Multiple playthroughs and burning out.

[Marcello]

Alright, let's see how fast I can type this so as not to use up all my internet because crappy holiday connection.

So,​ I've always been the sort of guy that appreciates replayability in games. Games where you can playthrough multiple times, perhaps via a New Game + (New Game + is a feature I love.)

But after thinking about it more, despite how much I value replayability, I also burn out after one or two playthroughs of a game. Told myself I'd get every ending of Shin Megami Tensei IV. I love that game, but I managed Chaos and the early bad ending and now my save file is just lingering at the beginning of a run where I intend to go Law. Said I'd actually beat Margaret in Persona 4, but my file is just lingering midway through playthrough 2. Hell, I only played pokemon Platinum recently, because I got Diamond and Pearl late, so it was too soon after when I got platinum and I just made no progress with it. I mean, we're talking about consecutive playthroughs, immediately after eachother, so I'm sure I'll get back to the games eventually. But after you've already burnt out once, it's hard to convince yourself to play again, despite knowing I'll get back into the games for at least another run if I do.

When I got a Vita, I got Ateliers Rorona, Totori, Meruru & Ayesha (all the plus versions), because I was a vague fan of the series at the time. The games are multiple playthrough oriented so I figured "Alright, two playthroughs of each, then I'll move onto the next."

I finished Rorona alright the first time, managed none of the new postgame stuff (just spent it building up equipment for playthrough 2). Playthrough 2 went great, did the postgame plot but not any of the bonus dungeons or stuff. All went well. I felt 2 playhroughs was perfect. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it through a third, but I felt content with 2, no sense of burning out, but no huge sense of 'I have to play this again!' because I knew I WOULD burn out.

Totori was a little different. It's the oldest of all the update rereleases because lol release order ​and it sort of felt like it. Playthrough 1 was fine, although I was starting to get the feeling of burning out as I finished playthrough 2. 2 still seems the ideal amount though, because it was only at the tail end of the playthrough it started to feel a bit of a chore.

Then I played Meruru. While Totori is probably the hardest combat wise, this seemed the strictest with deadlines. First playthrough didn't manage to beat the first big deadline, so I didn't get the full time the game gives you, which is a shame. Second time I managed it way easier, even managed to beat the final boss! Annoyingly though, because time limits, I STILL got the bad ending (You have to return to town to tell everyone and THEN you unlock the ending for beating the final boss. I beat it with one day to spare and he's located like 2 weeks away from town. ;_ . I figured I couldn't possibly go two runs with the bad ending, so I just slipped into playthrough 3. Beat the final boss with like a year to spare, did a buncha other stuff... It was awesome. I had finally found a game that I just don't burn out on. I would've jumped into playthrough number 4 if I didn't have another game to play.

Atelier Ayesha was... VERY different to the other games. Took a while to get used to but... I loved it. For different reasons to why I loved Meruru, but I loved it. Three playthroughs later, no signs of burning out here, either. I had discovered two very different games which I had no signs of burning out on at all.

Decided to do one more of each. Rorona, as before, was perfect. One more play was just enough to feel satisfied, just on the edge of burning out. Plus I beat all the superbosses.

Totori, as before, became a bit of a slog near the end. Definitely a great game, but my least favourite in the series. Got the True Ending though \o/

And I JUST finished playthrough 4 of Meruru. And... I'm sorta in two minds about whether I should jump into number 5, because I love this game, or if I should play Ayesha, because I love that game too.

Anyway, my rambling aside, the point of this topic is twofold. One, to share my love of the Atelier games, particularly Ayesha and Meruru, and two, to ask you guys. Do you burn out on multiple playthroughs of the same game? Do you have certain games that you could just never burn out on? Do you force yourself to finishing or even 100%ing a game even if you feel burnt out? I'm interested to see what everyone else is like in this regard.

[Daniel Blackworth]

I usually feel burnt out in the middle of a 2nd playthrough. It actually takes a great deal of effort and dedication to try playing a game again.

Some games I've actually played for two playthroughs were Pokemon Emerald, Golden Sun, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. But they usually take time before I actually finish that 2nd playthrough.

