The 10 Worst Bad Days in RPGs

Everybody has bad days. But, when it comes to role-playing games, nobody just has a bad day that they can get over. No, they have to have sprawling, lingering, life-changing days because someone had enough gall to be enjoying how things were going in life.

10 – Zidane Tribal (Final Fantasy IX)

Can't go wrong by starting off with Zidane. His day might suck, but at least he gets past it. Sort of.

Zidane is a thief who starts in the game in the humblest of ways: by kidnapping Princess Garnet of Alexandria and becoming a wanted felon. His boss, who also beat Zidane as a kid, supposedly wants to hold Garnet for ransom, but Zidane just wants to get his freak on with her. Well, that may not have been such a great idea, because hanging out with Garnet is a determent to Zidane's well-being.

This kidnapping scheme soon turns into a revelation that Zidane's an alien from another planet (Terra) sent to this one (Gaia) because... some old guy thought it was a good idea. Or something. Whatever the reason, Zidane is part of a race that normally has no personality or emotion, of which the only other person like him is an in-the-closet weapons dealer named Kuja.

But, Zidane says “fuck it” to both of them, kills the old man, and lets Kuja get eaten by a tree. And, in the end, he gets to bang Garnet after she becomes queen. So, it's not all bad for the alien with a monkey tail that was abused as a child.

9 – Crono (Chrono Trigger)

Crono was just your average kid who, despite being a complete mute, overcame his handicap to become skilled with a weapon nobody else in the game uses, plus he grew a nice batch of spiky red hair. His life already sounding like a made-for-TV movie, Crono and two hot chicks are thrown through time where they discover a Giant Alien Spiny Hedgehog-Crab Thing of Doom known as Lavos will destroy the Earth in the year 1999.

If you're wondering why the news in 1999 made no reports of a  Giant Alien Spiny Hedgehog-Crab Thing of Doom killing everybody, that's because Crono and his buddies ended up destroying it and restoring the timelines. But not before Crono himself was killed.

Yes, the main character of this RPG decided to sacrifice his own life in order to save his friends from Lavos. Okay, really, he was just blown to pieces, but Crono was far too important (cough) to let die. So, thanks to a Guru of Time, a lengthy quest and a few deus ex machina, Crono is brought back from the dead to fight Lavos again, as well as clean up a few other nagging problems. Like a giant floating ship, an evil computer, and even a political conspiracy.

So, he had humble beginnings, died to save a whole bunch of people, then went around solving the world's problems. In other words, Crono became Jesus.

But with slightly better hair.

8 – Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy VIII)

This cold, distant gunblade-wielding loner is often quoted as the least-liked hero in the Final Fantasy series. And it's really easy to see why.

Squall was originally a pretty happy kid in an orphanage (a phrase you don't hear all that often) because of an emotional attachment to an “older sister” kind of figure. And once she's taken away from him, he becomes emotionally detached from the rest of the world, also becoming really annoying in the process. Remember, you can't spell “emotional detachment” without “emo.”

Thanks to some incredibly awkward in-game cutscenes and J-pop, Squall eventually gets a girlfriend, a lady named Rinoa who borderline stalks Squall until he finally gives up and goes out with her. But even she acknowledges that he really needs to stop being so glum about missing his “sis” and get happy, goddammit.

Frankly, Squall gets what he deserves: a bunch of people yelling at him to lighten up.

7 – Genis Sage (Tales of Symphonia)

In Tales of Symphonia, being a half-elf is less preferable than being strapped down to a hospital bed and stabbed in the face with used hypodermic needles. And half-elves tend to take acceptance and compassion anywhere they can get it, no matter how twisted it might be.

Which is why it's not that much of a shock when Genis, a half-elf, finds out that his only half-elf friend, Mithos, is the game's main antagonist in disguise.

Genis might not have been so shocked at this if it wasn't for a few key facts. Namely, that Mithos has created human ranches where countless people are killed and used as slave labor for experiments. That's a start. Among said slave labor is an old lady that Genis befriended who was turned into a monster, just because Genis happened to talk with her. Plus, Mithos deliberately created a system where two separate worlds have to vie for a small amount of resources, with one world doing well and the other left to rot, keeping the fine citizens of both worlds in the dark about the whole thing. He caused thousands of years of meaningless sacrifices and endless toil, just in case he wasn't already being evil enough.

