The worst Atlus games

[The Adventurer]

So Atlus is a pretty great developer/ publisher; not only as a Japanese developer itself, but Atlus USA regularly brings us the quirkier niche titles we probably would never see otherwise. And while their future at Sega/Sammy is a bit uncertain, for the moment things don't looked to change much. But Atlus has been Round since the NES era. And for all their great games there have to be more then a few dogs.

The worst game I'm aware of Virtual Hylide for the Sega Saturn. Atlus being responsible for publishing this warmed over turd in North America.

Is there anything worse?

And I suppose if you can't think of an objectively bad Altus game, your least favorite subjectively will do as well.

[Tupin]

SBK: Snowboard Kids is probably up there, but it was an early DS title.

[SparTonberry]

Wasn't Atlus found responsible for Karate Kid and Jaws for NES (even if they were a stealth developer at the time)?

[bigbacon]

Odd as a kid I had no problem with Jaws on the NES.

[Gameguy]

Wasn't Atlus found responsible for Karate Kid and Jaws for NES (even if they were a stealth developer at the time)?

Jaws wasn't developed or published by Atlus, but you're right about The Karate Kid. Atlas also made Friday the 13th for the NES.


Edit: Technically Jaws was developed by Westone Bit Entertainment, they were subcontracted by Atlas to make the game.

[The Adventurer]

Jaws wasn't developed or published by Atlus, but you're right about The Karate Kid. Atlas also made Friday the 13th for the NES.

Friday the 13th isn't actually a terrible game, if you know that you're doing. And it's actually a bit technically impressive for its time.

[Guy767]

I was looking through the List of Altus games and the only stinkers I could find that I played are Kwirk for the Gameboy and Power Instinct for the SNES. Don't ask me why I didn't like them as it's been ages since I played the games and I've forgotten but the bitter taste remains

On a positive note; Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land is one of the best underrated RPGs on the PS2 IMO. I loved the story, atmosphere, music and combat in this game; it’s really quite the hidden gem.

It amazes me how many games Altus produced/published. Hopefully now that Sega gave Altus permission to produce their dormant IPs we can see proper and true Shining Force and Phantasy Star sequels. My heart has been broken so many times by Sega with every disappointing reincarnation of those classic IPs that I given up on the franchises long ago. Hopefully Altus can rejuvenate those classics and bring them to their former glory

[Clownzilla]

Come on people, the Karate Kid game wasn't really that bad!

[blue lander]

I enjoyed The Karate Kid back in the day, but it may have just been because I only had 10 NES games at the time. I'd also like to take this opportunity to condemn Virtual Hydlide and the entire Hydlide series. Thank you.

[Guy767]

I'd also like to take this opportunity to condemn Virtual Hydlide and the entire Hydlide series. Thank you.

I'm actually one of the few freaks that enjoyed Super Hydlide for the Sega Genesis back in the day. It's worth a play just for the music alone IMO; the OST is remarkably excellent and surprisingly superb.

[Haoie]

Anyone play Maken/Maken X?

It sucked big time!

[Kitsune Sniper]

Anyone play Maken/Maken X?

It sucked big time!

You mean -you- sucked at it. That game was great, though the DC's crappy analog stick didn't help it one bit.

[SparTonberry]

I forgot about Maken.

I found it in a store once, but they wanted like $10 for a scratched disc. (Checking amazon, it was probably smart to pass that one by.) Then I forgot.

[Graham Mitchell]

Honestly, Atlus published a lot of crap in the 8 and 16 bit days and if I was to choose any publisher/developer that would survive for 30 years in 1989, it would not have been Atlus. They've managed to outlive Hudson and Sunsoft, which is crazy to me.

Anyway, I'm not so wild about Rockin Katz/Nyankies for the NES/Famicom.

Virtual Hydlide is a mixed bag. It wouldn't be terrible if the Saturn was more proficient with 3-D but it was made in the early stage when the Saturn dev utilities were terrible. It's got some great ideas and is actually pretty fun if you forgive the visuals. It's just way too ambitious for the hardware at the time.

These days, however, Atlus's name on a game compels me to take a hard look at it. They've really become one of the best Japanese devs around. What a zany world...

[celerystalker]

Just read this and was surprised Widget on NES and Eggs of Steel on PS1 didn't show up. They are not good.

[Edmond Dantes]

Anyway, I'm not so wild about Rockin Katz/Nyankies for the NES/Famicom.

NYANKIES?! Is this game somehow related to Samurai Pizza Cats?

(For those not in the know, the Pizza Cats was called "Kyatto Ninden Teyendee" in Japan but the cats themselves are called the Nyankees in-show, thus my question).

Also I honestly think the Hydlide series doesn't get enough credit. People tend to judge the NES one too harshly because they're unaware that its a port of a PC game from 1984 and instead expect it to be as good as Zelda (which was made in 1986). I honestly never had a problem with it, except for the expected "the hell do I do here?" parts.

I honestly wish I owned Virtual Hydlide.

Gonna have to check out some of these games people are calling stinkers.

[Graham Mitchell]

NYANKIES?! Is this game somehow related to Samurai Pizza Cats?

(For those not in the know, the Pizza Cats was called "Kyatto Ninden Teyendee" in Japan but the cats themselves are called the Nyankees in-show, thus my question).

