Enduring the Wait
and Surviving What Comes After
You finally get to the end of your game and watch the credits roll, and you can't believe that you've finally done it. To satisfy your craving for more, you go online and look up articles about the game. Everything is going fine until you find out that they're already planning the sequel... Except the earliest that it's coming out is two years down the line. How are you going to survive that long without these characters? Are you even going to like the series after all that time? How do you know it's going to be good anyway? Should you even bother keeping your hopes up? Well dear readers, today I'm here to commiserate with you as we examine how to handle the suspense.
During the Wait.
Believe me, I know how painful it is to wait for a resolution. While TV shows you can at least have the assurance that your wait will only be several months to a year, books and video games and even movies can take a much longer time. Several of my favorite book series are still ongoing, and I read the most recent book several years back when it first came out, and I'm still waiting for the newest one. Now, the problem with such long waits is that you change a lot as a person over those several years of hiatus, especially if it's a series you enjoy when you're young. As you grow older, you find that your views and tastes change. Your favorite character when you're thirteen won't necessarily be your favorite character when you come back to the same game five years later. Maybe a series that you loved when you were younger loses its magic, and when you play the next installment, you wonder why you waited so long for the game in the first place. These are both serious worries, but it's important not to lose hope because of your trepidation. You need to keep that hope that the sequel will live up to what you've always dreamed of, because if you lose that hope you're never going to be able to survive the wait.
However, that's not to say that you shouldn't expect something unreasonable from this sequel. I understand that you expect something that is better than the first game, something that completely blows the first out of the water and makes you wonder why you ever loved it, but that's not going to be the case every time you get a new game. As painful as it is, you need to realize that sometimes this new game is the final nail in the coffin and makes you put the series down for good. While on the other hand, the game could actually be that amazing game that you've always wanted. You really won't know until you pick up the game, so why worry about it in the beginning of the wait? Sit back, relax, try to follow our steps to get over an amazing game. Then, when news starts leaking out, when images are released, when you finally get the trailer, then determine how high you want to set the bar. I know that Player One is beside herself waiting for Skyrim, which is looking like an amazing game, and I'm a mess waiting for Uncharted 3 because it looks like everything I want and more, but I'm still worried about the appearance of my favorite character. Hope is always a good thing, but don't get blinded by it. I mean, as much as I would love a sequel to Beyond Good and Evil, I've tried not to get my hopes up on ever seeing it happen. Until you hear something definitive, you never know if you're actually going to get that sequel you want, even if you patiently wait forever (and ever and ever and ever until finally they release Duke Nukem. It's just like waiting for me to beat Nyx, but knowing that I still have many more tries to go.)
After the Wait.
So the sequel came out. What now? Well, you should go pick it up, of course! You're never going to know if you're going to like the game until you try it yourself. Player One and I are currently having this problem with Persona 4 (even though we have resolved to get it sometime soon to play through next year (we need to get on that, Victoria (maybe when I get money (hm.)))) You know that you loved the first game, and you don't want to tarnish that experience if the sequel turns out to be awful. But what happens if the sequel is better than the first? Don't you want to experience that if that's the case? You need to take that leap. I know it might be painful, I know it's terrifying, but trust me, you'll feel much better once you do. When I took the leap after Uncharted, I discovered that Uncharted 2 was the superior game, and I love it much more than the first one. At the same time, when I tried to play Tales of Symphonia 2, I swore off of the series altogether because it was that horrible (I'm only just getting back into it after playing through Tales of the Abyss with Player One.) These are the risks you need to take, but I personally think the pros far outweigh the cons. After all, what's the fun in life if you never take any risks?
So what do you guys think? Do you ever take that leap? Let me know!
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