The 10th Hour 2.29.08: Top 10 Worst Games Brawl Characters Appear In

Posted by Derek Robbins on 02.29.2008

It's well known that Nintendo has a great history, but sometimes...we should look at the things that went wrong. While the upcoming Super Smash Brothers Brawl highlights the good things about the included characters, this week on the 10th hour Derek Robbins highlights the bad things.

Hello and welcome to the 10th hour! Before I get started this week there are a couple of things that I'd like to talk about first.

-I'm going to a RAW house show tomorrow…I'm hoping it'll be worth my time, but honestly…as long as I see Y2J again, I won't mind. I missed the guy a lot and can't wait to show him some gratitude.

-I've been watching the Starcraft tournament at the Star Invitational. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here. Click on vom to see some videos of the matches. To be honest, this is actually pretty exciting and the English announcer is REALLY into it. I can't wait to see the finals. Stork appears to be really smart and I love his play style.

-Persona 3 FES is coming out over here? Well that's great news! …Now I'm going to have to beat P3 YET again. That's another 80+ hours down the drain. Whoo! From what I have seen though, it appears that it'll be worth my time drain yet again. Hopefully it can pull me off of Brawl.

Alright, that's enough of that. Let's check some reader feedback.

Reader Feedback

Last week I hit on the top-10 most important franchises of the nineties, and there appeared to be a bit of confusion, so I'll clear that up now. To be on the list, you didn't NEED to originate from the nineties. No, they just had to be important to the decade as a whole. The list would have looked a bit different had it been purely franchises that had their original installment released in that decade.

First, here's something from Sean McCabe


By all rights, Final Fantasy, mario, Streetfighter, and Gran Turismo, in terms
of elongated success are among the top 10 franchises of all time. Objectively
that's the truth. However, I'm going to shy away from being objective. This top
10, is my favourite top 10 franchises of all time:

Hon. mentions: Onimusha, Mario, Shadow Hearts, Streetfighter, Ninja Gaiden,
Broken Sword, Sam and Max

10. FIre Pro Wrestling
9. Clock Tower
8. Samurai Shodown
7. Suikoden
6. Ace Attorney
5. King of Fighters
4. Metroid
3. Metal Gear Solid
2. Resident Evil
1. The Legend of Zelda


Seeing as you went with "all time" as opposed to "nineties", I'll judge it like that. And I have to say, I think it's very nice. Clock Tower is one of the most scary games I've ever played. The very first time I played it, I couldn't pick it back up because it just TERRIFIED me. I know I'm a wuss, but man.

Personally, I'm not a huge Metroid fan – I don't love backtracking – but it's hard for me to say anything bad about it. The very best Metroid game that I have played is Prime number 3 and I know for a fact that most of the fan-base would disagree with me.

As for the Ace Attorney series? Awesome.

Moving on, we have something from a Guest. He'll be nicknamed J. Madden


Although I know that video game "experts" thumb their noses at sports
games and franchises how could the Madden series be left of this list? It has
become part of pop culture and has been important to sports and the video game
industry.

I don't think Madden was all that important in the nineties. I don't think it hit its stride til' the early parts of this decade. I also have a problem giving the rub to a franchise – and a company – that is ruining our game industry.

Here we have one twf's sdc

Good... no, great list. I can't disagree with any of your choices or even the
placement for the most part as far as the parameters you set go.

I might've put Sonic below LoZ and Final Fantasy at #3 considering the fates
this decade has held for those franchises, but other than that, it's pretty
much perfect. And the Feraligatr channeling Shatner and Cloud pics are gold.

Madden didn't start to catch fire until the very end of the decade.

Now then, onto a more pressing issue:
I've been way out of the loop all winter long for various reasons, what's the
deal with us getting Brian Roberts? When did that come about?


To be honest, I'm a bit of a Sonic fanboy. That may be why he was placed so high. I also think that the Sonic versus Mario rivalry was the best to ever be fought on a digital battleground.

Also, glad you liked the pictures! Feraligatr is one of my favorite Pokémon ever, and I should try to get him incorporated more often.

As for Brian Roberts – We signed Kousuke Fukudome to play right field and Jimbo believes that the best way to further improve our offense is to get a top of the order hitter like Roberts. This would move Soriano back down to the 5 hole, where he is most useful, and have the top of the order looking like: Roberts, Fukudome, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano. Not bad at all. I think we'd be better served finding some new pitching, but…I love Brian Roberts and would not mind this trade at all.

This next one is from JLAJRC


I'm kinda surprised you didn't include the Mortal Kombat franchise on this list.


