Developers just need to actually sit down and think about what would make the end of their game climactic.
Most just default to "Let's make a single enemy super rediculous!" and it's a boss fight.
Some games might benefit from having some big dramatic event happen, or a large scale city destroying battle against hordes of enemies.
Some might benefit from ending with a wimper instead of a bang.
That was one reason why I really loved the last level of Halo.
No boss battle, just one long, nerve-wracking drive to get off of the damn ring. Of course, now I know that the first ship explodes, but man, that first time through, I was just so happy to have made it to "safety" that I didn't notice the large amount of time left on the timer. Then the sucker gets shot out of the sky, Cortana tells me there's another ship somewhere else, and I'm like OHFUCKOHFUCK BACK TO THE WARTHOG FUCK YOU BANSHEES THANKS A LOT. Then I made it in sight of the ship, felt some relief, and then noticed the roadblock and started cursing again as I got out and run-and-gunned my way to the end. Great finish.
It's really such a great game in so many ways, but on the two occasions I've tried to play through it (keep in mind that I picked it up the day it came out), I get to the part with the fucking Triforce shards, declare "fuck this shit," and leave it be.
Which sucks, because I'd love to finish it someday, but I fucking hate sailing around that damn ocean.
That's exactly when I stopped. And it's not even like travel is that bad, since I can teleport at that point and give myself whatever wind I need, but finding a bunch of triforce shards is not as fun as discovering new islands with unique themes.
Pokemon Diamond...I liked the first two Pokemon game(s), and this one was my first one since Blue. I played the first hour or so and sorta enjoyed it, but I don't feel motivated to pick it up, mostly because I already played it years ago. I am literally amazed at how little it has changed.
Oh God Wild Arms is so good. Why not read a FAQ to know where to go?
I've tried! I seriously cannot figure out what I need to do and I've pored over every FAQ I could find. I was planning to just pick up Wild ARMs Alter COde F instead, especially since I throughly enjoyed Wild ARMs 3, but apparently they royally botched the localization
On principle, I won't show any support if they won't put up for a decent localization effort, 'cuz it's been 20 years and some developers still haven't learned.
Other games I may never finish:
Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon - I keep getting new mods, more to do, more distractions.
Fallout - Keep trying and failing for the nonviolence ending.
Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Civilization 3 - I purposely threw these games in the trash within 48 hours after first playing them--the only games I have ever gotten rid of. For the first two, I found the UI was designed by my polar opposite and the difficulty was absolutely insane, whereas with Civ 3 it went into the trash the minute I found out that, after the pure awesome that was Civ2, a trio of cavemen could once again destroy a TANK.
Xenosaga - Spells "boring to play"; it should have been an animated movie. Few years later, I get my wish; the whole game is played-through on Youtube, along with its 2 sequels.
SaGa Frontier/Frontier 2 - I love/hate this series. It could be good, but is ultimately so damnably, completely, and utterly random that any enjoyment from the rest of it is sucked away.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life - I liked the farming part of the sim, not the relationship game, and that hasn't been the focus since the last GameBoy Harvest Moon.
Oh, I just thought of another one. Metal Gear Solid (the original).
I guess I technically have finished it, but that was using cheats and when I was like.. 9, and sucked at stealth games, so I don't really count that as finishing it (I skipped through half the story because I had the highest level keycard in my inventory from the start).
I was loving this game when I came across a mission that involved taking down a shield that protected a seige cannon. Tried it many MANY times, with cheats as well and simply could not complete it. Great game, but I don't know how that mission go through play testing...
2. Prey
Got Bored, not interested enough to finish it...
3. Enchanted Arms
Got boring, same enemies with different colors... Great game otherwise.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited August 2007
To be honest? Most of the games I've played are unfinished business. I consider completed to be acheiving the goals I set for myself when I first start playing. The only 3 games I could consider fully completed are Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy and Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (not expansion). I ripped those games apart and fed on their delicious juices.
Every other game I simply haven't completed what I wanted to complete, so its not done.
There's a depressing amount of them and a lot of them I haven't even finished the story or campaign for.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
There's Morrowind, which I compulsively restart whenever I seem to be making progress.
Icewind Dale 2; I can never decide on party composition. The farthest I've made it is to the start of the Ice Temple, but even then, that was with a solo character.
I was having fun with TLJ, until I came across a roadblock and moved on to other things. I think I had made it past the chaos storm.
