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Surely most of you have heard about Darkcloud for PS2. Well, in the first one, there is this bonus dungeon, 100 floors of action RPG goodness. Problem is, it's just 100 randomly generated floors, which change colour once every 10 floors I believe. The monsters are just typical monsters, just stronger, no palette swaps or anything. The 100th floor nets you the strongest sword in the game naturally, but it was hardly worth it. My current weapon was just slightly weaker when I finally got to the bottom and achieved the best blade in the game. And for all 100 floors, there was only one boss, at the end.

However, that was a year ago so I may be slightly inaccurate at some points but the general idea is there (Plus I'm sure if I'm wrong I will be corrected ).

It just felt dumb to me, to have 100 nearly identical floors as the big bonus dungeon to the game.

Anyone else know of another dumb RPG dungeon?

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I don't remember what it was called, but In Mystical Ninja 64 it was the one you visited right after you got sasuke. It was just long and boring. And a big BLOCK in the plot.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Tales of Phantasia also had its 100 floor dungeon. It was....evil.

Heh, have you played Disgaea with its 100 randomly generated floors for EVERY item? Although the rewards can be worth it.


And then Star Ocean: Til the End of Time has a 200(!) floor building with tough uber-bosses...

So what the hell they ganna do next? oO

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The Arcana are the means by which ALL is revealed.

As a rule of thumb, randomly generated dungeons suck because there's no plot advancement, they're long, repetitive, and there's very little in the way of actual variety.

Take Diablo, for instance. Utter crap. At least the dungeons change their graphics and generation method every once in a while, and since that's the whole point of the game they put a little more effort into it and tie in quests. But believe me, hacking through the same monsters in the same kind of rooms for a while gets boring. This is one of the best random dungeons though.

Lufia and its ancient cave wasn't too bad. It was long and tedious, though had some uniqueness in that it was some sort of game in itself that didn't make you feel like you were wasting your time. In the end, you got to keep SOME of the items you found, which was kinda cool. Lufia II's Iris treasures could've made this a really cool dungeon if they served a purpose. Which they don't. Dump the script from a ROM and prove me wrong, I dare ya.

Parasite Eve had the Chrysler Building, which SUCKED. EVERY SINGLE FLOOR was the same, and there was absolutely no variety. EVERY FLOOR had the same graphics, colors, and there were only about a dozen different rooms, one for each possible type of intersection. Every 10 floors, the music changed. That's it. There were some cool bosses though. And a nice little surprise at the end (with the coolest battle theme in the game!)

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 16th January 2005 21:46

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I agree with Mu on the Star Ocean dungeon called "Sphere 211". 211 floors of fun!

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Via Infinito in FFX-2. It's just a wildlife safari, with previous monsters making cameos, but who wants to fight all those? Even with a Charm Bangle (?) on, the floors are just randomly-generated time-wasters.

Throwing in one of those big Drakes or a Mega Tonberry mix it up, but even those recur. Thank you for wasting my time, Square-Enix.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

Oh Mu the Squirrel, Disgaea... that was the game of insane numbers to me. Fight a single battle and advance at least a dozen levels. Max level is like 99,999... that should give the other people an idea of this insane game (yet you only need to be a fraction of that to beat the game)

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
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I always thought The Abyss from Wild ARMs 3 was pretty dumb. It's only one hundred or so levels, but the walkways and that swirly....thing! Ugh! It hurts my head after a few minutes. And there's no way to save. At all. At the end you face the toughest boss in the game. Guess what happens if you lose? Oh, all the times I had to repeat that place just 'cause the layout was making my eyes bleed...





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Words of Wisdom:

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If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

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Quest 64. the final dungeon requires you to randomly open doors that lead to previous places you've been to until you find the right door. whoopty fuckin doo.

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moé in the streets, senpai in the sheets

Quote (Malevolence @ 16th January 2005 20:09)

Quest 64.

I think that speaks for itself.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Hmm...pointless dungeons are becoming more apparent to me especially since I've read those 'RPG cliches' webpages.

Some examples:

(Final Fantasy V) Phoenix Tower: that was like 30 floors of 'damn, this is annoying!'...Fortunately, though, there was a worthy prize waiting at the top, and the wall-based monsters were pretty cool. Plus there were magic urns, which handed out 10 ability points at the price of 1 (or more, usually) elixirs ("Gimme 'lixir!"). But the random-battle enemies were annoying, though, setting in various negative statuses and doing nasty things to my characters.

