Remember When You Sucked At Video Games?

Your Gaming History

Or, Remember All of Those Games You Never Got Around to Beating?

Or, When to Finally Beat a Game That You've Been Struggling Through Since You Were Six

When I came back from college, victorious over my defeat of the finals boss (which did take less time than Nyx, as Player One so kindly pointed out), one of the first things that I did was go down to my basement and look at my gaming shelf. It was only then, as I was soaking in the sheer amount of games that I could play (so many more than my mediocre binder that I was forced to use at Smith), did I realize that there were a lot of games on my shelf that I had never beaten. Not only that, but several of them were at the final boss, just waiting for me to finish it off, and I hadn't attempted it in years. Why had I left these games behind when they were so close to completion? Why hadn't I just wrecked the boss when I was six years old and actually playing the game? In order to find out the answers to these questions, I decided to take it upon myself to finally muster up enough courage to see where I was stuck on these games, and to figure out why I had never bothered to complete them in the first place. Several of the most prominent reasons were as follows:

Problem: An Incredibly Difficult Final Boss Battle
As you all have seen, I'm incredibly stubborn when it comes to boss battles, but I haven't always been like that. Before I actually cared enough about beating games, I would always get myself up to the final boss and then put the game down. "Oh, it's too hard" I'd say, along with something close to "I'll come back to it later when I know I can beat it." But I never did. It was when I turned thirteen that beating games became a requirement, not an exception. As a result, my shelf was littered with titles that I'd played through when I was a kid, but never got around to beating. Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Luigi's Mansion...The list seems endless.

Problem: An Almost Impossible Level (For a Nine-Year-Old, At Least)
Sometimes, I was just too young to have enough patience to get through a level. The Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, anyone? On these games, I would reach a point where, after trying something for the eighth time, I would simply give up. I did not have the sheer tenacity that I do now back then, and it just seemed so much easier to focus my attention on a game that I could actually get through as opposed to that one level that I could just not figure out. Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask...Most of the RPGs that I picked up when I was younger were discarded in this fashion.

Problem: Renting the Game
When I was a kid, I just simply couldn't afford to buy games. I had no income, a tiny allowance, and my relatives never really saw fit to give me cash. As a result many of my favorite games were rented repeatedly from Blockbuster, which meant that I would have to beat the beginning of the game time and time again, but I could never get to the ending before my parents would have to return it to the store. Paper Mario is perhaps the greatest example of this, where I got so good at the game that I could beat the first four bosses in a day without breaking a sweat, but there was never enough time for me to work my way through all of the new material and finally beat the tar out of Bowser.

Problem: Giving Up too Easily
So you got to the boss on your file and couldn't beat it, but your brother got to the boss on his file and beat it without breaking a sweat. Well, you could always just try to beat the boss for the fourteenth time, or you could always just let your brother do it for you and reap all of the benefits. Yeah, I might have done this on a few games that were seemingly impossible for me to beat when I was younger, and now that I look back on it, I can't really qualify those as beaten, now can I?

The Solution
So how do you deal with all of these unfinished games?

Well, for some games it's pretty easy to pick up where you left off. For example, in Super Mario 64, I'd completed all of the game except for the final level and the final boss. It was pretty simple for me to just pick up the controller a couple of days ago and  plug away at Bowser until I finally defeated him.

For other games, you might find it necessary to start over. In Ocarina of Time and Paper Mario, I thought it was prudent to start the games over again. Not only was I stuck in the former, but by the time I got around to playing them again, it had been about six years since I last attempted them. I'd forgotten the story of the game, and they felt lifeless when I wandered through the same tired corridors. As a result, I sucked up my pride and started over. And let me tell you, I was happy that I did. Not only did I get to experience the magic of the games again first hand, but I was also able to finally, finally understand some portions of the plot that had completely alluded me when I was a little kid.

Sometimes you need to purchase those games that bothered you so much when you were a child and prove your mettle by playing through them. Sometimes you just need to reload that file that you had your brother beat and play through the final boss one more time, just to prove that you can. And sometimes when you pick up an incomplete game you remember just how much you hated it, and why you put it aside in the first place (Sly 2, anyone?)


Needless to say, completely beating your collection of games is a serious challenge, and this is only a small step toward victory. What about you guys? Ever realize that a game you'd always thought that you'd beaten has been sitting on your shelf collecting dust for years unfinished? Tell me your stories, I'd love to hear them!