The same thing happened with Torment. I'd found out about the night hag, but couldn't figure out how to make it into the foundry. I'm not looking to be spoiler'd on this one.
Shadows of Undrentide; I always play a halfling bard with Dorna as my companion. It's a horrible combination, I know, which is why I've never finished. I've ventured around the flying city, but I've never managed to complete the Three Winds quest. This is also the reason why I haven't started HotU.
I encountered a game-breaking bug near the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and never bothered to restart. I'll probably pick that up again in a couple years, hopefully when GSC puts out a few more patches.
Disgaea. I don't even remember where I was in terms of the story, maybe chapter 7? I spend too much time in the Item World.
That's probably all of them. I'm pretty good at finishing games, if I have the time to.
Arcanum: Combat got really boring AND annoying (I was a technology 100% character) and when
Virgil disappeared and took a bunch of my crap and I couldn't be bothered to track his whiny ass down
I just decided "whatever" and went and read what happens in the story online, since that's what I really cared about.
KOTOR2: I played it to the end, but the devs forgot to finish it so I never could! Although Team Gizka's working on it.
Deus Ex 2: I never actually owned the game, just played it at my friend's house, so someday I'll buy it off of Steam, but for now I'm content to replay the first one.
RPGs. I actually realised today that i've never finished an RPG. I've played:
FFVII (started levelling up to fight all the different Weapons, got bored, stopped)
FFVIII (rented it a few times, got bored)
FFX (Blitzball appealed more than the main game, lost interest)
KOTOR (managed to find the one path that meant i couldn't finish the game, never went back to try again)
Fable (probably bought something else about half-way through, actually started again recently, hope i'll finish it..)
System Shock 2 (seem to get to the same point every time, then just forget about it)
Oblivion (get sidetracked, get upset by my framerate, play something else)
Anyone seeing a pattern? I think my attention span is getting progressively worse
i do, but firstly, i think i've long-since lost that save, and i tend to be a bit of a completionist. I like to try and do as much as i can from each playthrough, which i think ultimately leads to my giving up. It's like i see a list of potential tasks, and my brain just shears in half.
I'm another in the crowd of those who haven't finished WW.
"Now hunt for 5,000 maps in random places, then pay 5,000 rupees to get each one translated, now actually look for the shards themselves, now maybe you can fight Gannon again"
I'm another in the crowd of those who haven't finished WW.
"Now hunt for 5,000 maps in random places, then pay 5,000 rupees to get each one translated, now actually look for the shards themselves, now maybe you can fight Gannon again"
Too bad, though, one of my favorite endings in a game.
All rolling and dodging and 'wait, that animation looks dif...OH MY FUCKING GOD!'
That's exactly when I stopped. And it's not even like travel is that bad, since I can teleport at that point and give myself whatever wind I need, but finding a bunch of triforce shards is not as fun as discovering new islands with unique themes.
Really, for me, not only did I not fucking care about the Tri-Force shards, it's that the game wanted you to find individual maps that you had to take to Tingle so that you could then find the Tri-Force shards.
Rrraarrrghh! Like I said, I got the game the day it came out, got to that part, put it down for four years, and tried again this past winter. I had forgotten how utterly stupid I think the shard-hunt is, and put it down for the same reason. Maybe someday I'll just use a faq to get through that part.
Basically, I hate it when games make me go through some totally asinine motions just in order to achieve some other arbitrary task. I'm having the same trouble right now with Super Paper Mario - love the game, but man, fuck having to run around flipside to find the damn heart towers. Just let me go to the next fucking level already!
Pokemon Diamond...I liked the first two Pokemon game(s), and this one was my first one since Blue. I played the first hour or so and sorta enjoyed it, but I don't feel motivated to pick it up, mostly because I already played it years ago. I am literally amazed at how little it has changed.
I had sort of a similar problem with Pearl. I was super into it for a couple weeks after its release, then I put it down for almost two months. This past weekend I suddenly got into it again and spent hours battling and stuff, but I still only have like four of the gym badges. Pokemon has its own quirks that drive me crazy, and it is kind of dissapointing that none of them have been taken care of since the last game in the series I played (Blue). I despise battling in any kind of non-normal weather, because they make you sit through the "Rain continues to fall" screen after every turn! Ridiculous!
