Board 8 > Can a game be "good" even if you aren't motivated to beat it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Feel free to interpret the poll in a number of ways:

-Gave up at a difficulty spike
-Late-game story developments turn you off
-Lack of new gameplay mechanics later on to keep you interested

Let me be clear: This poll does NOT include external reasons for not finishing a game, such as a major life event that causes you to put it down for a while, then you're no longer motivated to pick up where you left off.

i've been trying to be more mindful of what is just "not for me" versus "not for anyone"

there's a lot of movies I would give fair ratings despite not finishing them because I recognize that I am not getting as much out of it as others would (for whatever reason)

I believe that applies for games; I KNOW I don't like XCOM or any game like it after playing Enemy Unknown for a few hours, but at no point did I say "dang XCOM sucks." I even recommended it to someone who I know likes that stuff. I think I did the same for the Batman Arkham series.

Of course. However I probably wouldn't feel comfortable recommending it especially if something as major to me as story developments turn me off the game.

Loaded question. Implying that all games can be "beaten" or that a game must be able to be beaten in order to be good.

I dunno. Sure. Whatever

I never made it past the last boss of God Hand but I would still recommend it

yeah, there's plenty of games I like but do not finish

Yeah, Id say so. Resident Evil is a series a lot of people enjoy, but Im not sure its for me after having tried two of them. I wouldnt call them bad games, but I think I prefer watching playthroughs without commentary for them over playing them myself

Yeah, sometimes I just walk away from a game and don't come back to it, even though I think it's good. Happened to me with Viewtiful Joe, for instance.

I always call Pyre the best game I've ever hated. Recommend it all the time because I understand why some people love it - just wasn't for me.

Technically I finished that one, but that was more of a sunk cost decision than anything. I'd be saying the same thing about it even if it hadn't been beaten.

Yes, biggest example of this for me recently is Thumper. I was only able to beat the first three or four worlds, and only played it for a couple hours, but thought it was a very good game overall and would recommend it to people.

I suspect if I bashed my head at it long enough to beat it I would actually like it less.

Yes, especially if the reason I can't beat it is just high difficulty. For example, I loved Necrodancer and would recommend it but that game destroyed me. I think story is an interesting case because certain story turns can kill a game for me but I might still recommend it for others, or conditionally.

It's also easy for a game to be good for reasons other than the story mode, especially with e.g. fighting or FPS games, but that doesn't feel exactly in the spirit of the question.

Disgaea is my go to example for this because I adore the game from a creative standpoint, but I am not really a tactics RPG fan and just never was actually able to have fun playing the game.

Yes. Persona 5 is amazing but it's also way too fucking long. I dropped it halfway when playing it back in 2017, and I had to force myself to beat the Switch port.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

Yes. Persona 5 is amazing but it's also way too fucking long. I dropped it halfway when playing it back in 2017, and I had to force myself to beat the Switch port.

Persona games can run really long. I thought the late game storyline dungeons in 5 seemed like they overstayed their welcome in some instances.

Yep.

Can I vote both?

Games I'm not inclined to finish can still be good but yeah it does lower their score; I don't think I'd ever call one a 10/10

It's how I feel about most Zelda games

ADHD

that

ZenOfThunder posted...

i've been trying to be more mindful of what is just "not for me" versus "not for anyone"

Yeah this. There are plenty of things that aren't my jam that are definitely still great.

I've been trying to finish Ghost of Tsushima for like a year

jesus christ yes, my feeling motivated to continue or finish a game has NOTHING to do with its quality and is more likely to do with all sorts of external factors

Few games can defeat the crushing weight of my depression, it's not their fault

Hollow Knight is a great game. I just suck at it to the extent that I'm demotivated to try to finish.

On a different kind of note, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are very, very well put together. I can tell at a glance. But they are 100% not for me, and not a genre I at all like, so I haven't bothered.

I generally don't like that genre either, but BotW and TotK are exceptions for me.

foolm0r0n posted...

Few games can defeat the crushing weight of my depression, it's not their fault

exactly

Never finished FFVII even though I like what I've played of it a lot.

Leonhart4 posted...

I generally don't like that genre either, but BotW and TotK are exceptions for me.

Same thing. 3D open world games aren't usually it for me and I originally didn't want LoZ to go this direction, but both of these are quality hits.

I find tons of roguelike games good, but I rarely finish them due to their padded game length. I tend to get my fill of them and bounce before they start to grow tiresome.