Forums / Media / Video Games

When I was a kid I admit this was rather common with me, even with games I loved I often felt like I simply lacked the ability to actually see some of them through to completion. As I got older this changed significantly and I don't feel this way about most games, especially when I learn I don't need to always restrict myself to playing something a specific way (like after four hours of trying I just accepted Melania in Elden Ring was too much for me to handle doing solo so I began to rely on the Mimic summon to finally feel like I had a fair chance, though I guess it's worth noting that I did avoid summons for the actual final boss).

However there is one example of a game where I feel like I legitimately lack the skill to beat as an adult. That game is Crypt of the Necrodancer, and I specifically am referring to getting the game's true ending when playing as the character Aria. This game basically requires playing through it three times as three separate characters in order to see the full story, but the final character, Aria, is by far the hardest. Unlike Cadence and Melody, who only suffer a combo multiplier loss when accidentally missing a beat (one of the game's main gimmicks is all actions are tied to keeping to the beat of the music playing, the game is described as a "roguelike dungeon crawler and rhythm game jammed into one," you can even play it with a DDR dance mat if you want), Aria outright takes damage when missing a beat, and what makes this harder is she literally only has one health AND you HAVE to use the game's weakest weapon, the dagger, to boot. You're allowed only one screw up thanks to Aria having a revive potion on her, but once that potion's gone you have to pray RNG will give you other damage mitigating items like glass armor or a freeze charm. I tried for multiple days to get through just ONE zone as Aria, and after so many losses I just came to the conclusion that, simply put, I lack the skill necessary to beat the game as Aria and I just looked up her story cutscenes online so that way I could see the true ending and be ready for when Cadence of Hyrule (an officially sanctioned crossover between COTND and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda) came out.

I still enjoyed COTND, more so when playing as the primary character Cadence, enough so that I bought Cadence of Hyrule when it came out and I'm looking forward to the upcoming sequel which looks to also be taking inspiration from Rhythm Heaven, but I've just accepted I simply lack the skill to beat the game when playing with a character whose whole gimmick is "you literally can't miss a beat or take damage twice or else you die, oh and you can only use the game's weakest weapon."

So hey now that I talked about my own personal example of a game I just can't beat, do you have an example?

I like to think of myself as a pretty smart puzzle enthusiast but the late game ones absolutely fuck my shit up so hard I can hear the CPU in my brain fizzle out. There are some words I never even got to but boy that game is hard…

For physical skill over mental skill I really want to get good at doing the Sniper Elite games but I cannot snipe without the "sniper vision" aimbot thing you do when you hold your breath. Trying to shoot 100m+ with wind, sway, rotation of the earth, muzzle velocity of the gun, and etc etc factored in is so mind-boggling hard for me to line up but BOY the feeling of landing a rifle round in a Nazi's dome with no assists fills my body with an ASMR-like sensation that is indescribably good.

With every game I stopped playing, it was due to boredom or instability (crashing, freezing, stuttering, etc.), not an inability to beat it. If I find something extremely difficult then I keep going at it until I do it, no matter how long it takes. I might adapt with different builds and approaches to make it easier, but I eventually succeed. Most of the time I don't actually need many attempts in the first place, so that helps.

Turns out you do significantly better in games when you're not pissed off at them. If I feel like smashing my keyboard or something, then I'll likely play worse than when I'm just calm and focused. It's really tempting to just destroy shit nearby sometimes, but the awareness that it's relatively expensive tech is a limiter on that thought.

It wasn't a real skill issue, but I quit both Hyper Light Drifter and Yakuza 0 because you can't play those games well without a controller. They do not lie when they say 'Real Yakuza use a gamepad'.

There's also Settlers and Anno games. I was way younger back then, but I choked hard in campaign. Especially in Settlers 7, I immediately got stuck once they introduced an actual AI enemy into the game. I probably should try again soon.

I feel like Sekiro is one I feel to lack skill in to beat. For a game that has similar mechanics to a Souls game, it's way more brutal and I pretty much gave up with the Guardian Ape. Also hate how Wolf dodges since his dodge ironically is no different from Nioh's Hide and William. Git Gud is something I need but that'll be for another time.

Gothic 2 with the Night of the Raven add-on I feel requires some skill in the sense of knowing what to level up since I'm already in the third chapter and I need to get more learning points to boost my strength so I can wield stronger weapons. Sadly, I feel like my character build is borked since I'll likely get eviscerated by everything else even with good armor despite having an OP weapon that'll be useless on the final boss.

