I have so many images sitting in a folder on my desktop that are there specifically to be blogged about. For some reason though, I just cannot seem to get around to resizing, renaming, and uploading them. I’m looking at the folder right now and it’s taunting me, telling me I’m a lazy hack. And I kind of am, but that’s besides the point. Let’s talk about video games some more then.
I’m terrible at finishing video games. I have no idea what’s gone wrong with me lately, but it seems that I’m having a lot of trouble sticking with a game to the end. Oh, wait. This isn’t new at all. I could update that list with every game I’ve failed to complete to my level of satisfaction in 2012 so far, but I feel that doing so would probably cause me to break down and cry like a little girl. I suppose the backlog will be nice in the upcoming couple years where I won’t be able to afford new video games, but still. Ugh. I’m such a flake.
I think a lot of it stems from the fact that a lot of the games I really like are games that don’t really have well-defined win states. Take Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite for example. Technically, there are two monsters that are considered “final bosses” (one for online, one for offline), but even once they’re defeated there are still things to accomplish. Have you finished every single quest? Do you have all the Guild Card baubles? If you answered “yes” to both of those… wow, you’ve got a lot of free time. But you can still play online and there are a whole buttload of event quests that you can download for free. Basically, if you’re into it, you could restrict yourself to playing only MHFU and it could still last you for the better part of a year. And that’s before you start dicking around with stuff like self-imposed challenge runs. I shudder to think of what will happen to me if Monster Hunter Tri G actually makes its way overseas.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is similar, but different. Being a rhythm game, it’s already more about enjoying the music and getting high scores than finding the end. There’s a point where new content stops unlocking via rhythmia points, but those Dark Notes are randomized. For each Dark Note you beat, a new one is unlocked, so you could chase those forever. It’s not like you could even collect them all either, since you can only have up to 99 at any given time. Besides, I’m kind of curious to see if the rhythmia counter will roll past 999,999. Not that I’ll end up playing Theatrhythm that much or anything. After two weeks with the game I’m at just about 35,000rm, but it’s a burning curiosity. I’m sure someone in Japan has gotten that high and posted it on YouTube.
I suppose that technically Spelunky does have an ending, but I don’t think I’ll ever get there myself. Between the PC and Xbox versions, I’ve only made it to the temple stages two or three times, and never to the boss. So it’s kind of like there’s no end. But good gravy, that game is addictive. Besides, it’s secretly another high score game. Sure, you did pretty well that run, but don’t you think you could do better?
And then there’s Minecraft. I don’t know how, but I still sink entire nights into Minecraft. How is it that I keep going back to Minecraft, but haven’t even made it halfway through Xenoblade Chronicles? At this rate I probably won’t get past the intro of The Last Story when it’s finally released.
At the very least, I was able to stick with Final Fantasy XIII-2 to the end and even get all the achievements. That was pretty cool.