RPGs you could not complete

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Freedom Force

Wut.

One of the greatest games ever.

I abandoned Alpha Protocol aftr 6 or 7 hours, you were supposed to choose between 3 countries. I thought it was some sort of "open answer" thing, where you could just go anywhere and do your thing, but I quickly learned you were supposed to do some countries in one particular order. That was bullshit for me, so I ragequitted. I might start again, though.

Huh?
I don't like AP nearly as much as some around here, but it is genuinely pretty non-linear unless you're the sort of pleb that can't stomach the idea of anything but an optimal playthrough.

 

[DavidBVal]

I tend to finish every RPG I play (unless I quickly detect I'm not going to like it, as I did with Diablos or ID2)

But I was never able to beat Arena ending. I really tried

I was unable to finish vanilla Skyrim due to sheer boredom, but eventually installed like 100 mods and did a full run, which I admit was fun.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I don't finish 3/4 of the RPGs I play, even if I enjoy the game. At a certain point, usually well in advance of the end of the main plot, I figure 'yadda 'yadda' and just quit. This is usually because the systems have no mystery left to be revealed and the rest isn't interesting enough to keep me engauged.

It's a rare thing for me to replay one.

 

[butchy]

I don't finish 3/4 of the RPGs I play, even if I enjoy the game. At a certain point, usually well in advance of the end of the main plot, I figure 'yadda 'yadda' and just quit. This is usually because the systems have no mystery left to be revealed and the rest isn't interesting enough to keep me engauged.

It's a rare thing for me to replay one.

I'm the same. It is rare for me to finish a game even if I really like it, such as WL2 Director's Cut. It just becomes a chore after a while, usually when I enter a city that seems like it will be a hassle to go around and talk to everyone and look in every corner, etc.

Except I only really enjoy a handful of games so replay them a lot. I probably played Dark Sun, Realms of Arkania trilogy, Wiz 7 and 8, ToEE, AoD, etc, a million times each. I used to play the buck roger games a lot but it became to much of a hassle at some point to fight the UI. I also can't play games with console UIs like Dragon Age, Kotors, etc, more than once. Same for games with barely any or insignificant character development such as the Witcher Games.

One game that is a big exception for me is ME3. It has a console UI, no meaningful character development, extremely bad rpg mechanics, but I played it twice (I played it again when they came out with the new ending). I remember the stories and knew what was going on too. Usually I have no idea what the fuck is going on because I read books that have actual good stories so don't waste time on the nonsense in the game. Certain games I do pay attention to the story like ToEE and AoD, but in general I don't give a shit at all. But with ME3 I was emotionally invested and that was the only game that did that to me ever. I even went out and bought the ME books after that, but I did not think they were good.

Before I joined the army I usually beat every game I played besides Wiz 7 (still never beat it), EOB2, and Legends of Valour, and some other games that were really bad. But I used to be able to play and not get bored or feel it was a chore.

 

[Ruhfuss]

DISCLAIMER: Incoherent rant warning. Lots of unproven opinioning. No tl;dr summary. Insane state of mind while writing.

While my first post in this thread was about a game that I really wanted to complete at the time, but literally couldn't, I just thought about games (mostly CRPGs) that I played and enjoyed as a youngster. Sad truth is, that when I revisited most of those games in more recent times, I couldn't enjoy them as much or even anymore. Either I got bitten by nostalgia-makes-better-memories or thinking "My, how braindead had I to be enjoying this kind of stuff back then? // What's wrong with me now, why can't I stand this anymore? This used to be fun?!?".

It may sound weird, but the fear of nostalgia not living up to the experience I might have with it now is what kept me from really starting Pools of Darkness anew. And the fact that it's quite a huge beast, so burning out might occur. But one day, I promise.

I mostly play old(er) games due to limiting myself on stuff that I can play on Linux/Wine/Dosbox. And because I couldn't give a shit about most new, overhyped, braindead, soulless AAA graphic jerk off festivals. (Thinking new equals shit is a really great way to resist temptation, isn't it?) Just so that you might get an idea, the most recent (from a time of publishing point of view) games I've played were Torchlight II and Deus Ex:HR.

My choice of bitching around for now will be Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT; BG1+TotSC+BG2+ToB).

