4. Hybrid Heaven (N64)
Though Hybrid Heaven did decently in Japan, it bombed hard in the western world. This JRPG/action title for N64 followed the adventures of some kind of secret agent as he.....um....investigated.....um a secret lab, I think? And, there were bad guys. And, someone was a robot in the end. Or, were they a clone? It's all kind of fuzzy, as Hybrid Heaven's subtitles and extremely convoluted narrative style made the story almost impossible to follow. Despite that, the game was still extremely fun. The basic idea was that you control a very muscular Brock Sampson looking secret agent, who uses a bubble gun(?) or something to shoot out cameras, and then body slams monsters. Yeah, the last part really sold the game. As you ran from room to room in an underground facility, you were constantly under attack by monsters of some kind. But, rather than using a dynamic combat system that would have actually fit with the game's 3rd person roaming style, the developers decided to use a kind of turn based pro wrestling combat system. The idea was that each time an enemy attacked you, you would enter a combat mode. The combat would then consist of the opponents waiting for their energy to charge (which gave attacks more power, and increased defensive ability) then hit a button to begin attack mode. THEN, you would choose a ridiculous wrestling move like power bomb, back suplex, or arm toss from an equally ridiculous list of attacks. THEN, the attack would commence and you would wait as the computer did that math and played the combat animation. God, it was convoluted, but GOD it was funny as hell to play. It was like being the guy in a rubber suit in a Japanese monster movie. Not surprisingly, Hybrid Heaven was not hailed as the next big game by reviewers. In fact, they let everyone know how much it sucked, and by their actions prevented countless youths from just pissing themselves with laughter.