History Horrible / VideoGameGenerationsFirstToFourth

* Just like ''VideoGame/{{Aladdin|VirginGames}}'', ''VideoGame/TheLionKing'' is a well-regarded game of the 16-bit era. Its '''port to the NES'''? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaQPNMiMrwo Not so much]]. It was released in 1995 in [[NoExportForYou Europe only]] and is essentially a [[PortingDisaster worse version]] of the Platform/GameBoy port that preceded it. There are only about half the levels of the other versions, and you never get to play the levels where Simba is an adult, something that even the Game Boy version included. As a result, the game suddenly ends at the "Hakuna Matata" level with the gorilla boss, with no opportunity to avenge the death of Simba's father or anything. On top of that, the graphics are tiny and washed out, feeling more appropriate for a game released at launch, not something from when the system is essentially dead. Like with ''Aladdin'', the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmhP6ACiLhQ pirated version]] is comparatively better.

** Determined to beat these distributors at their own game, Creator/IdSoftware included a disc known as '''''[[http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Maximum_Doom Maximum Doom]]''''' as bonus content to the ''[[http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_Levels_for_Doom_II Master Levels for Doom II]]''. The Master Levels Disc, often accompanied by a book, [[https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Master_Levels_for_Doom_II contains 1,830]] amateur [=WADs=] mostly for ''Doom II''--with a great number of them being ''Doom'' [=WADs=] turned into ''Doom II'' [=WADs=] using a converter that includes ''Doom II'' monsters by randomly replacing exactly one monster each per level. A community member named Tarnsman started a series of livestreams on his Platform/{{Twitch}} [[http://www.twitch.tv/Tarnsmandw/profile account]][[note]]Sadly, all of the ''DOOM II'' streams have been deleted from the archives.[[/note]] called "The Great Shovelware Extravaganza" in which he plays through ''Maximum Doom'''s ''Doom II'' content, on which he spent over ''60 hours''. His experience was full of shoddy design, beautifully bad texture use, and bugs, including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkX1C18vQRk an example that defies explanation]].[[note]]As this [[https://youtu.be/6UIO9MUSMmA video]] reveals, this was another ''Doom'' [=WAD=] converted to one for ''Doom II'', further highlighting the primitive quality of the converter they used[[/note]]

* '''''VideoGame/PitFighter''''' on the SNES, a port of the not particularly well regarded to begin with arcade fighter from Creator/{{Atari}}, may be the poster child for a PortingDisaster. What was originally a rather generic and unmemorable (but totally playable) one-on-one brawler is reduced to a game with graphics that would look terrible on the ''Platform/{{NES}}'' and controls that seem to do whatever they feel like doing regardless of your inputs. It's also missing the weapons and 3 of the characters from the arcade game. ''Pit Fighter'' will almost universally occupy one of the top 2 spots in any "Worst SNES games ever" list (with ''Race Drivin'', which is the next entry on this list, taking the other spot in the top 2) and will usually make an appearance on any "Worst video games of all time" list.

* '''''Super Maruo''''' is one of the first unlicensed Platform/{{NES}} games and one of the rarest, but that doesn't mean it's a holy grail. It is actually a ''pornographic game'' that has nothing to do with the [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario Bros.]] The gameplay consists of one screen, where the titular character needs to catch a woman while avoiding the dog that blocks the way, each time he does that, the woman is stripped down until both of you are nude with very crude sex scenes occurring. The reason for the original cartridge version being so rare is that Nintendo of Japan supposedly shut the makers down to prevent it from being released on the Famicom. Given that this was the time when Nintendo had some very draconian guidelines on how developers should release their games on the system, it is safe to say that ''Super Maruo'' is one of the reasons why they enforced these rules, especially since Nintendo of Japan themselves refused to allow pornographic games on their consoles for fear that it would tarnish their image.

