Your Least Satisfying Gaming Victory

[Andy of Comix Inc]

So I've been playing Trials Evolution. For those who don't know, it is a game that gets painfully difficult after a while, to the point where you'll ask yourself multiple times why the hell you're even still playing. I finally finished a ten minute long track called "Gigatrack," got myself a tidy gold medal. And I look at my time spent and I just felt... empty. There was no joy, no shame, hardly any emotion at all. I had achieved momentary victory... but at what cost? Hours of my time, my very life's essence, and in the end, it was no victory. I had fought tooth and nail, but there was no satisfaction... only inevitable emptiness.

So, Escapists, what of you? What wins of yours have been short-lived, petty? Mutually assured? Astound us with your tales of unsatisfying, or outright undeserved, gaming victories. The multiplayer games where you steamroll a bunch of newbs and feel that, in the end, no-one won. Those games of Left 4 Dead where the last member of your team crawls over the finish line and stares back at the corpses of their fallen comrades and, instead of elation or joy, just sighs in defeat. Those games of XCOM where... those games of XCOM.

Regale us with your least satisfying gaming victories!

 

[Zhukov]

Incredibly obvious answer: ME3, pre extended cut. I cured the genophage, united the Quarians and the Geth, beat the Reapers... and all I got was a blue beam of light.

More interesting answer: This one game of Journey, although the term "victory" doesn't quite fit since the game doesn't offer much in the way of adversity. Nonetheless, I spent the whole game guiding some random person through the desert, showing them all the secrets and the glyphs then somehow managed to become separated from them during that final triumphant ascent. I waited for ages on the last ledge, but they never turned up. Walking into the light on my own just wasn't the same.

However, afterwards the person sent me a message over PSN saying thanks. That made up for it.

 

[Tanis]

Halo 1/2/3's SP on anything other then 'we're boned' difficulty.

Whenever I beat a game, I like to feel like I've 'earned it'.

In H1/2/3, it was just too simple/easy.

 

[hazabaza1]

Dark Souls, doing the final boss my first time.
After about 10 deaths, I just said fuck it, Iron Flesh'd up and cheesed it.

 

[Quellist]

Final Fantasy VII. After a seriously strange fight with Bizarro Sephiroth, i reached the final boss, used Knights of the Round, the copy attack ability (i forget what its called) and i think Clouds final Limit Break and the boss died! I was disgusted, only later i realised i was supposed to face him without leaving the crater and grabbing all the disk 3 content, without that it might have been a tough fight but seriously, a final boss should never, ever die that easy.

 

[Rainmaker77]

Yeah, I agree with the people saying it's when they've been carried. When I have an off day (or fighting my counter) in LoL and I am really not enjoying myself, spending lots of time dead, getting barely any kills or assists and generally feeling like I've let the team down. Even if you win you feel glad it's over and just want to forget it happened, as it simply wasn't fun.

Thank god I mostly play dominion, so that happens much rarer than 'normal' LoL games, and Dominion lasts half the time as well.

 

[Rack]

In a game of Warhammer my brother had a love of tooling up an Undead general on a flying monster with the Sword of Destruction and using him to kill my units, knowing they could not use their own magic items. I came up with a counter-plan to tool up my goblin general with a monster follower and boost it up via non-magical means so it would kill his general, winning me the game. I'd worked out the odds and I had about an 85% of winning the battle if I could get him to charge the correct unit.

I manoeuvred in such a way to make it more difficult for him to charge this unit, leading him to believe I was trying to get him to charge another unit. It worked perfectly, my brother was a much better general than me at the time and I hardly ever succeeded in getting the drop like this so I was all prepared for my greatest victory so long as I didn't get too unlucky.

Because of the buffs I'd applied my general would attack first, then his troops, then the monster and then my brothers general. I was hoping my general would do a little damage first but it was long odds, he was completely outclassed. 8 attacks. 7 of them rolled a 4 or above. Great start, I was likely to get a wound, maybe even 2 out of this and it would be that much easier for my monster to finish the job. I needed 6s to successfully wound... and subsequently got 6 of them on 7 dice.

It was an insane ridiculous fluke but I'd just won. All my planning was basically irrelevant, I hadn't announced that I'd sprung the trap in advance because I was waiting for when my monster attacked to do the big reveal. My brother flew off in a huff believing he'd been completely cheated by outrageously bad luck.

 

[JEBWrench]

It would have to be a Magic: the Gathering game. Many moons ago, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. I was playing in a draft tourney, and in the final round, match tied 1-1, I was about to lose the match (and subsequently the tourney). So I convinced my opponent that I was about to win, and he promptly conceded to save time.

 

[BoredAussieGamer]

Once, the only server for Tribes: Ascend I could find was a novice server that I was in the upper limits of.

I was reasonably familiar with the game (I don't mean to toot my horn but I am pretty damn good in team deathmatch), and half of them didn't even know the basic controls of the game.

It felt like shooting sardines in a tin with an assault rifle.

 

[Cody Hargreaves]

Beating Demon's Soul's the last boss was just so easy after the rest of the game was so hard.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm going to go waaaaaaaay back with my post because I only beat it this past year...or possibly late 2011...

Dragon Warrior on the NES. I loved the feeling of being able to finally kill goblins when I got the decent sword. I loved the feeling of finally being able to kill Dragons with I got the awesome sword. I loved the feeling of killing The Dragon Lord when I got THE BEST SWORD OF ALL. What do I get out of it though? The knowledge that I spent roughly 20 hours grinding and a waifu. I think...no, you deny the waifu and Kingdom...so basically nothing. I have the knowledge that I killed a Dragon Lord and a ton of Dragons all under level 20 (I think I was level 17 or 18 when I beat that game).

 

[acillies45]

Fable 2 Final boss.

He was talking too much and I just shot him once and he was done...anti-climatic if you as me.

 

[Legion]

Any multiplayer game on a console where you absolutely slaughter the other team. Then the host quits or you get disconnected before the scoreboard/stats/xp loads.

I only mention consoles specifically as PC games are more often than not hosted on servers.

 

[mariosonicfan5]

Defeating that first psycho in Dead Rising 2. It's just he wasn't crazy he was just retarded. Good job Chuck/Frank you just killed a retarded guy! It just didn't feel right.

 

[hermes]

Final Fantasy XII.

I had some issues with the game and its "auto-pilot". All of them came to fruition when I beat the final boss... without touching the controller.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

I thought winning a race in Big Rigs: Over the Road felt a bit dissatisfying.

 

[JEBWrench]

I thought winning a race in Big Rigs: Over the Road felt a bit dissatisfying.

Now, if you could somehow manage to lose a race in BR:OtR, THAT would be satisfying.