Personally, I don't really do a completionist run. I think it's a waste of time when you can do other things like move on to another game or do school stuff. I think it's better to just do a 2nd playthrough for the story and the fun because it actually burns out your energy to keep doing repetitive and tedious tasks such as repeating the level again and again just to get that certain achievement.

Well, that's my opinion.

[Zzylard]

Agreed. I've been replaying pokemon and kingdom hearts games over and over, and a decade and a half after those franchises relatively came out I'm finally not really feeling up to the task. Pokemon's easy when it's not a balls-to-the-wall game like reborn, but then there's little fun on your 18th or 19th replay of emerald due to repetition because I hate doing nuzlockes (they burn me out even more quickly).

Kingdom Hearts is super fun, but now I've started pushing myself to do critical / proud / no exp runs and I burn out super quickly. I ran through kh2fm pretty easily on critical... but kh1fm is destroying me.

i just deferred to dedicating my time to splatoon, 24/7. I can never burn out on that game.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Zzylard

[Another Felix]

The only games I really played through multiple times without feeling burnt out were the Arkham games, as well as games that aren't story driven, like Smash or LoL.

[Shadow Tack]

my relationship w/ pokemon games in a nutshell tbh

[InnocentSerenity]

I've been meaning to fight the bonus boss of Persona 3, on FES and Portable. Still, I guess I just got bored of the grinding. Tales series games I tend to burn out on, as well. They give so many extra options for later playthroughs, too, so I assumed I'd want to play again.

[Flux]

Let's see... I've beaten Shadow of the Colossus... 6 times now? Maybe 7? It's a fairly short game, so that doesn't say that much, but I love that game so much. I've unlocked everything there is to unlock, beaten all the time attacks, seen all the secrets, and I've probably explored every inch of that map, to be honest. (The parts you can reach at least.) There's also Tales of the Abyss, which I'm now on my fourth playthrough of, though I haven't played in a while. Trying to finish those last sidequests to get the costume titles... It's at the point where my characters are dealing max damage to everything.

[Felicity]

Once the story is experienced, unless it's really, really good or has some variations, the only thing propelling you to play the game is the gameplay, naturally. Depending on the game this can be fine but RPGs in particular start to feel real repetitive, especially when going through all the same motions you did before hand or if the game doesn't lend itself to mixing gameplay up as you wish. Games like Chrono trigger are fine because you can swap out the party with relative ease as each character plays their role. Pokemon with the mass amounts of pokemon to play with adds supreme variation despite the battle system changing minutely through all those games. Dark souls allows constant advancement with the unlimited levels so you can feasibly change to whatever playstyle you want etc.

Other games don't manage to pll this off though, SMT being one of them. Especially when the difficulty doesn't really ramp up in the next playthrough unless you get rid of all your stuff.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

There are certain puzzles, boss battles, quests, etc. that I only have the mental energy to do once. If a game has a part that's mind-breakingly difficult or frustrating, there's a 99% chance I won't play through again because I know I won't be able to get past that part a second time.

[Avatar of Grima]

To be honest it depends on the game. FPS games I get burnt out pretty quick. Pokemon games, I get burnt ou sfter like my 3rd playthrough. However for certain games, (ex FE:A) I set goals for myself to do certain things, like get all the S rank conversations or something dumb like that. Prevents me from getting to bored

[Marcello]

I usually feel burnt out in the middle of a 2nd playthrough. It actually takes a great deal of effort and dedication to try playing a game again.

Some games I've actually played for two playthroughs were Pokemon Emerald, Golden Sun, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. But they usually take time before I actually finish that 2nd playthrough.

Personally, I don't really do a completionist run. I think it's a waste of time when you can do other things like move on to another game or do school stuff. I think it's better to just do a 2nd playthrough for the story and the fun because it actually burns out your energy to keep doing repetitive and tedious tasks such as repeating the level again and again just to get that certain achievement.

Well, that's my opinion.

Yeah, I always find completionist runs for the sake of completionist runs to just not make sense for me. Although I have been known to do so if I just love the game enough (Nearing the end of Playthrough 5 of Meruru and I still wanna go again. Haven't even beaten the first boss in the postgame dungeon yet )

Agreed. I've been replaying pokemon and kingdom hearts games over and over, and a decade and a half after those franchises relatively came out I'm finally not really feeling up to the task. Pokemon's easy when it's not a balls-to-the-wall game like reborn, but then there's little fun on your 18th or 19th replay of emerald due to repetition because I hate doing nuzlockes (they burn me out even more quickly).