And as the final kick in the balls, Mithos is doing all of this just to save his sister.

Genis gets to absorb all of this at once, too, with his friend Lloyd trying to save both worlds and Mithos content to destroying them both. Suddenly, there's one house less to have a sleepover at.

6 – The Hero (Fable)

Having your home destroyed is kind of standard fare in RPGs. But one man, Jack of Blades, goes so far out of his way to be an asshole to The Hero in Fable, that destroying a town seems like the least of Jack's offenses against him.

The Hero thinks his family members died, but they didn't. His sister was blinded and turned into a seeress, and his mother was thrown in jail. It's only after slicing up some people in an arena that The Hero finds out where his mother is (though why his seeress sister didn't just tell him is anybody's guess), only to get thrown in jail by Jack. Then, after getting out of jail, his sister gets kidnapped again (though why she didn't see that coming is also anybody's guess).

By then, The Hero has made it his life's mission to kill Jack, by any means necessary, good or evil. And when The Hero turns evil, he goes around killing a whole bunch of other people that have nothing to do with this, just because being evil is so much more awesome.

So really, this is a time where a bad day for one guy turned into a bad day for everybody.

5 – Cyan (Final Fantasy VI)

Cyan's story in Final Fantasy VI reads like Murphy's Law was invented just for him.

A sick psychopath named Kefka poisons the water supply to his kingdom, killing everyone but him and one nondescript guard, including Cyan's wife and child. He manages to see them going to the afterlife in a ghost train, saying their goodbyes which are eventually drowned out by the train's whistle.

Sure, it makes absolutely no sense, but Cyan gets to have his heart broken again. Truly, it's saying something when game developers invent a completely pointless part of the plot, potentially opening up lots of plot holes and leaving even more unanswered questions, just to make sure one character gets to suffer.

Not long after, the world comes to an end, and Kefka becomes a god. Cyan manages to survive, but starts writing letters and sending silk flowers to some lonely woman in the most awkward shift from honorable warrior to perverted stalker ever. Then, his sense of self-loathing catches up to him, and a demon invades his brain and constantly mentally tortures him.

And what's Cyan's big reward for persevering through all of this? Nothing, really. He doesn't die at the game's conclusion, but really, after fighting Kefka, demons and the game developers, there's not much he has left to live for. Except maybe a nice, long train ride.

4 – Tellah (Final Fantasy IV)

Getting old sucks. Being old sucks worse. Just ask Tellah.

His daughter, Anna, ran off with a spoony bard named Edward, from the kingdom of Damcyan. Following the RPG-stated mandate of fathers never approving of relationships, he goes to find her. He finally locates her, only to have his only passage to her blocked by a giant fucking octopus.

Luckily, the game's protagonist, Cecil, helps Tellah defeat the nautical abomination before God, allowing the old man to get to Damcyan. Unluckily, it's at that exact moment that the castle Anna is in gets the holy hell blown out of it by a fleet of airships. Rushing in, Tellah then gets to watch his daughter die right before his eyes, confessing that she loved Edward and was pretty much sick of the old guy, anyway.

Following another RPG-stated mandate of vowing revenge, Tellah gains the power of the ultimate black spell, Meteor; a spell so powerful, he can't even cast it in the game, because he never gains enough MP to use it, further cementing how useless Tellah really is.

He goes after Golbez, the one who ordered the airship attack on Damcyan. Coming face-to-face with Golbez, Tellah uses Meteor through sheer force of will, causing Tellah to die of exhaustion after pushing his brittle old man body too hard. But, he gets one last “sucks to be you” when Golbez is barely even fazed by Meteor. All it did was break the hypnotic hold over one of Cecil's friends.

Tellah lost his daughter to a prince, then lost her to an airship raid, lost a one-on-one duel with her killer, and lost his life right after. Not how you want your epic tale of revenge to go down.

