Have you ever quit a video game because you can't beat it?

  • 76 results
  • 1
  • 2
Avatar image for ultragamerockx
ultragamerockx

70

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#1  Edited By ultragamerockx

Hi everyone,

My topic today is about games, the question is "Have you ever quit a game due to the fact that you got so frustrated, or maybe you just give up". Here's an example of one game that I quit because I got so frustrated with it: One day i was in the middle of playing Forza Motorsport 6 when I was at such a high, hard level that I couldn't beat at that point, so, I deleted all my save data on my Xbox One and restarted the entire game.

These days I'm even better at Forza 6, I beat the levels, I completed it and i haven't given up on it, yet.

So what is the most frustrating, annoying game that you can't beat but you have restarted and tried again?

Avatar image for joemarsden
JoeMarsden

340

Forum Posts

2109

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

When I was a lot younger, I had borrowed Viewtiful Joe from a friend. It's a long while ago now so I can't quite remember when, but I was stuck in a certain area (think it may have been a boss fight) and I couldn't manage at all. I returned the game a little early as I had admitted defeat.

Avatar image for clagnaught
clagnaught

2520

Forum Posts

413

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 19

I'm not sure if I ever finished the last bosses in Donkey King 64 or Banjo-Kazooie. I was in elementary school when those games came out and the N64 was my main gaming platform at the time. For those two final bosses, I remember there were some aspects involving timing that I had trouble with. Maybe I wasn't that persistent with games back then, but all I remember was dying on the final stage of those encounters, but never the joy of conquering them and finishing the game.

I have given up on a few random games over the years, but these two really stick out because I was right at the absolute end and I just said "Nah".

Avatar image for rongalaxy
RonGalaxy

4937

Forum Posts

48

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 1

#4  Edited By RonGalaxy

I rarely ever beat games when I was really young. Most of the games I played then were trash from the bargain shelf, so it's not surprising looking back.

As for games I didn't beat because they were too hard... Can't think of any really. If a game earns it's difficulty, then I'll probably enjoy the challenge enough to see it through.

Avatar image for shivoa
Shivoa

1602

Forum Posts

334

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 6

#5  Edited By Shivoa

Lots of older games didn't seem designed to be completed (I mean, that's clearly true for arcade ports of games designed to eat credits and so earn enough money). I'd say I wasn't regularly completing games (due to what was required to get to the end, not lack of interest in playing them) until... [looks up EU release date of Sol-Feace] the mid '90s? Savegames obviously are very useful fro allowing you to just go to the bit you've failed at and try again, so I don't think I've ever deleted a savegame on purpose (lost a few memory sticks or a failed HDD without a backup a long time ago, sure).

Nowadays, with more of a focus on difficulty options and a narrative path that you can walk down rather than endless skill and reaction challenges that need to be beaten, I still don't finish plenty of games but not because I can't play them but because I lost interest in them. Few exceptions to that but today it's all about deciding I've seen enough and moving on rather than feeling that more play will not get me over a hump.

Think Super Hexagon was the last game where I just clearly knew it was made to not be possible by someone with slower than average reaction times. Not a game you complete (AFAIK) but I couldn't even get past the first hurdle and it wasn't helped by the controls (holding down on a screen for a time to rotate rather than pointing at where on the screen to rotate to = a design decision I just can't understand). Quit, uninstall, tell everyone I know who has the same reaction time issues to not bother even trying.

Avatar image for bratcher_lev
Bratcher_Lev

390

Forum Posts

452

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

#6  Edited By Bratcher_Lev

Dark Souls 2.

I played the everliving daylights out of the original Dark Souls and consider beating it as one of, if not THE crowning achievements of my gaming career.

But Dark Souls 2, man. I dunno. I just can't get the feeling down or something.

Avatar image for tobbrobb
TobbRobb

6616

Forum Posts

49

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 13

I could probably beat it if I put the time in, but Ninja Gaiden is like. Hard but not really fun hard for me. I've tried to get into that game several times, but every time I talk to people about how to play it or beat X it's always a bunch of cheese tactics... Is there really no way to play that game cleanly?

