Games don’t normally pull a lot of emotions out of me. I’m usually just [long sigh of relief] after I beat a game. But Shovel Knight’s ending yanked a few tears from my eyes. My dad had recently passed away. My wife was away for the week. I didn’t know anything about the game, it belonged to my kids. I noticed it was a retro style side scroller, so I decided to give it a go. The authentic chip tune soundtrack and pixel art had me hooked right from the first screen. I could tell someone had poured all their love and nostalgia into that game. It was the best NES game that never was. A few nights later, when I finally beat it, as I sat there catching my breath, watching that beautiful end sequence, a lot of emotions bubbled up in me, about being a kid, about my dad, about simpler times. And I’m not gonna lie, remembering that moment right now brought up all those same feelings.
A game that was both satisfying and a bit sad to finish was Ocarina of Time. Got it for my 13th birthday and sank what felt like months into it. Just running around Hyrule looking for heart pieces and whatnot. In fact, when i did finally make it to Ganons castle, I knew the end was drawing near and put off the final showdown to hunt some more gold skulltulas and stuff because it felt like a chapter of my life was almost coming to an end with how immersed i was in the game. So when I finally did end up finishing it and the credits started to roll, seeing all the characters I had gotten to know so well waving goodbye, the satisfaction of my journey coming to an end was definitely tinged with a bit of melancholy.
I did the same thing my first time I played Final Fantasy 7. Started going down into that crater and suddenly realized this was going to be the end. So I turned right around and left to do other stuff, I just wasn't ready for it to be over.
This is exactly how I felt when I beat The Last of Us in 2016. I stopped keeping up with video games a few years before and randomly borrowed it from my brother just for something to try, not knowing anything about it. Holy cow, I don't think I've ever been so invested in a video game. I couldn't put it down and after 3 days, I got to the end and was really sad because I knew I could never experience it that way again. I replayed it last year and it just didn't grab me like it did the first time. The second game just couldn't reach that same high either.
Final Fantasy 6. I adore that game. It got me through some tough times as a kid. I thought the ending was wonderful but I had mixed feelings about finally beating it. In a way I was sad it was over.
The first TMNT game on the NES. I've been playing it since day one and it has tortured me ever since. I enjoy the game and am I huge fan of the franchise, but my goodness that game just haunted my dreams all these years. Well, about 6 months ago I decided NO MORE, and started practicing. After about 2 weeks of giving it one try each day, I beat it!!!! It was an amazing feeling, years of built up aggression and tantrum throwing as a kid....conquered forever. Take that Shredder, ya jerk
@@blitheringrando1410 if you want some pointers (and laugh at me sucking at it) I made a video of a playthrough that's on my channel. Cheers I hope you beat shredder soon!
"The part where the little penguin can't find its mom? That was an emotional rollercoaster." Not as much of an emotional rollercoaster as I bet the mom penguin went through after you tell her that you found her baby but you -deliberately- accidentally, forcefully hurled it over the edge of the cliff.
Games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger, and many others, have convinced me beating games can be much more sad than satisfying. Although, I love the good satisfying end as well, like to a tough game like Mega Man.
I remember thinking Mega Man was so cool as a kid because my cousin played those games. I sucked then, I suck now, Megaman just isnt my jam. I picked up 6 last night, did my best and just got destroyed when I made it tp the bosses.
There are two gaming experiences that come to mind for this question. - Although I was fully satisfied when I beat Ocarina of Time, it is rather disappointing that my playthrough is over and there isn't really anything to do in my file anymore. Though, it's not all bad because when I finally get my hands on a CRT, I'm going to rebeat all of my N64 and GameCube games on it. - The Ocular Miracle trilogy in Geometry Dash is possibly the highest point I've ever had when it comes to my enjoyment of one of my favorite games of all time. I'm clearly well past my prime in that game, and even if I wasn't, I don't think I'm ever going to touch a level as good as any of those three. Other than that, I don't beat a lot of games to begin with, and I usually don't get sad when I do. Smash Bros for Wii U taught me how to hyperfixate on specific games with the intent of getting as good at them as I can. As I'm part of the target of your "for younger generations" question, this naturally remedies the problem of having a smaller quantity of games. I did this with games that are endless by design, like fighting games and Geometry Dash, but I learned that you can use speedrunning to turn pretty much any game into an endless game. I did this with my favorite Mario game, Mario Sunshine. Do you love a game to death? You can use that love to play the game with self-imposed challenges, such as a certain limitation or speedrunning, to keep breathing life into that one game. The credits don't dismiss you. You do.
For me, it is Phantasy Star 4 on Sega Genesis. The visuals and the characters left me in awe. I played this game for 5 years with the vow to complete it. When I finally finished, I smiled cause I had done my vow but really sad at the same time cause, like what you said, it wouldn't be so much fun again unlike the last time when I first started playing that game.
Last time I felt both satisfied and somewhat wistful after finishing a game was when I beat Zelda: OoT for the first time. This was about 5 years ago now. Something about that final shot where Link meets Zelda again for the first time and then the screen goes sepia freeze frame followed by "The End" hit me in a certain way.
Super Mario 64 instantly comes to mind. It felt like such an achievement, especially after getting all 120 stars. And the bittersweet music of the ending just added to the melancholy. I feel like a lot of games do that in the end credits, as if the game itself was sad that you beat it!! Lol. Another example: Super CV 4.
@@RetroBirdGaming I’ve felt “sad” about finishing tv shows and animes I like to watch, but with games I feel like there’s usually a reason to go back to them if you really wanted to like to get every achievement or random side quests, unlike with shows where there’s no reason to really watch it again
That weird happy/sad/mad/what-do-I-do-now?! feeling is exactly what I felt at the end of the Mass Effect trilogy. Not retro, I know, but I had invested north of 100 hours into the characters and then, well we know how that ending went! Great example of a publisher bucking the current trend of flash cloning the last hit game they made, make it 4K and ship it! I've only recently been getting into retro gaming and am currently married to player 2 and raising players 3 and 4 so I'm all set for couch co-op! Criminally underrated channel and a well deserved sub. Keep up the great work!
I always feel satisfied when completing any game long or short. It is odd, but I wasn't always sad when completing a game, but rather just was happy that the game was an enjoyable experience and it provided me with good memories. However, I think the earliest games that I got emotionally invested in were Sonic 1 and 2 on the Genesis as a kid. I remember they were both some of the first games I owned and eventually I completed both games with all Chaos Emeralds as a kid. Though, I think completing Sonic 2 hit me emotionally harder as the combination of the ending music and ending scene just really was kind of magical at the time.
Satisfied: I recently beat Rocket Knight for the first time this pass weekend. The game is just so unpredictable. But I hate the dark knight though. I was like, I hope he doesn't show up after I defeated the television guy. I'll throw in Xenosaga too because I actually spent time to learn how to play the game as the battle system is a choir to learn so it was satisfying to finally beat that game. Sad: Persona 4 or most RPGs because it is like saying goodbye to friends that you will never meet again. If you romanced said character, you romanced him/her because something about that character you were attached too. If you play the game again, you pretty much romance the same character (Chie, Tali, and Morrigan) as that character feels apart of you.
Generally there is a sence of satisfaction when I beat a game. Rare occasion is the "that's it feeling" when you were expecting more and just feels like an abrupt end.
I’ve finished Grandia 3x - in Japanese on the original Saturn, and in English on the PS1 and Switch. Every time, it’s been satisfying, but also sad. The story is so awesome and engrossing to play along that I’m always sad when it’s over, I don’t want it to end. Oh, I’m gonna do it again. Next time will be the English patch on the Saturn. And I’ll never tire of the characters and story!
