Games stopping you finishing it due to too much padding?

Darksiders II. The Forge part of the game had me thinking that it might be my GOTY. Then the Dead Lands happened with its terrible boss fights, boring environments and completely pointless quest and I just couldn't fucking care less.

I really enjoyed Kingdoms of Amalur but I have to agree there was too much of it. Now I just go back every now and again and play it for a bit.

I struggle with the amount of padding in AC games and the Mexico section of Red Dead almost killed it for me. It wasn't just the extra missions but it seemed that each one wanted you to travel across the map and back in order to finish it.

The first game that springs to mind is Kingdoms of Amalur. Most quests in that game were so MMO-like I sometimes forgot I was playing an offline game.

I don't know where the line goes between "mindless questing" and "feeling involved in the game world". Amalur leaned heavily towards the first, though.

I have never stopped playing a video game because of that reason.

For me it was, until recently, Resident Evil 6. That game really knows how to demodivate the player with pointless repition and walk and talk military bullshit.

The boss fights also feel like an entire chapter given how long it takes them to die permanately.

For the record it took me 11 months of on and off playing to finish it.

Alice: Madness Returns

That game was like 75% padding, as each map should have been about the quarter of the size it was.

I really find myself struggling to complete open world games. I'm stalled half way through Assassin's Creed IV, I've never beat a GTA game and I finally pushed through to the end of Red Dead Redemption only because I was determined to beat it and refused to give up (worth it). The only open world game I beat with no trouble was Sleeping Dogs. Was a fun game all the way through.

Regarding Kingdoms of Amalur: that was a strange one. I really liked that game, but I never beat it. I remember there was a huge build-up culminating in the defence of a city against an army of demons. You fight through the streets and end up killing some huge arch demon and I was thinking "Oh hells yeah!" the whole way through. And then afterwards the game just continued, and you had to go fight some bandits or something in a swamp. After the demon battle that just felt pointless and empty. So played for another 30 or 40 mins, then turned the game off and never started it up again. I felt that was a good end-point for that game and for me, it ended up being just that.

As much as I enjoyed the game, I never got around to finishing Final Fantasy XIII. I was pretty close to the end too.

Red Dead Redemption also comes to mind. I get to the Mexico part, then I just fall off it. It's a shame; the game's really well-made.

I'm with you, though my complaint might be my own damn fault. I had picked up the game expecting a Skyrim-type experience from the open world of Red Dead, one where exploration was rewarded. Instead, the open world was there to pad the game length by forcing you to travel across the entire map just to get from one mission point to the next. I never made it to Mexico; eventually I stopped bothering with any missions and just played the game for the challenges.

I'd also like to nominate Final Fantasy XIII-2. The original game is certainly guilty as well, but you could argue that the entire game of XIII-2 was padding. By definition. I mean, we're talking about a game that didn't just reuse assets from a previous game, but one that reused its own environments as different stages. And the objectives themselves were arbitrary and pointless, even for a JRPG. I finally gave up in a section where you have to do some damn platforming across spinning tetris blocks, when every fall made me restart the section.

That's literally the very end of the game. Right after that you fight the boss and then get the worst ending of any videogame ever.

I'm playing Final Fantasy 13 right now. Got to chapter 11 which is where the game stops funneling you down single paths, wants me to do a bunch of grinding. (sigh) I haven't wanted to go back because of it.

Fire Emblem: Awakening - barley 25% of the way through the game and I feel like I've already experienced as much of the game as I want. I don't particularly care for the majority of the characters and I think my biggest gripe is I don't like playing on a 3DS.

Yep. This is why I stopped playing Ni No Kuni. Opening was fantastic, enjoyed all the voicework and hand drawn animation... then all the sudden... just tons of padding and barely anything vocal outside of the bell dude's commentary.

It turned me off to it and I haven't gone back... :(

Rayman Legends? I'm not sure if that counts, because I'm not sure if it really has an ending so much as a vast amount of content to complete if you want to. Either way, I beat like four or five worlds and kind of had my fill.