** Determined to beat these distributors at their own game, Creator/IdSoftware included a disc known as '''''[[http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Maximum_Doom Maximum Doom]]''''' as bonus content to the ''[[http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_Levels_for_Doom_II Master Levels for Doom II]]''. The Master Levels Disc, often accompanied by a book, [[https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Master_Levels_for_Doom_II contains 1,830]] amateur [=WADs=] mostly for ''Doom II''--with a great number of them being ''Doom'' [=WADs=] turned into ''Doom II'' [=WADs=] using a converter that includes ''Doom II'' monsters by randomly replacing exactly one monster each per level. A community member named Tarnsman started a series of livestreams on his Platform/{{Twitch}} [[http://www.twitch.tv/Tarnsmandw/profile account]] called "The Great Shovelware Extravaganza" in which he plays through ''Maximum Doom'''s ''Doom II'' content, on which he spent over ''60 hours''. His experience was full of shoddy design, beautifully bad texture use, and bugs, including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkX1C18vQRk an example that defies explanation]].[[note]]As this [[https://youtu.be/6UIO9MUSMmA video]] reveals, this was another ''Doom'' [=WAD=] converted to one for ''Doom II'', further highlighting the primitive quality of the converter they used[[/note]]

* '''''WesternAnimation/BebesKids''''' is notorious in the SNES fandom for terrible music, bland gameplay, and a confusing haunted house that acts like a maze that's bound to stop most runs dead in their tracks with its tight time limit coupled with unintuitive means to actually progress. It also has a baffling control scheme in which either you learn how to perform your more powerful moves IMMEDIATELY, or die constantly due to Time Overs because doing anything BUT spamming your most powerful moves means you'll be lucky to defeat non-boss enemies in upwards of thirty-plus hits instead of roughly ''three or four''. It's hard to believe this was made by [[Creator/RadicalEntertainment the same studio]] that went on to create ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}''. Watch WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic[[note]]Who was dared to review it by the WebVideo/AngryVideoGameNerd, who was in-turn dared to review ''Ricky 1'', see Horrible.LiveActionFilmsNToZ[[/note]] tear it apart [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kbe9uzK2Aw here]].

* The '''Platform/TurboGrafx16 [[VideoGame/DarkwingDuckInteractiveDesigns version of]] ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''''' suffers terribly from sluggish and delayed controls, poor hit detection, and wonky physics. This makes boss fights harder than they ought to be since the margin for error when it comes to jumping on them is practically microscopic. The platforming also suffers from an unseen time limit: don't take too long trying to make a tough jump, or else you'll have a safe dropped on you, killing you instantly. Do yourself a favor and just play Creator/{{Capcom}}'s [[VideoGame/DarkwingDuckCapcom NES version]] instead. If you're really curious about how bad it is, watch the WebVideo/AngryVideoGameNerd's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3cewR_sMYI review]].

* The Platform/{{Amiga}} adaptation of '''''Manga/{{AKIRA}}''''' is a heavy contender with ''VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' for the title of "[[TheProblemWithLicensedGames worst licensed video game]] of all time", and is certainly one of [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AC106.jpg the]] [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AF56.jpg worst]] [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AP3637.jpg Amiga]] [[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CUAM66.jpg games]] of all time. Players alternate between side-scrolling motorcycle segments and platforming levels with either Kaneda or Tetsuo. The first level, a motorcycling segment, [[NintendoHard has even less margin for error than the speed bike segments of]] ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'': rumors have it the publisher had to give passwords to reviewers because '''they couldn't beat the first level'''. Not that the platforming segments are any better: enemies are damage sponges while the player is about as fragile as wet tissue paper, the third stage requires the player to find keycards to progress which are a chore to find, and the fourth stage is UnintentionallyUnwinnable due to a platform you need to traverse across being out of reach.

* '''''VideoGame/LegendOfSuccessJoe''''', a horrible excuse for a boxing game [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames based on]] the legendary manga/anime ''Manga/TomorrowsJoe''. The gameplay alternates between ''very'' primitive BeatEmUp segments in which Joe [[EasyLevelsHardBosses fights a few wimpy enemies that die in one punch before fighting bosses that instead refuse to die]], and boxing matches based on famous battles of the series. The controls are clunky and unresponsive, the boxing matches are basically just beat-em-up segments that skip straight to the aggravating boss fights, and the music sounds like something out of an early NES game even though this game was produced for one of the most powerful systems of the early 1990s. The graphics aren't much better - an ugly, overly bright color palette, nonexistent animation, and hunchbacked character sprites in a variety of baffling fighting postures. It was one of the few early Platform/NeoGeo titles that [[NoExportForYou stayed in Japan]], for good reason.