Paper Mario made feel happy to beat it, but also sad because it was over. I extremely enjoyed the story and all the chapters in the game. Beating a chapter was like turning the next page. So satisfying.
Every time I beat a Persona game I feel both happy and sad. I just get this feeling of ‘’what do I do now?’’ Persona 3 and 4 are both 70+ hours and Persona 5 is over 100. P5 Royal is even longer and I beat that too. Still gotta play 1 and 2, looking forward to getting that feeling again.
Prof Layton Unwound Future-whats more satisfying than beating a game? Beating the 3rd game in a trilogy! This game has some really sad parts, I heard it was a tear jerker, but doubted it would be able to make me cry until it actually happened. Game does a lot with the character development they setup in the first 2 games, the delayed gratification was worth it XD
Sad and satisfied? Two games come to mind, one retro, one modern. The retro game was Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire for the SNES. I completed that game with a full conquest of China and I knew that as great as it was to win, I'd never duplicate this feat again, as it took simply too damn long. The modern one was Witcher 3, after I had digested it thoroughly, hitting every map point and exploring every area in-depth. I'd never be able to go back to it since I had nothing else to see, but I loved my time there.
Pretty much every Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy or any JRPG really leaves me with that feeling of being satisfyed but sad at the same time, they are usually hard so I feel so good when I finally finish them and the ending is usually very emotional, but the sad part is that I'll be saying goodbye to those characters and that world, and as you say, I could play it again in the future, or complete it 100%, but it's just not the same
This game keeps coming up with your channel, but it's one of the few that fits being both sad and satisfied: Chrono Trigger. Sad because of the ending (the one that's canon), and satisfying because of the Final Boss being such an overwhelming force that casts a shadow over your party for most of the game. Such a fantastic game!
Final Fantasy 7 on PS1 I would have to say for me. I have beat the game about a year after its release and campaigned another playthrough last year. My first run was shorter and I missed a lot of key items. My investing time then was just to beat it no matter what. It took my entire crew to end Sephiroth's first form then. My run last year still missed a few key items, but my characters were well overpowered. I lost my sense of accomplishment when I breezed through that same battle in under 5 minutes. Felt like I did not do the game justice as I previously did.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is one that sticks with me. I thoroughly enjoyed that game, how it greatly expanded the lore and world of the prior games, and even now, it's quite unusual of a game mechanically. Grandia is another, especially the second game.
What's funny is the two games you compared here are the exact same two I would! No matter how many times I beat Contra, every time feels like a new challenge. But no matter how many times I play Super Mario 64, I love it, but it just doesn't compare to the first time I played Bob-Omb Battlefield at the demo station at Walmart. 8-year-old me and a bunch of random kids in the electronics section while our parents were shopping (something you'd never see anymore!). I finally get a turn with that controller that nobody knew how to hold, which was attached to the display case (and you had to crank your neck straight up to look at the TV mounted above the case). It was an experience unlike any other.
My son has so many more games than I did as a kid. He has a New 2DS XL, a New 3DS XL, A Playstation Vita, and a Vita Tv. He plays Vita games, 3DS, and DS. I remind him how unusual that is and how it wasn’t like that when I was younger. I can’t think of any games I was sad to finish. I would say I get more sad looking back on games I beat years ago and remember what was going on in my life during that time and how the game hit home. I always come to Lunar on PS1. I beat it over 20 years ago in 2000. I haven’t played through it since but I ordered the Saturn Mpeg version and have been playing that one. It has been really fun too as all the language is indiscernible for me so I am flying through but there are moments that are triggering feelings of nostalgia and bringing back memories but also after not playing the game in 20 years, it feels fresh and I have forgotten quite a bit.
Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, the first game I bought for the Xbox 360. I fell in love with the game and the story and all the missions and side quests. Being able to own your own home, I was in my own little world.
Final Fantasy 7. I remember the last speech at the Northern Cave part where Cloud says "let's mosey", I remember having a conscious thought "I'm gonna miss you guys," type feeling just knowing the game was going to be over soon. I must've kept the starry background on for like an hour hoping there was more ending only revealed to the super hardcore fans.
What makes me sad is not being able to play a game for the first time ever again. If I could only experience ocarina of Time or resident Evil 2 for the first time again, that would be incredible, but that's what makes your actual first playthrough so special, you didn't really realize what you were getting into until it was over and the appreciation stays with you forever
This is kind of a long story, but in elementary school we had a Super Mario jigsaw puzzle. It had screenshots of levels I've never seen before and I had already played through the game a bit. I figured it must have been something I skipped via warp zones. So I replayed the hell out of it, never finding those lost levels, it was so frustrating. Turns out they were screenshots from the Japanese Mario 2, but I wouldn't find out for years later.
The Legend of Zelda for the NES is my favorite game, took me a Summer to beat, hours played with my friends, good times, great memories and though it was sad when it was over....the 2nd Quest was waiting! Playing games as a kid with your group of friends added a bit of magic to the memory that's forever burned in your brain in a good way. Thankful for that bit of magic from my childhood that will always be with me. Power to the Players and the friends and memories we make along the way!
Really long games (any game that takes over 30 hours to complete) oftentimes just feel like a slog about 75% through. Sometimes even a chore...or work. My patience just disappears. Then when I finally finish it, it just feels like "Finally, that's done". Not the best feeling to have, but it's a good memory to have knowing that you finished it.
The happiest I've ever been from having completed a game was my first 1cc run of Time Soldiers on my arcade cabinet. I love the game, but hadn't been great at it. My brother and his family were coming to visit, and I was just playing a credit to kill time while they were on tbe way. They got there, but I was still going. Our wives were ready to start visiting, but my brother, who gets it, told them that something special was happening, and to watch. Everything just clicked into place, and I cleared it on one life. My brother gave me a high five, and we were laughing, and our wives just didn't fully understand the sense of accomplishment I felt, and that my brother understood. Ever since, I can do it pretty consistently, but that first clear was a moment for me in a way that only my two single life clears of Ghosts n Goblins on NES can rival for pure satisfaction. The saddest are usually long-form games that I'm just not quite ready to be done with yet. Earthbound, Final Fantasy III, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... games where I've done just about everything, but I just don't feel like stopping. Spiritfarer was like that recently. That's where on modern games, I can appreciate well-implemented trophies; they give me an excuse to keep playing.
First time I beat a game, was Super Mario World, I mean I can’t remember if it was me who beat it or my uncle beating it (can’t imagine I had the skill to beat it when I was 4 years old) I cried. Must’ve been the first time I realized that these worlds in these video games are finite and not infinite. I remember being sad for that reason
Way back in 1998 it was The Original Resident Evil on the PS1. It was the 1st game that really scared a person & all my friends would play the 1st part until the dog scene & we'd all laugh as they wouldn't expect to get scared from a Video Game! Months later I was walking thru a store & they had a magazine on how to beat Resident Evil. I bought it & a buddy of mine stayed at my house until we beat the game taking turns. Mixed emotions about that as it felt like cheating using a magazine which started my decline of modern 3D Games.
Most recently had this feeling when beating Breath Of The Wild. I did every shrine & beat it in about 95 hours. It was bitter sweet, I wanted to continue adventuring around the world. I didn't have any incentive to do so, this is a strength of shorter games. I can play DKC in 2 hours or less.
For me it was definitely Jet Set Radio future and No more heroes that made me feel satisfied and sad. Both games were some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a video game. I honestly felt more sad when beating jsrf more than no more heroes cause I knew that there were no other games that were released in the jsr series, compared to no more heroes where there’s 3 other games in the series, 2 of them being released very recently. I’m probably gonna experience this when I finish the no more heroes series.
It depends on my level of time and emotional investment, but if I play a game all the way through to completion both those levels are probably fairly high already... It's usually a bittersweet feeling to me.
