Shangri-La Frontier: A Crappy Game Hunter Takes on a Godly Game - is a rather unusual work, having been serialized as a comic in Weekly Shonen Magazine without first being published as a light novel on Let's Become a Novelist - and is set to be adapted into an anime starting in October 2023. The main character is a crappy game hunter who loves crappy games with unreasonable difficulty and lots of bugs, and the story follows this protagonist as he goes on a rampage in an undeniably godly game. However, some of the crappy games in the story seem to follow the history of crappy games, so you'll enjoy it more if you know what a crappy game is. So today, I'd like to introduce some of the best crappy games that have made their mark in real life!
Shitty Game #1: Death Crimson
This gun shooting game was released by Ecole Software on August 9, 1996. It was played on the Sega Saturn and could be played using a gun controller. However, due to its incredibly poor controls, high difficulty, poor graphics, an opening filled with amusing gags, and a wide range of options, it's considered a legendary shitty game. This game is so crappy it has gained a cult following, spawning sequels, collaboration merchandise, and even an elaborate parody by Pop Team Epic, making it one of the most crappy games of all time.
Crappy Game No. 2: 48 (tentative title)
This horror adventure game was released by Banpresto on November 22, 2007, for the PS2. It's based on urban legends from each of Japan's 47 prefectures. It lacks features that would be expected in an adventure game of that era, like auto mode or backlog, and it lacks the essential storyline, not even urban legends. The storyline is also extremely short, with some parts not even developing into horror. In some of the worst episodes, the story ends with just a single photo. Furthermore, there are bugs that cause a white border to appear on the screen and never go away, as well as frequent freezing, making this a once-in-a-decade crap game. The release of this game led to a major change in the standards of the KOTY awards, which determine the worst game of the year, and this event is now commonly referred to as the "48 Shock."
Crap Game #3: Final Sword
This open-world action RPG was released by HUPGames on July 2, 2020. It's a download-only game for the Nintendo Switch. It's an asset-flipping game that combines commercially available assets, and the graphics are surprisingly low quality for this era. This game has been talked about as a classic crap game, with elements such as poor game balance, crap decisions that are clearly hit but aren't (commonly known as "Final Decisions"), and unreasonable boss battles. However, while it's crap, it's not unplayable, and it's also praised as a hilarious crap game, with strange dialogue (commonly known as "Final Quotations") resulting from poor translation. It's also known as "The Game Jinnai Plays on Entertainment," and Jinnai himself has played it on YouTube.
Crap Game #4: Satomi's Mystery
This is a recommended RPG released by Suntec Japan on December 6, 1996. The game is for the PlayStation. The protagonist picks up a strange pot and goes crazy, causing his mother to see the pot and cry out "This pot!" in a frenzy. The next day, he disappears and never returns. The game is famous for its crazy storyline, which is enough to satisfy even just the opening scene. The graphics and character design make you feel uneasy, and the essential system is difficult to get into and understand. When the game was released, the manufacturer arbitrarily affixed recommended stickers to copies of Satomi no Nazo and sold them, and copies of Satomi no Nazo with recommended stickers are now highly sought after.
Crap Game #5: Kamen Rider Summon Ride
This action game was released by Bandai Namco Games on December 4, 2014. It was the well-known Kamen Rider action game, a new era of rider gameplay in which players summoned riders by reading figurines and chips from a special device called a Ride Gate. However, the essential figurines, with the exception of certain figures that came with the game, were sold separately. Furthermore, there were areas that were off-limits without the separately sold figurines, and since figurines equal remaining lives, the game required a brutal pay-to-play system. The game's unreasonably difficult nature meant that the difficulty level would skyrocket if players didn't pay. This game established a new style of full-price software with its brutal in-game purchase system, bringing a breath of fresh air to the world of crappy games.
Crappy Game #6: Zico Soccer
This soccer game was released by Electronic Arts Victor in 1994 for the Super Famicom. It was apparently overseen by the legendary Zico, a former J.League player who joined the current Kashima Antlers at the age of 38 in the latter years of his career and played as a key player for the team. He also served as manager of the Japan national team, making a significant contribution to the development of the J.League. Instead of directly controlling your players, you control them with a cursor, similar to Clock Tower. This resulted in extremely poor controls and led to it being sold off as a crappy game. Because it was being sold at a discount, it's notorious for people buying cartridges cheaply, rewriting the contents, and selling it as a different game.
Crazy Game #7: Takedown: Red Saber
This FPS was released by 505Games on September 20, 2013, for Windows and Xbox 360. This game was funded through crowdfunding with the concept of creating a realistic, hardcore FPS. However, the end result was an FPS with an unreasonably difficult gameplay, featuring dumb AI allies who killed rescued hostages, enemies with overly advanced search and aim capabilities that made it impossible to tell where or who shot you.
Shitty Game #8: The Stargazer
This RPG was released by Hot-V on October 27, 1987, for the Family Computer. Due to its extremely high difficulty and unfriendliness, the game was said to be a grind just to complete. The first town cannot be seen with the naked eye, enemies that use the most powerful magic are encountered as a matter of course, and there is no command to escape, so you are instantly wiped out when you encounter them. Equipping a weapon leads to various problems that get you stuck, you cannot go back if you make a mistake in a command, there are no hints for important items needed to complete the game, the map's entrances and exits do not match, and you are warped to strange places. Due to a lack of explanation and bugs, the game was praised just for completing. However, the world view and setting are fascinating, and it was ported to the Switch in 2020.
Crappy Game No. 9: Chibi Maruko-chan's Great Allowance Strategy!
This RPG was released by Takara on December 7, 1990. It was for the Game Boy. Based on the popular anime Chibi Maruko-chan, the objective of the game is to collect money by playing mini-games with the townspeople so that Maruko can buy things she wants. Since what you're actually playing is a legitimate form of gambling, it's nicknamed "Gambling Apocalypse Marco." While there's some strategy involved, the game requires endless mini-games based on luck, and frequent nuisances like money confiscation and halving of savings require a great deal of mental fortitude to complete. There's also no save function, so if you're playing on a physical console, you'll need to be mindful of battery life.
[Shangri-La Frontier: A Crappy Game Hunter Challenges a Godly Game] A Compilation of Legendary Crappy Games
Since the protagonist of Shangri-La Frontier: A Crappy Game Hunter Challenges a Godly Game is a crappy game hunter, we've compiled a list of legendary crappy games! This work was adapted into an anime, and without these crappy games, the anime wouldn't have existed. Crappy games eventually led to the creation of masterpieces, so you could say it's all thanks to the release of crappy games. Some of the games featured in the series have similar crappy elements, so it might be fun to keep them in mind!
