The Unfinishables
The World of Gaming can be a difficult one to live in at times. We encounter many challenges that we find very hard to overcome. Sometimes we push ourselves to out limits and prevail, but there are times in our Gaming World where we must wave the white flag of defeat, hang our heads in shame and slowly slide the Unfinishable to the bottom of the pile.
This isn’t a list of the World-Wide Unfinishables, because we all have different skills and talents. I know people who can get a headshot while eating a sandwich, I know others who can create amazing characters who seriously kick-bum. This Top 5 is my personal Top 5 – They are games I have spent hours with, pulling my hair out, screaming at the TV and (eventually) throwing to the back of my cupboard.
# 5 – The Godfather
I’m a HUGE Godfather fan. I have seen the movies more times than I’ve eaten Yorkshire Puddings (that would be a lot for people who aren’t aware of us Brits ‘n our Yorkie obsession!). When a game was released for the 360 I pounced on it and set about conquering businesses, blowing up drug dens and generally working my way to Don status. However, there is this one section of the game where you need to storm a room full of men with shotguns. Now these weapons aren’t unbalanced, but take a few hits to the head and you’re done for. I cannot seem to get past that section no matter what I do! There are four men as I enter the room packing heat. I manage to take the first two out, but by that time my health has been drained from four multiple rounds from four shotguns being pumped into my body. I have tried different combinations of weapons, I’ve tried storming the room spraying, I’ve tried to lead each guy out of the room one-by-one to pick off individually, but no matter what weapon or tactic I try to use, I fail. That level, for me, makes The Godfather Unfinishable and has caused me to put that game aside until I feel strong enough to take on the shotgun bandits once again!
# 4 – Final Fantasy VII
Hi, my name is Elysium and I think Final Fantasy VII is Unfinishable.
Don’t laugh.
Stop it.
…Please?
I just cannot finish this damn game! It’s the final boss battle, really, it is! I have struggled with it so damn much and I’ve just gotten so tired of levelling up that I’ve thrown in the towel. I know the ending of the story through reading it online, I just.. I can’t do it anymore guys! I have spent so many hours of my life on this game and I am genuinely disappointed with myself for being unable to complete one of the most completable games out there! It’s a Final Fantasy game, it’s not rocket science!
# 3 – Overlord
In 3rd place is Overlord. I don’t want to bad mouth this game because I love it’s little cute quirks! The minions are downright adorable when they scream “For the Overlord!” and they smash up pumpkins to wear on their heads! I also love the overall uniqueness of the game. The only downside is I get lost very very easily in this game and if I return to it after a few weeks of not playing it, I have absolutely NO clue of what I am meant to be doing or where I am meant to be going. It’s because of this that I’ve placed this game near the bottom of my pile – I’m not done with it just yet, but I’ve owned it for well over a year and a half now and I’ve not picked it up in at least a year.
Overlord, you’re Unfinishable to me. We will change this one day my love, but you must be patient with this poor little impatient, forgetful gamer.
# 2 – Eternal Sonata
When I first started playing this game I was quite smitten with it – I loved the use of music within the game and thought the voice acting was really good. The gameplay wasn’t bad and although the battle system wasn’t anything to write home about, I found myself enjoying the game. However, and that’s a BIG “however” – The puzzles in this game are stupid. I’m not saying that because I spent a few hours trying to solve one, but because I have seen bunch of people also struggling with the puzzles. Now, it’s not the fact that the puzzles themselves are difficult, they’re not, they’re quite simple, but it’s because there are ZERO hints saying that a) you’re in the middle of a puzzle and b) what the hell you’re even meant to be doing. It’s is absolutely ridiculous!
My second bug about this game is the boss battles. I am currently stuck quite early on in the game on a Pirate ship. Yup, I can’t defeat the skinny little Pirate Wench. She just wipes my team out in one go. Unfortunately I don’t have enough healing potions, nor are my healers strong enough to do multiple heals. It’s such a pain in the arse and after 15 attempts at the battle, I’ve given up. Unbalanced Pirate Wenches make the beautifully crafted Eternal Sonata Unfinishable to me.
#1 – Ninety-Nine Nights
The Most Unfinishable of the Unfinishables is Ninety-Nine Nights – The most annoying hack-and-slash game of 2006! This game involves moving through maps tearing away are hundreds, if not thousands, of enemies (ala Dynasty Warriors). The only problem with Ninety-Nine Nights is the majority of maps require you to sit and work at it for at least 45 minutes plus….. with no mid-map saves. That’s right, so if you get right to the final huge battle of Map 1, you will be royally fucked (and royally pissed off) if you die because you then have to re-do the WHOLE BLOODY MAP FROM THE BEGINNING! There are no words in existence to describe just how much I want to hurt someone for creating a game like that without save points. I managed to finally pass the first map, only to be thrown into a BIGGER map that requires more hours of my life AND STILL NO SAVE POINTS!