Kingdom Hearts is super fun, but now I've started pushing myself to do critical / proud / no exp runs and I burn out super quickly. I ran through kh2fm pretty easily on critical... but kh1fm is destroying me.

i just deferred to dedicating my time to splatoon, 24/7. I can never burn out on that game.

I get you with KH. I suck a bit too much to do the critical/proud/etc runs, but I'm still playing the 2.5 games often enough because I really wanna beat the superbosses at least.

The only games I really played through multiple times without feeling burnt out were the Arkham games, as well as games that aren't story driven, like Smash or LoL.

I burnt out really quickly on the Arkham games to be honest. It's been ages since I've played and I still doubt I'd be ready to go back yet.

my relationship w/ pokemon games in a nutshell tbh

Yeeah, despite how much there is to do differently from playthrough to playthrough, I still find Pokemon sorta easy to burn out on sometimes. Although I can play some gens a lot more than I can others.

I've been meaning to fight the bonus boss of Persona 3, on FES and Portable. Still, I guess I just got bored of the grinding. Tales series games I tend to burn out on, as well. They give so many extra options for later playthroughs, too, so I assumed I'd want to play again.

I never got FES, but I've been meaning to fight the bonus boss in portable, and in P4 Golden. The Grinding wasn't the turn off for me, it was more the second playthrough to get there. Monad grinding is easy enough.

Let's see... I've beaten Shadow of the Colossus... 6 times now? Maybe 7? It's a fairly short game, so that doesn't say that much, but I love that game so much. I've unlocked everything there is to unlock, beaten all the time attacks, seen all the secrets, and I've probably explored every inch of that map, to be honest. (The parts you can reach at least.) There's also Tales of the Abyss, which I'm now on my fourth playthrough of, though I haven't played in a while. Trying to finish those last sidequests to get the costume titles... It's at the point where my characters are dealing max damage to everything.

It's nice when you find those games you just never wanna stop playing. Can't say I've ever played Either of those though.

Once the story is experienced, unless it's really, really good or has some variations, the only thing propelling you to play the game is the gameplay, naturally. Depending on the game this can be fine but RPGs in particular start to feel real repetitive, especially when going through all the same motions you did before hand or if the game doesn't lend itself to mixing gameplay up as you wish. Games like Chrono trigger are fine because you can swap out the party with relative ease as each character plays their role. Pokemon with the mass amounts of pokemon to play with adds supreme variation despite the battle system changing minutely through all those games. Dark souls allows constant advancement with the unlimited levels so you can feasibly change to whatever playstyle you want etc.

Other games don't manage to pll this off though, SMT being one of them. Especially when the difficulty doesn't really ramp up in the next playthrough unless you get rid of all your stuff.

Yeah... The weird part I find with my liking Atelier Meruru particularly is that... it's theoretically very repetitive. I love the crafting system, but I've more or less mastered it now. You can switch out to a few different party members but I basically always use the same 2... I guess each playthrough I'm making a little more progress, because I'm not quite good enough to make huge amounts of progress. But... it's just so damn fun, I don't even think about repetitiveness.

There are certain puzzles, boss battles, quests, etc. that I only have the mental energy to do once. If a game has a part that's mind-breakingly difficult or frustrating, there's a 99% chance I won't play through again because I know I won't be able to get past that part a second time.

I feel you there. Negl, Shelly's gym has put me off many a planned Reborn run. I definitely have a couple of games where I have that mentality.

To be honest it depends on the game. FPS games I get burnt out pretty quick. Pokemon games, I get burnt ou sfter like my 3rd playthrough. However for certain games, (ex FE:A) I set goals for myself to do certain things, like get all the S rank conversations or something dumb like that. Prevents me from getting to bored

Yeah, FE:A I've played a bunch of times, but usually quite the gap between each playthrough. Never really played FPS games myself much.

[Omega_Ra1der]

Fossil fight champions was the only game I can remember playing through multiple times. I consider it the best out of the 3 games series. Battle system wasn't a hindrance like in the 3rd game. I could rant about the 3rd game but this isn't the place for it. *Walks to the general gaming rants*