I think that, ultimately, the thing that turns me off a game the fastest is when I just have no idea what it is I'm supposed to do next. I hate that shit. It inevitably happens to me in every Zelda game I play, and everyone in those games is useless when it comes to guiding you along; I'm also really bad on picking up on whatever esoteric hints everyone gives you. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do and we'll be golden.
Most of my unfinished games are unfinished because too many good games have come out recently. I still have to finish Izuna, Tales of Phantasia, Etrian Odyssey, Megaman ZX and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. I've only given up on one game because it was too hard. Metroid Fusion. All that crazy hard dash linking just to get a 100% items is cruel.
I'm another in the crowd of those who haven't finished WW.
"Now hunt for 5,000 maps in random places, then pay 5,000 rupees to get each one translated, now actually look for the shards themselves, now maybe you can fight Gannon again"
The Triforce hunt is nothing compared to completing the Nintendo Gallery. I actually stopped playing when I found out what figurine I was missing (this was towards the end of a New Game+).
I finish just about every game I buy, assuming the game interests me enough to put actual attention into it; many games fail to wow me early on and get abandoned as a result, but luckily those are borrowed and not purchased (I buy only what I know I will love).
Two exceptions to this are both late-N64 Rare titles: Jet Force Gemini and Donkey Kong 64. The former I gave up on when I was forced to successfully navigate an "optional" Floyd mission in order to get a ship part; the latter I abandoned -- after much tedious trudging and making it up to King Kut-Out in the penultimate level -- because I learned that I needed to get the Nintendo Coin in order to finish, and my Original Donkey Kong skillz would not stand for that torture.
Ninety Nine Nights, the game is just so fucking annoying, you play a level for roughly 30 minutes without any checkpoints and then the guy at the end 1 shots you and it gets so repetitive just mashing X over and over again, good thing I'm trading it in soon for money
Gears of War, I just didn't think it was good and never really had any interest in it when I got my 360, I had more fun playing Hitman Blood Money.
Also Lego Star Wars, another game that just annoyed me.
Prince of Persia Rival Swords, it sucks and just has annoying controls.
Ninety Nine Nights, the game is just so fucking annoying, you play a level for roughly 30 minutes without any checkpoints and then the guy at the end 1 shots you and it gets so repetitive just mashing X over and over again, good thing I'm trading it in soon for money
Gears of War, I just didn't think it was good and never really had any interest in it when I got my 360, I had more fun playing Hitman Blood Money.
Also Lego Star Wars, another game that just annoyed me.
Prince of Persia Rival Swords, it sucks and just has annoying controls.
So by like you mean hated, right? Because I think it goes without saying: if you don't enjoy the game, you're probably not going to finish it.
Final Fantasy VII. PC version, unavoidable crash when you hit the first Weapon intro video. Never wanted to make the time investment to re-play what I'd done and finish it.
Twilight Princess. Got it on launch day, plowed through most of it, but for some reason I left it at the city in the sky. I think it's better knowing that I can always go back and play more of the game, rather than finishing it.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
The only Final Fantasy game I've ever completed is the first one.
I've only finished parts 1, 3, 7, and 9. To my shame I STILL haven't completed parts 5 and 6, but especially 6 because I've given a lot of effort to it and just drop it. That's happened probably five or so times now. Oh, not to mention that part 6 is among the most revered in the series.
Final Fantasy VII. PC version, unavoidable crash when you hit the first Weapon intro video. Never wanted to make the time investment to re-play what I'd done and finish it..
First time I ever played FF7 was on the PC. I feel your pain.
EVERY CGI cutscene was accompanied by a game freeze. I had to open and close the disk tray 20 to 30 times, and sometimes the scene would play. Other times, I would have to load my game, get to the scene, and repeat opening and closing the tray untill the video played.
Every minigame lagged so bad it was nearly unplayable.
Despite all that I loved it and managed to beat it.
So was this thread title a joke, or a hilarious coincidence?
Anyway, I've always loved FF4, but never could beat Zeromus. And by that point, I just don't feel like leveling up anymore. Same with 7 and 9, for that matter.
Posts
It's really such a great game in so many ways, but on the two occasions I've tried to play through it (keep in mind that I picked it up the day it came out), I get to the part with the fucking Triforce shards, declare "fuck this shit," and leave it be.
Which sucks, because I'd love to finish it someday, but I fucking hate sailing around that damn ocean.