Any difficult to semi-difficult rhythm game I can't beat. I still play them for fun and to see if I can get better, but my sense of rhythm is absolutely abhorrent.

Avatar image for ivdamke
ivdamke

1841

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@tobbrobb said:

Is there really no way to play that game cleanly?

Yes... but not really no, its mostly about pre-charged UT's for their i-frames and managing essence to instant-charge UT's when needed. The Sigma games require less cheese because there's less enemies but they do 2-3x damage to compensate. Where as in Black/2 there's always overwhelming incendiary shurikens being thrown near all times. The way NG does higher difficulties is one of the reasons I've always thought of the franchise as a lesser one compared to its contemporaries.

Avatar image for captain_insano
Captain_Insano

3658

Forum Posts

841

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 5

User Lists: 15

The GTA IV: The Lost and Damned mission where you have to kill your targets by throwing C4 at them while riding your bike, just couldn't get it. I managed the RC helicopter in Vice City, but not this.

Avatar image for tobbrobb
TobbRobb

6616

Forum Posts

49

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 13

@ivdamke: Oki, I definitely underutilized UT techniques in favor of jumping and blocking. I'll keep that in mind for when I inevitably get bored and go back again. Maybe I should try Sigma because I'd probably prefer getting one-shot over the shuriken spam, but at this point I'm too stubborn to do anything other than the original.

Also thought of one more game. As a kid I 100% gave up on the original Rayman because it was so damn hard. Going back to it years later I can confirm. STILL HARD AS BALLS!

Avatar image for alavapenguin
ALavaPenguin

948

Forum Posts

5

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Constantly. If I am stuck on a game, and no longer having fun because of it I have no qualms about moving on. The game has to earn my time as far as I am concerned.

Sometimes it just means I simply got all I needed out of the game, had a fun time, but the opportunity cost of actually completing it just is too high.

That doesn't mean I drop a game at the first sign of difficulty. If I feel the challenge will be rewarding, I will struggle through with it and do many times. I know my earlier statement sounds like I just drop games out of nowhere cause they are too hard but honestly only if I am not having fun anymore, don't expect to have fun in the future, and not finding the struggle will be worth it in the end [as far as worth it goes for video game playing].

Avatar image for darth_navster
Darth_Navster

886

Forum Posts

4

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 7

User Lists: 4

Guacamelee for me. I actually really liked it until I got to the boss named Jaguar-something. I must've tried to beat him 20-30 times before I realized that I'm a grown ass man and don't need to beat every game. Still a good game though.

Avatar image for deactivated-63b0572095437
deactivated-63b0572095437

1607

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I quit when I stop having fun, regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes I beat my head against a game long enough that I'm like "time to move on". I have the ability to get through any encounter, but doing so isn't always fun. Fun first.

Avatar image for sweep
sweep

10886

Forum Posts

3660

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 4

User Lists: 14

#14 sweep  Moderator

FTL.

I didn't quit. I'm just taking a break.

Avatar image for fredchuckdave
Fredchuckdave

10824

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Vagrant Story when I was like 12, couldn't beat the last boss; came back a year later and beat it; turns out its the best game ever.

Avatar image for bigsocrates
bigsocrates

6103

Forum Posts

162

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I have quit tons of games over difficulty. This was more common back in the NES/SNES days when you often had to replay the ENTIRE GAME if you ran out of continues so you couldn't just try the difficult part over and over until you mastered it, but even today I don't have an issue with bailing on a game that gets too tough. I don't enjoy excessive difficulty or frustration and I generally think games are too long and repetitive rather than too short so if a game is difficult to the point of seeming hostile to me I will stop playing it.

I do beat very difficult games from time to time, but I have to be in the right mood (or just really like the game despite its excessive difficulty.)

Avatar image for zevvion
Zevvion

5965

Forum Posts

1240

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 6

User Lists: 2

@fakevox said:

@bratcher_lev: Dark Souls 2 was one of my more recent examples. Love the series (Demon's Souls being one of my favorite games ever), but I couldn't stand playing that game. Something about the way it feels, combined with the lackluster level/boss design, soured me on the whole thing to the point where I just quit.