I think it's the most difficult to reconcile when a game becomes a big part of your daily life and then it just ends. RPGs can be some of the hardest to deal with, though a lot of the best ones are smart enough to leave you with a lot of optional sidequests and post-game content if you just can't stop playing. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is probably the one that left me feeling the worst, because even though I was really loving the game, I just couldn't accept that was actually everything once I'd finished it. I even went out and bought the official strategy guide to find out how to unlock the next set of missions that I was sure were still waiting for me.
The ending I remember having the most impact was Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest. I made it all the way to the end, and then got the bad ending (not knowing there were multiple endings). All that joy turned to “Wait…what????”
Final Fantasy VII was one of those games for me. I started playing the game with no expectations and it blew me away. The world of the game was masterfully created and I loved every second of exploring Midgar, Wutai, and other places. When the game was over, I felt proud that I beat such a long game, but I also felt sad that my journey through that world was over. It’s all good though, because I can always go back to it if I feel like it!
Dragon Quest 8. Satisfied because I had started that game 8 years prior and it felt good to knock such a heavy peg off the backlog. But then sad because I knew there were post-game dungeons and bosses and cool secret stuff which I wanted to do since I'm usually a pretty big RPG nut, but sad because I decided to skip out on all of that since I was just utterly spent from the main quest and so relieved to see those credits roll. But I do want to someday go back and replay that game and do the post-game stuff even though it's probably not a smart investment of time at this point.
The Majora's Mask ending made me happy and mad. The game was great but I hated the time mechanic. I wanted the game to be longer because I enjoyed the game play, but the final boss was a 20min reset if I didn't beat it due to when you could save and the final prep before the boss plus waiting for the time to pass. I think it took me three or four times to beat the final boss too, which was a cool boss.
Majora's Mask on N64. It was pretty satisfying to beat the third form of Majora and save Termina, but when the end credits rolled and we saw how we have impacted so many villagers and then we see the Deku Butler mourning his son, it brought on a few tears.
Depends on how good the game is. A great game does make me a bit sad knowing I've seen all it has to offer. On the other hand some games are better the second time around because you know what to do and there isn't those awkward sessions of frustration from being stuck or lost.
I think wether I'm happy or sad after finishing a game depends on the gsme in question. I was really happy when I finished Final Fantasy 2 on the famicom because finslly the grind was over, but when I finished Final Fantasy 3 on the Famicom I was so sad because I really really liked FF3, the music, exploration, job system, they were all sooooo good that when I finished it I was sad it was over :(
The story is huge and just playing the game over is sad for me cause I want to keep going, but usually knowing there is sequel coming keeps happy. Best idea I figured to do was play the game on a harder difficulty so I can keep coming back for more.
I feel sad when I realize that a game I like a lot no longer offers a challenge because I've played it too much. So I leave beaten games in "quarantine" for a long time so they don't lose their fun, as has happened with some of my favorites. But beating a hard game for the first time usually give me an adrenaline rush, like I scored the winning goal in a World Cup final.
Sometimes games end up too long and I try to dedicate myself to beat it only to regret having put so much time into the game. I remember playing Radiant Historia and spent 60 hours and beat it, then realized how repetitive the gameplay and story was from beginning to end. That's when I regret beating games and feel sadness. I usually like to finish games I play, I feel guilty if I don't beat them when all it takes is dedicating enough time. Also yeah your point about games being sad when you beat them because the charm won't be the same, that's literally every Zelda game (or at least the good ones like ALttP, OoT, MM, WW, TP, MC)
I remember feeling pretty sad when I completed Orcarina of Time. I had sunk so much time into it and loved exploring the world. Once it was over(after the initial joy at overcoming such an epic game) I was left feeling "What now?" 😑
Super Street fighter 2, I never owned it. I would rent that game a lot & play that a lot. Vega is really hard because he jumps on the fence & throws you once he jumps off of it. Contra is a game I will play 1000+ times. I have beaten Contra without dying about 4 times. This is on my friends channel. When my friend saw this he told the people at a retro convention because I used to collect a small amount of games really cheap. I remember they were really impressed with that & asked me how I did it. I just told them persistence & luck. Super Mario 64. This is a game that uses a save file. I usually don't go and erase a save file to replay it again. For this game I 100%ed this by getting 120 stars in this. For the most part you are doing different things to collect the stars. The Penguin that was my fav mission when you race him down the icy path. I used to cheat in that by taking a shortcut. When you do that he says nope I won't give you the star you cheated something like that. Retro games Genesis, Snes, Nes & Master system. I will play these games over & over again.
Usually I only feel sad beating a game if the story is inherently sad but usually it's as you said see you next time then I move on so for me it's on the satisfying side. Red dead redemption 1&2 have such great and sad endings, put be down for the count both times!
I remember beating Rime a few years ago and my 7 year old son started crying when he saw the ending. I actually saw this happening in slow motion when I first realized how the story was going to end. My son is very sensitive so it was hard to watch. 😳
With so many games, sometimes the best thing for me to do is to turn around and beat the game again, maybe on a harder setting or finding new items. I don't always do it, but it's a nice change of pace for me to play something familiar as opposed to shoving a new game down because I haven't played it yet.
Actually, I feel more nostalgic nowadays since it's games I could played when I was a kid. But most of my journey through retrogamings it's more like a cozy/satisfying feeling like have a beer kind of feeling😂🤣 after all those years.
I've beat many-a games in my 27 years as a gamer, but the latest emotion puller was the Japanese exclusive, Giftpia. Essentially you live in on an island, you sleep in late thus missing your coming of age ceremony, so in return you have to help out the islands villagers forming bonds, and fulling requests and gaining back the mayors respect and trust. Through out the gameplay experience the island starts having earth quakes, and ultimately the last earthquake sets off the islands volcano, and well. you can guess the rest.
Super Metroid is probably the best example for me. To this day very few games felt so satisfying while playing, and the last boss and the escape part were just amazingly fun. Seeing the ending brought to me a great sense of satisfaction, but a bit of melancholy. The hard part was to find any game that matched that sense of excitement and even a bit of dread whenever I've entered a new area, or the anticipation when coming back after acquiring a new upgrade to see if I could go to places I couldn't reach before, or the sense of power after acquiring some of these upgrades. Years later games like Castlevania Symphony of the Night and many other "metroidvanias" that came after helped me to scratch that itch, but nothing compares to sheer enjoyment I had with Super Metroid.
Best part of early arcade and Atari games? You will always die and lose. You got over it, you tried again to do a little bit better, but you always died and lost...and always tried again. Good lessons for everyone.
Completing Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life. The original GameCube version. It was satisfying to reach the end of the story -- it took me about 225 hours -- but the story's ending was sad, and it was sad to say goodbye to the little world I'd lived in for so long and had grown to love.
That would be Xenoblade 2 for me. I spent over 200 hours in that story and loved every minute of it. When it was over, it felt right that it was done and while satisfying that everything was wrapped up it was really sad that I had to say goodbye to these characters I had gotten to know and love over several months.
What The Golf, Loop Hero, and Yoku's Island Express are three more recent little indie games that just made me happy when I beat them but also sad that I couldn't play more. I'm honestly really hoping each of those games have extra content or a sequel soon.
I recently beat Mega Man X2 and it was extremely hard to beat him. My first run I didn't collect all of Zero's parts so I had to fight Zero plus both of Sigma's forms and I couldnt beat his last form, I just didn't have enough health to do it, even with all 4 E-Tanks full. So I studied where all the items were on TH-cam, ran it again, got all the items and the Shoryuken punch ability and beat the last form of Sigma with 0 health tanks remaining and literally ONE SINGLE BAR OF HEALTH left! I was like OOooooohhhhh Daaaaaaaamn! The Adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment I felt was maxed out! One of the greatest moments of video game history I experienced.