I've tried! I seriously cannot figure out what I need to do and I've pored over every FAQ I could find. I was planning to just pick up Wild ARMs Alter COde F instead, especially since I throughly enjoyed Wild ARMs 3, but apparently they royally botched the localization
On principle, I won't show any support if they won't put up for a decent localization effort, 'cuz it's been 20 years and some developers still haven't learned.
Other games I may never finish:
Morrowind/Tribunal/Bloodmoon - I keep getting new mods, more to do, more distractions.
Fallout - Keep trying and failing for the nonviolence ending.
Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Civilization 3 - I purposely threw these games in the trash within 48 hours after first playing them--the only games I have ever gotten rid of. For the first two, I found the UI was designed by my polar opposite and the difficulty was absolutely insane, whereas with Civ 3 it went into the trash the minute I found out that, after the pure awesome that was Civ2, a trio of cavemen could once again destroy a TANK.
Xenosaga - Spells "boring to play"; it should have been an animated movie. Few years later, I get my wish; the whole game is played-through on Youtube, along with its 2 sequels.
SaGa Frontier/Frontier 2 - I love/hate this series. It could be good, but is ultimately so damnably, completely, and utterly random that any enjoyment from the rest of it is sucked away.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life - I liked the farming part of the sim, not the relationship game, and that hasn't been the focus since the last GameBoy Harvest Moon.
PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
I guess I technically have finished it, but that was using cheats and when I was like.. 9, and sucked at stealth games, so I don't really count that as finishing it (I skipped through half the story because I had the highest level keycard in my inventory from the start).
I can't play it now because I don't have a copy
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I was loving this game when I came across a mission that involved taking down a shield that protected a seige cannon. Tried it many MANY times, with cheats as well and simply could not complete it. Great game, but I don't know how that mission go through play testing...
2. Prey
Got Bored, not interested enough to finish it...
3. Enchanted Arms
Got boring, same enemies with different colors... Great game otherwise.
Every other game I simply haven't completed what I wanted to complete, so its not done.
There's a depressing amount of them and a lot of them I haven't even finished the story or campaign for.
i don't want the magic to end
But does that game count when you don't have the money to buy it?
Am taking donations.
LIZ: Different.
VOICE-OVER: It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life.
Oh God why did you have to remind me
I have not yet beaten Shadow of the Colossus and I've had it for over a year now
And it makes me sad
Wii: 5024 6786 2934 2806 | Steam/XBL: Arcibi | FFXI: Arcibi / Bahamut
There's Morrowind, which I compulsively restart whenever I seem to be making progress.
Icewind Dale 2; I can never decide on party composition. The farthest I've made it is to the start of the Ice Temple, but even then, that was with a solo character.
I was having fun with TLJ, until I came across a roadblock and moved on to other things. I think I had made it past the chaos storm.
The same thing happened with Torment. I'd found out about the night hag, but couldn't figure out how to make it into the foundry. I'm not looking to be spoiler'd on this one.
Shadows of Undrentide; I always play a halfling bard with Dorna as my companion. It's a horrible combination, I know, which is why I've never finished. I've ventured around the flying city, but I've never managed to complete the Three Winds quest. This is also the reason why I haven't started HotU.
I encountered a game-breaking bug near the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and never bothered to restart. I'll probably pick that up again in a couple years, hopefully when GSC puts out a few more patches.
Disgaea. I don't even remember where I was in terms of the story, maybe chapter 7? I spend too much time in the Item World.
That's probably all of them. I'm pretty good at finishing games, if I have the time to.
I just decided "whatever" and went and read what happens in the story online, since that's what I really cared about.
KOTOR2: I played it to the end, but the devs forgot to finish it so I never could! Although Team Gizka's working on it.
Deus Ex 2: I never actually owned the game, just played it at my friend's house, so someday I'll buy it off of Steam, but for now I'm content to replay the first one.
All those games, sitting there, unfinished. It can be intimidating.
There are some games like Halo, Gears, and Mario that are a must finish but all others just sit there until I pick up and replay.
And every Wii game I own I haven't passed the first level. Zelda, Paper, ect. Nothing ...
LIZ: Different.
VOICE-OVER: It's September 24th, I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life.
I...haven't finished Gears.
I'm so ashamed.
I have a pile of about 100 games left to finish because of this reason alone.
Edit: A while back I decided to stop buying new games and first finish every game I have. The number of games left to finish went down about 75.