It's probably still the best Souls game for me. Always seemed odd to me that this community specifically hates it so much. But there are more games where this community takes an aggressive stance as a group that I found pretty weird.

Avatar image for theanticitizen
theanticitizen

426

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I always start them but never finish before other games come out and I never bother to go back

Avatar image for casepb
Casepb

1008

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Over my lifetime tons. I have a mix of games I rage quit and some I just forgot about so I never went back. Most recently I just got annoyed with Killzone Shadowfall. I'm sure I was close to beating it but I just said screw it I rather play Destiny.

Avatar image for sandalinbohemia
sandalinbohemia

42

Forum Posts

2

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I couldn't for the life of me make it past the first level of Crypt of the Necrodancer, god knows how many times I've tried...eventually I just had to admit to myself that my sense of rhythm is practically nonexistent so I closed the game and purchased the soundtrack instead. Same good tunes, fewer dancing skeletons to get stressed about.

Avatar image for fezrock
Fezrock

750

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Lots of times. Its more common that I quit a game because I got bored of it; but there's plenty of examples where I wasn't bored but just couldn't progress any further. Some recent examples are:

Dark Souls 2, Dragon's Dogma, Magrunner: Dark Pulse, and Salt and Sanctuary.

Avatar image for sammo21
sammo21

6040

Forum Posts

2237

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 18

User Lists: 45

I put Alien: Isolation down for nearly an entire year because of my annoyance with the randomness and bugs. I just picked it back up last week because I wanted to finish it.

I stopped playing Salt and Sanctuary because I didn't think it was a good game...same with No Man's Sky. Normally I don't quit a game because it is hard but I do end up getting distracted with other games all the time.

Avatar image for y2ken
Y2Ken

3308

Forum Posts

82

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 28

Devil May Cry 3 was a game I had to step away from at some point and just never went back. At the time I reached a point where teenage me just couldn't handle it. I tend not to actively decide not to play a game again, but there are occasions where I'll put a game and just not pick it back up again - perhaps subliminally thinking that I don't want to tackle the moment which got me to stop playing the last time.

@zevvion said:

It's probably still the best Souls game for me. Always seemed odd to me that this community specifically hates it so much. But there are more games where this community takes an aggressive stance as a group that I found pretty weird.

I wouldn't say it's specific to this community - everyone who's into the series has their favourites, but I'd say generally wherever I've been Dark Souls II is still the one I hear quoted the most as people's least favourite. There are a lot of things I like about it, but it feels mushy to me in a way none of the other games in the series do and that will likely never be something I quite get over.

Avatar image for wlleiotl
wlleiotl

318

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#25  Edited By wlleiotl

Bound by Flame, got to the end, the final boss was not fun, so i watched a youtube clip of the ending and sold it.

Sorry, didnt answer your question. I defintely didnt beat FF7 or FF8 as a kid, but came back to them in college and strolled through.

Avatar image for redhotchilimist
Redhotchilimist

3019

Forum Posts

14

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

I certainly gave up on Hell in Cave Story after a while if that's what you're asking.

Avatar image for berniesbc
berniesbc

254

Forum Posts

448

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

If you've never run into a game that you stopped playing because it was too difficult, you probably weren't playing many games before the late 90s. There were LOTS of NES games that I never beat because they were stupid hard.

Avatar image for starvinggamer
StarvingGamer

11533

Forum Posts

36428

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 25

It's not really quitting, more that I lose interest if I get stuck at a spot and just spend more time with the other games I'm playing.

Avatar image for diz
diz

1394

Forum Posts

961

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 4

#29  Edited By diz

I've quit far too many games before they ended - probably more games than I have finished. One that sticks out is "Bad Blood" by Chris Roberts (of Wing Commander fame); one of the first games I bought for my PC in 1990. It has the most arcane and confusing plot with false trails and back-tracking, but I threw many hours at it. I found a guide a few years ago that mentioned you needed a special item to finish the game that I never found. I tried to play it again through a web-based internet archive, but it is pretty unplayable by today's standards and certainly not without a guide. Come to think of it, I don't remember finishing Wing Commander either...