For me, it really depends. Sometimes, it's extremely satisfying finishing up a game that's only "just okay" so you can finally cross it off your backlog, sometimes games don't really have an ending like Harvest Moon so you never really get a chance to feel sad about it being over, then some games are meant to be played through quickly over and over again like Star Fox 64, etc. However, there are times when it does feel sad when I finish a game. I remember being very sad when I finished Yoshi's Island on the SNES for the first time. It was really sad to me because I realized just how few main Nintendo SNES games I have left that I haven't finished yet. I've almost played through all of them, already, and there's not much left to experience for the first time. I think one thing that has helped me is that, with only a few exceptions, I don't generally 100% games on the first playthrough, so even if I beat it, there's often still a lot of things remaining that I can do, especially for larger RPG's. I still have the Omega weapon left in Final Fantasy VII, I still have to play through the civil war quests in Skyrim as the Imperials, I still have all of the remaining romance arcs in Harvest Moon left to play through, I still have the highest difficulty left to finish in Contra III, etc.
I’ve always been reluctant to beat a game. I love shooters and once beat dodonpachi on the Saturn with one credit, but I reset it before I saw the ending. But recently I have repeatedly beaten dodonpachi resurrection on the Switch and it hasn’t spoilt the enjoyment at all of doing second loops or just beating it all over again. Just awesome!!!
Some games I feel a little sad that it is over, but what really hit me hard was finishing a collecting goal. I finished my Working Designs collection in 2016 and I felt really down about it. It was a defining goal, and now the journey was over. Another great question is: Does a game lose value to you after you beat it?
To answer your question: Final Fantasy 3 (6) for SNES made me both satisfied and sad when it ended. It made me satisfied because I put so much time into the game and loved the conclusion, and melancholic because of the wonderfully scored ending. But to answer another question you had in your video-what to do after completing a game that you love while waiting for the next one-this is the time when I would explore every millimetre of the game until I knew it backwards and forwards. With Final Fantasy 3, for example, completing it did not mean that there wasn’t a metric ton of other stuff to explore. I went after every item in the game, including the paladin shield, and spend time maxing my characters so that the final boss was a cakewalk. I’m not sure how much the typical gamer does that these days. I sure don’t anymore. No time. But exploring every nook and cranny of a game was sometimes done out of necessity, just because your funds were limited. On a “sad” note, my childhood save file for FF3, preserved for about 26 years, was “ended” when I discovered the battery failed. 😭 That certainly made me sad when that part of my childhood was erased. At least an entire year of my adolescence was infused in that game. But it’s loss gave me the motivation to back up all of my childhood save files, and replace all of the batteries in my SNES games. So not all was lost. Great vid!
Red Dead Redemption 2. I felt so satisfied when I beat this 60 hour game because this game was really frustrating. It took me over 1 hour just to download the game. I beat most retro games during that time. You are riding your horse for majority of this game & it's just not fun to pause menu, highlight mission point, go to said mission point only to talk to said person to follow him to said mission point. You're doing the same damn thing for 60 hours. It feels like a huge chore. Gameplay is the most boring gameplay I have ever played in a new Modern game. I am shooting the guy with my gun about 5 or more time & they are still not dead. It's unrealistic because it should take about 2 shots when I am shooting them in the head or chest. Then to make it even worse, your horse will fling you off if you try to speed up with him. This is a major problem in missions where I needed to chase people to catch up with them. The fact that I had to slow down I would fail these missions. So I ended up skipping most of them. Finally when I beat the game. A trophy popped up saying I beat the game. Then I saw oh ok I can do epilogue missions. I was like nope. Turned the game off, ejected my game, I put it in the case and on my shelf. With Modern games, once I beat them once usually, I never play them ever again. I was sad because I wasted my money on this trash of a game.
Link's Awakening! I had it as kid but didn't manage to finish it. Picked it up again during my college years but as I was approaching the end and realized what was going on storywise I had a bittersweet feeling. I was thinking that maybe I should have left it forever unfinished
Are you a kid of the 80's or a kid of today? Kids today have ton of video games to play. Not like the 80's where it was 5 games maybe 10 if you were lucky max for that console generation.
Not a video game per se, but I get a similar feeling when I think about my subscription to Nintendo Power I had as a kid. I would get every issue and read over them obsessively. It was my whole life at that time. But eventually after about 8 years I lost interest and stopped subscribing. I remember they sent me a letter saying "please don't unsubscribe" or something, but it didn't faze me. Then when it was cancelled waaay later, I did feel sad about it too.
Streets of Rage 2 and Shenmue were the games, which are my favorites....made me feel happy and sad at the end of the game the first time I beat each of them. They were both so well done and people that don't like either one of them really don't know what they are missing.
When I finally get a platinum after 50-100 hours invested in a game, there is an immediate sense of relief and accomplishment, followed quickly by a loss, since my mental focus suddenly has nowhere to go.
I was really exhiliarated and really sad after I beat Half-Life the first time...had the same feeling after beating Half-Life 2 the first time, as well.
You know, I had exactly that sort of reaction when I beat Metroid: Zero Mission. I was sad and couldn't figure it out for a bit. I've had different sorts of reactions to beating games, but that one really made me sad after I beat it, though it was also sooooo satisfying (such a good game!). I realized I was sad because I wasn't going to be playing it anymore currently. I had shredded the game. I beat it on normal and hard mode, plus did it with not 100% items and 100% items, and also got the speedy and slower endings. So I really went deep. I then realized that I was sad just because I was going to be moving on from currently playing it and instead playing something else I had picked up and hadn't played yet. I was sad because it was just that damn good. I wanted to keep playing it. Course, I realized that I could if I wanted to, but I probably needed to try something else as I had more games to get to. Lots to get caught up on!
Final Fantasy VII - that was a magical time for me when I had just moved from all my friends to another place and it helped me escape reality.. It's still my favourite game of all time and I beat it again last year for the 32nd time! It always makes me both sad and happy when I finish it, its like "well my friend, I guess this is good bye for now.. say hi to all my other friends... until we meet again..." And then I gotta go over the other 15 consoles and pick out whatever I'm gonna play next.. although after long games like jrpgs I usually practice my speedruns of Super Metroid or play Red Faction 1 again for the umpth time... anything that is short and sweet ^_^
@Retro Bird - an idea for a video, if of course it hasn't already been done - "how do you chose your games?" - how we do it now...direct marketing...friends...blah blah...how we used to do it...in sight via a great cover...magazines...affordability...recommendation...experience with a previous publisher...aaaaaaand so on blah blah blah...
Outer Wilds is a game I was truly invested in and once you figured everything out it’s an extremely easy and fast to finish game. When I finished it I was in tears that it was over and I could never play it again without knowing what I know. Hopefully I forgot about it in 20y and I can play it fresh again.
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Beating a game can be sad because you know you’re going to leave that world that you’ve become attached to. Great discussion
Games don’t normally pull a lot of emotions out of me. I’m usually just [long sigh of relief] after I beat a game. But Shovel Knight’s ending yanked a few tears from my eyes. My dad had recently passed away. My wife was away for the week. I didn’t know anything about the game, it belonged to my kids. I noticed it was a retro style side scroller, so I decided to give it a go. The authentic chip tune soundtrack and pixel art had me hooked right from the first screen. I could tell someone had poured all their love and nostalgia into that game. It was the best NES game that never was. A few nights later, when I finally beat it, as I sat there catching my breath, watching that beautiful end sequence, a lot of emotions bubbled up in me, about being a kid, about my dad, about simpler times. And I’m not gonna lie, remembering that moment right now brought up all those same feelings.
Thank you for sharing. I can't imagine how that must've felt, and yet at the same time it makes perfect sense.
