That’s a good point and something I forgot about…when I was editing a website I had the luxury of being able to allocate reviews to the specialists in each field, but after I moved to writing for hobbyist websites on the side I no longer had the freedom of choice. Forcing myself through the terrible, terrible 3DS version of Rodea the Sky Soldier was a real low point.
Reviews aside, as Dave mentioned, a game really has to be interesting mechanically, or at least switch things up, to hold my interest nowadays.
Especially RPGs. I find the RPGs that I actually play through to the end are those which don’t rest on their laurels and continue to surprise and challenge the player in interesting ways - in addition to having a riveting world or story. Mana Khemia is the only RPG I’ve played through to the end this year for good reason.
A lot of modern RPGs seem far too focused on being immediately marketable with characters (see the modern Atelier games, or Ringo and Soul Hackers 2) while revealing themselves to be a byproduct of heavy project management when you actually play them. I dropped Tales of Arise because the game’s repetitious and predictable structure had already revealed itself when I reached the third major area of the game.
Octopath Traveler has eight protagonists but the differences between each of the eight chunks of game is highly superficial and structured so similarly. A far cry from how naturally the heroes’ stories in Final Fantasy VI intertwined with one another.
I have done this lots… I really like the idea of finishing games, and I often feel like I should go back to a game if I didn’t finish it.
This leads to me playing through games that aren’t holding my interest any more.
Truth is, it’s usually worth it. Often I enjoy the game a lot more after I tough it out for the win, than if I had just put it down for good. In fact, some of my most memorable gaming experiences are ones that I went back to after taking a break for a year+.
Funnily enough, filling out my backloggery profile is often a good motivator.
Legend of Dragoon fits the bill for me too. I ran out of steam about halfway through, back in the day. Total drag. And then I ended up losing my save an hour from the end.
More recently, Mario & Luigi Dream Team. Fun game, I’m happy I beat it. But it’s 25 hours too long. I couldn’t wait for it to be over
I’m forcing myself to go back to Mega Man 3 this week. I got frustrated with one of the combined-boss stages some months ago, and now I’m determined to beat it.
It’s a great game though, I just need to get good.
I really want to go through the entire original 6 and beyond, but I’m telling myself I need to play them in order. MM11 on the switch awaits.
I ran through the original 6 last year then X, then lost steam with 7 on SNES. I’ll return to it at some point since I definitely was having fun with it.
Great series. I really think the NES installments are the best ones I’ve played though. The charm of the NES chibi-like sprites is sort of hard to top for me compared to the later installments which went with a full-sized anime art style.
I played through all the Mega Man NES games when I first got back into retrogaming years ago. It was a severe shock to find out how difficult those games were, and I think playing through those really widened my horizons as far as which retro games I could take on. I did use save states between stages and it still hurt.