Avatar image for dharmabum
DharmaBum

1740

Forum Posts

638

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

Never beat Ikaruga because I'm a scrub who needs to git gud.

Avatar image for jasonmasters
JasonMasters

298

Forum Posts

7

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I keep bouncing off of Bloodborne because I have struggled with it.

Avatar image for rejizzle
Rejizzle

1488

Forum Posts

10

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

It's semantics, but when I come to a difficult point in a game I tend to quit more out of boredom than frustration. Most recently this happened with Furi's good ending. The bullet hell sections of that game were my least favorite, and that boss is nothing but bullet hell. So after losing to it 6 or 7 times I just uninstalled the game. Could I beat it if I gave it a couple more tries? Sure, probably. Would I have fun doing so? Not really.

Avatar image for zevvion
Zevvion

5965

Forum Posts

1240

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 6

User Lists: 2

@y2ken said:

Devil May Cry 3 was a game I had to step away from at some point and just never went back. At the time I reached a point where teenage me just couldn't handle it. I tend not to actively decide not to play a game again, but there are occasions where I'll put a game and just not pick it back up again - perhaps subliminally thinking that I don't want to tackle the moment which got me to stop playing the last time.

@zevvion said:

It's probably still the best Souls game for me. Always seemed odd to me that this community specifically hates it so much. But there are more games where this community takes an aggressive stance as a group that I found pretty weird.

I wouldn't say it's specific to this community - everyone who's into the series has their favourites, but I'd say generally wherever I've been Dark Souls II is still the one I hear quoted the most as people's least favourite. There are a lot of things I like about it, but it feels mushy to me in a way none of the other games in the series do and that will likely never be something I quite get over.

That's not really true. The active Dark Souls community clearly liked DSII the best and to some extent still does. I just didn't see anywhere that people were so unanimously hating the game as here. Same goes for Destiny by the way. There are a couple of games that the staff doesn't like and the community seems to jump on board and hate it furiously as well.

Avatar image for zombievac
zombievac

492

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

There were a LOT of games on the NES, and even the SNES, that I never had the patience to beat... and I had a lot of patience (and games) as a kid. Even a bad or frustrating game was my only choice for a while after getting one as a gift or rental. I didn't beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out until I was in late high school, even though I played a ton as a kid. I also recall Zelda (the first one) almost being impossible without a nintendo power or other tip guide (since you had to blow a hole in a random rock to get to the last dungeon, I bet pretty much no kid ever figured that out on their own, and if they did, it was an accident).

I also really tried hard to beat Space Quest on PC as a kid - but that game was literally a waste of time without following a guide. Solutions were often random, and you could easily miss (again, illogical) things at the beginning that would screw your whole playthrough - but you wouldn't know until you wasted 20 hours of time.... and arrrghh, I loved that game and wanted so badly to see it through. I just couldn't figure out what to do in so many spots!

Avatar image for deactivated-61665c8292280
deactivated-61665c8292280

7702

Forum Posts

2136

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 6

@rejizzle said:

It's semantics, but when I come to a difficult point in a game I tend to quit more out of boredom than frustration. Most recently this happened with Furi's good ending. The bullet hell sections of that game were my least favorite, and that boss is nothing but bullet hell. So after losing to it 6 or 7 times I just uninstalled the game. Could I beat it if I gave it a couple more tries? Sure, probably. Would I have fun doing so? Not really.

Yup. I have a similar feeling. Hard to articulate sometimes.

It's like, sometimes, when I hit a really difficult stretch of a game I begin to take a certain stock of whether I feel invested enough to brute force my way through it. If I don't eventually get past the hump, it typically ends in one of three results:

1) I'll kick the difficulty down.
2) I'll look up a walkthrough or a guide.
3) In situations where the above solutions do not work or cannot work, I'll walk away.

