So, I’m almost finished with one of my all-time white whales; Legend of the Dragoon.
The thing is, LoD is a straight-up-the-middle JRPG. I hate JRPGs. Turn-based combat never engaged me outside of sRPGs and strategy games. Random battles may be my least-favorite common video game feature, and grinding is a close second. I’ve had the game for almost 20 years, and every time I tried playing it in the past, I could not get past Disc 1.
But this time I stayed the course. Even though I didn’t like the genre, and the gameplay wasn’t my favorite, I forced myself to keep going and now I really love the game.
So my question is: have you ever ‘forced’ yourself to keep playing a game after you initially disliked it? Were you rewarded or did you end up wasting your time?
I love to complete games and feel like I have had value… Always so much to play though so I often move on to quick… Often though I give myself a right telling off for being like this, so then I try to force myself to complete some games, often just forcing my way through…
The most I’ll do is try to play a game that has a good reputation that I couldn’t get into previously. And that’s only if the developer has made other things I enjoy. But if I’m really not feeling it after a while I put it down.
That’s not to say I can’t slog through some terrible aspects of games that I otherwise enjoy. A lot of JRPGs have sections that are rather trying, but if I’m really feeling the game otherwise, I can invest time in getting through those parts.
If I get past the halfway mark on a game, I’ll usually struggle through it. Or if it’s part of a series. Most recently, I struggled through the back half of Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (cool game but gets very repetitive), and Sonic Adventure 1, which I had never played and now never need to again, lol.
This is me 90% of the time. If I drop a game it’ll probably be in the first hour or two. These days I probably bounce off more games than I complete, especially modern ones with insufferable tutorial and cinematic beginnings. If I’ve already made it a good way into the game, I usually finish it on principal.
The Messenger is a recent notable exception. I loved the first portion where it played like a linear platformer (I had just played Celeste and it reminded me of that game in some ways), but once the second part started, I dropped it pretty fast. I knew what was coming and I knew I wouldn’t like it as much, but in the end it just made me go back and play Ninja Gaiden.
I felt this way with Dragon Quest 7 on 3DS. I played it off and on for about a year until I finally finished it. A lot of the early quests are really well written and fun, and they feel very episodic. But near the end of the game, I was ready for it to be done. I clocked in just over 70 1/2 hours on it, and I didn’t do all of the optional stuff. The back half of the game could have been trimmed up significantly, as I felt that it dragged on and on. I felt a sense of satisfaction when I finally saw the end credits, but it was a slog to get there. At least now I can say I’ve cleared it.
This is sometimes tough, but oftentimes I feel like I’m falling into a sunk cost fallacy when trying to finish a game I got bored with.
I’m glad I got enjoyment out of it, but if I’m no longer doing that, than why continue? It probably also helps that I don’t usually play games for any type of story.
Rational me will do so if I suspect things will get better later on. For example, in a dungeon crawler RPG, one dungeon might be a long slog, but the ones after it won’t. Thankfully some uneven games are still good even at their low points - I’m a big fan of The Evil Within for that.
Irrational me will keep playing something to the end even if it isn’t that enjoyable just because skinner box mechanics, or psychological tricks which aren’t related to the game itself, have their hooks in me. Thankfully this happens far less often now and I can notice when a game is essentially making you do the same thing over and over without serving up anything new to master or to learn.
I think I had a similar moment to Bozo_Cyborg when I was playing Deadly Premonition. The OP mentions initial dislike, after all. I picked it up at a convention (Rising Star Games were there) without knowing anything about it other than it looked intriguing, was divisive and it was a new release. Despite it making a rather poor first impression I’m so glad I stuck with it and kept playing. I was quickly absorbed into playing the life of Agent York and couldn’t put the game down despite the rather poor shooting segments.
If its a game I’m going to review, yes. Otherwise no. I used to have a philosophy of if you start it, finish it. But I played through way too many assy games to stick with it. I think it was Tsuganai Atonement and its awful final battle that broke me.
Every now and then I’ll go and dig out a game I know is total crap just to see what it has to offer. In most cases, not much but every now and then you can see what the developers wanted to achieve but just didn’t have the tallent to pull it off.
I’m in line with @LordMrW. Used to tell myself I have to finish what I start, then I realized I was torturing myself considering the amount of games I had to experience.
A couple years ago, that mentality went out the window and I just focus on having fun now. Mostly replaying games that I enjoyed in the past or games that I’ve always wanted to play, but never gotten around to.
As a hobby, it’s best to keep it light. There’s enough stress in everyday life, I didn’t want my relaxing-time to have any restrictions!
Interesting! I’ve been tempted to pick it up as it got a fresh reprint here in Europe very recently, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to commit to the game, despite it already having been trimmed down from the PS1 version - or at least so I hear.
Would you still recommend it given it was a slog? I can’t remember who it was here but I remember VII having one big fan on this forum.
This is a very good question.
I tend to want go finish every game I start but there are a few which are so crap I really don’t bother. Games that are too hard I will leave for a few months or more then come back to them for another shot.
Yeah i still recommend it. Its kinda episodic, so you can drop in and out over time, thats what i did. I’d finish a town subquest then put it down for a while. Picking it up again later, i’d read through the quest log to refamiliarize myself and then go onto the next part of the main story.
I remember completing the PSP version of Earth Defense Force despite not really digging it. I mean, it was pretty fun for a short while, but it didn’t take long before I had my fill of it and it subsequently became a bit of a slog.
Nowadays I’ll only play an unenjoyable game to completion if it’s a relatively short experience, like an old arcade game for example.
Because I spent time as a professional reviewing games, I definitely finished a number of games I never really wanted to see through or played games with no ending way longer than I preferred.
Nowadays I’m less inclined to keep playing but I’m also pretty good at knowing what I like or if a game is unique enough mechanically that I should keep going. It’s rare I buy complete junk now, but if I would, I’d drop it for something else.
You couldn’t pay me to play Kingdom Hearts for example.
