Video game completion

Watching some Final Fantasy Reunion cutscenes, which were atrocious with voice acting, I remembered how I never finish any Final Fantasy game. Never have, probably never will. And with that thought, I wondered how many games I've started and actually completed. In my younger days when I had no social life, I finished almost every game, but still had a pretty big backlog. Now that I'm older and socialize, my game completion has decreased substantially, as has the amount of games I actually play, which apparently was only six games in all of 2022.

How about you, how many games have you actually finished? Do you buy more games, fall off the boat and buy another one because of a deal or new release, only for the vicious cycle to continue?

I used to finish every game. In used to carry this "if I don't complete it I don't have the right to critique it" mentality. But now when there's games like Red Dead Redemption that really tested my patience I realized carrying such a standard was just wasting my time from discovering better and more worthwhile games.

I owe nothing to shitty games and if a game sucks I have no qualm anymore kicking it to the curb.

Remember the days when you get so absorbed and obsessed with a game that when you leave for school or work, you can't help but be distracted and fantasize about that game all day, anxious to get home and jump right back in? Ya, if a game has the opposite effect and feels like a chore: it's not worth your time.

Been gaming ever since the Atari 2600 days and have played and finished way too many games then I can realistically recall off the top of my head. Do tend to finish most games that I purchase although I have built up a sizeable backlog of games over the last few generations.

I'm curious if the majority of peoples back logs are from digital purchases or physical? I know with PS having so many PSN deals in a given month, I can tend to buy a lot. :3

@mycatismilk: My backlog consists of both physical and digital purchases. Probably in equal amounts.

I've been gaming since 1993 with SNES/Super Mario World and its one thing my parents have taught me is I fully complete my games before I purchase new games to play and to this day, I still go by that rule...sometimes😁

But yeah, I have a bad habit of playing multiple games and completing them in a certain order. On PC, I can multitask easily whenever I play a certain amount of my time, I can just move to a different game, and so on and so on. I don't call my games backlog, every game I purchase on PC is just a house of collection of games so I don't go by the rule of backlog, just a nonstop gaming collection on Steam, GoG, etc.

I don't know how my habits fall among fellow gamers but I tend to finish almost everything I play. I mostly stick to games that have endings.... I very rarely go back and replay games.

That was much tougher to stick to back in the 80s and 90s when games were hard. Now you just put in some time with most games and even an average gamer can trip and fall across the finish line.

Exact same story.... 🤜🤛

I finish everything i play. In fact, since 2020 or so, for some reason, i am doing 100% runs on everything. I am at like 94% of everything being done in Ragnarok on gmgow, and since my game is bugged, i am not sure if i can get it to 100%, but if i can, i will. Too bad there's no trophies for something like that, or even better, a profile pic that you unlock like the 10k kills in Gears.

Same. I don't 100% most games, but I finish the main campaign for 95% of games I play.

43 Platinums in 2022, down from 85 in 2021

Granted, around 5 were replays of PS5 upgrades, plus a handful were easy PS1 classic playthroughs.

I don’t start a game without the intention of completing the primary trophy list. DLC I largely ignore.

I finish all the time and sometimes I comeback for sloppy seconds.

Two in all of 2022; both of which, in different ways, demonstrated why my backlog is so atrocious.

The first is Dreamfall Chapters. The first book (episode) was released in 2014, last book in 2016, the year I bought it. Final Cut update was released in 2017. I sat on it, repeatedly digging it back up for a bit, get distracted, and putting it back into cold storage until this year, when I finally found the mood to finish it. Far from the only game I've put in cold storage only to complete months or years later.

And the second is Total War: Warhammer III. Well, "completing" in the technical sense, because I only completed one campaign: Sisters of Twilight in Immortal Empires, 5 times over - and I'm about to start a sixth. I would try other factions, get around 30-45 turns in (or 90-110 turns in Ikit Claw's case; he's my other comfort zone), think "ya know what, I should play that perfectly-timed turn 49 Katarin rescue again," and go back to my beloved "Bolt Throwers." There are comfort zones in games I latch on to, and keep coming back again and again, consuming all of my gaming time and leaving none for anything else.

Definitely try to beat games I play. There's too many games out there though, so I don't bother too much about getting 100% completion or whatever. Not worth all that time and effort

I finish everything I play. If I don't, I get this awful feeling that never goes away.

