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Editor’s note: Evan is back with another Splitscreen. This time he talks shop with JRPG guru Brian Shirk about the things that cause us to drop a game and walk away. Read on to find out what games bested two of Bitmob’s biggest community contributors. -James
Bitmob Splitscreen is a one-on-one discussion conducted over email on a single topic. For the fourth installment, Bitmob’s Review Dispensing Machine, Brian Shirk, and I sat down (at our computers) to discuss the games we’ve left uncompleted. Read on for open-world fatigue, the return of compulsion, and the healing powers of YouTube.
Brian Shirk: Being a perfectionist who values the sense of accomplishment that beating a game can bring, I normally like to complete what’s in my collection. However, I’ll occasionally come across a game that’s a critical success, but I just can’t bring myself to finish it — no matter how focused I am. Square’s Enix’s role-playing masterpiece, Dragon Quest 8 is one of the first that comes to mind.
As a fan of role-playing games, I attempt to play a number of mainstream hits in addition to niche titles, but sometimes, the “greatest” the genre has to offer eludes me. I’ve long been aware of how successful the Dragon Quest series is in Japan and have tried to keep up with each installment, but sometimes playing the latest titles make me feel as if I’m being mauled by Slimes.
Dragon Quest 8 initially impressed me with its colorful cel-shaded visuals and grand orchestral score, but its simplistic combat, NES-era storyline, and empty environments reminded me of a bubbly cheerleader with an amazing body, but no soul. For 20 hours, I kept DQ8 by my side, but its repetitive environments and gameplay made me want to walk the plank by the time I received my ship.
Evan Killham: It’s impressive that you stuck with it that long, considering how you feel about it. A lot of times, I find myself sticking with something I’m not enjoying because it’s popular; this explains the bulk of my time with Team Fortress 2 and the entire third season of Nip/Tuck. I think we tell ourselves that we’re missing something, or that it will grow on us, but there comes a point at which you have to admit that it’s just not doing anything for you and let it go.
What could Dragon Quest 8 have done differently to keep you playing? And was it difficult for you to put it down for good?
BS: Dragon Quest 8 could have hooked me if its battles were more strategic and moved at a pace as brisk as Dragon Quest 4’s enemy encounters. RPGs have a reputation for mind-numbing battles, and unfortunately, Dragon Quest 8 promotes this stereotype. I appreciate how you can actually see your characters in battle, but that doesn’t make its slow-paced fights any quicker.
Dragon Quest 8 needed more unique environment, as well. Too many towns feature the same drab houses, churches, and castles, so I think DQ8 could have really benefited from drawing from a title such as Final Fantasy 9 where each room has a unique appearance. Making its environments smaller and livelier also could have helped.
At the time, it was easy for me to put it down, because I was having a busy summer and wanted to have some fun after long days of painting. I was bored way before the 20-hour mark, so quitting was inevitable. However, now I’m tempted to give the game another chance after enjoying the two recent Dragon Quest titles for the DS. Maybe it’ll happen in the near future.
EK: One of the main questions I find myself asking when I put a game down is, “Will I ever come back to this?” More often than not, the answer is “Uh, no.” But sometimes there are games that I was actually enjoying, but put aside for different reasons. One of these for me was Far Cry 2, which I stopped playing because I was simply burned out on it.
If you haven’t played it, the world in Far Cry 2 is huge. You start out in one 9 square kilometer area, and it’s full of collectibles, missions, side quests, and Buddies to find. Once you’ve exhausted that, you move on to another 9 square kilometer area jam-packed with even more goodies. I made it most of the way through the first area, but then the thought of having to start over once I’d completed the next couple of missions was suddenly very daunting, so I quit and moved on to something else.
It’s a really good game, though, and I hope that someday I’ll get the courage to go back to it. But that’s less and less likely as time goes on, since stuff keeps coming out that I want to play and it keeps moving farther down the stack. Right now I think it’s eighth or ninth, below games like Dragon Age: Origins, Grand Theft Auto 4, and both Mass Effect games. I’d like to get back to it, but it’s going to be a while.
BS: I can certainly relate to certain games being overwhelming. One that immediately comes to mind is Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I enjoyed jacking cars, performing stunts, and completing missions, but once I progressed to the point where I was supposed to obtain additional real estate, I lost interest and moved on to other titles.