I can sincerely say that I suck at Street Fighter. So much so that even though I've played it several times on my SNES, I've only managed to beat it at 0 difficulty, and because of that for I didn't even know there were ending cutscenes for all the characters until finding playthroughs on Youtube. I've since tried to do so on default difficulty, but no dice.

I only a play a handful of online FPS games, but I did try Counter Strike a few times and I always came out of it getting curbstomped and leaving frustrated. I typically dislike fast twitch-like reflex shooters in general though, I have a hard time keeping up.

I make a habit to always finish a game I start, but the only ones I have ever abandoned was System Shock 2 and, partially, Furi. The former for being too obtuse that resulted me in having a crap build and being unable & unwilling to continue. The latter, I beat all the bosses save the "optional" final one. Fuck that last phase, I tried so many damn times my hands began to hurt. It's legitimately the only time I've ever raged whilst gaming.

Yes. However, even there I normally don't give up as long as I'm still enjoying said games. The bad ones simply aren't worth it tho.

Ditto on Furi--kind of. I was stuck on that final boss for months; literally the same save file, on the same boss, attempted many times across several months. Eventually beat it, though; platinum'd the game, even.

As for games I haven't beaten…I'll put arcade games in that category. Specifically, shmups; even more specifically, Caladrius Blaze.

If you're familiar with arcade-like games or ports of actual arcade games, you'll know that they're not exactly "difficult to beat"; because of their arcade origins, they allow you to use continues as many times as you want, usually with the penalty of a score reset. The same goes for shmups, but some have means of disincentivising abusing continues: true final bosses. I know of at least two such cases: one is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the sixth Touhou game, where the extra stage and true final boss can only be accessed by beating the main stages on normal difficulty or higher and without continues; and the other is Caladrius Blaze, which has the same deal going on.

The funny thing is that I don't know if I'm just not very good at shmups or if the game is ridiculously difficult. I can pinpoint the exact parts of the game where I feel I could never get past without the use of screen-clearing bombs, because the bosses just absolutely flood the screen with bullets, and to top it off? Some of them home.

I have beaten Caladrius Blaze in a sense, but I won't consider it truly beaten until I can, at the very least, finish the main campaign without continues. I've had the game for years and I don't even know what the true final boss looks like; all I know is that she has big boobs.

Edit: speaking of arcade games: Arcana Heart 3 (yes I consider fighting games arcade), although I'm pretty sure the final boss of that game is popularly considered to be one of the most unfair enemies in history.

I may be stretching the question a bit as it isn't finishing a game, but I can't really enjoy PvP games like I can normal games. I can play almost all offline singleplayer and most coop games on the highest difficulty with no real panic, even if I fail I brush the fails off easy and chill.
But when I play PvP games of any competitiveness, whether it be something as competitive as something like CSGO, or something as casual as TF2, I always feel like i'm fighting for my life and when I lose I feel like I let my entire bloodline down and my only recourse in life is to abandon the ways of the computer and go start eating grass (A bit of a hyperbole but you get the point)

BOTW made me sleep. OOT didn't. With TOTK on the horizon, that's why I sold it. The final boss showed me I didn't miss much.

Baldur's Gate I and II

I was a kid who had never played any edition of D&D, let alone 2E when I first picked up this series. I essentially treated every class as a melee build. I never did used spells too so I was save scumming like Hell until I either got lucky or gave up out of frustration.

I am currently playing BGI with a better understanding and it is a lot more fun than I had anticipated. But I will occasionally use the console commands to spawn the Raise Dead scroll should any party members die.

I usually go for the Archer class. But this F/M/T is giving me so much versatility.

I just re-read this and apparently I forgot to write down that I was talking about 'Baba is You" for that aforementioned puzzle game. Apparently my brain CPU did short out…

Damn, that necrodancer one sounds insane.

As a kid, not really. As an adult? One comes to mind

The Talos Principle (great game btw). It's a challenging puzzle game. The first time I played it, I was at the 3rd (final) part. No matter what I did or how I looked at it, I just couldn't come up with a way to solve most of the puzzles in the area. I eventually just dropped it for good

But later I revisited it and it really wasn't that bad. They were actually sort of a breeze. In fact, I went on to complete the harder expansion as well. Not really sure why the huge difference in difficulty. Maybe my brain just needed time to soak in the puzzles.

I couldn't finish Helltaker because of the last boss battle.

I have a disorder that fucks with my short-term memory so I'm basically unable to remember the patterns needed to defeat Judgement.

I suck in most memory based games overall thanks to that and thus avoid them.
I could only think of Helltaker since the last boss comes out of left field and is a departure from the rest of the game. It soured the game for me since I couldn't actually finish it and I uninstalled it out of spite.