Chrono Trigger, man.. That ending is so bittersweet, saying goodbye to all your friends while that music plays, right in the feels, man.
A game that was both satisfying and a bit sad to finish was Ocarina of Time. Got it for my 13th birthday and sank what felt like months into it. Just running around Hyrule looking for heart pieces and whatnot. In fact, when i did finally make it to Ganons castle, I knew the end was drawing near and put off the final showdown to hunt some more gold skulltulas and stuff because it felt like a chapter of my life was almost coming to an end with how immersed i was in the game. So when I finally did end up finishing it and the credits started to roll, seeing all the characters I had gotten to know so well waving goodbye, the satisfaction of my journey coming to an end was definitely tinged with a bit of melancholy.
I had this game as a kid never finished, fast forward 20 years I picked it back up and just finished it on 3DS and can completely relate
I did the same thing my first time I played Final Fantasy 7. Started going down into that crater and suddenly realized this was going to be the end. So I turned right around and left to do other stuff, I just wasn't ready for it to be over.
This is exactly how I felt when I beat The Last of Us in 2016. I stopped keeping up with video games a few years before and randomly borrowed it from my brother just for something to try, not knowing anything about it. Holy cow, I don't think I've ever been so invested in a video game. I couldn't put it down and after 3 days, I got to the end and was really sad because I knew I could never experience it that way again. I replayed it last year and it just didn't grab me like it did the first time. The second game just couldn't reach that same high either.
Final Fantasy 6. I adore that game. It got me through some tough times as a kid. I thought the ending was wonderful but I had mixed feelings about finally beating it. In a way I was sad it was over.
Beating a game is bittersweet but I have recently had as much joy watching my son beat Mario RPG as I did when I was younger
That’s awesome.
I agree. That is really awesome.
The first TMNT game on the NES. I've been playing it since day one and it has tortured me ever since. I enjoy the game and am I huge fan of the franchise, but my goodness that game just haunted my dreams all these years. Well, about 6 months ago I decided NO MORE, and started practicing. After about 2 weeks of giving it one try each day, I beat it!!!! It was an amazing feeling, years of built up aggression and tantrum throwing as a kid....conquered forever. Take that Shredder, ya jerk
As the angry video game nerd would say....cowabunga? Cowa-fucking piece of dog shit!
Good job! I rebought the game recently, got murdered on the water level again. I'm gonna learn what to do and put shredder on his ass soon.
@@blitheringrando1410 if you want some pointers (and laugh at me sucking at it) I made a video of a playthrough that's on my channel. Cheers I hope you beat shredder soon!
"The part where the little penguin can't find its mom? That was an emotional rollercoaster."
Not as much of an emotional rollercoaster as I bet the mom penguin went through after you tell her that you found her baby but you -deliberately- accidentally, forcefully hurled it over the edge of the cliff.
Little Nemo is one of my all time favorites for the NES. Great music and level design. Capcom could do no wrong with NES titles in the 90's.
Games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger, and many others, have convinced me beating games can be much more sad than satisfying. Although, I love the good satisfying end as well, like to a tough game like Mega Man.
I remember thinking Mega Man was so cool as a kid because my cousin played those games. I sucked then, I suck now, Megaman just isnt my jam. I picked up 6 last night, did my best and just got destroyed when I made it tp the bosses.
There are two gaming experiences that come to mind for this question.
- Although I was fully satisfied when I beat Ocarina of Time, it is rather disappointing that my playthrough is over and there isn't really anything to do in my file anymore. Though, it's not all bad because when I finally get my hands on a CRT, I'm going to rebeat all of my N64 and GameCube games on it.
- The Ocular Miracle trilogy in Geometry Dash is possibly the highest point I've ever had when it comes to my enjoyment of one of my favorite games of all time. I'm clearly well past my prime in that game, and even if I wasn't, I don't think I'm ever going to touch a level as good as any of those three.
Other than that, I don't beat a lot of games to begin with, and I usually don't get sad when I do. Smash Bros for Wii U taught me how to hyperfixate on specific games with the intent of getting as good at them as I can. As I'm part of the target of your "for younger generations" question, this naturally remedies the problem of having a smaller quantity of games. I did this with games that are endless by design, like fighting games and Geometry Dash, but I learned that you can use speedrunning to turn pretty much any game into an endless game. I did this with my favorite Mario game, Mario Sunshine.
Do you love a game to death? You can use that love to play the game with self-imposed challenges, such as a certain limitation or speedrunning, to keep breathing life into that one game. The credits don't dismiss you. You do.
For me, it is Phantasy Star 4 on Sega Genesis. The visuals and the characters left me in awe. I played this game for 5 years with the vow to complete it. When I finally finished, I smiled cause I had done my vow but really sad at the same time cause, like what you said, it wouldn't be so much fun again unlike the last time when I first started playing that game.
Last time I felt both satisfied and somewhat wistful after finishing a game was when I beat Zelda: OoT for the first time. This was about 5 years ago now. Something about that final shot where Link meets Zelda again for the first time and then the screen goes sepia freeze frame followed by "The End" hit me in a certain way.
Super Mario 64 instantly comes to mind. It felt like such an achievement, especially after getting all 120 stars. And the bittersweet music of the ending just added to the melancholy. I feel like a lot of games do that in the end credits, as if the game itself was sad that you beat it!! Lol. Another example: Super CV 4.
I love when I finally beat a game, cuz I can move on to the next game
I agree and it’s also nice being able to cross something off that ever growing backlog
@@megamob5834 yeah I’m not sure why it has to be a sad thing lol if you love the game that much then play it again I don’t know what else to say
I had a feeling this was the case for a lot of you!
@@RetroBirdGaming I’ve felt “sad” about finishing tv shows and animes I like to watch, but with games I feel like there’s usually a reason to go back to them if you really wanted to like to get every achievement or random side quests, unlike with shows where there’s no reason to really watch it again
@@TimDespairBear11 But you only get 1 first play through
That weird happy/sad/mad/what-do-I-do-now?! feeling is exactly what I felt at the end of the Mass Effect trilogy. Not retro, I know, but I had invested north of 100 hours into the characters and then, well we know how that ending went! Great example of a publisher bucking the current trend of flash cloning the last hit game they made, make it 4K and ship it! I've only recently been getting into retro gaming and am currently married to player 2 and raising players 3 and 4 so I'm all set for couch co-op! Criminally underrated channel and a well deserved sub. Keep up the great work!
I always feel satisfied when completing any game long or short. It is odd, but I wasn't always sad when completing a game, but rather just was happy that the game was an enjoyable experience and it provided me with good memories.
However, I think the earliest games that I got emotionally invested in were Sonic 1 and 2 on the Genesis as a kid. I remember they were both some of the first games I owned and eventually I completed both games with all Chaos Emeralds as a kid. Though, I think completing Sonic 2 hit me emotionally harder as the combination of the ending music and ending scene just really was kind of magical at the time.
Satisfied: I recently beat Rocket Knight for the first time this pass weekend. The game is just so unpredictable. But I hate the dark knight though. I was like, I hope he doesn't show up after I defeated the television guy. I'll throw in Xenosaga too because I actually spent time to learn how to play the game as the battle system is a choir to learn so it was satisfying to finally beat that game.
Sad: Persona 4 or most RPGs because it is like saying goodbye to friends that you will never meet again. If you romanced said character, you romanced him/her because something about that character you were attached too. If you play the game again, you pretty much romance the same character (Chie, Tali, and Morrigan) as that character feels apart of you.
Generally there is a sence of satisfaction when I beat a game.
Rare occasion is the "that's it feeling" when you were expecting more and just feels like an abrupt end.
I’ve finished Grandia 3x - in Japanese on the original Saturn, and in English on the PS1 and Switch.