I don’t think I need to continue describing why Ninety-Nine Nights is at the top of my list. It is just one of those games I truly despise and yet I find myself coming back to it every so often to see if I could muster enough skill to finally make it Finishable.
The Conclusion!
I would like to think that all of the above games are ones I will eventually be able to complete, but I really doubt that I’ll have the patience to really give any of them another go. So, because I don’t want to look like the only gamer here who is unable to complete games - What are your Unfinishables?
I loved Eternal Sonata for it’s music, the gameplay wasn’t really up my alley so i never really bothered to play it.
I’ve finished Overlord 3 times and loved on it way too much. I agree about getting lost. We had a discussion about that on another site and we’re hoping that they’ll be including an in-game or printed map of the different districts for Overlord 2. The best way i learned to get around is look for something unique in every section to remember to turn. It also does pay to play it within a couple of weeks so you don’t forget paths.
Practically every game I have ever played is unfinishable for me because I prefer the multiplayer over the single player in most games. But when I do find myself enjoying a single player campaign, I get distracted by things that aren’t involved in the main storyline and spend hours doing things that aren’t helping me reach the end!
Oh, honey, Final Fantasy VII? How disappointing.
I THOUGHT YOU KNEW. I THOUGHT YOU KNEW THAT SEPHIROTH’S STRENGTH IS ENTIRELY BASED ON CLOUD’S LEVEL. I THOUGHT YOU KNEW THAT THE SECRET TO BEATING THE GAME IS TO PLAY IT AND ROCK OUT TO “ONE-WINGED ANGEL!”
I very much agree with you on Ninety-Nine Nights, however. Fuck that game. The English voices are horrible, the gameplay sucks and the storyline isn’t even decent-at-best.
My unfinishable top five:
#5 – Rock Band: While Rock Band is essentially a never-ending game, I’m speaking solely about the Drum Tour on Expert setting. The Police’s “Next To You”, a cover of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”, The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, a cover of Iron Maiden’s “Run To The Hills” and Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster” make up the last tier of the drum tour. Don’t get me wrong, all these songs are fun, but they are DIFFICULT on the drums Preluding these nightmarish songs comes Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time” on the previous tier, as well as The Smashing Pumpkin’s “Cherub Rock”.
All these songs are difficult on drums. ALL OF THEM. Damn near impossible on the Expert setting, and they’re MERCILESS. There’s no option of No Fail like Rock Band 2 and for the first game, the accuracy of the tracking isn’t 100% (see the reworked vocals from Rock Band to Rock Band 2), so not only are the songs difficult, the game itself will make them even harder due to technical errors.
#4 – Final Fantasy VIII: Fuck this game. Straight up. It’s a horrible game and no matter how much I actually want to finish it, I just can’t. Unlikable characters, a damn annoying storyline, a battle system that feels unpolished–this game is horrible. People claim its excellence, but I sincerely and whole-heartedly disagree to the highest power. The game is trash and if someone can avoid playing it, I hope they take that chance. The only redeeming factors can be considered the high transition in graphical value from VII to VIII (VIII looks gorgeous by comparison) and what is quite possibly Nobuo’s finest career work with Square in the soundtrack.
#3 – Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2: No, seriously. This is a game where completion means getting all the achievements, because you have to unlock those stupid costumes/bathing suits. Quite possibly the hardest game to accomplish this. And what’s this minigame bullshit? They’re seriously the most annoying minigames AND the computer kicks your ass EVERY. TIME.
#2 – Ikaruga: The hardest game ever to exist in the history of everything. Don’t believe me? Throw down the 800 MSP on the XBLA and tell me I’m wrong. I would consider myself at the very least *decent* at ship shooter games, but this is the most impossible game ever to come to be. Getting to the end of even a Chapter’s section is godly.
#1 – Final Fantasy Tactics: I have started this game no less than eight times with every intention of finishing it. There are four major movements to the story and each time Deep Dungeon becomes available, I venture in with the intention of finishing it.
Then something happens.
Lost memory card, corrupt data on the memory card, scratched discs–you name it, it’s probably happened in the process of me trying to finish this game, sometimes in conjunction with one another.
