by mento
Completionism is an odd psychological compulsion that you either have or cannot possibly understand. I couldn't even try to armchair psychoanalyze it myself, honestly, only that I feel obligated to 100% a game that I'm enjoying before it ever feels truly complete enough for me to move on. It's for that reason I can only usually play one game at once, and that playthroughs can sometimes take weeks.
However, I will happily drop a game for numerous reasons, and one of those is when I'm able to take a step back and see the amount of unpalatable farming, grinding or busywork ahead of me to achieve that "platinum" (either figuratively or literally, depending on the system) state. That also goes for replaying any game with a sufficiently high amount of optional content, even those that would otherwise be considered firm favorites.
The following is a list of games and franchises that I could never see myself revisiting simply because their completionist requirements are far too steep. In essence, this is a companion piece to my earlier Completionist's Complaint article about the (non)difficulties of living with Caravella Syndrome, or Vindrome (all hail the new flesh?) for short.
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I've entirely ignored MMOs for this specific reason. They're designed to go on forever, always updating with new content, in order to ensure that their subscribers (or is increasingly the case, free-to-players opting into the game's microtransaction economy) stick around. Effectively endless, the very idea of a completionist type starting one seems like a truly bad decision.
I really like SRPGs. Or, at least, I did. I burned out so magnificently trying to keep up with NIS's early games - Disgaea, Disgaea 2, La Pucelle and Phantom Brave - that I daren't pick another one up, in spite of fellow mod Sparky_Buzzsaw's frequent praise for this company's output. I don't have the fortitude to resist all those Item Dungeons and whatever else these games have to increase their playthrough lengths from weeks to months.
I dunno if I'm necessarily done with Borderlands either, but like the loot games that follow there's a point where I stop having fun and am just stuck in that cycle of getting guns and then getting better guns. It doesn't help that Borderlands 2 was figuratively written by Reddit, to quote a great man, and that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (that's... not how that word works) was so meh that many outlets deemed it inessential. Tales from the Borderlands, sure, but I'm going to have to think long and hard about getting in on the next big loot-fest FPS from this series.
Ditto as above, and likewise for the Torchlight and Sacred series. Being in the loot cycle is like being a warm bath or a big snuggie: it's comfortable and pleasant and you could theoretically be in there forever, but for the nagging feeling that you have plenty else to do. The best games drive you forward because you're aching to see how it ends, but Diablo doesn't really end. I mean, you beat the namesake demon, but then you're expected to start over with higher level monsters and loot. The actual story is never enticing enough on its own, especially for 3. There are definitely worse RPGs to spend an unconscionable amount of time with, but at least most of those eventually conclude and free you for other games. (And yes, there are plenty of games that are built to be played forever and that it's a good thing. I just don't like it in my RPGs, which are games where I consider the plot and character development to be key.)
I'll be eating my words when the sixth game eventually shows up - though it sounds like Bethesda's focusing on other venues for now - but as with most modern Bethesda games it's becoming harder and harder to psyche myself up for another gigantic open-world of identikit dungeons. Maybe I'm just speaking as someone who recently burned out on Fallout 4. Either way, I'm sort of glad that Bethesda's putting a bookmark in these giant games for the time being. Well, possibly. (Feel free to throw in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 here too. Hell, throw in Fallout: New Vegas, since that was just Obsidian doing an uncanny Bethesda impression.) (And yes, I won't deny the possibility of replaying these games with a whole bunch of crazy mods someday. Wouldn't really be a proper playthrough though, and I certainly wouldn't beat the whole game again with Macho Man Randy Savage dragons flying around.)
I've got nothing against the gentle humor and genial charms of the Traveller's Tales LEGO games. They're definitely a bit samey, but when properly spaced out they were always good for a rental when nothing else was available. Even so, each game requires that you beat every level at least twice to get everything: once in the straightforward "story mode" where the characters are locked, and a second in the "free mode" where any character choice is viable. It means that large parts of every level are trapped behind barriers you can't do anything about the first time through. It's the most tiresome aspect of any LEGO game, and is why I'll never play the same one twice.
Sega's Yakuza games are truly fantastic, but the immense amount of side content all but confirms a "one playthrough per game" approach. Whether it's the incidental stories you see from bumping into random people on the street, the amount of brawls you get involved in just running around completing those stories, the amount of mini-games like home-run derbies and mahjong you need to master for 100%, the amount of food and booze you need to consume or progressing through the ranks of each game's arenas, there's always a dizzying amount to do in every Yakuza. I've only completed three of them, despite being a fan of the series for close to ten years now, and that's because each one takes so much out of me. All the same, I look forward to when I finally play Yakuza 4, Yakuza 5 and Yakuza 6. I'll probably be as old as Kazuma Kiryu by then though.
Prior Assassin's Creed games have always had their issues with too many collectibles and side-missions (remember those flags from the very first one?), but it wasn't until AC III that it became such a problem that it was an actual detriment to the game. Coincidentally for a game about trying to impress your dad, AC III looked like a kid trying on his father's clothes and having far too much they needed to grow into. Many systems, like the homestead trading routes and the hunting, felt underdeveloped and unnecessary, and I actually find the only worthwhile side pursuit - the ship combat and the treasure map missions - to be fairly buried. This was the first game to truly feel the Assassin's Creed bloat, though it was far from the last.
While it played better than III, had a more likable protagonist and doubled down on the ship aspects that made III almost salvageable, it still had many of the same bugs and traversal issues and a significant amount of collectible bloat with its enormous map and its archipelago of tiny islands with naught but the occasional chest or message in a bottle. It's a perfectly acceptable game if you aren't sailing up and down the Caribbean after every icon on the map, but way too much if you are.
While the wanderlust and riches-heavy Black Flag could justify the amount of off-duty treasure hunting you could get yourself involved in, there's no such plot contrivance to excuse the amount of unnecessary bloat of AC: Syndicate and its Victorian period London. I've used the term "bloat" a few times, so let me explain specifically what I mean: when there's collectibles and side-activities thrown in simply for the sake of boasting a larger world or longer runtime, because prior games had them and to remove them would be to somehow make the game a lesser product. Ubisoft feels obliged to include as much collectible tat and side-missions as they can fit in, along with all their vantage points and towers, and so little of it is actually fun because of its copy/paste nature. To take over London in AC: Syndicate, for example, requires completing the same four mission types about a dozen times each. They might not expect a significant number of their audience to do it, but they'll be darned if they're going to let some reviewer talk about how slight the new AC is even if it means keeping some poor level designer in over Christmas to drop another 300 treasure chests in random areas on the city's topography. (The side-missions involving famous historical figures? Go right ahead and do those. Ignore everything else.)