Every time, it’s been satisfying, but also sad. The story is so awesome and engrossing to play along that I’m always sad when it’s over, I don’t want it to end.
Oh, I’m gonna do it again. Next time will be the English patch on the Saturn. And I’ll never tire of the characters and story!
Ah, good topic. Nothing sad comes to mind, but finishing a game is always satisfying!
For tough games, beating them is satisfying because you conquered them.
For great games, beating them is sad because the journey has ended.
Well said!
It's sad usually, since then I regret all the side quests I skipped and wont go back to.
Paper Mario made feel happy to beat it, but also sad because it was over. I extremely enjoyed the story and all the chapters in the game. Beating a chapter was like turning the next page. So satisfying.
Every time I beat a Persona game I feel both happy and sad. I just get this feeling of ‘’what do I do now?’’
Persona 3 and 4 are both 70+ hours and Persona 5 is over 100. P5 Royal is even longer and I beat that too.
Still gotta play 1 and 2, looking forward to getting that feeling again.
Prof Layton Unwound Future-whats more satisfying than beating a game? Beating the 3rd game in a trilogy! This game has some really sad parts, I heard it was a tear jerker, but doubted it would be able to make me cry until it actually happened. Game does a lot with the character development they setup in the first 2 games, the delayed gratification was worth it XD
Sad and satisfied? Two games come to mind, one retro, one modern. The retro game was Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire for the SNES. I completed that game with a full conquest of China and I knew that as great as it was to win, I'd never duplicate this feat again, as it took simply too damn long. The modern one was Witcher 3, after I had digested it thoroughly, hitting every map point and exploring every area in-depth. I'd never be able to go back to it since I had nothing else to see, but I loved my time there.
Pretty much every Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy or any JRPG really leaves me with that feeling of being satisfyed but sad at the same time, they are usually hard so I feel so good when I finally finish them and the ending is usually very emotional, but the sad part is that I'll be saying goodbye to those characters and that world, and as you say, I could play it again in the future, or complete it 100%, but it's just not the same
This game keeps coming up with your channel, but it's one of the few that fits being both sad and satisfied: Chrono Trigger. Sad because of the ending (the one that's canon), and satisfying because of the Final Boss being such an overwhelming force that casts a shadow over your party for most of the game. Such a fantastic game!
Final Fantasy 7 on PS1 I would have to say for me. I have beat the game about a year after its release and campaigned another playthrough last year.
My first run was shorter and I missed a lot of key items. My investing time then was just to beat it no matter what. It took my entire crew to end Sephiroth's first form then.
My run last year still missed a few key items, but my characters were well overpowered. I lost my sense of accomplishment when I breezed through that same battle in under 5 minutes. Felt like I did not do the game justice as I previously did.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is one that sticks with me. I thoroughly enjoyed that game, how it greatly expanded the lore and world of the prior games, and even now, it's quite unusual of a game mechanically. Grandia is another, especially the second game.
What's funny is the two games you compared here are the exact same two I would! No matter how many times I beat Contra, every time feels like a new challenge. But no matter how many times I play Super Mario 64, I love it, but it just doesn't compare to the first time I played Bob-Omb Battlefield at the demo station at Walmart. 8-year-old me and a bunch of random kids in the electronics section while our parents were shopping (something you'd never see anymore!). I finally get a turn with that controller that nobody knew how to hold, which was attached to the display case (and you had to crank your neck straight up to look at the TV mounted above the case). It was an experience unlike any other.
My son has so many more games than I did as a kid. He has a New 2DS XL, a New 3DS XL, A Playstation Vita, and a Vita Tv. He plays Vita games, 3DS, and DS. I remind him how unusual that is and how it wasn’t like that when I was younger. I can’t think of any games I was sad to finish. I would say I get more sad looking back on games I beat years ago and remember what was going on in my life during that time and how the game hit home. I always come to Lunar on PS1. I beat it over 20 years ago in 2000. I haven’t played through it since but I ordered the Saturn Mpeg version and have been playing that one. It has been really fun too as all the language is indiscernible for me so I am flying through but there are moments that are triggering feelings of nostalgia and bringing back memories but also after not playing the game in 20 years, it feels fresh and I have forgotten quite a bit.
Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, the first game I bought for the Xbox 360. I fell in love with the game and the story and all the missions and side quests. Being able to own your own home, I was in my own little world.
Final Fantasy 7. I remember the last speech at the Northern Cave part where Cloud says "let's mosey", I remember having a conscious thought "I'm gonna miss you guys," type feeling just knowing the game was going to be over soon. I must've kept the starry background on for like an hour hoping there was more ending only revealed to the super hardcore fans.
What makes me sad is not being able to play a game for the first time ever again. If I could only experience ocarina of Time or resident Evil 2 for the first time again, that would be incredible, but that's what makes your actual first playthrough so special, you didn't really realize what you were getting into until it was over and the appreciation stays with you forever
I get depression and anxiety when I finish video game :( and my left thumb hurt
This is kind of a long story, but in elementary school we had a Super Mario jigsaw puzzle. It had screenshots of levels I've never seen before and I had already played through the game a bit. I figured it must have been something I skipped via warp zones. So I replayed the hell out of it, never finding those lost levels, it was so frustrating. Turns out they were screenshots from the Japanese Mario 2, but I wouldn't find out for years later.
Without question Last of Us for me was the ultimate happy I finished, sad I finished game. What an emotional rollercoaster
I love finishing a game I wasn't able to do as a child. I feel a small satisfaction from it. I appreciate that time.
Yes this is so true. I beat a lot more games as an adult that I just couldn't as a kid.
The Legend of Zelda for the NES is my favorite game, took me a Summer to beat, hours played with my friends, good times, great memories and though it was sad when it was over....the 2nd Quest was waiting! Playing games as a kid with your group of friends added a bit of magic to the memory that's forever burned in your brain in a good way. Thankful for that bit of magic from my childhood that will always be with me. Power to the Players and the friends and memories we make along the way!
Really long games (any game that takes over 30 hours to complete) oftentimes just feel like a slog about 75% through. Sometimes even a chore...or work. My patience just disappears. Then when I finally finish it, it just feels like "Finally, that's done". Not the best feeling to have, but it's a good memory to have knowing that you finished it.
Usually, it is satisfying to complete a game, because my backlog is quite large, and it means I can start the next game.
The happiest I've ever been from having completed a game was my first 1cc run of Time Soldiers on my arcade cabinet. I love the game, but hadn't been great at it. My brother and his family were coming to visit, and I was just playing a credit to kill time while they were on tbe way. They got there, but I was still going. Our wives were ready to start visiting, but my brother, who gets it, told them that something special was happening, and to watch. Everything just clicked into place, and I cleared it on one life. My brother gave me a high five, and we were laughing, and our wives just didn't fully understand the sense of accomplishment I felt, and that my brother understood. Ever since, I can do it pretty consistently, but that first clear was a moment for me in a way that only my two single life clears of Ghosts n Goblins on NES can rival for pure satisfaction.
The saddest are usually long-form games that I'm just not quite ready to be done with yet. Earthbound, Final Fantasy III, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... games where I've done just about everything, but I just don't feel like stopping. Spiritfarer was like that recently. That's where on modern games, I can appreciate well-implemented trophies; they give me an excuse to keep playing.
First time I beat a game, was Super Mario World, I mean I can’t remember if it was me who beat it or my uncle beating it (can’t imagine I had the skill to beat it when I was 4 years old) I cried. Must’ve been the first time I realized that these worlds in these video games are finite and not infinite. I remember being sad for that reason
Greatest game of all time, in my opinion. I was also like that the first time I beat Super Mario Bros 3 with my cousins.
Super Mario World is a f*cking gem.
