Games You Loved, but Will Never Play Again

[Pink Gregory]

Mine are -

XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within - Only finished an EW playthrough recently, loved it despite its bugginess but it's so thoroughly outclassed by XCOM 2 that I can't imagine revisiting it.  It doesn't even really exist as a slimmed down version of the admittedly content-busy sequel, because it feels *so* bare bones now.  That and it's pretty much been outclassed by most other turn based tactics games, largely because it was the progenitor of them and it's only been iterated on.

Whichever Civilization isn't the current one - see above, if any series is iterative it's this one, going back seems pointless except for preference, which I don't really have because VI is definitely an overall improvement on V.  I know people seem to laud IV but going back to a square grid, and unit stacks...ehhh.

Dark Souls - Remembering enough from the first playthrough I could probably shave down the time by a considerable amount, but I've seen all the things and the thought of grinding/levelling again fills me with dread. 

Yakuza series - bit of recency bias on this one but they're looooong games and I've also played 6 games of more or less the same combat. 

[Glebe]

I think Madhair mentioned Arkham Knight as a game he'd completely exhausted, while I didn't really do any of the extra DLC story thingies I recently replayed that, completing all the side missions by finally defeating Riddler... and, well, as great as it is it's such a hard slog in places I don't know if I could face it again.

[The Crumb]

Persona 5 Royal was a perfect giant slice of escapism during the awful early months of 2021. Can't see myself sitting through 200 hours of it ever again.

I enjoy Yakuza games a lot, but there's so many of them with so much overlap that I'm never tempted to replay them.

[bgmnts]

I want to say Disco Elysium.

[falafel]

Most of them. I have certainly never finished a narrative game and replayed it all the way through. Not even for a good old NG+. They are just too long. I tried it with Dark Souls. Nope. My brain just says, I'm familiar with it now, what more does it have to offer? Whither fulfilment? I know people het great joy from milking games for all they are worth. Only Civ in its various iterations has really managed to keep me coming back year after year, and that is probably more down to its skinner-box elements than anything else.

[madhair60]

good idea for a thread.

Yoshi's Island is my pick. it's fucking brilliant. a masterpiece. on the first playthrough, it is absolutely joyous. going over it, rinsing every brilliantly crafted level for all its secrets, getting 100 points and unlocking all the bonus stages then rinsing them. not one single lapse in creativity, not one single bad level in the entire fucking game. it is unreal.

then I try to play it again and it's impossible for me to breezily run through it for fun because my collector's itch kicks and I know I'm going to be locked out of those extra levels unless I get all the red coins, all the flowers and all the stars. That means beating each boss without taking a hit, it means combing every level top to bottom again, cursing the "no return" moments, reaching the end of a stage with one red coin missing. and I can't enjoy it anymore. now that I know about the joy of the secrets, that's the whole game for me. no just running through the levels, because it feels like I'm missing content.

so, I can't play Yoshi's Island again. I just cannot bring myself to do it.

[Roxy Robinson]

Sensi Soccer, just don't see how it would happen.

[Brundle-Fly]

Rolando.

[oggyraiding]

Xenoblade Chronicles series. In every single one I've been glad to have finished it. Great games, but I find the combat so draining, and once you've seen all the twists and turns for the first time, the stories aren't interesting enough to revisit.

Having said that, I will be buying the Future Redeemed DLC for 3 for closure.

[Memorex MP3]

Can't see me touching a Football Manager game again, tried during the pandemic but it was just way too much and I suspect older ones will somehow feel too little detail as well.

Anything Pokémon related.

Possibly the Return of the Obra Dinn; feel like I'll never forget enough of it for it to be fun on a replay.

[Mister Six]

Most of them. I have certainly never finished a narrative game and replayed it all the way through. Not even for a good old NG+. They are just too long. I tried it with Dark Souls. Nope. My brain just says, I'm familiar with it now, what more does it have to offer? Whither fulfilment? I know people het great joy from milking games for all they are worth. Only Civ in its various iterations has really managed to keep me coming back year after year, and that is probably more down to its skinner-box elements than anything else.

This is exactly how my mind works. I did actually do an NG+ replay of Yakuza Kiwami 1 on Easy mode just to see if I could understand the story a little better this time (I was bewildered by the weird and arcane structures of the yakuza, which aren't really explained very well in that game). I did, but it's still not a terribly good story.

