{"id":141003,"date":"2019-03-26T08:29:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T08:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/?p=141003"},"modified":"2019-03-26T08:29:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T08:29:26","slug":"the-games-we-start-again-and-again-but-never-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/archives\/141003","title":{"rendered":"The games we start (again and again) but never finish"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So, everyone has played Sekiro I suppose. I\u2019ve got my copy sitting on the shelf. The game is installed on my Xbox One and despite numerous opportunities, it remains completely un-played. Why is that? Work in the way? Family emergency? Nope. I\u2019m playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for, oh, I don\u2019t know, the 12th<\/sup> time? Just to be clear, when I say I\u2019m playing this game for the 12th<\/sup> time, what I really mean is that I\u2019m starting it for the 12th<\/sup> time. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of those games that I keep starting but for one reason or another never finish. Is this unique to me? It\u2019s certainly not the only example of a critically lauded videogame that I am yet to finish.<\/p>\n

In some cases, it\u2019s a matter of wanting to like them more than I do \u2013 I want to like Bethesda games and I feel like I should (hence the reason that I\u2019ve started Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim more times than I care to admit), but the fact of the matter is, they\u2019re just not for me. I should have learned my lesson by now, but you can bet the farm that I\u2019ll at least give Fallout 5 and Skyrim 2 a go only to invariably remember 3 or 4 hours in to each that I really don\u2019t like Bethesda games. What makes it worse is that, 3 years from now, I\u2019ll start doubting my own opinion again and give them all another try. Seriously, I\u2019ve played the opening hours of Oblivion at least 5 times and I\u2019ve never enjoyed it. I\u2019ll obviously remind myself again in a few months just to prove my point. I\u2019m sure there is some famous saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but, well, I\u2019m not particularly keen to pull at that thread.<\/p>\n

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While I can put that madness down to a genuine wanting to enjoy and experience video games that I know are at least objectively very good, what\u2019s really weird are all of the games that I genuinely enjoy but never get close to finishing. Final Fantasy VI\u2026.and VII\u2026.and VIII. I\u2019ve finished Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2 and Final Fantasy XV, but I\u2019ve never come close to finishing any of the most beloved entries in the series. It\u2019s madness. As much as I love Zelda, for reasons I can\u2019t explain, I\u2019ve never managed to finish A Link in Time despite finishing A Link Between Worlds twice\u2026..twice! It makes no sense. I\u2019ve not only started all of these games numerous times, but I\u2019ve made serious inroads in to them only to throw in the towel \u2013 often in a very similar spot to my previous attempt. Honestly, I couldn\u2019t tell you many times I\u2019ve played through the first dozen or so hours of Final Fantasy VII. I would love to tell you that I reach a difficulty spike or a particularly poor part of an otherwise brilliant video game, but that\u2019s simply not the case. I just put the game down and forget about it. By the time I remember how much I enjoyed what I played, I usually feel obliged to start the game again – and so the cycle begins anew.<\/p>\n

In my defence, I am at least attempting to make amends for my past sins \u2013 while many genuinely fantastic video games remain criminally unfinished, I have at least managed to cross a few from my ever-growing list of shame. I finally finished The Wind Waker when it came to Wii U (on the 6th<\/sup> attempt), and thanks to backward compatibility, I did manage to finish Half Life 2 and its brilliant but ultimately heart-breaking follow ups (I knew there was a good reason why I never finished Episode 2!). Despite my efforts though, there is still plenty of work to be done \u2013 I\u2019ve finished approximately 75% of just about every Souls game, Metal Gear Solid V is still a long way from being done (despite legitimately loving it), and, well, then there is Persona\u2026..all of them. I think I\u2019ve fallen in love with just about every mainline Persona game released and yet I\u2019m nowhere near finishing any of them. I\u2019ve probably played the opening hours of Persona 4 about six times, but yeah, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s something to be especially proud of.<\/p>\n

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So, what about you? What are the games that you\u2019ve started more times than you care to admit but never got around to finishing? Is this a unique problem to me or something that many a gamer suffers from? I can’t imagine I’m the only one, but man, I do find it strange that I keep starting these fantastic games over and over again without finishing them. Well, whatever the case, I should probably get back to Final Fantasy VII…..again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man, the first few hours of Final Fantasy VII<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":141004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1232,12,5759,10288,3451],"tags":[13766,13765,650,13763,13764,821,13767,4192,2796,940,1174],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/g1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Ijik-AGf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141003"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bonusstage.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}