Bioshock, someone mentioned, is a great example. I got past the big twist, started chasing Atlas, and then.. I have to do another area with insanely tough enemies to catch up to him? It really took the wind out of my sails and I never beat it.

Assassin's Creed games don't really count because most of the side stuff is totally optional and the games are so easy that upgrading isn't important. Nevertheless, it's hard to resist that icon I'm running right past when I know it'll only take like 20 seconds to finish, and after I've done that 200 times I'm sick of the game and I don't really care how the story ends. Well, scratch that - I never cared how the story ended, but some of the story missions can be cool.

I've played like, a couple hours total of Watch Dogs and its jam packed with so much bullshit I don't even want to go back. But I've been trophy hunting lately, killing time before Destiny and Watch Dogs is the one I have the most damage to do in. So... I might try but god damn I don't want to

I've never noticed much real padding in open worlds. I don't really consider side content to be padding, unless the game forces you to do it to power up your characters. Which begs the question, is it still side content?

Sonic Unleashed comes to mind for me. Most of the daytime levels (the fast/speedy ones) were extremely enjoyable, if the game was 100% these kinds of levels it would've been a far better game. It was unfortunately padded down by forcing you to complete a bunch of night levels as Werewolf Sonic which were largely monotonous and took WAY too long to complete a level (roughly 20 mins at least if i can recall correctly). I eventually gave up collecting enough shit to unlock more of the Day levels that I never ended up finishing the game. It just wasn't worth it.

Jet Force Gemini also has some pretty rough padding in it in order to fully complete the game. It was still a joy to play and I only took a temporary break from playing it before jumping back into it and finishing it.

WIND FUCKING WAKER

I don't speak for everyone on this. I think traversal is a really big issue for a lot of people. e.g. Mafia II... holy f***

You're right about the side content, especially in the Ubisoft games with the towers. I see one of those and either say, "well, here goes 15 minutes I can't get back" Or I just simply say, "Nope!", and quit.

That is the conundrum though - Is side content really "optional" if it strengthens your character, or gates the main content?

@m16mojo2: Pretty much. You can blow through an Elder Scrolls in ten hours, if you beeline between main objectives.

I like open world games but I can't play them for long stretches of time because of the padding. I play for a couple hours each weekend over the course of a long period and the padding doesn't seem like such a big deal. On the other hand when I get near the end and just want to rush through to complete them....oh boy. GTA IV and V were pretty rough in their final hours. red Dead wasn't so bad because the end is extremely atmospheric even if it is plenty padded.

I appreciate Tales of Graces f's attempts at closing out several gaping plot holes in its post-game content, but some of those levels are designed to irritate the fuck out of me and I'll never finish it. Which is too bad, because I really, really like the combat system in that game and I'd probably rip through it again for more achievements.

Mercenary Kings

The game is 95% padding. Playing the same levels repeatedly and then having to go all around those same levels in the same instance because the damn bosses move from one location on the map to another.

Biggest one in recent memory is Radiant Historia. It's got a unique battle system, an interesting premise, and great music, but it drags on for way too long. I'm not even sure how far into the game I am, I just had to tell myself to stop at around 20-30 hours when I was feeling incredibly bored.

Okami is a pretty big offender too. I made it maybe a third of the way through.

@brendan: I think you can consider it padded when you feel the game should have ended 10 hours earlier. That's what I felt anyway and hated the game for it (in addition of the horrible wiimote controls but that's another discussion).

@m16mojo2: Assassins Creed 2, been stuck on it, kinda feel like it's boring. I think the first game moved faster. At this rate I'll never get to the 4th game. And why is there a new game in this series every year, I'll probably never find out.

GTA 4 lost and the dammed, just felt to repetitive and much less story moments. Just felt like a cheap experience from the 4th games story driven game.