This was the franchise that made Congress freak out and helped start the
ratings system. This was the franchise that made games start to "grow
up" and become more adult (whether it's because of violence, language,
themes, etc.)

While Street Fighter may be more popular, by no means is it more important than
MK. I would say maybe 75% of all video games today (no matter the genre) have
something to owe to MK.


I think Street Fighter was more important to the fighting genre as a whole than Mortal Kombat was to the industry. Don't get me wrong, I see where you're coming from…but I think Doom was more important as far as "violent content" is concerned, and I didn't even mention that. Well, it was honorably mentioned (as was MK), but yeah.

Though, if it makes you feel any better, in my initial draw up of the list I had Mortal Kombat in there at number 10.

The final one is from Sean Garmer. He writes soccer for us. His column's name is America's Football. He also over-see's a Soccer Fact or Fiction.


I probably would have put Madden in there somewhere, and used Metroid instead of
Castlevania but that's out of personal preference. Great list, you really do a
very good job with these. They are enjoyable reads

Well thanks for the compliment. I think the main reason I went with Castlevania over Metroid is because Castlevania had more installments in the nineties. After Super Metroid, Samus took a loooooong break from bounty hunting. There seemed to be a myriad of Castlevania games throughout the nineties so I had to give that one an edge. Plus, I also think I may have had too many Nintendo games on there already.

Top-10 WORST games Brawl characters have appeared in

I originally thought I would do a top-10 best...but I decided to change it up. I've only had one negative list and I think I'm about due for another one. So here it is. I guess I should over-view the rules real quick so there isn't so much confusion.

First: In order for a game to be eligible it must have a Brawl character from the final roster in it. IF you don't want to know the final roster, there may be a couple of spoilers on this list, so be careful. Also note that simply having an Assist Trophy character in the game isn't enough. The character MUST be playable.

Second: Shadow the Hedgehog has been disqualified because…I don't really want to pick on Sonic anymore than I have to and Shadow is just a terrible, terrible game.

I'm also DQing Mr. Game and Watch games since they were a bit before my time and I just don't like them one bit. I think it's because I just wasn't there when they first came out and thus…I don't get it.

Also no Virtua Boy games since I have never touched the system.

Quick note: Only one game features a character that has yet to be revealed on the official website. That game is number 9 and I think it features probably the biggest ‘surprise' character of them all. So if you don't want to know, feel free to skip that one.

Other than that, everything is fair game. So let'sa go!

10-) Ice Climber (NES) - Maybe I just don't get this game. When Popo and Nana were included in Smash Brothers Melee I made it a point to try this game out. Man was I disappointed. It's pretty much just a run of the mill NES game with nothing special about it in the least. You go climb up 32 mountains of increasing difficulty, with eight levels a piece among them. What bothers me is that when I played…even as the game got tougher I really never needed to alter the way I played it. I never had to think of "OH HOW AM I GOING TO MAKE THIS JUMP!" or anything. I just mindlessly plopped my way to the top. Now listen, there is a chance that I just don't get this game, so I'm slotting it here at number 10. I like both of the characters, but I have no love at all for this mediocre NES title.

- I prefer my Ice Climbers in the third dimension.

9-) Gyromite (NES) The Robotic Operating Buddy, or R.O.B, was a great idea by Nintendo. Video games were in decline and stores did NOT want to carry them. So that's where R.O.B came in, the NES was packaged with a robotic toy – and come on, who doesn't love robots? – and for whatever reason…that got people interested and the NES helped to revive gaming. Ahhh…but just because R.O.B was important doesn't necessarily mean that it was good. Far from it. The two games that were compatible with it – Gyromite and Stack-Up- were both fairly lousy. They were both a hassle to control, and even if you could figure out what the hell you were doing…it just wasn't that fun. The game I chose to feature is gyromite in which you are using R.O.B to help a professor defuse bombs and the like, which isn't a bad premise for an NES title…but it's on the list and so there must be a problem, right? That problem is R.O.B. R.O.B is slow and it makes the game way too hard at times. There were only two R.O.B games for a reason, and that's because both of them were garbage. Trust me, figuring out how to work this thing is like trying to get Dave Batista to do a corkscrew moonsault. You can try to get him to do it, but most of the time he'll just fall flat on his ass. I couldn't blame you for picking up a R.O.B for nostalgia sakes, but don't even bother playing the games. It'll make you go insane.

- Well hey, at least it LOOKS cool.