Also I honestly think the Hydlide series doesn't get enough credit. People tend to judge the NES one too harshly because they're unaware that its a port of a PC game from 1984 and instead expect it to be as good as Zelda (which was made in 1986). I honestly never had a problem with it, except for the expected "the hell do I do here?" parts.

I honestly wish I owned Virtual Hydlide.

Gonna have to check out some of these games people are calling stinkers.

It might be the same! I can't read the text so it's tough to tell. I'll stick it in my famicom and let you know what I can figure out...

I loved Hydlide when I was a kid. I played it to completion. I still think it has merit. And Hydlide 3/Super Hydlide on the Genesis is actually fantastic. Both games are underrated.

Virtual Hydlide has a great game buried in there. I might be wrong, but I remember it being somewhat Rogue-like, where the dungeon maps are different every time you play. It's basically a remake of the original Hydlide, too, from what I recall. You have to save the 3 fairies, the first boss is a vampire, etc. The problem with it is the frame-rate. It's horrible, and renders it nearly unplayable at times. Just a testament to how ahead of it's time the game was, though. Oh, and the live-aciton digitized characters are hilarious. I bought a Saturn at launch, and this was the first game I was really excitted for. It's worth checking out, even if it's just for historical/acadmic interests.

[kupomogli]

Friday the 13th isn't actually a terrible game, if you know that you're doing. And it's actually a bit technically impressive for its time.

Friday the 13th is a terrible game whether you know what you're doing or not. The game has good control and hidden character stats so you're right about it being "technically impressive" but where the game fails at is the overall gameplay and the way you progress. You have people crying about Castlevania 2 because the translation that "could" make it impossible for you to beat the game, but it's light years ahead of this garbage. Speaking of Castlevania 2, the only note that's you can miss easily that's really required to progress is the one where you kneel in front of Deborah's Cliff with a red crystal for a spirit to take you to the other side of the mountain. If you happen to listen to everyone's lies, you might try to bang your head against Deborah's Cliff to make a hole, and by doing that, and hopefully having a red crystal equipped, which common sense from the very beginning would tell you they're required, the spirit will come and you'll still progress.

As for Atlus games. Aside from Friday the 13th, Wacky Races, and Run Saber, I actually didn't play anything until the PSX. Either Revelations Persona or Ogre Battle was the first Atlus PSX game I've played, then borrowed and played Tactics Ogre. From then I quickly became a fan and picked up pretty much everything they released that looked interesting. My favorite game of all time was published by Atlus, Brigandine. So what does Atlus do when they can't find a great RPG to publish? They release crap like Hoshigami Ruining Blue Earth. The game looks very much like Final Fantasy Tactics, but this game is no Final Fantasy Tactics, which I'd go so far to say it's just as poor as Eternal Eyes. How it looked so similar to FFT and the way it was advertised was very deceptive.

Atlus isn't without their fair share of bad games though. Throughout seventh gen on Wii, PS3, and 360, they've actually published and funded a lot of shovelware garbage. Multiple 100 in 1 games, Game of Thrones RPG, or The Cursed Crusade. The Cursed Crusade is co developed by Atlus and the trailer is purposefully deceptive, making it look a little like Demon's Souls when it's not even close.

As a company, Atlus may publish and release some great games, but that's the same that can be said of any other company. Atlus has done some very very very shady stuff even going so far as straight up lying to their fanbase. In Atlus forums, aside from one Persona super fan named GoldenPhilemon who was a moderator, all the administrators were part of Atlus USA, one of the main ones was from the localization team. When Persona 3 FES was announced in Japan, fans repeatedly asked if FES is going to release in the US and could they include the content along with the US release. All the way up to the day of release, the administration team would keep stating that they won't be releasing Persona 3 FES to the west. Persona 3 releases and three months later, I'm sure you can guess the announcement that is made. That's some serious disrespect. At the time Atlus was still niche and as niche as they were they still didn't try to hide the faccade that they didn't give jack shit about their fanbase. That right there is when I started to dislike them as a company.

I could go paragraph after paragraph of some other tactics they use that are poor business practices just to calll Atlus out on how shitty of a company they are, right up alongside the worst practices that EA, Activision, etc pull. Just a couple examples. Atlus taking over publishing rights and co developing the amazing Dragon's Crown, but in an interview we came to find out that their terms with Vanillaware was that they drop everything they were doing to help work on the game and they were forced to stop editing the code of Grand Knights History to include XSeeds translation(which was 100% done,) screwing both niche fans who wanted the game and XSeed. Etrian Odyssey is the Call of Duty of dungeon crawlers, and some highly overrated ones at that, but you see the last two released at $50, and the previous one released before Sega took them over so you can't place the blame on Sega. $50 dollars for a portable game, especially one that's as cut and paste as the entire Etrian Odyssey series? It's stuff like this, the stuff I listed above, and a lot of other things going behind the scenes with Atlus that a lot of fans like to ignore while gobbling down their bs PR.

[Tupin]

Going to reiterate that SBK on DS is a bad reboot and early DS offering that has none of the charm of the original series.

[Tanooki]

NYANKIES=Rockin' Katz in the US, and NO it's not Samurai Pizza Cats. Totally different platforming game. I own the pizza cats for famicom, good game.