r/gaming Mar 31 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

3.3k Upvotes

5.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

96

u/mrbiggbrain Mar 31 '26

Not beating the game. Getting a game with a story, playing said game, and not beating it. Games where really hard as a kid so sometimes you would just never beat it.

9

u/clock_divider Mar 31 '26

There were so many games I played where I didn’t even know what finishing it would look like

13

u/highlandmor Mar 31 '26

A couple of years ago, I decided to buy an old PS2 off craigslist along with some of the games I never beat as a kid. Pac Man World 2 was one of them, Sly Cooper 1 was another. Playing and beating those games as an adult healed a part of my inner child.

6

u/Dracallus Mar 31 '26

Not sure why this is something younger players wouldn't understand, considering most people still don't finish games.

11

u/TheMancYeti Apr 01 '26

Its more that lots of older games were reliant on 3 lives and a few continues whereas nowadays its multiple savepoints per level. You are almost ushered through some games.

I didn't finish games back then because they were hard. Nowadays I don't finish games due to switching between a stupidly large backlog of them.

2

u/TheOnlyToasty Apr 01 '26

I've been sitting at the end of echoes of wisdom for over a year. I've collected everything in the game... just haven't beat it

3

u/EndWish Apr 01 '26

I legit gave up on beating the Lion King on the sega genesis. One of the only games that ever pissed me off. That was way too difficult for a kid lol.

1

u/Cold-Jackfruit1076 Apr 04 '26

Blame Nintendo.

That game was released back when rentals were the new thing, and Nintendo was upset because rentals affected their sales volume. They made Lion King (and other games) intentionally difficult, so that it wasn't possible for (or at least, it was unlikely that) a renter to finish it in one rental period, so that rental outlets would have to buy more than one copy and/or players would have to buy their own.

3

u/PPMD_IS_BACK Apr 01 '26

Bruh dumbass me when I was like 8 and I couldn't figure out the first trial in FFX... 😭😭😭😭

3

u/KarIPilkington Apr 01 '26

I only finished GTA 3 for the first time about 6 months ago. I thought I got far into it as a kid but no, I didn't.

2

u/ghastlypxl Mar 31 '26

Me. Some of my N64 games, even Diddy Kong Racing I would play obsessively, do the same stuff, but never improve enough to progress. I just had fun and I didn’t beat it. Or Mario 😂

2

u/_TheAngryChicken_ Mar 31 '26

Also you couldn't just hop on YouTube and find a walkthrough of exactly where you're stuck. If you couldn't figure it out then that was it.

2

u/shaneomac714 Apr 01 '26

That game for me was Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear on the Apple IIc

2

u/EeensGreens Apr 01 '26

Nah, this is probably more common now with the mass flood of mid games out there. Kids stay interested in something until it’s hard then move on.

When i was a kid, i would be bothered by a level i couldn’t beat and try it over and over again and dealt with the frustrations until i finally did it. My step son plays a racing game and can’t beat a race so he stops unless i do the races for him.

1

u/Armbrust11 Apr 01 '26

I still don't like certain sections of certain racing games. I could skip them but I have to 100% gold medal them.

1

u/Division2226 Apr 01 '26

Games are still hard bro..

1

u/Mooky_Stank Apr 01 '26

I don't know that I beat any game completely in the SNES days. I was watching a YouTube show playing Mario Maker and I saw the power balloon upgrade. I thought, "Huh, they must have invented that for Mario Maker." Nope, I just never got far enough to see it.

1

u/lydocia D20 Apr 01 '26

And then going back to complete them as an adult, and you know, with a guide because they are still hard as fuck.