Completionists: When are you done with a game?

[SmokingBomber465]

My question is for the completionists out there.

I like to consider myself a completionist--someone who, when a game is good enough, will find all of the items, unlock all of the secrets, finish all the missions, etc.

I did this with Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Mass Effect 1, Both Batman Arkham titles, all the Metroid titles barring Metroid 2, Pokemon Red, Skyrim (never going to finish this one but I can sure as hell try)...

There are some games, though, where I no longer care about finishing everything. For example, I'm currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the first time (my parents didn't let me have a console as a kid, so I got an N64 late LATE into its life cycle) and I have just beaten the Forest, Water, and Spirit temples and I have all the heart pieces and most of the items. But at this point, I am not interested in tracking down the last 40-something gold skulltulas to get [whatever it is that reward is].

SO clearly there is a limit to the lengths that I will go to complete a game--or at least the minimum award that I am willing to receive.

What is YOUR limit? Would you track down all the missile expansions? Or gold skulltulas? Or just the pieces of heart? Do you go for ALL of the Jiggies or stars?

 

[porous_shield]

All my games don't have to be 100% complete so I'm not really a completionist. Some games I do everything there is to possibly do like Bastion (no where near the scale of Skyrim or even a Fallout game) or the Soul's games because I enjoy doing challenges and playing through the levels. A game like GTA or Psychonauts would drive me nuts doing the horrible flying side missions of the former or hunting down all the figments in the latter so I just don't do it. If I hate doing something in a game that I otherwise enjoy then I'm not going to do it because that would make me hate the game. Take the Batman games for examples, I loved doing the Riddler challenges so I did them all without even glancing at a walkthough but I dislike the combat challenges so I never touched them. I feel I have completed the game and have no aching desire to go back to it.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Completionists: When are you done with a game?

When I've completed it.

But yeah... seriously, I'm done with it when I've seen and done every single thing the game has to offer. Otherwise I'm not getting the most for my money. Only exception to the rule being a game that sucks. The completionist in me feels to obligation to subject myself to hours of a game I hate.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Either when I get sick of all the tedious grinding and BS I have to put up with to complete a certain task, or when I've done everything in the game. Obviously, the game has to be fun enough to make those challenges entertaining, and lately I've noticed I need to see some progress (either a bar that fills up or some other indication) on the challenges or I lose interest.

 

[Nonomori]

I'm one of those people that don't even bother to finish most games. The terrible habit of giving up of mediocre games to replay better ones don't help. That's why I'll never get to the end of Assassin's Creed 3.

Anyway, Fantasy RPG 101 has to have something really special to make me care about tons of sidequests or the little details. I did pretty much everything you can do in some of my favorites, but I'm talking about just a few games here, not more than a dozen. So I can say that I killed the 77 lizards of The Forbidden Lands, defeated Blockhead Grande in SD and HD, eased the pain of The Fair Lady, and more recently, heard all the hilariously bad Ellie's jokes. It was all worth it.

 

[Aerosteam]

When I unlock everything that I can show off to my friends. Why go for the stuff which no one will see? I know it's for people getting self-satisfaction, but for myself it's the case of "Look what I did!" instead of "Yay, I did it!", I'd prefer to get praise from other people rather than myself.

 

[lacktheknack]

When I've 100%'d it, absolutely no less.

Having a game of Just Cause 2 glitch out and lock at 99.8% is a neverending nightmare for me.

Of course, if the game is not particularly good, I might drop it, but it's not "complete" until I've 100%'d it.

 

[Olas]

Depends on the game.

Some games I complete and then toss away.
Some games I complete, then try to get all the items and the best ending, then toss away.
The games I really like I play multiple times, get all the items, then start going online to find all cool stuff that's possible with glitches, explore the urban legends, and if I'm really, really into it I start doing speedruns.

 

[Angelous Wang]

My limit is moslty achievements and multiplayer.

For example I have 100% both AC1&2 with 100% achievements.

But as soon as Bortherhood&beyond added in those multiplayer achievements I gave up trying to get 100% on that. I still 100% completed the single player element of the game though, and to be fair on that game I played allot of the multiplayer anyway and ended up with 57/60.

