Top 20 Worst PlayStation 1 Games

We can understand why some “Digimon” fans might have gravitated towards this game when they were kids. It’s a dungeon-crawler with your favorite digital monsters! That’s all a kid could want! Well, ideally, yes, but the problem with “Digimon World 2” is just how slow the entire game plays. Every battle takes forever to load in and out of with every single action taking so much time to execute before the next move comes in to eat up more time. It’s enough to scare off anyone who isn’t familiar with turn-based RPGs, and it might have pushed some to flee back to the first “Digimon World”, which that too was not as exciting as it should have been.

There were plenty of awesome action games that let you take control of fearsome creatures. “Spawn: The Eternal” was not one of those games. On paper, this should have been a game where you get to use all of the crazy weapons at Spawn’s disposal to fight hordes of demons and eventually take down Malebolgia. Instead, we got a game with tons of corridors, bland rooms, clunky combat, and some of the worst controls we had ever experienced on the PS1. Spawn deserved way better than whatever “Eternal” was supposed to be.

We tend to avoid putting games aimed at little kids on lists like this, but “Arthur: Ready to Race” is a unique case. While the cover of the game implies that this is a racing game, you’d quickly find out that racing isn’t even a fraction of the game. Most of it is spent wandering around and playing minigames in order to obtain parts for your kart. And even when you collect all of the parts, the race turns out to be a solo downhill derby with absolutely no challenge injected into its gameplay whatsoever. Should an “Arthur” fan spend the forty minutes it takes to beat the whole game? Absolutely not.

In all honesty, there were a few solid games starring our green little army men. Unfortunately, “Army Men 3D” was not among those solid games. Much of the vitriol towards it can be attributed to two things: the camera and the checkpoint system. It can be difficult to spot enemies from a distance far enough to take cover. The thing is that by the time you spot an enemy, they have already begun firing at you and/or killed you, sending you back to the very beginning of the mission. Yeah, we can already hear the legions of kids throwing controllers or simply ejecting the disc from their consoles.

Much like “Digimon World 2”, if you were a “Beyblade” fan back in the day, maybe you found some enjoyment with this title. And that’s a strong “maybe”. Most folks walked away with a negative perception of “Beyblade” because of this game, though. So much time in “Let It Rip” is spent setting up and preparing for matches, and when you do get some semblance of gameplay, it’s over in a matter of seconds. “Beyblade” told us to let it rip, we did, and just like a fart in the wind, it disappeared from our minds as if it never happened.

Now, some folks may have enjoyed the 1996 film “Dragonheart” for its fantastical premise and visual effects. As for the video game…we have yet to meet anyone who liked the game. “DragonHeart: Fire & Steel” was like a kid turning in their homework at the last minute. Stock sound effects, stiff animations that feel unfinished, everything on display felt like the game had a budget of twenty bucks and a lunch. We won’t pretend that “Dragonheart” was a Game of the Year contender for 1996, but surely developer Funcom (yes, THAT Funcom we know for the “Conan the Barbarian” video games) could have done better than this!

With the Nuon DVD gaming console hybrid floundering in sales, it was time for Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba, and RCA to figure out how to recoup costs. One of their solutions was to bring one of their own games, “Rascal Racers”, to the PS1. Oh, what a mistake that was. Not only does “Rascal Racers” fail to have an original bone its poorly assembled body, it's a game haphazardly thrown together with minimal music, uninspired courses, and some of the slowest gameplay ever seen in a racing game. RIP in peace, Nuon - the ports couldn’t save you.

On paper, a “Resident Evil” light gun game could absolutely work for the franchise. But the technology wasn’t quite there yet for home consoles, not for 2000 at least, which is why “Resident Evil Survivor” is often regarded as one of the worst PS1 games and one of the worst “Resident Evil” games. The long loading screens were already making “Survivor” a miserable experience. Regardless if you used the PS1 controller or a peripheral, you were often subjected to extremely inaccurate, sometimes unresponsive controls. Maybe Capcom will return to this idea one of these days now that technology is vastly improved compared to when “Survivor” launched.

“Masters of Teras Kasi” might be the most confusing “Star Wars” product in the franchise’s gaming career. Just a few fights might be enough for you to start asking some serious questions. How can Boba Fett and Chewbacca take multiple hits from a lightsaber while everyone else is immediately dead? Who is Jodo Kast and Arden Lyn? And what the Phantom Menace is a “Teras Kasi”? All valid questions, but ultimately, this is just a dumb fighting game with awful controls, movement that is way too slow, and almost no room to pull off even a small combo. A “Star Wars” fighting game can work, but not like this.