While I never thought of any of the BGs as the holy grail of CRPGs (I think there is none), I remember myself having a great time especially with BG2+ToB. The prospect of going through the whole saga seamlessly with BGT got me quite excited; enough of going through the time consuming PITA process of setting it up manually. Which is not a failure of BGT itself, but in the sheer vastness of available mods. Technically, WEIDU makes it quite easy and comfortable to set up all the stuff, but compiling it again and again while figuring out which mods and options I like and which are way over the top for my taste, is very time consuming. In fact, one could get burned out even before really starting to play. Which I guess is an issue with many games that have an active modding community. Sometimes, having choices hurts.

So, after a really long time of setting-up-fine-tuning my BGT installation (think of more than a week, seriously), I finally got through to playing the game. And almost immediately got hit with all the small stuff that might occur as nitpicking to others, but really annoys the crap out of me. Like having choices that make absolutely no sense for my PC (this is a role playing game, yes?). Like having shitty side quests that I only do from a metagaming perspective, to not suck later on due to lack of XP. Like having to wonder how to manage the crapload of pointless NPCs the game throws at me. (Not going more into detail here. My brain hurts.)

All things considered, the whole BG1 part felt like a metagamey setup to have a better PC in BG2. I couldn't get into it. Lack of immersion, one might say. The BG2 part was better. Still, lack of immersion, but the metagaming was more fun. As long as I not thought "Hell, why am I doing all this crap? Isn't my goal to go to Spellhold? Isn't there some urgency to it? Apparently not, since I keep on traveling the countryside and enjoying the [view|loot|slaughter].". You see, sometimes lack of railroading may cause issues if it doesn't fit your story setup.

I more and more wished this to be either more of an ARPG or a strategy game. The "light on storytelling" aspect already being fulfilled.

Coming back to the topic of this thread, shortly after starting the ToB part, I bailed out. Metagaming through BG1 for BG2 and then somewhat doing the same in BG2 as preparation for ToB, left no real goal to endure ToB. Why should my PC talk with all those whiny, needy people? Or doing FedEx quests for them? Hell, that's where I came from! Why won't the game let me slaughter you all, blast open all locked doors, instead of inventing all those shonky excuses to make me interact with my environment in a way I'm NOT imagining it? Again, I was hurt by freedom of choice. It seems the game let me choose a combination of Race/Class/Alignment that wasn't any fun within the boundaries of the story/setting. Which I consider quite bad for a RPG.

Thank whatever-you-believe-in-or-not, there was a time when games were restricted in what they could try to accomplish. I'm looking at you, Gold Box games. Easy to setup, light to stomach, being more abstract due to technical limitations, leaving more room for my imagination. All this making me far more forthcoming in forgiving their flaws. (You remember what I've written about lack of holy grail before, do you?)

Rant over. For now.

 

[Ruhfuss]

(AAARGH. Was editing this into my last post, then lost all of it due to time allowed to edit the post went up. No autosaving of drafts when editing? Meh. Trying again. Surely losing something.)

(The following is something also affecting other CRPGs.)

Annoying factor: Thief PCs. Thieves/Rogues can be cool in P'n'P. In BG they can backstab. Which is handled rather clunky. Thankfully, playing a Swashbuckler circumvents the need to bother with it and becoming an invisibility potion addict.

Why bother with thieves at all? Well, since you're not playing D&D but rather C&T (Containers & Traps), one could feel to be compelled to have a thief class (kit) protagonist, because all else that makes them stand out is their ability to deal with containers and traps (and fail to hide in combat). Otherwise one could get annoyed to have to play as a NPC sidekick for a not so small part of the game, due to all the C&T. Or don't give a crap for the shinies and XP you'll get for dealing with C&T the thievish way.

Seriously, is moving slowly, waiting to detect traps, disarming them and unlocking containers something that one would consider great gameplay? Or merely a useless waste of time? And they even improved on that in NWN(2)! Waiting 5 seconds to unlock a container. Great challenge! Great gameplay!

 

[eXalted]

Final Fantasy IV. I always get bored in the end game.

Tried it two times and always stopped at the end part. That open world with grind everywhere is not my thing...

 

[Lacrymas]

All Bethesda "RPGs" - too much walking, horrible combat, awful writing, level-scaling, take your pick.

Divinity: Original Sin - even though I'm pretty vocal about it being the best KS RPG, it got really boring past Luculla.

Arcanum - I just stopped playing it after I went to the mountain *town*. I somehow managed to get past the mines everyone is talking about, but it was tedious. I just stopped playing without any explanation, I intend to finish it some day.

Anachronox - Shame, I know, but I couldn't get past the JRPG combat, even though I got quite far into the game.

Every JRPG ever.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Quite a few actually.... once I reach the point when I have seen most of it, the plot is clear, I have the best gear... nothing new for me to experience in the game, but for some reason it expects me to plow through 10 hours of trash combat to get to the boss or whatever is at the end. Either keep it interesting or end it right there, ffs.

This moment comes much, much sooner if the game relies heavily on random generated shit and level scaling, in that case I can safely quit, read the story somewhere and save myself 40 hours of clicking.

 

[MoonlitKnight]

Arcanum
Couldn't stand moving around in this game

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I would like to finish Arcanum some day to see what all the fuss is about but it quite literally makes me want to take a nap within five minutes of firing it up.

 

[Adamaklas]

New vegas, i don't really know why. I did 2 runs of the game, one time i just stopped after i dealt with Mr house the other after i went in the hidden cache in caesars camp.
I stopped witcher, 3 times after 10 hours of gameplay, i did not like anything about it.
Skyrim was too easy, and shit.

but no one cares about these...

Did anyone finish Dungeon Lords? Back then i only had the original release, no patches what so ever, it was the only game i had for that summer , it was quite shitty but i always wanted to finish that shit. I watched a < let's play > here, but how many ppl finished it? Could it be finished unpatched?

 

[eXalted]

I was unable to finish vanilla Skyrim due to sheer boredom, but eventually installed like 100 mods and did a full run, which I admit was fun.

Did they include nude girls and unicorns?

Spoiler

... or it is only me

 

[imweasel]

Arcanum.

I am near the end of the game but I simply can't bring myself to finish it.

 

[Lhynn]

blah blah

You are not Hobo Elf

 

[Hobo Elf]

DAO is probably the most recent RPG that I just couldn't bother finishing. Every single part of the game feels drawn out and overstays its welcome. Derp Roads and the Fade are brought up the most as culprits of this issue, but even the werewolf forest feels too goddamn long.

 

[Ruhfuss]

You are not Hobo Elf

So what?

 

[DavidBVal]

So what?

Welcome to the Codex.

 

[Ruhfuss]

Welcome to the Codex.

Thx.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Thx.

Hope you enjoy your time!

Spoiler

 

[Hobo Elf]

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Most of the ones I don't finish are because I lose interest, but of the ones I really enjoyed and wanted to complete:
Ultima 7: Serpent Isle - My most humiliating failure as the story was one of the most captivating of any game, but there was just too much crap to keep track of in millions of bags and boxes. Fortunately I found a lets play so I got to experience the ending.
Divinity 2 - That Damned escort mission. I tried so many times but never managed to complete it.
Planescape Torment - I feel like I'm digging my own grave with this post, but the game kept crashing in the fortress right at the end and I never managed to proceed. The combat is too much of a chore for me to try and plough through again these days.

 

[DavidBVal]

Planescape Torment - I feel like I'm digging my own grave with this post, but the game kept crashing in the fortress right at the end and I never managed to proceed. The combat is too much of a chore for me to try and plough through again these days.

It feels like a chore... DO YOUR CHORES, MAN

 

[Bumvelcrow]

It feels like a chore... DO YOUR CHORES, MAN

It's a test of character.

Now playing: Wizardry VI

That's next on my list, or at least somewhere in the top couple of dozen, and seems like a much better option.

 

[bloodlover]

DAO is probably the most recent RPG that I just couldn't bother finishing. Every single part of the game feels drawn out and overstays its welcome. Derp Roads and the Fade are brought up the most as culprits of this issue, but even the werewolf forest feels too goddamn long.

Have you played with the DLC's and expansion? They are supposed to make the game more enjoyable with the extra "goodies" that they bring. I only played the vanilla game and yes, Deep Roads is tedious as fuck.