(Breath of Fire) Aqua: I guess this is the idea stereotypical plot-useless RPG dungeon. You go up there to get a key for the next plot element, but you need to get a tablet to go up there, which you need to do whatevernot to get, etc. etc. etc., but in order to get this key, you need to go through this ... tower-like building that floats on a block of...uh...floating ground...atop a lake. You go through like several levels of the tower, each the same shape, and with several goodies in chests per floor, and at the top is this boss which guards a key. At least the enemies inside are rather easy. The game offers no reason (at least not yet) why it's a floating palace of some kind, or why the key you need for the next plot-element is hidden/guarded in there (as opposed to any other safe place). But considering how I can just walk into any house and 'steal' items in that game...

And of course, there are MANY more that I've been to, and even more that I haven't even seen.

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The Abyss from Wild ARMs 3 was pretty dumb

And you're required to go there to get the Goddess Idol or something. I hated that place too, and that's about the only place in the game I would say that for.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

Oh dear, I forgot Via Infinito...that was a most boring dungeon up until the last 10 floors.

But Star Ocean 3 still wins...because not only did it have Sphere 211 (thanks, I fo'got the name) but there was a whole crap-load of overly long towers/buildings etc. that had you falling asleep 'especially' since you'll return to the same long pointless dungeon again and again and again... and then there's squeezing into each and every corner trying to get 100% map ugh...

Which is ashame, because it was an otherwise okay game.

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The Arcana are the means by which ALL is revealed.

I also forgot a couple. FF3- Mini Dungeons. worse...Dungeons...ever. The Nerapa Shrine and the Eureka Key zone. They both made me cry in pain.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Quote (MogMaster @ 17th January 2005 00:30)

I also forgot a couple. FF3- Mini Dungeons. worse...Dungeons...ever. The Nerapa Shrine and the Eureka Key zone. They both made me cry in pain.

Hey, I object to that. They were a good challenge and didn't actually suffer from bad design as such.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Every dungeon in every Lufia game ever. Much as I love Natsume in general, I hated their "puzzle over plot" approach to the Lufia series.

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I didn't mind Lufia I or II's dungeons to much. It was kind of fun to see the enemies crawling all over the floor and being able to influence whether or not they'd attack you by your strength.Getting the bosses' gems though was pretty hard. =/

Some parts did get annoying though, but overall I thought they did it quite nicely.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

Phantom Brave's random dungeons. Sure, tis cool that you use a Dungeon Monk to unlock said dungeons, but some of these dungeons can exceed 100 levels, have enemies 50 levels higher than your best guy, have all sorts of different enemeis and terrain types, and its completely random. In order to create an ideal dungeon to level up with minimum frustration, you need to keep selecting the create a dungeon feautre. Then they charge you for making a dungeon. Then, if you want to leave without dying, but before reaching the end, the monk charges you alot of money, to do it; if the monk is knocked out, and you try to escape with anyone else, they charge you an obscene amount of moneym, which you often don't have, thus you are completely screwed if you are in a tight spot. Plus, there are certain classes only unlockable by randomly finding them in dungeons, which can be extremely frustrating if you can't create a dungeon with enemies you can actually beat. Anyway, this is one of those gimmicks that's cool on paper, stupid in execution.



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And behold, I saw a Pale Gaming System, and the name of he who rode it was Squaresoft, and Enix followed him.

The whole of Dark Chronicle.

The first hour was great, it was an excellent RPG.

Then came that first 'forest' dungeon. I dragged through it, hoping it wouldn't all be like this. It was. >.<

Well, if we're going to mention tedious dungeons overall, I'd have to say the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. Even with the strategy guide it's still pretty confusing.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

Prehaps not a dungeon, but the ENTIRE game. Alundra 2 for playstation. If you want to advance through the story, even something so minor, you have to solve some sort of dumb puzzle. Ugh...

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Well, the following is highly opinionated but here it is anyways:

Quest 64 had the worst dungeons, they were all long and twisty with a lack of opportunities to save. There was also a lack of landmarks or any other sense of direction in any of them. The battle system didn't help either because you had to run around everywhere, changing your orientation. Needless to say, I ended up going backwards more often then forwards. And as Silverlance pointed out, the rest of the game poorly put together as well. Still, I might like to take this oppertunity to say I have little faith in American RPG's now.