This may not be the worst wrestling game ever on the PS1, but it sure as hell is the worst WWE-affiliated wrestling game! We’ll give it credit as one of the first WWE games to include Divas as playable characters. However, that does not excuse the piss-poor quality. Assuming you can get through the confusing menu layout and navigation, you’ll find that “WCW: Backstage Assault” is vehemently broken with easy-to-spam moves, slow animations, and borderline unfair stats between wrestlers. Speaking of, each wrestler has looked significantly better in other wrestling games both before and after “Backstage Assault’s” conception. So, what happened here?

Unsurprisingly, given the title of the game, this was more of an interactive ad for the soft drink rather than a proper video game. With bizarre humor and even weirder live action cutscenes, the faceless Japanese Pepsi Mascott runs around various environments trying to avoid different obstacles. This is all in aid of solving some Pepsi-themed problem like an empty vending machine or helping a thirsty soldier. If you’re a devout supporter of Pepsi then this may just be the game for you – but the gameplay is so bad it might make you wanna switch to Coke.

Many licensed games are often slack with the quality of the game as they rely on the profile of the show or film they are based on to distract from poor gameplay. Such was the case with this awful wrestling game that has been labeled as one of the ugliest games ever. The gameplay is similarly hard to watch as the collision detection is almost non-existent and the move sets are woefully limited. It could have been so much fun but such poor execution for a basic game premise makes it a struggle to play.

A PC version was released to critical disdain in 2000 so when the same action game was ported to the PS1 4 years later, there was an understandably negative reaction. The graphics were incredibly outdated for its era and the whole game was simply a misguided attempt to ride off the back of the release of the first Hellboy film released the same year. The controls were almost unfathomable and too few people were familiar with the character at the time to ever give it a chance of success.

The thought process for the publishers at the time for this game must have been: ‘How about we copy every other 3D platformer from the era but this time, but make it look, like, bad?’. Looking to ride the coat tails of far more successful games like Super Mario 64, Rascal was a poor imitation if there ever was one. The camera had a mind of it’s own and the controls were so poor that most of the time it is up to the will of the Rascal gods to where you actually end up.

It seems like the first superhero family have always been cursed when it comes to any sort of digital media. Once you start the game the problems become apparent almost immediately, thanks to control response time issue, hilariously bad character animation, lack of combat variety and some of the most irritating sound effects to come from the console. It’ storyline lacked any sort of substance and your foes were sometimes inexplicably hard to beat. If you manage to grind your way through the game and want more punishment, then be sure to watch the latest film featuring the quartet for maximum nightmare fuel.

A game that’s so bad that even series creator Ed Boon doesn’t want to acknowledge it’s existence. Mortal Kombat: Special Forces is a game that had a really troubled development history, and it shows. First problem: despite this spinoff focusing on the Special Forces taking on Kano’s Black Dragon, the game lacks a pivotal character: Sonya Blade, so instead we’re stuck with Jax. Secondly the iconic hand-to-hand combat the series is well known for, is not only terrible but also undermined by the extensive use of firearms. We could go on about the horrid level design and terrible story … but that would require a list of its own.

If you have ever been to London then you will know that there are almost as many cars as people. Traffic is everywhere and this racing title ignored the one thing that could have distracted from it’s awful collision detection and short completion length. Having Mini Coopers smash into each other on the streets of England’s capital could have been great but there is barely another soul on the tarmac. Adding to this is a laughably short draw distance and strange visual aborations galore – no fun at all…

It’s unclear how many Christmases were ruined for kids who received this painfully slow platformer, but no doubt Saint Nick himself would be upset by the quality of this title. The player must help Santa escape from his imprisonment in some unspecified magic lands but after 10 minutes playing time you will want to leave him there and get as far away as possible from this abysmal game. It boasts awful graphics and laborious gameplay where every boss battle takes place on the exact same level. Despite this it’s almost worth a play to see a front-flipping Father Christmas.

What happens when you take the rolling movements of Lara Croft, levels that seemed ripped out of Crash Bandicoot, all while trying to mimic the charm of Indiana Jones using one of the most vapid dolls in existence? A disaster that defies explanation. It could have worked well as a simple platform game but instead the bad camera angles and incredibly clunky controls make navigating the repetitive landscape an arduous task. It is wholly unoriginal and a sloppily created adventure as lifeless as the doll that serves as your protagonist.

This 3D platformer truly is an attack on almost all of your senses: every level is as ugly and fluorescent as the one before, the controls are completely random and every sound grinds on you like nails down a chalkboard. Worst of all is Bubsy’s horrible personality. He is whiny and arrogant so it is no surprise that the random assortment of enemies are trying to kill him. Every attempt at humour falls embarrassingly flat meaning it has almost no redeeming features whatsoever. It is well worth it’s infamy as one of the worst games ever.

What’s the worst PS1 game you’ve played? Did it make our list? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo!