do you ever feel the post-release/finished game blues?

Recently, I repeatedly played through a game I anxiously anticipated for a year (bloodborne), and now that it's over I just can't help but feel a little sad. I guess it's like reading a good book or watching a tv series. After it's all said and done, it's hard to part from a game's world and believe you're going to enjoy something that much again. I wish I could play it for the first time again, but I can't. The experience is over and I'm sad to be moving on.

So, have any of you ever felt this with a game before?

Mass Effect 2. Boy I just wish I could erase that game from my mind and replay it for the first time again.

Yes. The better the game the worse it can be. You get really invested into a story or accomplishing something, and then you beat it... what now? I notice it's never -too- intense though, just like a small thing that is with you for a day or two.

Persona Fucking 4

I just want Half Life 3 I loved everything about that series and to leave the story in such a critical state after making such an amazing sendoff to Half Life 2 with Episode 2 it really sucks ass that it may never get made. I think it legitimately has one of if not the best stories in games and to never get a conclusion actually makes me irrational trying to parse that they won't finish it.

After finishing Episode 2 I was not happy I was done with it and I have replayed them over and over so yea the worst kind of blues.

This. Right here. I never started a New Game+ so fast in my life.

Okami and Chrono Trigger

Yup. P3 is waiting my only NG+ start I'll do years later hoping that I can recapture some of the magic. I'm finishing up Persona 4 Golden wishing I could do it all again for the first time.

Ha, interesting idea for a thread. It definitely happens to me with games that take more than a week of frequent playing. I get used to launching the game, then suddenly it's the end...and that's it. Sometimes I try to savour the experience and slow down a bit towards the end :|

I had quite a strong experience with this very recently, I just finished Persona 3 FES for the first time this week after quite a history with the game. I first played Persona 3 fairly soon after it came out, played a chunk on backwards compatible PS3, then ended up starting again with an emulator, because it looks way better. I played that for... I think over 90 hours, I got about 90% through the in-game calendar, was quite close to the end. I don't really remember what happened, but I guess I just lost that save somehow and I wasn't in any hurry to do all that again, so I was away from the game for a bunch of years. I felt the urge to play it again and see it through some time last year, so I started again, with FES this time, and just finished it up this week.

A lot of my gaming time is spent on playing fighting games competitively, so I spend hundreds of hours with various fighting games and therefore a large part of what I spend my time playing is stuff that doesn't really have any endgame. I'm used to playing a lot of games that can't really be completed in any sense. Persona 3 had sort of come to feel the same way, because I'd clocked in well over 200 cumulative hours before I ever even finished the thing. Between that and my attachment to the game because of the great writing etc and just the sad but quite beautiful way that story wraps up, I was left feeling fairly wistful the day after, it was quite odd.

EDIT: Ha! Lots of Persona! Not surprising. Bring on 5!

Happens to me everytime I play what I consider to be a great game.

Makes it hard to want to play the next in fear it might be mediocre.

Happens to me more often these days, because I know I won't replay it. Back in the day it didn't hit me as hard since I tended to replay games over and over till I was bored of them

All the time.

I've got the issue of almost never completing the games I begin to play.

This is mostly because I am into games that either do not have an end/are endlessly repeatable (rogue-likes, Civ 4 and etc) or the kind of games that clock in at 50+ plus (Rpgs mostly).

The last game I had bad feelings about when I completed it was Bioshock infinite, a game I felt compelled to beat before the spoiler-timer ran out(I wanted to be able to talk to my friends about it), and I couldn't get the best experience out of it. I ended up straight up spoiling the Last of Us for myself after starting it, and getting the exact same feeling. Another game that once spoiled, loses much of its drive/charm, but which I simply could not bring myself to sit through.

It was something of a bummer, not enjoying a game everyone else did, and while avoiding any and all spoilers for Last of Us still basically calling every single plot-point in the first 3-5 hours of the game before they happen. The whole thing felt badly written and stock.

That has been the issue with all the games I've stopped playing/ended my time with and come away feeling bad. post Mass Effect 3 I was angry/disappointed because the ending was seemingly written by someone who had nothing to do with the previous 150+ hours themes. Bioshock Infinite didn't earn its ending. Last of Us was so predicable it wasn't worth my time to even try (and reading the story spoilers confirmed it went more or less exactly where I thought it would)

Of course the last game I beat, the Witcher 2, I did not come away with such feelings..because the story wrapped up very well and I was satisfied with my time with it. To me, story is everything (or almost). A game lives or dies by the story it can tell, everything else is secondary (game-play) or tertiary (graphics). The game I beat before that, Persona 4 Golden again I came away very very happy.

Of course in part because I am so story-focused my style of play is different. About a 1/3rd of the way through the Witcher 2 I decided it was a romance, and every choice/action that could fit that theme from then on did so, as that is a kind of plot I enjoy, being able to play through such a story made it better. For Persona 4, I abhor games with time-systems/limits. I don't play games a second time because, again, the story is everything. Once I've seen it, there is little reason to repeat. So persona 4 got the "follow a 100% everything the first time walk through' treatment from me...

..its off topic of course but I can say, you don't actually need to play Persona 4 too get all the story you'd want out of it. Its more the lenient enough to let you finish/explore all the stories you want, some of the social links being not as good as others/skip able.

I used to feel this a lot more, but nowadays I've started to appreciate games that pace themselves out well and end before they've outstayed their welcome. I really enjoyed Axiom Verge, for example, but wasn't super bummed when it ended because I feel like it took pretty much the exact amount of time that it should have.

If I'm really feeling the urge to play more of a game, I will. I've played through Bloodborne twice already and I'll probably end up playing through it again this summer when there's nothing out.

Persona 4 and Danganronpa gave me this big time.

I played Shovel Knight every day in ten to thirty minute chunks before work over the course of a month or two. When I hit the credit roll I kind of felt dejected. I get weirdly attached to certain experiences, especially when I'm looking for an escape from real life, but it's rare for games to really hit me like that. Also had it with The Last of Us and Wolfenstein: The New Order. At this point I take it as a mark of quality of the experience.

For me it's especially when I've just got done with a long game that featured a strong cast of characters. Be it Persona 4, Mass Effect, or more recently Dragon Age Inquisition. It's always a little sad to say goodbye to characters you really came to like after the many hours of play.

I find that video games aren't the only medium to have that kind of effect on me either. I certainly felt a little sad when I had no more Breaking Bad to watch when it ended.

Depends on the game obviously. Most recently would be MGS4 in my replay of it this past March