I could maybe see myself replaying Prey, or at least Mooncrash, once it's properly faded in my memory though.

[Sonny_Jim]

Yoshi's Island is my pick. it's fucking brilliant. a masterpiece. on the first playthrough,

The first playthrough is fantastic, it was obviously playtested to death before release and it shows.  Just as it starts to sag a bit and feel a bit 'Mario worldy - yawn already played this' it throws something new at you.  I have zero desire to play it again though, not sure why.

Satisfactory and Factorio are both games that I quickly got addicted to, played them almost non-stop to completion and have been utterly unable to pick up and play again.  Just the knowledge that I'm about to lose another 400hrs puts me right off.

[lazyhour]

I want to say Disco Elysium.

How many times have you played it? I think it's one of the most replayable point-and-click style adventure games because you can choose to make different decisions and level-up very different skills to make the game play out differently.

For example, you can lean into communism or be an Art Cop. Or just drink yourself to death.

[seepage]

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - Don't remember there being a choice of characters and I can't see it playing out any differently. Also Steam says I played it for 590 hours?! So can't go through all that again.

Wasteland 3 - started playing it a second time with different characters, but definitely uninstall after that

WH40 Chaos Gate: Daemon Hunters - I didn't follow what you have to do to postpone Game Over properly and got to the end purely by chance, so might play it a second time to see what I should have done.

Fort Triumph - the maps are random but the storyline is fixed I think so no real reason to play it again   

Regalia - Royal Edition - a lovely little game but probably won't play it again unless I don't achieve enough to avoid Game Over this time. 

Slay the Spire - I think I exhausted all the possibilities so will probably not play it again unless I wake up having forgotten all about it 

[bgmnts]

How many times have you played it? I think it's one of the most replayable point-and-click style adventure games because you can choose to make different decisions and level-up very different skills to make the game play out differently.

For example, you can lean into communism or be an Art Cop. Or just drink yourself to death.

It's more of a 'that experience was SO good it won't be the same again' type thing. It looks very repayable by design. I may relent though some day.

[lazyhour]

It's more of a 'that experience was SO good it won't be the same again' type thing. It looks very repayable by design. I may relent though some day.

Yes, totally get what you're saying. I replayed it pretty soon after completing it because I knew there were things I missed or failed to do* and had loads of fun playing it differently the second time.

*for example:

Spoiler alert

getting the body down from the tree, getting into the locked shipping container, understanding the Pale, going on a date

[close]

[Clownbaby]

I thought Stray was cute and beautiful to look at. But it was also incredibly easy and short, and I know I'm never going to touch it again.

And all the BioShocks. Played them all once. They were alright. Barely remember what happened and probably won't play them again.

[Gusty OWindflap]

Control. Had this in my monthly PS4 games and played it without knowing anything about it. It's amazing. It feels like playing an episode of The Outer Limits mixed with X-Files, very 90's feeling to me. It even has it's own little live action kids show with puppets baked in that you can watch episodes of on televisions found throughout the game. Very creepy. Bit like a Stephen King book as a game.

And the icing on the cake for me was when I discovered through playing that the game was set in the same universe as another game I had played years earlier.

But I couldn't see myself playing it again because all of that discovery wouldn't be there. It's very solid gameplay wise and so stylish but I don't think it would be the same a second time.

But there is a sequel coming!

[Proactive]

Agree on Control. There's no replicating the joy of playing Ashtray Maze for the first time.

[Gusty OWindflap]

Agree on Control. There's no replicating the joy of playing Ashtray Maze for the first time.

There's not much like it. Bizarre and very cool. And the Oceanview Motel as well! It was all so weird and seamless really.

[Inspector Norse]

And all the BioShocks. Played them all once. They were alright. Barely remember what happened and probably won't play them again.

You didn't "love" them then, I guess? But I felt the same way: they were fun to play, clever with a nice aesthetic, but nothing amazing and I pretty much forgot about them as soon as I'd finished them. Actually not sure I ever did finish the last one.

[Pink Gregory]

You didn't "love" them then, I guess? But I felt the same way: they were fun to play, clever with a nice aesthetic, but nothing amazing and I pretty much forgot about them as soon as I'd finished them. Actually not sure I ever did finish the last one.

the first Bioshock I probably will play again.  People seem to really rate 2 but...eh...I'm not sure they really added much meaningful, gameplay-wise.  I have played it but not for a long time.

