specific game. Just the name of the dev/pub is enough in evoke laughter/rage.
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by marurun Mon Oct 04, 2021 1:38 pm

Thanks folks, I've tried to clarify. I don't mean buggiest as in crashiest, but more as in stuff clearly doesn't function as advertised or there's dysfunctional or missing content.
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by MrPopo Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:55 pm

Final Fantasy 1 is pretty infamous in that regard.

  1. Critical hit bug - critical rate is measured against the item's index, so critical rate goes up linearly instead of being weapon specific
  2. Magic bugs - several spells just don't work or work incorrectly (HEL2 is HEL2 on the field but HEL3 in battle, LOK2 buffs enemies instead of debuffing)
  3. House bug - if you choose to save then the game saves your state to SRAM, then restores your magic (so reloading the save means you still have spent charges). If you choose not to save you don't get magic restored
  4. Monk level bug - The game is supposed to see if you have armor equipped on level before either using that or setting your defense to the naked formula. It checks weapon instead, so you can have no weapon AND armor equipped to get armor status benefits
  5. Weapon special effects bugs - Weapons with special effects don't actually apply
  6. Intelligence bug - INT doesn't boost spells, so a Red Mage is just as good as a White Mage for a given spell, and spells always do the same damage ranges instead of increasing as you level
  7. Running bug - The formula is absolutely borked, so each slot's change of running is dependent on something fairly arbitrary for success in addition to luck (when it's supposed to be luck + level)
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by alienjesus Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:44 pm

A lot of other Final Fantasy games have weird programming bugs too, like how Magic evasion works for both physical and magical attacks in FF6 and the blind status does effectively nothing.


Pokémon Red & Blue has some fun bugged move mechanics too, such as how Focus Energy is meant to boost your critical hit rate but instead divides it by 4 making you significantly less likely to get a critical.

Ghost types are promoted as a type meant to be able to defeat psychics, but the one direct damage dealing move the ghost type learns, Lick, actually does 0 damage to psychic types instead.

Another fun one is that the paralysis status effect quarters speed and the burn status effect halves attack power - but if you use a move that boosts those stats after being hit with the status effect it ignores them - so a burnt pokemon after an attack boosting swords dance has the same attack as a non-burnt pokemon would after the move.

If your opponent has a paralysis or burn though, and you use a move that affects EITHER pokemons stats, it reapplies the stat drop effect of the status effect on your opponent again. As in, you paralyse the opponent, lowering his speed to a quarter. On the next turn you use the move Defence Curl to boost your own defence - this will reapply the speed drop of the paralysis to the opponent, lowering their speed down to 1/16th of the original stat!
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by MrPopo Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:36 pm

alienjesus wrote:and the blind status does effectively nothing.

Until you wonder why Strago didn't learn Grand Train from Hidon and realize it was his cool shades.
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by Gucci Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:57 pm

alienjesus wrote:A lot of other Final Fantasy games have weird programming bugs too, like how Magic evasion works for both physical and magical attacks in FF6 and the blind status does effectively nothing.


Pokémon Red & Blue has some fun bugged move mechanics too, such as how Focus Energy is meant to boost your critical hit rate but instead divides it by 4 making you significantly less likely to get a critical.

Ghost types are promoted as a type meant to be able to defeat psychics, but the one direct damage dealing move the ghost type learns, Lick, actually does 0 damage to psychic types instead.

Another fun one is that the paralysis status effect quarters speed and the burn status effect halves attack power - but if you use a move that boosts those stats after being hit with the status effect it ignores them - so a burnt pokemon after an attack boosting swords dance has the same attack as a non-burnt pokemon would after the move.

If your opponent has a paralysis or burn though, and you use a move that affects EITHER pokemons stats, it reapplies the stat drop effect of the status effect on your opponent again. As in, you paralyse the opponent, lowering his speed to a quarter. On the next turn you use the move Defence Curl to boost your own defence - this will reapply the speed drop of the paralysis to the opponent, lowering their speed down to 1/16th of the original stat!

I remember that the critical hit mechanics are completely buggered. Either because it was too frequent or caused too much damage. I think the math was messed up.

On the remakes and first paired set had their own issues. I wanna say that the IV and EV stat system was introduced in Gen III. Anyway, in those four games, you were able to catch roaming Pokémon — Pokémon that were unique or legendary that can be encounters randomly in the field. But because of some glitch, their stats were all neutered, except HP, because their IVs were zero. In other words, you had legendary Pokémon that had the worst stats it could have within their given ranges.

There a whole thing with stats I’m not going to get into but here’s an image about that:

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Competitively speaking, before Emerald and the GC games, all those roaming Pokémon were effectively useless.
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by prfsnl_gmr Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:11 pm

This thread is fascinating, and I am really enjoying it. Just popped in to let you know that.

EDIT: Here’s one…maybe…in Shadow Tower, equipment governs almost all of your stats. For example, equipping a rapier will raise your speed, but decrease your strength. Your strength stat determine not just your, well, strength, but also how much equipment you can carry and, more importantly, your HP. Using your equipment causes it to degrade, but you can repair it in exchange for HP. (There is no in-game currency, and because the game is metal AF, you have to trade blood for everything.) You will find some equipment that boosts strength at the expense of every other stat. If you equip this right before visiting a shop, you can juice your HP to get all your repairs for “free” making the game significantly easier (which is good, because the game is otherwise really hard).
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Re: "Buggiest" RPGs you've played

by PartridgeSenpai Tue Oct 05, 2021 3:59 am

I only just played it, but SMT: Devil Summoner is definitely up there. Tons of status effects just seem to not be actual functional in the game at all (especially temporary stuns like SHOCK or FREEZE), despite how the manual says they exist. Then there's also the major bug I mentioned about the main character's speed, where if you raise the stat above 25 (out of 50, and you're gonna want it darn near 50 by the end of the game), you start going SUPER slowly instead of going faster. Luckily, damn near all this translates to the game being an easier and more pleasant experience to play (I'm certainly not complaining that the level drain mechanic either doesn't work or is just rare enough I never encountered it XD), but it's a heck of a lot of weird things wrong. I guess it was just all the cost of learning the ins and outs of the Saturn in its first year of life :O
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