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When You're Going Back to a Game Midway-through After Years

Zolo

Member
Currently going back to my old Xenoblade Chronicles save on the wii after about a year of not playing it. Apparently, I had around 70 hours, dozens of sidequests completed, about 30 current sidequests, having no idea what gems and other stuff is for, and forgetting a lot of the battle system. I can kinda remember where I was thankfully.

But yeah. This is a thread about those times where you try to get back into a game half-way through after leaving it alone for a while.
 

Dervius

Member
Happens with RPGs quite a lot. I did it with The Witcher 3 and totally forgot what was going on.

More recently I went back to Elite Dangerous after a long hiatus and had to totally research myself how to play.
 

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
Currently going back to my old Xenoblade Chronicles save on the wii after about a year of not playing it. Apparently, I had around 70 hours, dozens of sidequests, completed, about 30 current sidequests, having no idea what gems and other stuff is for, and forgetting a lot of the battle system. I can kinda remember where I was thankfully.

But yeah. This is a thread about those times where you try to get back into a game half-way through after leaving it alone for a while.

Aw man! You went 70 hours into Xenoblade and didn't finish it!!? What a bummer! The ending, the last 10% of the story, is SO GOOD.

You done messed up bro!
 
I love the feeling when you start a game up after years, and as you press buttons you end up burning through most of your inventory. Like, you just end up throwing grenades, using healing potions etc.

I feel like more games should use the Sonic Adventure 2 style story recaps. Speaking of which, why did that game even need them? It was a really story based game, and the story wasn't the most gripping thing ever.

It's slightly easier for me to go back to more recent games, say from the PS3 era, because a lot of control schemes for different games are similar between genres, and the games are generally a lot more polished than they were. I tried carrying on with Soul Reaver 2 on the PS2 last year, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, how I was going to do it, and where I needed to do it.
 

Stevey

Member
I've done it before, always end up restarting as I cant get back into it.
Most recent example was Pillars Of Eternity.
 

woopWOOP

Member
I played a couple of days of Pikmin 3, but never finished it (never even saved the third crew captain actually).
Thought I'd sit down and continue my old save some time ago, but I had no idea how to control that game anymore. Think I'm gonna have to restart it at some point, lol
 

Cairnsay

Banned
I may be in this position soon. Heading back to finish Dark Souls 3 before the end of the year, must have been away for at least 6 months. If I recall correctly, I have just gotten through that
jail type area, with the enemies who can actually take away your health bar, as well as just health.
I think I may be screwed though, can barely remember how I had set my character up/how I was playing.
 

redcrayon

Member
I usually find that it's amazing how much you remember once the game gives you a few nudges. The first couple of hours can be a bit rough as the game by that point usually expects you to be competent with strategies you've forgotten, but a bit of trial and error is better than restarting for me.
 

Lijik

Member
My Okage disc got scratched in a friends PS2 and it took me a few years to replace it. By the time I did I couldnt make heads or tails of my objective or the battle system at all. Always meant to start a new file to reacquaint myself to the basics and then hop back into my old save but never did.
 
Not years later but this was me with Twilight Princess on the Wii. I played about 25% of it but then another game I wanted came out and I stopped for a bit. Then I came back to TP after a few months of other games and tried to pick it up again and spent several hours trying to remember where I was in the proceedings. Another game I wanted to play was released and I stopped and eventually tried to pick up the game a few weeks later. after a while I gave up.

I'm finally going to try a fresh playthrough on the Wii U over Christmas break.
 

Hutchie

Member
twilight princess i left for like 3 years and finished earlier this year. Left ffviii after disc 1 for a year then finished when ffxv release date was announced
 

Grassy

Member
cant do that if i go back to a game after a long period of time i have to restart the whole thing

Same here. Currently on my fourth play-through of Final Fantasy 9(near the end this time!)

I've made it to disc 3 three times since the Playstation days...
 

pswii60

Member
Never done it. If I return to a game after a long time away I just have to start over.

Same, otherwise I really struggle. Especially with games that have a difficulty curve - if you're out of practice you're going to struggle jumping right back in.

Also I recently tried to jump back in to Shadow Warrior (PS4) and had no idea whatsoever how to use the different touchpad powers, I'd completely forgotten how to do it.
 
I hate this, there should be some sort of welcome back/catch-up feature (in JRPG's especially).

This happened to me with Lost Odyssey so i had to start over, but i ended up completing it. Same thing with Tales of Vesperia, although i couldn't be bothered to start over.
 

JimmyRustler

Gold Member
I found a good solution for that. If I mildly loose interest in a game, I scale back my playtime with it to once a week. That way I never really get out of the loop with the game while I constantly switch the other games I'm playing.

Been playing Witcher 3 for a couple of months that way now and never had the urge to restart it again because I forgot too much of it.
 
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