8-) Yoshi Touch and Go (NDS) - Remember when the DS was brand new and companies were experimenting with the technology? Those were the days. The DS as a system is wonderful right now, but holy hell…when it first came out you would think that this thing was doomed for failure. This game is one of those reasons. Yoshi's Touch and Go is a waste of money. You get about thirty minutes (That may be being nice) of frustratingly dull TOUCH SCREEN ACTION with only one level. That's right. I thought I was doing something wrong, but this game only has ONE LEVEL. How do they disguise the fact that there is really only one level? MULTIPLE GAME MODES! I'm not stupid, Nintendo. Even if the goal is different, I know I'm playing the same stupid thing over and over again. If this game was a mini-game on Mario 64 DS, that would have been nice. Then maybe I wouldn't care so much. But when Nintendo makes you pay 30 dollars for what is best a TECH DEMO…it really just drives me insane. I shouldn't be surprised. This is the same company that wanted me to pay for "Pokémon Box". Still though, this is awfully low. I'm just thankful Nintendo doesn't do this with every one of their games. I mean, they aren't EA after all.

- I wish Yoshi ate a bomb in this game. His exploding head would have brought me peace.

7-) Starfox Assault (GCN) - I remember when Starfox Adventure came out and everyone was basically like: "You know, this game would have been superb if you could just stay inside the airship." Namco comes along to make this game and everyone assumes: "YES! AIRSHIPS!". Yeah, no, that doesn't exactly happen. ONCE AGAIN, Fox has to get out of his airship, and that's where this game fails. The tank missions and the on-foot missions in this game are just about un-bearable. I swear, I think they just had a meeting and decided: "Oh hey, you know…on top of those space battles, let's throw in the very worst and most clichéd parts of third person action games!" Why wouldn't they listen? Fans of the series know that Fox is awesome when he's flying around in space and blasting away things, but…it just fails miserably when you have him do other things. Boy Namco, thanks a lot for making a game I was anticipating greatly turn out to be an utter disaster! Oh, and by the way, keep Krystal the fuck out of my Star Fox games. I think I'd rather have irritable bowel syndrome than see her blue, furrie face on my screen any more. I'm so glad SHE isn't playable.

- Remember when Star Fox games were good?

6-) Pokémon Channel (GCN) - Nintendo realized two things when it came to people. One: people love Pokémon. Two: people love to WATCH Pokémon. So what it decided to do was release a hybrid of those things to see how much money it could make off of a game that not only HAS Pokémon in it…but also allows you to watch them do things as well! That's great! What Nintendo forgot to do ;however, was actually include a game! Most of the time you're just sitting around watching cartoons – usually of the Pichu variety (and I'll be honest, it's cute) – or watching your Pokémon do things such as aerobics! AND SOMETIMES THEY EVEN ASK YOU TO JOIN IN! Holy crap guys! Sometimes a game actually wants us to play it! I will admit that this game was indeed intended for children, but that said…Nintendo knows that kids of all ages love Pokémon, and even if I HAD been the target age when I played this…I still would have been upset. I would have tried endlessly to control the various critters and been frustrated that I paid for a game and instead bought a really expensive DVD. Not only is this the worst game in an otherwise solid franchise, it is perhaps the worst game available on the Gamecube.

- Pictured: The gameplay!

5-) Mario is Missing (SNES/NES/PC/DOS) - Everyone loves Mario, but they had seen what he had to offer. He was, shall we say, an old reliable. We wanted to know more about his brother! So what happens next? We get a game in which Mario goes missing and his brother Luigi has to hunt him down and save him! That seems pretty great, right? Ahhh, it was…until you threw in the fact that the only real ‘gameplay' was the education. The game essentially taught you geography and when you got things right you were rewarded with the ability to actually do what you wanted to do: FIGHT SOME KOOPAS. Sadly, the boss koopas all fight the same and you beat them by jumping on their head. For whatever reason, they just assume you are so brainy for making it through whatever level you're doing at the time that they forego advanced tactics – assuming you can see through them with you mind's eye – and just run right at you. That's fun! At least games that try to pack learning into them try to be fun. Remember that game you played in math class where you were that frog and you had to eat certain numbers? Like EAT THE NUMBERS THAT ARE MULTIPLES OF EIGHT. While you were doing this you were being chased around by some anti-math monsters who hated learning. THAT was fun! It taught and gave you a reason to play. This. Jeesh. This was not fun and was just as tedious as school. This game is the reason why Luigi never got to star solo in a game again until the very under-rated Luigi's mansion.

- This is the Luigi that DOS users were treated to. Pretty...creepy, eh?

4-) Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Genesis/Sega Saturn) - Sonic was officially the man when this game was released. Sonic and Mario were deep into their rivalry and fans wanted more. By the time that this game was released, Super Nintendo already had some pretty impressive looking 3D games…so it was only natural for supporters of Sega to demand that their beloved Hedgehog get the 3D treatment as well. Oh, they got it alright. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite the game they asked for (This would make the beginning of a rather disturbing trend). The game was from an isometric point of view, meaning that it was in pseudo-2D using 3D sprites. The game looked pretty nice at the time, I have to admit. I couldn't believe how neat my Hedgehog looked! The graphics were not the problem though. It turns out the game controlled horribly awkwardly. Getting your hedgehog to do exactly what you wanted and go exactly where you wanted to go was a bit of a hassle. To make matters worse, you always had to do the same thing. You had to beat all the enemies and return the flickies to a ring. Sometimes scouring the area for left-over enemies isn't fun, you know? One more thing was horribly, horribly wrong…when Sonic did not have a speed power up, he wasn't fast. No. He was slow. Sonic the Hedgehog was SLOW. What the hell is that about? I'm sorry, but when a character's gimmick is to go the speed of sound and you can't even out-run Mo Vaugn…you have a problem. The game could have been much more, but it wasn't. Apparently it was a mistake to render Sonic into 3D seeing as most of his games in the third dimension are absolutely putrid.

- And so it began.

3-) Evolution Skateboarding (PS2/Gamecube) - This was the case, in my mind at least, of Konami trying to boost the sales of a mediocre game by including a rather popular gaming character in there. That's right, along with Rick McCrank and Arto Saari we have Solid Snake (and Raiden). Could you see Snake hanging out back with skate boarders talking about how the system keeps them down? Or how he totally knows a song that they should listen to? Yeah, me neither, it just sounds weird. The concept wasn't what was bad about the game though, no. Unlike Tony Hawk which, at the time, was a fairly simple and easy to play skateboarding game…Evolution Skateboarding was a clunky, clunky title. Pulling off tricks was un-necessarily difficult and really…it's not very satisfying. This game came out at the tail-end of the XTREME SPORTS videogame craze, so it was also received fairly mildly. Which is good, because if there was another one of these…God knows what we would have seen. Would Simon Belmont and Contra guy be sharing the same half-pipe? God only knows. The novelty of Snake wears off REALLY quickly…so even if you really want to see that, don't bother. Avoid this game at all costs.

- SO RADICAL.

2-) Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (360/PS3) - Sega, Sonic Team, please take a moment to read this one fact. The fans you have of Sonic – the true ones – don't want to fly around as Rouge and awkwardly throw bombs or play as some Robot and shoot missiles. No, we don't want that. WE WANT TO PLAY AS SONIC! It seems that every 3D Sonic game forgets this and makes you play as everyone BUT the hedgehog. Why is this? Even then, that's not what's the worst part about this game. Oh God, do I wish it was. No, the title is glitchy as hell. You wanna know how? I was playing as Shadow and riding through the desert. I take a jump off of a ramp I had to take a jump off of and when I hit the ground, my vehicle turned upside down and I fell through the sand to my death. On top of that, they had problems making your homing jumps work. I had way too many deaths due to not being able to home onto an enemy. That's not good. On top of this, the level design is rather bland, the music is terrible (AND I LOVE SONIC MUSIC), and it's just not fun. For whatever reason, Sonic Team insists on letting their normal enemies have life bars. Sometimes simplicity is the key here, guys. AS if that wasn't bad enough, it loads way too slowly and the levels last about 12 or so minutes a piece. It becomes a pain in the ass to make it fourteen minutes in only to die due to stupid glitches and have to start it all over again. Sonic was about simplicity and playing as Sonic. Sonic Team apparently does not realize this. Their game suffers.

- I guess I prefer my Sonic to be a simpler being.

1-) Zelda CDI games(Phillips CDI) - Hoo boy. This would be Zelda's black sheep. Nintendo probably doesn't want you to know about this game and for good reason. Not only does this not play much like a Zelda title (it's side scrolling with entirely too simple puzzles), but it has the most groan-worthy cut-scenes and voice acting this side of Resident Evil. Seriously, check this out. Doesn't that just make you angry? As if that wasn't bad enough, you have the ability to take out each final boss in these three games (YES! THREE!) with one shot! Imagine storming into Ganon's castle at the end of Ocarina of time, hitting him with a light arrow, and getting a YOU WIN screen. That's pretty much what this is like, and it's just horrible. This is what Nintendo gets for whoring out its license to someone else. This is the one Zelda game that I can truly say is bad. SQUADALA WE'RE OFF.

- Seriously. What the hell is this?

Well, that's it for this week. If you have any praise or complaints feel free to e-mail me at [e-mail]. Or if you don't feel like writing me a personal e-mail, feel free to simply comment below!

Til' the Crossroads