LA Noire, story went down hill once I finished the second disc. Also hated the war time hero stuff, that just felt tacked on (for a COD hungry audience that probably never played the game). At first I was enjoying it but it defiantly over stayed it's welcome. Stuck on the 3rd disc with no motivation to go back.

@tabloidfootprints: I just recently beat Far Cry 3. I actually enjoyed climbing the towers, it was like a 3d plateformer. I think you can beat it with shipping those and just going through the story missions. But maybe you wouldn't get the fast travel spots.

Would The Cave's habit of making you play through the same goddamned puzzles every playthrough (even/especially the puzzles that don't change based on your chosen characters) be considered "padding" or simply "a bad design decision"?

Not that it stopped me from finishing the game. It just stopped me from liking it at all by the time I was done.

Far Cry 3 and most sandbox games.

I have to push myself to finish Red Dead Redemption.

Not because the mexico missions were not fun (they were ok, I guess), but because the design of every mission was:

1. Go to this corner of the map to start the mission.
2. Ride slowly to this other corner of the map...
3. Ride back to the third corner...
4. Go back to the first corner to start the next mission.

Seriously, all the missions were designed to take place in a completely different location than the place you start it, or end it. The amount of time I spent on a horse in that game just "getting somewhere" was disproportionate to the time I spent actually doing something...

Final Fantasy 13-2 which is weird considering I actually liked the openworld(ish) stuff in FF13 but having to go back to small isolated areas on a scavenger hunt for macguffins Zelda style kind of killed it for me. I'll probably go back to it when I run out of other games to play again though.

I enjoyed just roaming about in that game, so the whole concept of riding my horse from one point of the map to another was actually really enjoyable. The world is incredible.

Dark siders 2 and kingdoms of amalur

This one is on the nose for me. Had they shortened each chapter by 20-30 minutes it would have improved the game immensely. Instead they keep you repeating the exact same traversal mechanics and battle combinations over and over. I burned out at the beginning of the card world (chapter 4 or something like that).

For those saying Zelda: Twilight Princess, I burned out on it about 12 hours in the first time I got it. I hated the Wii controls and the wolf sections. After so many years away I started it again because I would like to finish it and I'm finding it much more enjoyable. Phantom Hourglass though, no way am I going to go back to that center dungeon and repeat it after every single main dungeon I complete. Such a dumb design decision.

Assassins Creed 4 got so boring I quit half way through the story.

Yea, they were pretty massive... Good game overall though.

I've attempted many-a-jrpg and always get drowned in the padding and stop.

It's definitely got some parts that drag and I wasn't super in love with the gunplay but the store picks up like a motherf***er (in a good way) and it's one of my fonder memories this gen. I'd say stick with it. (You think the cutscenes are cheesy? I felt like they nailed the tone perfectly...)

Yeah I can definitely tell it has a good story there. I get irritated when 75% of the story missions are "oh yeah I'll help you with your mission later, but first we need to go kill 25 bandits for some random reason." Also you're right about the gunplay. The gunslinger power (or whatever it's called) nerfs the whole game. And for the rest of the guys you just auto aim on them. Compared to something like uncharted it just feels cheap and shallow.

I can definitely sense the tone they're going for and at times I think they totally nail it. But then missions with Irish, the grave digger guy, and the snake oil guy are just loaded with needlessly campy cutscenes. Even worse is when the mission starts and they start talking during the missions. Characters I liked like Bonnie and the Sherrif became cringey one liner machines.

It's not a bad game and I will finish it. Just a bit disappointed after how much Brad hyped it. I figured Jeff was just being a curmudgeon when he said he didn't care for it. I do definitely see the appeal though.

The original Witcher. Not so much for the padding as much as the aggravating way the time mechanic worked in that game.

Simply put, certain NPCs needed for quests only appear at certain times of day, but the quest log frequently doesn't let you in on this information. Want to turn in that quest you ground out? Follow the marker on the map and then try to figure out when the needed NPC is going to show up. Of course, you can only rest to advance the clock at specified locations, which are usually half way across the map from where you need to be.