I now have the PSP’s Final Fantasy Tactics: War Of The Lions and have started that, but I’m afraid that something is going to happen to prevent me from finishing this game once and for all on this new medium.
There is this one game from my old xbox, L.A.rush and the last race was always so hard for me! Other people keep getting in my way until i took other roads.this game took me almost 3months.Same thing for “Legend Of Zeada”.Each part of the game took me almost 3weeks lol.
Kyle, I agree with you regarding RB. I struggle on the hard settings, there is no way I could do it on a harder setting. I only know of one person that has finished the endless setlist.
Kinda have to agree with Eternal Sonata. I have two weeks off at easter and have set my mind that i will complete it then. Another game i find impossible to finish is GTA i just get so bored with them halfway through.
At the moment it seems to be far cry 2 for me. All the side missions look to take up a LOT of time and to make matters worse i finally got to the second island after a good few hours and had a glitch where i could’nt take any missions so had to completely restart.
Also final fantasy 12 was taking far too long and if i ever go back i will have to restart as i have no idea what was going on anymore!
Kyle, don’t hate me! DON’T HAAAAAAAAAATE MEEEEEEEEEEE! I just find it to be a game I cannot (do not?) want to complete. It was never my fave FF game really so that’s probably another reason why I haven’t finished it.
Hojo – I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds Eternal Sonata difficult. If you work out how to kill the Pirate Wench, let me know. It took me FOREVER to even get down to that bloody level of the ship, and now I cannot pass it!
Doll – I’ll definitely have to go back to Overlord as I really did enjoy it a hell of a lot! I just got easily distracted by other games, hated the lack of map and so I gave up on it really.
That’s okay, darling. Just do yourself a favor and play Final Fantasy VI all the way through.
Best. Final Fantasy. Game. Ever.
Someone’s a FF fanboy ;p just teasin!
Yeah I loved Overlord when I first started playing but for some reason it just got very difficult very fast (there was some boss I just could not pass) so I also left it behind…I did think the minions were the cutest.
Kyle, I’ve bought that game but I’ve not had a chance to play it really. My Playstations are still at my old house & I’ve not had a chance to move them over yet.
I think I’ll re-start Overlord tonight!
You’re not alone here Elysium, as I too have failed to complete Final Fantasy VII. I absolutely adore the game, and I’d probably go as far to say that it’s my favourite of the series, but I just never got around to completing it.
I never even entered the crater at the end because I was still spending my time grinding and doing all the things that I missed. Am I right in saying that you can’t leave the crater once you enter? Anyway, I wanted Knights of the Round; but that involves breeding Chocobos and we all know how long that takes!
I feel ashamed even writing that!
Of course, there’s a tonne of other games I haven’t completed (usually through sheer boredom or frustration) but it tends to be RPG’s that I don’t finish. It’s funny because it’s my favourite genre and I hate an unfinished story. However, I usually just spoil myself by reading the ending on the Internet.
Number one is the first Splinter Cell game. I got halfway through the game, saved stupidly on my only saved file and they “Found a body”. Instant loss, I quit the game never to return. Wheres the fun in sneaking around anyway?!
Number 2 is Conflict Denied Ops. I was staring at it in Walmart trying to find games me and my brothers could play that we didn’t already own and this one ended up being bought. Un-known to me however is that one player has a machine gun, and the the has a really Crappy sniper rifle. We got through one level before that game was put to pasture. I want my 20$ back
3 for me was Farcry. The first one. I fought all the way to this one part where there was 5 huge gun carrying mutated freaks in the last zone in some tree top area where I tried religiously for a week to get past that part. This was long after the “You’ve fallen out of a plane and have one clip of ammo” part.
Thats all I can remember for now because I generally finish a game one way or another but those 3 killed me.
Alien Syndrome for PSP. The early part of the game is great, but once you get towards the end, it becomes very annoying. Ammo becomes a major issue, but there is no way to conserve ammo. (You can only produce so much before production goes into a “cooldown.”) If you die, the game restarts at the last save point, meaning you have to fight the same monsters over and over in the hopes of beating them. (There is no option to go back to the checkpoint – minus ammo and healing spent – but with all killed monsters dead.)
Viking: Battle For Asgard came very close to landing on this list. Most of the game is fine, but the major chapter-ending battles are rough and the final battle before you face the last boss is painful. (I think I tried it about 10 times before succeeding.) The final boss herself is easy, though.