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Shotgunnova Posted on 17th January 2005 12:16
Well, if we're going to mention tedious dungeons overall, I'd have to say the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time.

I'll vouch for that. It felt like if I made one false move, I'd end up right where I started. It is extreamly tedious but it does have a saving grace. If you realy want to know what it is,

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

fighting dark link was fun.

For overall worst dungeon though, I'd have to say Monster Tower in Konami's "Azure Dreams" for the Game Boy Color. First of all, all of the floors were randomly "generated" (Read, picked out of a hat), the only kind of traps were step traps, it had too many floors (something like 130 if you include the basement) and had a total lack of originality overall. Oh and as long as I'm talking about a lack of originality, it was the only dungeon in the entire game. Does that sound like fun? To be fair though, overall Azure Dreams wasn't all that bad but I can't realy say it was very good either . . . P.S. There was a Playstation version too and I've never played it before. All comments within this paragaph are directed at the Gameboy Color version.

This post has been edited by Tonepoet on 30th October 2010 23:26

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Role reversal at its finest.

Ugh...The Water Temple. That has to be the worst dungeon of any Zelda game. Except perhaps Zelda II, which was like a giant dungeon, one wrong move, and you're suddenly fighting tons of enemies. And if you die, you start all the way at the beginning.

But the Super Mario RPG Legend of the 7 Stars desert was annoying.

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Could you repeat that?

I really enjoyed lufia 2's ancient cave. go in with only items gained from blue chests, at level 1, no exceptions? yup. nice. egg dragon with the egg ring? definitely worth it.

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follow me through the lands
you will burn hordes of hell
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Water Shrine difficult? Please elaborate because I didn't find it that much of a challenge. Do you mean the changing of the water levels got annoying after a while or what?

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
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Quote (Racthoh @ 18th January 2005 18:45)

Water Shrine difficult? Please elaborate because I didn't find it that much of a challenge. Do you mean the changing of the water levels got annoying after a while or what?

although i don't mean to keep in spirit with the (possibly unintentional) arrogant air of the quoted post, i agree. i didn't think the water temple was "bad" at all. sure, it was long and tedious, *but* it was balanced and interesting.

Hmm, a bad dungeon is one that suffers from terrible design, ridiculously cheap shots ("Well yeah, you need to pull one of eight switches to open the door; and if you pick the wrong one you're game over."), to some extent a lack of interesting atmosphere, nonsensical stuff such as very difficult puzzles that are just "there" AND required to solve to progress, and an overall lack of sense and purpose.

The water dungeon didn't fit any of the above, so I never found it to be much of a "bad" dungeon as such. Just annoying.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Haha, oops. Now that I read over my last post it does seem kinda arrogant... sorry about that Gozaru~.

I got the game Growlanser Generations for PS2. All of the dungeons in it are randomly generated, and every room except the rooms with stairs, look the same. Each floor is basically a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 set of rooms with up to 4 possible exits. At first I didn't mind since the same technique is applied in Diablo, except in this game there is no detail whatsoever that makes one room different from another.

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

I think Quest 64 had some of the worst dungeons ever made.... the cave that conected House to the wind city, i think its name is cult hazzard or something like that but no matter how much i try i always back track becuase of some wierd camera angle but then again i dont have a fond memory of that game...

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procastinate now, dont put it off

There were a few Dungeons I wasn't fond of on LOZ Windwaker... First there was Forsaken Fortress, where you have to sneak around without a sword... Uggg...

Then came the "Earth Temple" The whole premise of this dungeon was reflecting light around everywhere, with the aid of a bird girl. (The dungeon had NOTHING to do with Earth...) In this one part you had to reflect light off the bird girl's lyre, onto your sheild, and then onto some smallish target. The problem was, the button for taking out your sheild, was the same button used to call the bird girl towards you, whereapon she'd put away her Lyre and run over. It took me a long time just to get Link's positioning right...

And then there was the sorta "Mini Dungeon" where you went through 30 levels of monsters, and then another 20 or so, when just to be cheap, they pack a room full of horendously strong monsters in a room together, and put lazer shooting statues around the room.

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