I have a really low personal tolerance for difficulty-related choices that contradict established game-balance decisions, or situations in which the game's engine, controls, or camera are not suitable tools with which to approach the game's given challenges. Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne are, in my mind, two recent examples of this. Both games deliberately exploit awkward or obscured camera angles, as well as the game's shoddy targeting system, in order to manufacture artificial difficulty. Likewise, both games (on consoles) have points where the engine simply buckles and the framerate drops, an unintentional shortcoming that impacts moment-to-moment playability. Luckily for the two, they each offer a similar remedy -- summoning help from other players can be used as an on-the-fly difficulty adjustment.

At some point I just have to reckon with how engaged I am with the game itself and how much of a premium I am putting on experiencing the game in the "purest" way possible. Which, itself, is kind of a preposterous, self-imposed misconception. Once I get past that, I'll either move on or seek out an outside resource.

Avatar image for planetfunksquad
planetfunksquad

1560

Forum Posts

71

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

1001 spikes. I just couldn't with that game. I think thats the game that broke me forever in terms of bastard hard platformers.

Avatar image for eddiephlash
eddiephlash

388

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Guacamelee had some color stuff in it that I couldn't get past being colorblind.

Avatar image for ryuku_ryosake
Ryuku_Ryosake

474

Forum Posts

4

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Just about every single game I played from the PS1/N64 era and earlier.

For PS1 and N64 controls were such garbage and I would get frustrated and quit just about every game.

I played a lot of SNES and Genesis and most games were way too frustratingly hard to complete.

The only things that were consistently beatable without going insane in those eras were first party nintendo games and rpgs. Everything else usually had garbage controls or complete BS design.

Avatar image for clagnaught
clagnaught

2520

Forum Posts

413

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 19

1001 spikes. I just couldn't with that game. I think thats the game that broke me forever in terms of bastard hard platformers.

I'm not sure if you encountered this issue, but I reached the point in 1001 Spikes where I didn't have enough skulls or skipped too many levels to the point where I couldn't proceed to the final stages of the game. Which meant that I had to go through the previous levels that were already too much for me if I wanted to go further. That realization is what broke me. I still really enjoy that game, but man did it get tough.

Avatar image for thdemn
thdemn

158

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

@sweep said:

FTL.

I didn't quit. I'm just taking a break.

Preach brother

Avatar image for discomposure
discomposure

206

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I quit one of the Harry Potter PS2 games (either Azkaban or Order) because I was stuck in a room where I had to rotate some mirrors or something and I just couldn't figure out how to move the darn things. Still haven't beaten it, I even tried again a couple times after putting it down for awhile too. I bet the solution is painfully obvious...

Aside from that, not really. A few games have made me take 'breaks' but I'll get back to them some day... probably
Top of that list is Demon's Souls & Dark Souls, which I've started several times and never even got half-way BUT I have renewed hope since I just beat DS2 SOTFS offline the other day. I got this!

Avatar image for caska
caska

264

Forum Posts

30

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Windwaker and Bravely Default are the ones that stand out the most for me. Basically whenever a game asks me to repeat a million things right before the ending... It's usually because when I'm nearing the end of most games I'm also getting a bit bored of them at that point too unless things are really ramping up towards a climax.

Avatar image for ryuku_ryosake
Ryuku_Ryosake

474

Forum Posts

4

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@zevvion said:
@y2ken said:

That's not really true. The active Dark Souls community clearly liked DSII the best and to some extent still does. I just didn't see anywhere that people were so unanimously hating the game as here. Same goes for Destiny by the way. There are a couple of games that the staff doesn't like and the community seems to jump on board and hate it furiously as well.

As someone who has repeated dumped on DSII, I think I can explain. The Giant Bomb community is way different from the rest of the gaming community. It mostly consists of very hardcore gamers that aged into the inverse time vs. money dynamic. They are why more likely to dabble in a whole bunch of games and never really hardcore devote themselves to a game. This means there opinions are way more likely to align with the staffs, who have similar life styles, than any specific franchises dedicated community.

For Dark Souls, I bet it goes like this for most of the Giant Bomb community. The GB community is very plugged into the industry and probably checked out the Soul series as early as Demon's and all were certainly on board by DS1. That is to say that DS2 is probably no ones first around these parts. Where as I expect a lot of the rest of the greater gaming community hopped on during DS2.