I rarely finish games nowadays. I start them, but rarely ever finish them. It's only short arcadey games that I can actually finish, e.g. Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT Shredder's Revenge. I haven't completed a long game in years. Obviously, age has a lot to do with it. As I get older, I have less time to play games.

I've noticed with some games, and they're usually among the longer games, that I'll just arbitrarily drop them before the finish line.

It can be a game I was enjoying a lot, going all in on everything it has to offer, then just call it quits.

Most recently was Tactics Ogre. Was late in the final chapter, making my way to the big optional dungeon, said meh. Great game, just felt like I got what I wanted out of it, seeing the credits roll wasn't all that important to me. Might revisit, who knows.

On the flip, have plenty of games that I've replayed more times than I can remember.

Completion holds little meaning to me. Seeing the credits roll isn't a reason to stop playing. Conversely, pushing to the end if I've already gotten what I wanted seems pointless.

Not even to knock games but damn I don't even have enough time to complete the games I do actually like.

I might be playing a game I like, I am having fun and making decent progress... then I fire up something else I never played to see what it's about and then get sucked into that. I forget about the other game I was enjoying telling myself I'll hop over later... time goes on and I either forget about the game I was going to jump back to, end up in a vicious cycle something else grabs my attention.

At a certain point I could be like I need to get back to that other game I was having fun with but then I get into a dilemma where I have spent so much time away I don't know whether to start from scratch but then worry about having to replay so much of it, or I could continue though I already forgot so much of the story and the gameplay mechanics or even what I was doing when I stopped playing, I don't know if I can resume where I left off. Then the prospects of just firing up some other new game seems like the better idea.

Yeah, too many games to play and too many to even keep on top of finishing the games I like. It's pretty easy with everything to play these days that if something doesn't sit well with you to put it behind you.

Well, just did GNA in Ragnarok, she took me at least 3h on max difficulty, 100% run completed, all traphies unlocked, and i have nothing left to play. 137h playthrough. Movie game btw😥😥😥

My fingers hurt after sweating against that damn thing👀

@hardwenzen: lol damn. I spent like 6 hours beating her on GMNM. got my GOWR platinum too. will be doing a GMGOW run too now.

There was a time when I completed pretty much none of my games. I think I had 300 PC games and only finished like 30 of them. Same with PS2, maybe 40-50 out of 200 PS2 completed.

But when it comes to the best games, I starting doing everything and getting platinums. I have 9 plats:

TLOU1, TLOU2, GoT, GoT (ps4--> PS5 copy), Sekiro, Elden Ring, Demon's Souls, R&C:RA (cause it was so damn easy lol) and God of War Ragnarok

I'd say, if I play more than a couple of hours, I'll finish 99% of the games I play.

I always try to, even some games I havent enjoyed like Crysis 2 and Doom Eternal, iv pushed myself to finish. But its getting harder and harder nowadays, I just CBA with some of the crap that comes out, id rather just give up and start on another game from my backlog, im never going to get through it otherwise.

Time is a perpetual expense on a very limited and unknown budget so the obligation to finish a game is not a priority because of it.

I used to rarely finish a game when I was younger, now I just grind away at one or 2 games at a time until I complete it. I try to avoid any games that take more than 25-30 hrs to beat.

She was difficult af, but not Sigrun level and her 1 billion HP.

@hardwenzen: I literally died more to Gna on Give me No Mercy than any From Software boss (including Isshin, Sister Friede etc) Can't wait to try out GMG. I fear I might not be up to the task though. Is Sigrun really harder than Gna?

I beat the original GOW twice, once on easy (my pre Souls phase) and once on hard but never in either of those two runs get all of the valkyries At most 6-7.

But on my third run I did GMG and holy **** hardest game I have ever experienced. Got 3/9 valks before giving up on the hardest one.

I do not think I will ever do the Muspelheim Valk or the poison cloud valkyrie, let alone Sigrun.

So sad to say I have never faced Sigrun on any difficulty. Gonna do GNA on GMG and then pick up where I left off on original GOW...

I don't often complete games. I'll play them until I feel like moving on, then maybe come back.

I'm just in it for the gameplay often. Ironically I do have an ocd about playing games in order, so I do want to complete games in an order.