Absolutely adored Infinite when it came out but there were clearly loads of missed opportunities/cut for time stuff that I was still noticing and I feel like it will disappoint on a replay.

[Sonny_Jim]

Mate bugged me to play Bioshock, said it was amazing.  I played about 60% of it and was like 'meh, this is fine' and stopped.  I guess it's the same with 'Half Life', at the time it set so many new standards for how a game worked but looking back on it you don't notice all the innovation.

[Roxy Robinson]

Mate bugged me to play Bioshock, said it was amazing.  I played about 60% of it and was like 'meh, this is fine' and stopped.  I guess it's the same with 'Half Life', at the time it set so many new standards for how a game worked but looking back on it you don't notice all the innovation.

The notably big thing with Bioshock really is the reveal at the end, though. Mechanically, it was never anything special. The art direction and world were very good/unique at the time, to be fair.

[Gusty OWindflap]

I thought the Bioshock series was amazing, have replayed them all. Bioshock 2 is the weakest but the other two, in terms of the world and stories told are outstanding.

I read an interview with the creator about Bioshock 1 and he said that they were coming up to the release date and they thought they had made a great game but then the blind play testers slated it, laughing about it just being a bunch of 'guys and dolls' shooting each other. In a panic they added the first scene where the plane crashes into the sea and the PC discovers the entrance to Rapture. It was last minute but that changed how people viewed it.

The characters are fantastic as well I think. Booker and Elizabeth are so well written and acted and Andrew Ryan is voiced by Armin Shimerman who played Quark in DS9.

[bgmnts]

Yeah put me down for loving the sort of jazz-age steampunky aesthetic and setting of the first two Bioshocks, and I do actually find them to have a decent depth to its gameplay. They're quite challenging and scary too on the higher difficulties; hearing a Big Daddy wail or those big clunky boots thumping down still shits me up.

And to be honest I do enjoy the critique of objectivism or capitalism or whatever the fuck they were exploring. I like the horror world that they envisioned as the result of a purely free society and market. Although I presume it had a Fight Club style effect on its audience because people who play games are mostly chimps.

[Roxy Robinson]

Some of the musical sequences in Infinite were incredibly beautiful and unnerving, could have been an unbelievable walking sim. I remember actually crying a couple of times. The rote gameplay got in the way, unfortunately, and it ended up being a mess. Had it been a purely narrative experience, I reckon it could have been a classic.

[oggyraiding]

I played all three Bioshocks at their respective launches, not including DLC. Liked 1 and 2, never finished Infinite (I got stuck on some bit very late game where you have to defend generators on an airship or something). Revisited them with the PS4 ports, all clunky shite. I think a remake in the style of Prey would be good, more choice and exploration and different ways to play.

[Pink Gregory]

Some of the musical sequences in Infinite were incredibly beautiful and unnerving, could have been an unbelievable walking sim. I remember actually crying a couple of times. The rote gameplay got in the way, unfortunately, and it ended up being a mess. Had it been a purely narrative experience, I reckon it could have been a classic.

Rote is right.  I loved some of the later Vigors but I remember being struck by how no enemies ever jumped you from behind or attempted to circle you like some of the Splicers would.

Literally a shooting gallery.

[Blue Jam]

Control. Had this in my monthly PS4 games and played it without knowing anything about it. It's amazing. It feels like playing an episode of The Outer Limits mixed with X-Files, very 90's feeling to me. It even has it's own little live action kids show with puppets baked in that you can watch episodes of on televisions found throughout the game. Very creepy. Bit like a Stephen King book as a game.

And the icing on the cake for me was when I discovered through playing that the game was set in the same universe as another game I had played years earlier.

But I couldn't see myself playing it again because all of that discovery wouldn't be there. It's very solid gameplay wise and so stylish but I don't think it would be the same a second time.

But there is a sequel coming!

Woo-hoo!

I can't see myself playing Control again from the start but I did get the expansion pack and enjoyed that. If that game you played years earlier was Alan Wake, you may enjoy the DLC as one of the two new mini-campaigns is directly based on that game, with chekky references in the lore and comparable mechanics involving using light to fight enemies etc. Love Control, that game really flew under the radar.

I'd have to nominate both Subnautica games. Love love love them but one playthrough is enough... and again, there's another instalment coming!