Same with the Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, I have 100% the single player element of the game, but haven't touched the mulitplayer.

... That said if you can cheat the multiplayer I will occasionally bother, hence I have 100% on Fable 3.

A second thing that can make me give up is time trials. I've spent so long in past completing impossible time trails I have grown to hate them. They are the reason I never bothered to 100% ether of the Prototypes.

 

[Fox12]

I only finish everything in the absolute best games, and even then it's rare. I mean sure, I'll get get the golden chocobo and the the knights of the round after picking up Vincent and completing all his side quests, then proceed to unlock every piece of extra content for every character. I have no problem with leveling Sora to a 99, beating sephiroth in a fight, and then completing all the little unlockables. It helps if the content adds to the story.

I won't go collect 500 silver butterflies in Skyrim so that the kindly old shop lady can catch up on her reading though, so if it's small and meaningless then don't even bother me. At that point it becomes work, and I don't care. Truth be told, I don't even complete all the games I buy (though I try to).

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

When I unlock everything that I can show off to my friends. Why go for the stuff which no one will see? I know it's for people getting self-satisfaction, but for myself it's the case of "Look what I did!" instead of "Yay, I did it!", I'd prefer to get praise from other people rather than myself.

Funny, I'm the opposite (though it makes my version of your last sentence sound much more narcissistic).

I play the game until I'm happy with how it turned out. I've milked massive amounts of time out of Fallout (3 and NV) by completing literally every side quest I could find. Currently in Skyrim, I got cheated out of the Trophy for getting all the Daedric artefacts, but it doesn't bother me much; my character, being the kind of girl who doesn't want to anger any nigh-omnipotent superbeings, has served each of them faithfully, and that's all I care about.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Nice of you to mention Zelda, for me personally I like to get everything in Zelda games. This would include heart pieces, skulltula tokens, masks, Poe souls, figurines, upgrades etc. I like that Zelda games have lots of sidequests, but not too many to make things feel like a grind. I used to never consider get all the gold skulltulas in Ocarina of Time, now I love doing it to get a more complete feel, though if you ever intend to try to get all 100, I would use a guide and checklist.

I can say I've caught all 649 Pokemon so far, so that's a great invisible accomplishment right there.

I've gotten all 120 stars in Mario 64, and Galaxy 1 and 2(242 technically for those two), still need to get all 120 in Sunshine, but I'll try it for the next time.

 

[Codeman90]

I consider myself done when I am no longer missing any extra scenes like bonus endings, or alternate routes. I am not too picky about getting every collectible thing though.

 

[Saltyk]

Very very rarely. Getting 100% in some games can be nigh impossible. And in others it's just very time consuming. Never could find those last five blast shards in InFamous.

Also, seeing this thread title instantly made me think of the Completionist. I watch his stuff too much...

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Depends on the game. If the game is something like Banjo-Kazooie where you can easily tell that you've collected everything then I will. If it's something like Dark Cloud, where doing everything would require waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time then I won't bother trying to do everything. I'm only a completionist within reason.

 

[The K-man]

It's funny, several of the ones you mentioned (banjo kazooie and tooie, mario 64 and lozot) are games that i have gone through and fully completed 100%. Most games nowadays though, i just stop after 100% achievement completion, not counting multiplayer achievements.

If i really enjoy a game, like skyrim, ill go around doing side quests and stuff long after completing all the achievements and main missions (and like another poster above, i also got screwed out of my daedric artifact trophy).

Unfortunately, between work and going back to school, i generally just settle for beating the game in most cases because its all i have time for.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Take the Batman games for examples, I loved doing the Riddler challenges so I did them all without even glancing at a walkthough but I dislike the combat challenges so I never touched them. I feel I have completed the game and have no aching desire to go back to it.

Same here. I finished Asylum with all trophies collected, teeth destroyed, riddles answered, upgrades unlocked and the spirit of Arkham revealed. Fuck challenges. Maybe I'd go back just for replay value, but for all intents and purposes I consider the game 100% done.

Same thing with City... except I always missed the last 4 missions of Augmented Reality Fuckery. Gah.