It wasn’t that Vice City was a bad game — it just got tiresome after a while because there was so much to do, and not enough structure towards the end. I had a similar experience with San Andreas, although it occurred much earlier, since that was such an open-ended game from the very beginning. It wasn’t until Grand Theft Auto 4 that I actually felt motivated to complete a GTA title, but that’s mostly because of its highly structured narrative and interesting characters.
EK: I’ve had a similar relationship with GTA games, and in fact Vice City is still the only one in which I have completed the story. I was doing pretty well at sticking with San Andreas, despite the open-endedness you mention, but then I reached a level I couldn’t beat. It was a race, so FAQs were no help; they all gave super-useful advice like, “Get in front of the other guy and drive really fast.” I went with Option B: “Play something else.”
Did you actually finish GTA4? I kept getting sidetracked.
BS: GTA4 is the only title in that series I’ve completed, and it was mostly due to its excellent crime narrative and smaller city. If GTA4 had a less focused storyline like other GTA titles, I probably would have quit early because of its repetitive missions.
Are there any titles with repetitive or boring gameplay you’ve stuck with simply because of the story or some other aspect of the game you find appealing?
EK: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth definitely falls into that category. It wasn’t so much that it was repetitive or boring as it was unforgiving. The game only gives you the most basic idea of what to do for most of it and then gives you a little push and says, “Off you go.”
I stuck with it because the story was really interesting to me. A video game based on H.P. Lovecraft hits at least two of my Nerd Centers, and I think the main thing that kept me going was that I wanted it to be good. But ultimately, its vagueness and terrible controls got the better of me, and I put it down. I actually still have my original Xbox hooked up just in case I want to have another go at that one, but then I remember the trial-and-error/blind luck stealth sequences and reconsider.
Do you have any games like that?
BS: One title that gave me a significant amount of trouble was Persona for PSP. Its controls weren’t bad, but its heavy emphasis on grinding ruined the experience for me. Despite my hatred of grinding, I stuck with Persona until the final dungeon because of its intriguing storyline. It was infuriating that I wasn’t able to finish it, and I immediately resorted to YouTube for the ending — which was only in Japanese.
Does it anger you when you’re unable to complete a game after you’ve spent a significant amount of time with it? Also, would you be willing to spend half-a-dozen hours in random battles or in fetch quests to see a game through to the finish?
EK: I was about to say that I don’t typically grind, but I just do a different type; instead of grinding for levels or items, I spend hours of my life that I will never get back looking for collectibles. Still, no game has been so grindy in this way that I have been unable to finish it, although I have often wondered if what I was doing still qualified as “fun.”
Only one of the reasons for quitting that we’ve discussed causes me anger — getting stuck. If I hate the game, or there’s too little direction, or the controls are bad, then I feel like the game has failed me, not the other way around. I can always use the YouTube Method for Psychological Satisfaction™ if I need to.
But if I’m on a section I feel like I should be able to do and I’m just not capable, then it’s a lot more of a struggle. There’s a level in Dead Rising where you’re trying to disarm bombs under the mall and deal with a whole lot of zombies and a guy in a van trying to kill you — the difficulty on that one is just this side of fucking bullshit. It wasn’t hard to put that game down, at least for a little while.
I’m so compulsive with some games that six hours of fetch-quests and fighting random battles wouldn’t even register; odds are I was going to do it anyway. I might notice if I reached the ten- or twelve-hour mark, but at that point, I will have convinced myself that I’m closer to the end than the beginning and keep going.
BS: I’ve experienced that type of struggle as well, but mostly in legacy games. A year ago, I was playing R-Type Dimensions, and I figured it wouldn’t be much of a challenge after breezing through Mega Man 9 (despite my lack of experience with that series), but boy, was I wrong. After spending three hours trying to beat level six of R-Type I had to give up or I would have hurt my hand, my controller, or my TV. Not being able to beat R-Type definitely bruised my ego, but I realized there was no way I’d finish a title that was designed to deplete piggy banks.
From our experiences, it’s evident that hardcore gamers leave video games unfinished for a variety of reasons, but the most common are boredom and frustrating gameplay mechanics. Of course other obligations can influence our decision to dump games early, but if the titles we played were truly exciting, we would have found time for them. Some games are just best left behind.
Thanks to Brian for his time, especially since he could have written, like, 12 reviews while we were doing this.