Don't hit me! Right now, Fez. Never played it until it went free on PS Plus last month. I haven't looked up how to decode the language and can see all the intrigue. I have around 26 cubes and am working on the 32 cube door. Just having trouble going back into it--especially because getting to places I need to go requires lots of backtracking and rote navigation. I love the idea of what I'm playing, and I know there's so much more to it, and that's cool. But it feels like quick sand right now rather than a neat castle to explore. Possible that's because the elevators only take me to four random floors rather than allowing me to zip to previous locations. I don't want to feel this way, but it's dragging for me.

I'll also say Braverly Default because fuck the last half of that game.

Or I guess fuck playing the first half of that game over and over

Chapter 5 of Bravely Default just knocked all the wind out of my sails. It wasn't even the conceit that bothered me, it was that they did nothing at all with it.

So basically you're made to "replay" the game and all of the optional battles against the bad guys reset. OK cool, most of those fights were big misunderstandings anyway I can do right now this time, otherwise what's the point of time travel or dimension hopping? Nono, it all plays out exactly the same. You kill the Valkyrie and totally regret it every time. Wasted opportunity.

In general though most games are getting better about valuing a person's time. People used to bitch and moan that a 6 hour game isn't worth the 60 dollar investment, and developers would respond to that not with substantial content, but by making their 6 hour game 18 hours. But do the math here, cus now 12 hours of your life are being wasted with 'work', you coulda purchased 2+ games working minimum wage for that amount of time. A game that doesn't waste my time is worth far more. People should think about games like they do movies. 90 minutes, 3 hours, same price. And most people prefer a tight 90 over a Peter Jackson 180, its a better experience for its brevity. Some devs still dont get it.

I would definitely qualify Kingdoms of Amaluer as that kind of game, but the strange thing is despite all of the side quests and padding I actually finished it. That would be thanks to my Ocd.

is it just me or half the posts are about an arbitrary game the person dislikes and not so much about padding, at all? ¬¬"

Got super into Persona 3 FES then.....once i got to the 80 hour mark and the final dungeon I just couldn't bring myself to play more. I prefer persona 3 all the way over 4 but man it could have been a bit shorter.

Just stopped playing Knights of Pen and Paper due to too much padding, along with its other issues.

@lawgamer: I'm with you 100% I loved that game to death but, sadly still haven't finished it. Something would come up, I'd be out of it for a couple months, and when I tried to jump back in, I had no idea what the hell was even happening. That time thing never even crossed my mind. That's probably why I got stuck when I tried to get back into it. That game has so much stuff you have to learn, perhaps a "Drew-like" notepad is required....

@edsone: Yeah, I was hoping (in addition to naming a game), people would post some ideas on how "padding" might be fixed as a whole. Perhaps that's just too broad of a question, and I'm not quite sure how it could be narrowed down.

I'll power through them because games need to be finished but Okami was a real test of patience. The slow, unskippable text was the biggest barrier.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's got a roadblock in it when it comes to the bosses. I know why the bosses have so much health but they could've at least scaled it down for guys trying to solo the game.

Yeah every Ubisoft game is stuff full of crap to do. Black flag being fricken horrid for that. I'm intrigued by Watch Dogs that they have side missions where to find the 7-10 collectibles and get a new mission at the end of it. That sounds like a great idea but I've yet to finish one of those side missions to see if the mission is a just reward or not.

Part of the shitty thing about Ubi though is the whole connecting to Ubi server crap. They're gathering data on how people are playing the games so if more people are 100% these then the more they're thinking gamers like these shitty side missions and gazillion collectibles.

@jedicro Stick with it man. RDR gets really good after Mexico.

Darksiders 2, when you're 12h in and the game completely sidetracks the story for some bullshit side stuff, I threw in the towl.

Ubisoft in general has a lot of collectibles and I have a problem needing to collect them... except for the flags. f**k those flags.

Season 2 of the Walking Dead dragged on a bit for me. Episode 1-3 felt like they should have been condensed.