3 – Tidus (Final Fantasy X)

Imagine everything you've ever known, ever seen, ever heard, and ever loved. Now give yourself a good punch to the teeth and throw all that out the window.

That's what happens to Tidus.

This guy lost his father ten years ago in what he thought was a shipwreck, but it turns out he was actually lost in a journey through time and space to become a massive, unstoppable killing machine known only as “Sin.” Honest mistake.

Tidus eventually learns that he's nothing but a dream, and his city, all the people he's ever known, and even his father are dreams too. The city was really destroyed a thousand years ago during a war in which Sin was created. And all of those dreams will end once Sin is killed. Which means that Tidus will no longer exist. Which will only happen after Tidus kills his own father.

And of course, that's exactly what happens. Couple all that with a woman who falls in love with Tidus having to defeat Sin right beside him, and you have a man who has, almost literally, been given a giant middle finger for a millennium.

2 – Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)

Things have sucked for Cloud Strife right from the very beginning. Cloud worked alongside a guy named Sephiroth, someone Cloud looked up to as a kid. Both Cloud and Sephiroth were a part of SOLDIER, a military group that serves Shinra, an electric company. Yes, a power company gets its own army. This is what happens when globalization goes unchecked, kids!

Anyways, Sephiroth eventually goes nuts and destroys Cloud's hometown, then disappears. After a whole lot more shit goes down, Cloud, it turns out, is a clone of Sephiroth. And you know all that stuff about Cloud's hometown being destroyed? Yeah, those weren't even his memories. They were someone else's. All of Cloud's friends, family, and memories are from some other guy's life.

That would suck bad enough, but Sephiroth then has to go and stab Aerith, someone Cloud actually cares about, through the stomach. And just to make sure Cloud has an emo moment or two, Sephiroth takes control of Cloud at a few points in the game, making Cloud hand him the key to victory, while giving Cloud a nice mind fuck for all the trouble he went through.

So how could it possibly get worse than handing a victory to your enemy, who happens to be a former mentor, against your will and having an innocent person die?

1 – Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)

How about handing a victory to your enemy, who happens to be a former mentor, against your will and having 10,000 innocent people die? Yeah, that could be worse.

Luke fon Fabre is a complete ignorant, arrogant, boisterous, spoiled asshole when the game first begins. He expects the world to revolve around him, is completely obnoxious to everybody, and even abuses small animals. Why? Because he can. Anyone who plays this game just waits for him to get his comeuppance, and when he finally does, it turns into the worst “bad day” in RPG history for him.

Luke the Astounding Douchebag is tricked into believing he'll be a hero by Van, the man who trained Luke on the sword. Sure, Van's request is pretty easy to see through, and he dropped hints about things he shouldn't have otherwise known frequently enough. But Luke goes along with it anyway, because “Master Van would never do anything mean to me!”

This is an RPG. Of course he would.

Van uses Luke to make a pillar that held up a town collapse, sending it and everyone in it into a giant ocean of poison below, including a little kid who screams “it hurts!” as he drowns, just to make absolutely sure that Luke knows he's a fucking moron. But of course, this isn't HIS fault, Luke keeps maintaining. It's Van's fault! Not even Luke's party members buy into his bullshit, and leave him to rant and whine on his own.

At this point, Luke must have said the magic words “What else can go wrong?” off-screen somewhere, because things continue to spiral down the shitter for him. Once his party gets to a town in this ocean of poison, he finds out that he's a clone of one of the game's antagonists, Asch. So Luke fights Asch, and naturally gets his rich, spoiled ass whipped. When Luke wakes up next, Asch has taken Luke's subconscious into his head, so Luke can see himself knocked out and laying helpless in bed.

So, let's review: Luke accidentally killed ten thousand people, destroyed a town, and was sent to an ocean of deadly poison. He was betrayed by his teacher, shunned by his friends, told he was a clone of someone he hates, lost miserably in a fight, then shown his own unconscious body and mocked constantly, just to fuck with him.

By the way, after that's over, Luke also develops a massive inferiority complex and contemplates killing himself several times, including trying a mass suicide attempt.

Suddenly, Cloud looks like he got off easy.