The 10 Worst Games from the Most Famous Franchises

Franchises like Sonic, Mario, Street Fighter, or Mortal Kombat are remembered for incredible games and exciting moments shared on screen with our favorite characters, and it's easy to say which is the best game from many of them. There might not be a consensus, but if you ask gamers, many will always cite the same two or three titles that they often consider the best.

Now, when you ask which is the worst, it's even easier to reach a consensus among the various titles available, either because the game is admittedly problematic and poorly developed or simply because you didn't like it. And here we’ll list the ten worst games from world-famous franchises. You may not agree with some positions, but they’re presented based on Metacritic scores and specialized critics. Some even redeemed themselves later, but believe me: you’ll agree with most. And if you disagree, leave your comment.

This trilogy is, by far, the worst ever made under the The Legend of Zelda license. The first two games released for the Philips CD-i, Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, have terrible gameplay and rather bizarre animations between levels that attempt to explain the stories.

Not by chance, the dialogue was recorded first, the way the voice actors imagined the characters would sound, and the animators created the animations based solely on what they imagined from the voices. The title was a 2D platformer, but with poor gameplay and made over pre-painted backgrounds, without planning or studies of where the character would walk, jump, or pass, making the product quite confusing. It seems like the game was made in a hurry, without any care.

The third game, Zelda's Adventure, solved this animation problem with live-action scenes recorded inside the development studio. Photos and videos were used, which were reused, and the receptionist was cast to play Zelda (and she probably only received a salary). The view was top-down, traditional of The Legend of Zelda games on the NES. However, these games innovated by being the first to allow us to play as Zelda instead of Link.

In an attempt to create parallel games of the Mortal Kombat franchise good, average, bad, and terrible things were released. On the good side, Shaolin Monks delivered everything: action, combat, fatalities, a good story, precise gameplay, and a fun co-op mode with friendly fire enabled, which could turn the experience into a big mess.

Among the average games, we had Mythologies: Sub-Zero, with its misleading platforming and gameplay that attempted to replicate the mechanics of fighting games, but delivered something confusing – it was necessary to press a button to turn the character over – but with an interesting story that explained much of the game's plot. In the bad category was the Nintendo 64 version of Mythologies: Sub-Zero, which combined all the problems of the other versions, now with the limitations of the console.

And, in the terrible category, Mortal Kombat: Special Forces was the final nail in the coffin that buried the MK side projects. Focused on Jax, the game shows the Special Forces soldier searching for the leader of the Black Dragon, Kano. It mixes 3D exploration, weapon and melee combat, in a beat 'em up style with simple puzzles. However, the problem here was the troubled production, which made the levels feel empty and repetitive.

This is an attempt by Square Enix to leverage the prestige of the Final Fantasy franchise to make money in the mobile market. The game has virtually no gameplay: simply slide your finger across the screen, battles happen automatically, and you need to spend real money to get the characters you want. In the game, you collect around forty iconic heroes from all the titles in the series in automatic battles.

The game uses an "active time bar" (ATB) system, and when all the heroes on the team are defeated, you have to wait or pay to continue. The reviews were unanimous: it's a blatant "cash grab", where the only objective is to unlock nostalgic characters and classes, using franchise icons to attract players and extract money from them. There's no plot or story. Just little characters beating up monsters and a waiting bar that can be sped up with payment. And the fact that it's mobile is no excuse, since there are many very good mobile games available.

This is definitely one of the Sonic sub-franchises that failed to achieve success and disappointed fans, from the design choices to the gameplay and story, including a parallel universe. When the first images of Sonic Boom were released, the characters had a strange design that emphasized their main attributes.

Sonic had long legs, Knuckles was muscular, Tails carried various gadgets, and Amy Rose wielded a hammer bigger than Knuckles'. The introduction of Sticks was also poorly received, as she was considered annoying.

Rise of Lyric was the final nail in the coffin for the sub-franchise, thanks to numerous bugs, unchallenging combat, audio problems, lack of polish, and game freezes. It's possible the problem wasn't with the developer, Big Red Button, as the initial idea was to make a larger and more open game. Initially planned for next-generation consoles and PC, SEGA's exclusivity contract with Nintendo forced adaptation to the more modest Wii U hardware, which may’ve caused its failure. In fact, Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice, for Nintendo 3DS, is highly praised.

If the movie starring Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn't a box office success, why did they expect a game based on it to be? The story of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game is an "Americanized" version of the classic plot, focusing on Guile (and not Ryu) as the protagonist.

Guile and the US army fight against the Shadaloo empire. Other characters, like Ryu and Ken, have become arms dealers; Chun-Li, a reporter who works alongside Balrog and E. Honda; Dhalsim, a scientist; and Blanka, a creature that escaped from a laboratory.

The game's production was quite troubled, lacking access to stars like Van Damme (who was no longer under contract and unwilling to work, in addition to rumors that he arrived at the studio under the influence of drugs) or Raul Julia (who had died of cancer), so they used stunt doubles. Poor gameplay, weak graphics, and unbalanced fights meant that each released version was worse than the last. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game was born from a bad idea and, unsurprisingly, became one of the worst Street Fighter games in history.

Star Wars is such an iconic franchise! Why have they never made a fighting game based on it? It would be interesting to use the Force for ranged attacks; we've already had Darth Vader and Master Yoda in Soul Calibur, so surely bringing the Jedi and Sith into a fighting game would work, wouldn't it? Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi proves that even a successful franchise can still produce a very bad game.

Released for the PlayStation in 1997, the game pits the most famous characters from the films against each other in a fistfight, Force-based combat, or lightsaber duel, and introduces a new character: Arden Lyn, a master of Teräs Käsi, an unarmed martial art from the Star Wars universe. However, the game is slow, with a presentation reminiscent of Tekken, but far from the quality of Bandai's game, and the fights are unbalanced, giving lightsaber users an advantage.

Many fans expected a game comparable to Soul Calibur, but received this shallow game, with imprecise controls and poor animations. Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi became an example of how not to adapt Star Wars into fighting games.

One of the lowest points in Capcom's survival horror franchise, Umbrella Corps is a single-player and multiplayer game in which you control Umbrella agents to collect information, data, and virus samples, among other things. It was simply a basic plot designed to pit players against hordes of monsters or each other, in the style of the various shooting games released at the time.

The game offered several items and gadgets to enhance gameplay, such as third-person cover, grenades, a bio-shield (zombie jammer), and an axe ("Brainer") for melee attacks.

However, critics were harsh on Umbrella Corps due to several problems: imprecise aiming, an absurd lack of balance between weapons, and problematic mechanics. The game was also considered "forgettable," with generic and confusing action, making each match a mess of explosions, unlike a good game in the genre like Left 4 Dead.

The game was available on mobile platforms for a year and a month before being shut down due to numerous microtransactions and other problems, making it the worst game in the Pokémon franchise. In the plot of Pokémon Rumble Rush, you find an island inhabited by Pokémon toys and fight hordes of enemies using simplified touch screen controls to move or attack your Pokémon.

You earned new toys and parts called "Gears" to equip and strengthen your little monsters. But, overall, the gameplay involved simply repeating the same levels to find monsters with higher attack power than the previous one.

Critics harshly criticized the game for its excessive repetition, overly simplistic controls, lack of excitement or challenge, being a rather mediocre game and, apparently, unfinished, since features such as competitive mode and the online store weren’t available at launch.

When a franchise is very successful in single-player mode, it's common for companies to want to invest in a multiplayer mode and fill it with microtransactions and cosmetics to maximize profits. The Last of Us had a multiplayer project canceled, Horizon Zero Dawn will get a game focused on cooperative play, and it has already been announced that Hogwarts Legacy will have a game as a service sequel. Fallout 4, the last numbered game in the franchise, was a considerable success due to its combat mechanics and graphics.

So, Todd Howard's team at Bethesda thought: “Let's go multiplayer! If players are asking for it, if the modding community was already working on a multiplayer mod for the fourth game, why don't we do it ourselves?” And that's probably how Fallout 76 was born, an MMORPG in the franchise where players try to survive together in a world devastated by nuclear explosions.

The problem: besides numerous glitches that allowed stealing items from other players even when they were offline, performance issues, an empty world without NPCs, characters stuck in animations, enemies passing through walls, unstable servers, constant frame rate drops, not to mention the setbacks for those who pre-ordered and the collector's editions. In short, a disaster at launch, but today it's still "playable".

Mario Is Missing isn't a bad game per se, but it's considered by many to be the worst game in the Super Mario franchise, even worse than Hotel Mario on the Philips CD-i. Mario Is Missing is an educational game, released in 1993 for SNES, NES, and PC, developed by Software Toolworks, a company specializing in educational software. This was a common practice at the time, when video games still faced distrust from parents and teachers, especially after the release of Mortal Kombat, which generated controversy.

The game itself fails both as a game and as an educational tool. In the story, Bowser has kidnapped Mario, and now Luigi travels the world answering quizzes, recovering stolen artifacts, and learning about history, geography, monuments, and other things to save his brother. The problem is that, as an educational game, it's superficial and doesn't integrate into the experience. It just feels like a test on your Nintendo.

As a game, the cities are empty, the combat with Koopas and Goombas is nonexistent, the music isn't memorable, and the movement is slow. In other words, as a game, it's boring. And it even tries to make the player study – something children aren't interested in doing when playing video games – which makes Mario Is Missing the worst game in the Super Mario franchise.