Board 8 > It feels great to not feel obligated to play and finish every game you play

(+) Yeah! (+)

Probably not a new or uncommon sentiment, but for the longest time I've been a "If I buy a game I finish a game" kind of person, and sometimes that meant forcing myself to get into a game that I didn't really feel like playing or wasn't enjoying all that much.

I basically just went through and finished my entire backlog of owned games after buying a whole bunch of games on sales or at launch over the last year, and was left with Octopath Traveler and Xenoblade Chronicles 3DS after continually putting them off and picking literally every other game to play over them.

When it came to sit down and finally play them I realized A) I didn't want to invest 50+ hours into any game right now, especially coming off of 90 hours of Ni No Kuni 2, and B) I was never really interested in either of these games in the first place and didn't particularly enjoy the few hours I played of them (despite loving JRPGs).

It probably helps that I got Octopath for 'free' after trading in my old 3DS and games last year and picked up Xenoblade for $30 so I'll be profiting off of both games if/when I sell/trade them in, but man does it feel good to just be like, "yeah, maybe I won't play these games".

This post has no point but I felt like positive venting for a second.
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I can't support a topic where the premise is not playing Xenoblade, sorry
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I want to enjoy it, I really do. Everything around it seems great, I just can't get into it.

This is a petty reason, but I'm almost positive the roadblock is purely the 3DS graphics. Xenoblade on the Switch looks fantastic and I can't wait to play it.
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I basically never finish games

The only final fantasy I finished was X, and that was just so I could play X -2. Which of course I never finished
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well I will say I'd love it if Xenoblade had a remake with XB2 level assets

.... but XB1 is easily best game
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I loved Octopath Traveler for the 80 or so hours I played of it... and then I got to the "true final boss" and it/the dungeon before was such an overall bad experience that it ruined the whole game for me. I'd probably still have a high opinion of the game if I'd quit before then.

I buy tons of games on Steam sales/humble bundle, no regrets. I may not beat them any time soon, but I like knowing they're there in case the mood strikes me.
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ClyTheCool posted...

I basically never finish games

The only final fantasy I finished was X, and that was just so I could play X -2. Which of course I never finished

I finish about half the free games I play (PS Plus usually) because I feel less obligated to do so.

I've finished like 99% of the games I've bought over the last 10 years. Legit the only games I can remember purchasing and not completing are Lightning Returns, Shadow of War, Octopath Traveler, and Xenoblade. All four were due to me not enjoying them.

It probably helps that I only buy games I want to play. And also own like 4 games on Steam because I only play on console.
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CelesMyUserName posted...

I can't support a topic where the premise is not playing Xenoblade, sorry

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Not finishing is for cowards.

I think I might have a similar problem but I can't let it go either

then I just get burned out on games period after I force myself
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Yeah, I used to care a lot more about finishing games or going for 100%. I had a lot of games where I stopped playing for a while, but kept trying to get back into because I figured I needed to finish it.

Then I realized that I usually stopped playing because of lack of interest rather than lack of time.

I actually played through most of Octopath thinking it to be mediocre at best...for some reason I kept going until I got to the final boss. Then I got killed by a cheap shot after 3 hours of no save point, and it was a pretty great feeling to say "Well, fuck this game then" and put it down forever.
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I finish most games I play, but yeah, it's good to drop stuff every now and then. Most recent games I dropped were Hitman season 1 and The Witcher 3. I really wish playing Witcher 3 felt better, but moving around and doing things in that game just feels disgusting.
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xenoblade 1 is not that good change my mind
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I don't think I'll ever be able to stop my trophy obsession though.

On more than one ocassion I've not purchased a game I was on the fence about after finding out some of trophies were too tedious, which is arguably a worse habit than forcing myself to finish game.
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Punnyz posted...

I think I might have a similar problem but I can't let it go either

then I just get burned out on games period after I force myself

This is kind of where I find myself sometimes. On occasion I'll tunnel vision a big game that I really want to get down, but progress ends up going super slow and I end up just barely playing video games at all as a result.

But then whenever I convince myself to put it down, holy cow, it's like a damn whirlwind. I start playing all kinds of shit, beating games left and right and having more fun than feels possible in that moment.
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I drop games all the time, but mostly on PC where I have a large Steam library thanks to various bundles over the past decade.

The bottom line is that I play video games to have fun. If I'm not having fun with a video game, then why would I waste my precious time continuing to play it? There are plenty of other things to do with my free time, including playing other games that I can have more fun in!
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davidponte posted...

This is a petty reason, but I'm almost positive the roadblock is purely the 3DS graphics

I was immediately going to suggest that you play it on a console. I can't imagine how it's enjoyable at all on the 3DS, unless maybe you played it on a console first so your brain fills in the blanks.

The graphics were hard enough to deal with on the Wii at 480p (but manageable). The ultimate is to download Dolphin and play it at super resolution on your PC. It's incredible. It's like they made the graphics knowing that the best way to play would be an emulator.
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But yeah I stop playing a lot of games right when I get bored nowadays. Too many games are designed to be time sinks (which people love for some reason??) that I just feel like I'm not missing anything by dropping it. I call it "getting the gist" of the game. If I feel like the game won't really give me any more surprises, then I'll stop.

The worst is games that I do enjoy, but only a small part of it. So I do want to see what else the game has to offer, but I don't want to slog through the 90% of boring crap to find the 10% of gems. BOTW and most open world games fall into this. I drop those for my own sanity, or I'll find cheats or some way to skip around to the good stuff.
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The time sinkier the better
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foolm0r0n posted...

davidponte posted...

This is a petty reason, but I'm almost positive the roadblock is purely the 3DS graphics

I was immediately going to suggest that you play it on a console. I can't imagine how it's enjoyable at all on the 3DS, unless maybe you played it on a console first so your brain fills in the blanks.

The graphics were hard enough to deal with on the Wii at 480p (but manageable). The ultimate is to download Dolphin and play it at super resolution on your PC. It's incredible. It's like they made the graphics knowing that the best way to play would be an emulator.

This is why I'm still intrigued by the Switch Xenoblade.
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Xenoblade on Dolphin is indeed incredible. Perfect poster child for still putting real work into your games when you could cut corners since the current hardware would mask your imperfections anyway. It's god damn beautiful with the resolution pumped up.
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