Still 100 left though.
AniList
FFVII (started levelling up to fight all the different Weapons, got bored, stopped)
FFVIII (rented it a few times, got bored)
FFX (Blitzball appealed more than the main game, lost interest)
KOTOR (managed to find the one path that meant i couldn't finish the game, never went back to try again)
Fable (probably bought something else about half-way through, actually started again recently, hope i'll finish it..)
System Shock 2 (seem to get to the same point every time, then just forget about it)
Oblivion (get sidetracked, get upset by my framerate, play something else)
Anyone seeing a pattern? I think my attention span is getting progressively worse
"Now hunt for 5,000 maps in random places, then pay 5,000 rupees to get each one translated, now actually look for the shards themselves, now maybe you can fight Gannon again"
Too bad, though, one of my favorite endings in a game.
Really, for me, not only did I not fucking care about the Tri-Force shards, it's that the game wanted you to find individual maps that you had to take to Tingle so that you could then find the Tri-Force shards.
Rrraarrrghh! Like I said, I got the game the day it came out, got to that part, put it down for four years, and tried again this past winter. I had forgotten how utterly stupid I think the shard-hunt is, and put it down for the same reason. Maybe someday I'll just use a faq to get through that part.
Basically, I hate it when games make me go through some totally asinine motions just in order to achieve some other arbitrary task. I'm having the same trouble right now with Super Paper Mario - love the game, but man, fuck having to run around flipside to find the damn heart towers. Just let me go to the next fucking level already!
I had sort of a similar problem with Pearl. I was super into it for a couple weeks after its release, then I put it down for almost two months. This past weekend I suddenly got into it again and spent hours battling and stuff, but I still only have like four of the gym badges. Pokemon has its own quirks that drive me crazy, and it is kind of dissapointing that none of them have been taken care of since the last game in the series I played (Blue). I despise battling in any kind of non-normal weather, because they make you sit through the "Rain continues to fall" screen after every turn! Ridiculous!
I think that, ultimately, the thing that turns me off a game the fastest is when I just have no idea what it is I'm supposed to do next. I hate that shit. It inevitably happens to me in every Zelda game I play, and everyone in those games is useless when it comes to guiding you along; I'm also really bad on picking up on whatever esoteric hints everyone gives you. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do and we'll be golden.
The Triforce hunt is nothing compared to completing the Nintendo Gallery. I actually stopped playing when I found out what figurine I was missing (this was towards the end of a New Game+).
Two exceptions to this are both late-N64 Rare titles: Jet Force Gemini and Donkey Kong 64. The former I gave up on when I was forced to successfully navigate an "optional" Floyd mission in order to get a ship part; the latter I abandoned -- after much tedious trudging and making it up to King Kut-Out in the penultimate level -- because I learned that I needed to get the Nintendo Coin in order to finish, and my Original Donkey Kong skillz would not stand for that torture.
Growlanser Generations, Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis, Baldur's Gate 2, System Shock 2. All these fucking huge games, blargh.
Gears of War, I just didn't think it was good and never really had any interest in it when I got my 360, I had more fun playing Hitman Blood Money.
Also Lego Star Wars, another game that just annoyed me.
Prince of Persia Rival Swords, it sucks and just has annoying controls.
XBL, Steam & Tribes: elmartino333
So by like you mean hated, right? Because I think it goes without saying: if you don't enjoy the game, you're probably not going to finish it.
Twilight Princess. Got it on launch day, plowed through most of it, but for some reason I left it at the city in the sky. I think it's better knowing that I can always go back and play more of the game, rather than finishing it.
I've only finished parts 1, 3, 7, and 9. To my shame I STILL haven't completed parts 5 and 6, but especially 6 because I've given a lot of effort to it and just drop it. That's happened probably five or so times now. Oh, not to mention that part 6 is among the most revered in the series.
First time I ever played FF7 was on the PC. I feel your pain.
EVERY CGI cutscene was accompanied by a game freeze. I had to open and close the disk tray 20 to 30 times, and sometimes the scene would play. Other times, I would have to load my game, get to the scene, and repeat opening and closing the tray untill the video played.
Every minigame lagged so bad it was nearly unplayable.
Despite all that I loved it and managed to beat it.
Anyway, I've always loved FF4, but never could beat Zeromus. And by that point, I just don't feel like leveling up anymore. Same with 7 and 9, for that matter.