* '''''Birdiy''''' [sic] by Mama Top was the only arcade machine that they ever produced. A quick play of the game can show you why it flopped in the Japanese arcade market. And by quick play, we mean you'll have seen everything in the game in less than 5 minutes. It's a very simple game where you play as a mama bird tasked with fetching worms on the single screen and feeding them to her babies while pecking monster rats off the tree so they don't eat the babies. This alone is extremely difficult, even early into the game, as the rats are very persistent predators while you are not nimble enough to keep both of them away from the baby for long without risking starving it to death, and it's very easy to miss being able to scare them off while you go for the worms (you need all of them to win a single level), leading to an easy death. The only major differences after a couple of acts are the enemy speed and a skunk that guards the earthworms on the bottom. Predictably enough for a game that's been converted from ''VideoGame/PacMan'', the monster rats look less like rodents and more like the familiar ghosts with mouths and tails instead of ghost legs, and most of the sound effects are extremely ear-piercing. Again, this was a ''commercially released'' arcade game in 1983, yet it has no more than ''5 minutes'' worth of playable content. ''VideoGame/{{Crystal Castles|1983}}'' was released in the same year, had a real ending, and was far more playable than this. Even ''Bird Week'' for the Famicom could be considered an improvement over ''Birdiy'' for the more slower-paced and easier-to-grasp gameplay. [=LordBBH=] tried to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqdv_Z7G63E&t=15110s play this game]] for Episode 83 of his ''MAME Roulette'' series; his frustration at the game's FakeDifficulty is evident, and he could only stomach clearing one level before giving up.

* '''''ComicBook/TheUncannyXMen''''' for Platform/{{NES}} is often labeled as one of the worst games in the system's library, and for good reason. Outside of its obvious flaws such as terrible music and ugly graphics, with a drab color palette and playable characters that barely resemble the classic superheroes, the game's major issues are in its gameplay. While players can choose between six characters, none of them are any good, with the ButtonMashing-based combat causing them to constantly lose health due to the poor range of their attacks, and poor collision detection detection not helping matters by making projectiles useless as well. In single-player mode, the player will be accompanied by an AI-controlled partner who suffers a great deal of ArtificialStupidity by hardly ever attacking the enemies and constantly running into obstacles, not helped by the poor level design. ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' reviews it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LKK-6bmDgQ here]]. Questicle [[https://questicle.net/696-uncanny-x-men/ gave it an F-]] and later named it [[https://questicle.net/the-86-worst-nes-games-s-25-1/ the third worst game on the system]]. The Video Game Critic also gave it [[https://videogamecritic.com/nesxz.htm?e=14745#rev5479 an F-]], the only NES game to get that rating. Creator/{{Seanbaby}} placed it [[http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/nes/w20-03.htm third]] on his list of the worst NES games, while WebVideo/PatTheNESPunk gave it 1 star out of 5.

* The adventure game ''VideoGame/{{Hydlide}}'' was a huge hit in Japan. It debuted on a microcomputer in 1984, was released on multiple systems there, and eventually landed on the Famicom/NES in 1989. Unfortunately, while the game was pretty decent on the earlier systems, it was [[PortingDisaster borderline unplayable]] '''on the NES'''. The graphics were bland, and the music was an annoying loop that [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong sounded like]] a dumbed-down ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' theme. The battle mechanics were practically non-existent - they amounted to just running into monsters while holding the "Attack" button. There were no clues anywhere of what to do or where to go. Choosing the Save option only saves the player's most recent password; since the cartridge had no battery, the password is wiped from its memory when the game is turned off. Two separate negative video reviews were posted by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOf70RyERU The Angry Video Game Nerd]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxskwhpbLts ProJared]], while [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcc4OeBlCL4 LordKat's video]] offers a more balanced discussion of the game's history, along with a little defense.