I’ve gotta say i have finished a fair amount of games in my long long career as a hardcore gamer but 1 game there is not a chance in hell im finishing is kengo zero. 1. its a shit game and…no thats bout it. And i tried it on difficult for the achievements a couple of times n i dnt think i made it past the second level. Shittest game of all time. As for final fantasy VII i never finished that also but its got to be one of the best rpg’s of all time hads down. I only have a 360 but i woul buy a PS3 just for that game if they made a remake.
I’ve never been able to finish an Ecco game.
I’ve played all of them, but there is always one point where the clues get way too cryptic and the puzzle nearly impossible to complete, and it breaks my spirit EACH TIME.
Any time someone tells me they finished an Ecco game, I have to pause a second in awe.
I’m guilty of 2 kinds of unfinishing.
First, there are the games that I just sort of dropped out of…
Hitman: Contracts :: I fully intend to finish this game, now that I have relatively easy access to it. Previously, the PS2 lived at my boyfriend’s apartment, and I just plain didn’t have time to play through.
Halo 3 :: *cringe* I wanted to finish this. Embarrassingly enough, I got through two boards before I got distracted by something else (Orange Box, I think) and totally forgot about it.
Then, there are the games that I am just not able to clear…
Grand Theft Auto IV :: Yep, despite my enthusiasm for this game, I’m nowhere near done. I’ve had plenty of fun sandboxing all over the place, but when it comes down to the missions…nothin’. My logic: I can’t drive very well in real life, and I also can’t drive very well in games. The missions that require me to get from Point A to Point B in a certain time limit, or chase someone before they speed away? Fuggedaboutit.
Portal :: There is one board that I *know* how to do, physics-wise. I just can’t get the jump to work out. I set the game aside for now, because I know that the cake is a lie, and I’ll come back to it once the frustration subsides.
damn unfinishables, mine are always cause of the lack of interest or abundance of great games out that I just don’t have time to play a game that doesn’t have me obsessed.
Viking. I can NOT get past the last room. I think mine glitched, because I do what it shows in all the youtube videos and everything but I cannot get the last boss to fight me. Annoyance!
Kane & Lynch. We’re stuck at the stupid dump truck part and unless there’s some miracle, I’m not picking that game up again ever.
Other than that, I’ve either finished my games or I just haven’t gone back since I got distracted with other shiny. However, I’m known to pick up a game after a year of owning it and play it through, so who knows.
@ Ace of Gir
That explains ICO for me, had it for more than a year, got about halfway through and got distracted, picked it up a year later and thoughraly enjoyed the rest of the game, Team ICO rocks and I can’t wait for their announcement on their new game, will most likely get a PS3 for that and god of war III
As far your your list goes, I agree with Overlord and Eternal Sonata and my reasons are:
Overlord is definitely a fun game however sometimes I felt like if I didn’t expect it, it’s not that easy. I didn’t expect this to be a challenging game….but it definitely requires patience, something I don’t always tend to have lol. A lot of the times, fighting a boss, all my minions die and I’m left there, dodging, hacking and slashing all on my lonesome. Also if you take a break and don’t play the game for a bit, you end up scratching your head at ‘where the heck was this magical forest I was in 3 months ago’ sorta of thoughts…
As for Eternal Sonata, I understand it always takes a while before you can actually get to the prime meat of an RPG game because it has to set itself up much like a book……. But for me it took way to long. When I sit there for 3 hours on a game basically just watching a(series) movie(s)….I’d rather do that. Watch a movie. As much as I really wanted to like it, I just couldn’t bother to play with it especially since I work a lot and just don’t have the time to sit there and have to wait to play a game for 3-4 nights of trying to play a game.
As for me, my one Xbox360 game that rendered itself unfinishable was Ninety Nine Nights. It’s decent when it comes to the Dynasty Warriors hack’n’slash however all the bosses have their difficulty cranked way up there compared to the pointless fodder you slash through. At lot of times, I feel the game wants you to sit there and grind your character’s level way up there so you can complete the current levels and that’s where I put the controller down. I don’t feel I should have to grind myself up to the top level to beat what should be a simple level especially since the bosses are about as strong, if not stronger than your character. Again, patience is one thing I don’t always have.
@Aftershockzap
I hear you about Splinter Cell 1, even without a bad save point. It’s hard to act covertly when all the bad guys are frakking psycic or something. I’ve never been that great at stealth games, aside from MGS, but SS is a class of its own.
For me, it has to be C&C Generals. I fail at RTS games, but yet I love the game’s modern warfare tactics etc. Prolly wun go back to it in a million years tho, since Starcraft 2 is comin out. At least dats one game I deem finishable for an RTS.
nice post. thanks for sharing & keep it up.