Super Mario World is the best Mario game out of all the 2D & 3D Mario platform games.
Terranigma, to see how it ends is bittersweet, and always makes me think about how I'll never get to experience it for the first time again
There’ve been quite a few games that I’m enjoying so much that when I get near the end I don’t want to beat them because I want that feeling to last
Way back in 1998 it was The Original Resident Evil on the PS1. It was the 1st game that really scared a person & all my friends would play the 1st part until the dog scene & we'd all laugh as they wouldn't expect to get scared from a Video Game! Months later I was walking thru a store & they had a magazine on how to beat Resident Evil. I bought it & a buddy of mine stayed at my house until we beat the game taking turns. Mixed emotions about that as it felt like cheating using a magazine which started my decline of modern 3D Games.
Most recently had this feeling when beating Breath Of The Wild. I did every shrine & beat it in about 95 hours. It was bitter sweet, I wanted to continue adventuring around the world. I didn't have any incentive to do so, this is a strength of shorter games. I can play DKC in 2 hours or less.
Breath of the wild is one for me too
For me it was definitely Jet Set Radio future and No more heroes that made me feel satisfied and sad. Both games were some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a video game. I honestly felt more sad when beating jsrf more than no more heroes cause I knew that there were no other games that were released in the jsr series, compared to no more heroes where there’s 3 other games in the series, 2 of them being released very recently. I’m probably gonna experience this when I finish the no more heroes series.
It depends on my level of time and emotional investment, but if I play a game all the way through to completion both those levels are probably fairly high already... It's usually a bittersweet feeling to me.
Man that Diddy Kong racing tracks gets me in the mood to beat it again XD
I think it's the most difficult to reconcile when a game becomes a big part of your daily life and then it just ends. RPGs can be some of the hardest to deal with, though a lot of the best ones are smart enough to leave you with a lot of optional sidequests and post-game content if you just can't stop playing.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is probably the one that left me feeling the worst, because even though I was really loving the game, I just couldn't accept that was actually everything once I'd finished it. I even went out and bought the official strategy guide to find out how to unlock the next set of missions that I was sure were still waiting for me.
The ending I remember having the most impact was Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest. I made it all the way to the end, and then got the bad ending (not knowing there were multiple endings). All that joy turned to “Wait…what????”
Final Fantasy VII was one of those games for me. I started playing the game with no expectations and it blew me away. The world of the game was masterfully created and I loved every second of exploring Midgar, Wutai, and other places. When the game was over, I felt proud that I beat such a long game, but I also felt sad that my journey through that world was over. It’s all good though, because I can always go back to it if I feel like it!
Dragon Quest 8. Satisfied because I had started that game 8 years prior and it felt good to knock such a heavy peg off the backlog. But then sad because I knew there were post-game dungeons and bosses and cool secret stuff which I wanted to do since I'm usually a pretty big RPG nut, but sad because I decided to skip out on all of that since I was just utterly spent from the main quest and so relieved to see those credits roll. But I do want to someday go back and replay that game and do the post-game stuff even though it's probably not a smart investment of time at this point.
The Majora's Mask ending made me happy and mad. The game was great but I hated the time mechanic. I wanted the game to be longer because I enjoyed the game play, but the final boss was a 20min reset if I didn't beat it due to when you could save and the final prep before the boss plus waiting for the time to pass. I think it took me three or four times to beat the final boss too, which was a cool boss.
Majora's Mask on N64. It was pretty satisfying to beat the third form of Majora and save Termina, but when the end credits rolled and we saw how we have impacted so many villagers and then we see the Deku Butler mourning his son, it brought on a few tears.
Depends on how good the game is. A great game does make me a bit sad knowing I've seen all it has to offer. On the other hand some games are better the second time around because you know what to do and there isn't those awkward sessions of frustration from being stuck or lost.
I think wether I'm happy or sad after finishing a game depends on the gsme in question.
I was really happy when I finished Final Fantasy 2 on the famicom because finslly the grind was over, but when I finished Final Fantasy 3 on the Famicom I was so sad because I really really liked FF3, the music, exploration, job system, they were all sooooo good that when I finished it I was sad it was over :(
The story is huge and just playing the game over is sad for me cause I want to keep going, but usually knowing there is sequel coming keeps happy. Best idea I figured to do was play the game on a harder difficulty so I can keep coming back for more.
I feel sad when I realize that a game I like a lot no longer offers a challenge because I've played it too much. So I leave beaten games in "quarantine" for a long time so they don't lose their fun, as has happened with some of my favorites.
But beating a hard game for the first time usually give me an adrenaline rush, like I scored the winning goal in a World Cup final.
Sometimes games end up too long and I try to dedicate myself to beat it only to regret having put so much time into the game. I remember playing Radiant Historia and spent 60 hours and beat it, then realized how repetitive the gameplay and story was from beginning to end. That's when I regret beating games and feel sadness. I usually like to finish games I play, I feel guilty if I don't beat them when all it takes is dedicating enough time.
Also yeah your point about games being sad when you beat them because the charm won't be the same, that's literally every Zelda game (or at least the good ones like ALttP, OoT, MM, WW, TP, MC)
I remember feeling pretty sad when I completed Orcarina of Time. I had sunk so much time into it and loved exploring the world.
Once it was over(after the initial joy at overcoming such an epic game) I was left feeling "What now?" 😑
Its a more recent game but persona 5. After over 100 hours you really get attached to the characters, so when its over it feels a little melancholy.
Super Street fighter 2, I never owned it. I would rent that game a lot & play that a lot. Vega is really hard because he jumps on the fence & throws you once he jumps off of it. Contra is a game I will play 1000+ times. I have beaten Contra without dying about 4 times. This is on my friends channel. When my friend saw this he told the people at a retro convention because I used to collect a small amount of games really cheap. I remember they were really impressed with that & asked me how I did it. I just told them persistence & luck.
Super Mario 64. This is a game that uses a save file. I usually don't go and erase a save file to replay it again. For this game I 100%ed this by getting 120 stars in this. For the most part you are doing different things to collect the stars. The Penguin that was my fav mission when you race him down the icy path. I used to cheat in that by taking a shortcut. When you do that he says nope I won't give you the star you cheated something like that.
Retro games Genesis, Snes, Nes & Master system. I will play these games over & over again.
Usually I only feel sad beating a game if the story is inherently sad but usually it's as you said see you next time then I move on so for me it's on the satisfying side. Red dead redemption 1&2 have such great and sad endings, put be down for the count both times!
I remember beating Rime a few years ago and my 7 year old son started crying when he saw the ending. I actually saw this happening in slow motion when I first realized how the story was going to end. My son is very sensitive so it was hard to watch. 😳
Awesome video, love your content! Keep up the good work! 🤘
With so many games, sometimes the best thing for me to do is to turn around and beat the game again, maybe on a harder setting or finding new items. I don't always do it, but it's a nice change of pace for me to play something familiar as opposed to shoving a new game down because I haven't played it yet.
I find you can breeze through a game a lot faster on the second time through as well. Sometimes even with a higher difficulty selected.
Actually, I feel more nostalgic nowadays since it's games I could played when I was a kid. But most of my journey through retrogamings it's more like a cozy/satisfying feeling like have a beer kind of feeling😂🤣 after all those years.
After 120 hours of Persona Q2, I was mostly just relieved to see it done.
I would have to say final fantasy 10 ending really got me. Yuna and Tidus' journey is a really good one but heart breaking in the end
I've beat many-a games in my 27 years as a gamer, but the latest emotion puller was the Japanese exclusive, Giftpia. Essentially you live in on an island, you sleep in late thus missing your coming of age ceremony, so in return you have to help out the islands villagers forming bonds, and fulling requests and gaining back the mayors respect and trust. Through out the gameplay experience the island starts having earth quakes, and ultimately the last earthquake sets off the islands volcano, and well. you can guess the rest.