If I were to guess on how most of the GB community plays these games. I would guess that most of them barely engaged in multiplayer. Most of them probably only played through the games once and up to twice max. So playing the games these way the most emphasis is placed on the first play through single player experience. What matters the most in this case is the level design and boss design. Which DS1 blows DS2 out of the water with. What is de-emphasized is the multiplayer experience, build variety, and pathing which are more of DS2 strengths and stuff a hardcore super dedicated fanbase would get behind, make videos, and be engaged with.

Destiny is likely a similar story. The average GB player probably doesn't engage that much with the endgame raids or multiplayer. So most of their experience in the game is probably based on the leveling experience than the endgame.

Avatar image for ralphmoustaccio
RalphMoustaccio

485

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#45  Edited By RalphMoustaccio

I have a hard time believing that anyone hasn't done this at some point, but maybe others have more tolerance for frustration than I do.

For me, the one that stands out the most was Phantasy Star II, where I got stuck at what I am pretty sure was the second-to-last boss. There was a way to avoid the random battle encounters in that game if you really wanted to do so, and being ten at the time, I got so tired of them at some point that I used it. Unfortunately, I used it too much and was significantly underleved for that boss fight. Faced with the prospect of grinding levels for hours, or restarting entirely, I gave up and never returned. Some day I'll remedy that.

Avatar image for itsacorey
ItsaCorey

48

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I quit Metal Gear: Revengeance because one of the last bosses was too difficult for me.

Avatar image for bigspoon
BigSpoon

38

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

The Witness. I am just too dumb to finish it.

Avatar image for zork27
zork27

1

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

For me personally, Metal Gear Solid 5 is one of the greatest games ever made. I've played all of the core games in the franchise to death, so when I heard about Metal Gear Survive, I was ready to buy it sight unseen, simply because it was another Metal Gear game. I watched the trailers as they came out, and while it did look very different from all the others games in the series, I was still interested in playing another Metal Gear game, so I went out and bought it within a week of it's initial launch and started playing it....and I've only just stopped playing it within the last few days.

Yes, I've been almost exclusively playing Metal Gear Survive for nearly a year and a half. Mind you I wasn't playing it every day, but it was literally the only game in that time that I played for any real length of time (I bought one of those GBA clone consoles a while back, so I did play Donkey Kong Country GBA for like an hour or two).

Now, I'm one of those really persistent/stubborn kinds of people, so I whenever I play a video game, I usually try to beat it regardless of how bad it is, and that's partly why I kept at it with MGS. The game was/is very, very hard, so at first I'd play it for several hours at a time just to try to make any real progress, and even then it didn't amount to much. Because of how hard it was I ended up only playing it maybe once or twice a week, and it quickly became almost a chore to play it. You always need more materials, there's always more zombies to kill, you always need to level up further to not die, there's always another quick travel point to unlock, the game rarely ever lets up on the amount the things you need to do and keep doing in order to survive, and even after almost fully leveling up my character, crafting and unlocking most of the major weapons/tools and nearly exploring the entirety of the map, I still died many times on almost every main mission and side mission regardless. And still, I kept playing....

I'd say within about the first month of playing I got to the point where you can start growing your own food, and after finally finding some potatoes I quickly built the maximum number of potato farms the game allows and began to wait. To the make the game even more frustrating it takes two real world hour for I believe two potatoes to grow in one farm, so the most you'll ever grow in two hours is six, but if you play the game for two hours you'll actually run out of all of them with about half an hour to spare, so you still more food on top of that. I quickly discovered that each farm will keep growing potatoes for several real world days, so I began to just play the game once a week so that I'd end up with a surplus of over 100 potatoes each week to work off of, thus circumventing one the game's core concepts in order to stand playing it at all.

After a while, I'd go from playing it every week, to almost every week, to a couple times a month, so maybe once or twice every couple of months. My situation at work wasn't the best at the time either, so I tried to avoid any further frustration. Still though, I always kept going back to it, slowly chipping away at it.

The game only has two maps just like MGS5, Afghanistan and Africa, but for some reason the game makes the mission that takes you to Africa sound like it's unbelievably difficult, so I spent I don't how many hours just grinding the same side missions over and over again to level up my character and crafting as many tools and weapons as possible only to find out that when I eventually started that mission it was very, very easy, and I actually ended up beating it after only dying once or twice (and even that was just from getting insta-killed from the boss at the end of the level). Once I got to Africa, I breezed through most of the map and most of the main missions within a matter a weeks, which by that point I was back to playing it a few times a week since I was finally making real progress in a reasonable amount of time.

What almost made me give up in frustration was the mission to reclaim Sahelanthropus. Oh my god, this stupid, stupid mission. It's just another "defend this" sort of mission, but the sheer scale of enemies they throw at you is insane, it's more than triple the number of any other mission in the game up that point and it comes out nowhere, the game doesn't make it seem any more important than any other main mission. I died at least 10 times on that mission, and each time took almost 15 minutes, so I wasted a good few hours just trying to get through this one mission. The only reason I got through it was after looking up some playthroughs on YouTube, which required me to completely change my weapon and item layout and use ones I've never used in the game before that point, and even then I only just barely beat it by the skin of my teeth.

After that ordeal was over, I was able to continue on pretty well, none of the others missions really were that hard or a pain in the neck, but then I got to the final mission of the game...

The final mission of this game is one of the most frustrating parts of a video game I have ever played. It it so hard, so overwhelming, it's just such an onslaught that I don't know you'd ever have a chance of beating it unless you did just about everything in the game like I did, and keep in mind the game doesn't have a level cap on story progression so you could hypothetically make it this far and just not be able to do it.

I tried it, and then I tried it again, then again, and then again after that, and while I made progress each time I still kept dying from some random enemy popping up behind me out of nowhere or just getting stuck in a corner and a bunch of them just hit it at once practically inst-killing me. I think if I went back and kept trying I could've beat it, but the main thing that prevented me from actually doing it was one thing: materials.

I didn't realize until this point in the game that whenever you use resources, be it to craft a weapon or more ammo, or just repair a damaged weapon, either way those materials are permanently used, and if you die on a mission, even if the game restarts you before the mission, those materials are still gone. Within three or four tries I found that I was simply running out of materials, so I couldn't repair any of my weapons, I couldn't craft more ammo for my guns, and I couldn't craft more gates or fences, so I was stuck...and that's what made me give up on this game.

I'm sure that if I went back I could restock all of my supplies and keep trying to beat it, but to get back to where I was supply-wise would probably take me at least another week of playing on and off to maybe get back to where to that point, and honestly, I'm just sick and tired of wasting my time. I've put all this energy and time into this game, and to hit a roadblock this far into the game, especially one this random and pointless....no way, I'm done, I just don't care anymore.

Part of me doesn't feel that great about leaving the game unfinished, but I know that it's the right thing to do, and that I need to move on to different games. To give myself some form of closure I did look up the ending to the game, and even for this game it's pretty stupid, so at least now I'm left wondering about what happens next.

(I should point out that during this time I never once played the multi-player for this game. I don't have an Xbox Live Gold membership, so I've only ever played the single player component of this game.)

Avatar image for 49th
49th

3988

Forum Posts

26

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

#49  Edited By 49th

No, in fact the reason I play on hard difficulty is that I noticed that it's almost impossible to get stuck in modern games. Even on hard it's usually just the beginning of a game that is the most challenging and once you get some upgrades it's very manageable - even tough parts just take a couple of tries. I'm not trying to brag that I'm really good at games or something, it's just the way most are designed that makes it unlikely I'll stop playing due to difficulty.

Avatar image for thewildcard
TheWildCard

715

Forum Posts

64

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 10

I mean there's plenty of older games that qualitfy. I've never beaten a Mega Man (which not having played in their day aren't very fun to me) or classic Castlevania (even though I do like some of them quite a bit, and return to time to time), to say nothing about the original Rayman (which is insanely hard for some reason), Ninja Gaiden or Battletoads, but usually I quit out of boredom more than frustration. But as far as recent stuff that I wanted to finish but just couldn't? Furi comes to mind. Really like that game but eventually got stuck on a boss that had so many layers and never had enough lives left to punch through the final phases.