Super Metroid is probably the best example for me. To this day very few games felt so satisfying while playing, and the last boss and the escape part were just amazingly fun. Seeing the ending brought to me a great sense of satisfaction, but a bit of melancholy. The hard part was to find any game that matched that sense of excitement and even a bit of dread whenever I've entered a new area, or the anticipation when coming back after acquiring a new upgrade to see if I could go to places I couldn't reach before, or the sense of power after acquiring some of these upgrades. Years later games like Castlevania Symphony of the Night and many other "metroidvanias" that came after helped me to scratch that itch, but nothing compares to sheer enjoyment I had with Super Metroid.
Best part of early arcade and Atari games? You will always die and lose.
You got over it, you tried again to do a little bit better, but you always died and lost...and always tried again.
Good lessons for everyone.
That applies to 80 kids. Now games hold your hand & everyone is a winner.
Completing Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life. The original GameCube version. It was satisfying to reach the end of the story -- it took me about 225 hours -- but the story's ending was sad, and it was sad to say goodbye to the little world I'd lived in for so long and had grown to love.
That would be Xenoblade 2 for me. I spent over 200 hours in that story and loved every minute of it. When it was over, it felt right that it was done and while satisfying that everything was wrapped up it was really sad that I had to say goodbye to these characters I had gotten to know and love over several months.
That birthday sleeping story is just awesome! Great video as always!
What The Golf, Loop Hero, and Yoku's Island Express are three more recent little indie games that just made me happy when I beat them but also sad that I couldn't play more. I'm honestly really hoping each of those games have extra content or a sequel soon.
I recently beat Mega Man X2 and it was extremely hard to beat him. My first run I didn't collect all of Zero's parts so I had to fight Zero plus both of Sigma's forms and I couldnt beat his last form, I just didn't have enough health to do it, even with all 4 E-Tanks full. So I studied where all the items were on TH-cam, ran it again, got all the items and the Shoryuken punch ability and beat the last form of Sigma with 0 health tanks remaining and literally ONE SINGLE BAR OF HEALTH left! I was like OOooooohhhhh Daaaaaaaamn! The Adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment I felt was maxed out! One of the greatest moments of video game history I experienced.
Hahah I've experienced similar feelings in other games :)
I'm always satisfied after finishing a game even when they're are hard as nails but never sad about it. I always feel accomplished about it
"I know some will just power on through it for that sweet sweet icecream" 😳 guilty
For me, it really depends. Sometimes, it's extremely satisfying finishing up a game that's only "just okay" so you can finally cross it off your backlog, sometimes games don't really have an ending like Harvest Moon so you never really get a chance to feel sad about it being over, then some games are meant to be played through quickly over and over again like Star Fox 64, etc. However, there are times when it does feel sad when I finish a game. I remember being very sad when I finished Yoshi's Island on the SNES for the first time. It was really sad to me because I realized just how few main Nintendo SNES games I have left that I haven't finished yet. I've almost played through all of them, already, and there's not much left to experience for the first time.
I think one thing that has helped me is that, with only a few exceptions, I don't generally 100% games on the first playthrough, so even if I beat it, there's often still a lot of things remaining that I can do, especially for larger RPG's. I still have the Omega weapon left in Final Fantasy VII, I still have to play through the civil war quests in Skyrim as the Imperials, I still have all of the remaining romance arcs in Harvest Moon left to play through, I still have the highest difficulty left to finish in Contra III, etc.
I’ve always been reluctant to beat a game. I love shooters and once beat dodonpachi on the Saturn with one credit, but I reset it before I saw the ending. But recently I have repeatedly beaten dodonpachi resurrection on the Switch and it hasn’t spoilt the enjoyment at all of doing second loops or just beating it all over again. Just awesome!!!
The ps1 gam e Koudelka was a sad game all the way through but was a sad and bittersweet ending to it
Some games I feel a little sad that it is over, but what really hit me hard was finishing a collecting goal. I finished my Working Designs collection in 2016 and I felt really down about it. It was a defining goal, and now the journey was over.
Another great question is: Does a game lose value to you after you beat it?
To answer your question: Final Fantasy 3 (6) for SNES made me both satisfied and sad when it ended. It made me satisfied because I put so much time into the game and loved the conclusion, and melancholic because of the wonderfully scored ending. But to answer another question you had in your video-what to do after completing a game that you love while waiting for the next one-this is the time when I would explore every millimetre of the game until I knew it backwards and forwards. With Final Fantasy 3, for example, completing it did not mean that there wasn’t a metric ton of other stuff to explore. I went after every item in the game, including the paladin shield, and spend time maxing my characters so that the final boss was a cakewalk. I’m not sure how much the typical gamer does that these days. I sure don’t anymore. No time. But exploring every nook and cranny of a game was sometimes done out of necessity, just because your funds were limited. On a “sad” note, my childhood save file for FF3, preserved for about 26 years, was “ended” when I discovered the battery failed. 😭 That certainly made me sad when that part of my childhood was erased. At least an entire year of my adolescence was infused in that game. But it’s loss gave me the motivation to back up all of my childhood save files, and replace all of the batteries in my SNES games. So not all was lost. Great vid!
Red Dead Redemption 2. I felt so satisfied when I beat this 60 hour game because this game was really frustrating. It took me over 1 hour just to download the game. I beat most retro games during that time. You are riding your horse for majority of this game & it's just not fun to pause menu, highlight mission point, go to said mission point only to talk to said person to follow him to said mission point. You're doing the same damn thing for 60 hours. It feels like a huge chore.
Gameplay is the most boring gameplay I have ever played in a new Modern game. I am shooting the guy with my gun about 5 or more time & they are still not dead. It's unrealistic because it should take about 2 shots when I am shooting them in the head or chest. Then to make it even worse, your horse will fling you off if you try to speed up with him. This is a major problem in missions where I needed to chase people to catch up with them. The fact that I had to slow down I would fail these missions. So I ended up skipping most of them.
Finally when I beat the game. A trophy popped up saying I beat the game. Then I saw oh ok I can do epilogue missions. I was like nope. Turned the game off, ejected my game, I put it in the case and on my shelf. With Modern games, once I beat them once usually, I never play them ever again. I was sad because I wasted my money on this trash of a game.
Link's Awakening! I had it as kid but didn't manage to finish it. Picked it up again during my college years but as I was approaching the end and realized what was going on storywise I had a bittersweet feeling. I was thinking that maybe I should have left it forever unfinished
It’s a struggle being a kid you got to savor the few games you have
Are you a kid of the 80's or a kid of today? Kids today have ton of video games to play. Not like the 80's where it was 5 games maybe 10 if you were lucky max for that console generation.
Not a video game per se, but I get a similar feeling when I think about my subscription to Nintendo Power I had as a kid. I would get every issue and read over them obsessively. It was my whole life at that time. But eventually after about 8 years I lost interest and stopped subscribing. I remember they sent me a letter saying "please don't unsubscribe" or something, but it didn't faze me. Then when it was cancelled waaay later, I did feel sad about it too.
That must have been cool back in the day receiving subscriptions. The waiting & anticipation for it must feel awesome.
Streets of Rage 2 and Shenmue were the games, which are my favorites....made me feel happy and sad at the end of the game the first time I beat each of them. They were both so well done and people that don't like either one of them really don't know what they are missing.
When I finally get a platinum after 50-100 hours invested in a game, there is an immediate sense of relief and accomplishment, followed quickly by a loss, since my mental focus suddenly has nowhere to go.
I was really exhiliarated and really sad after I beat Half-Life the first time...had the same feeling after beating Half-Life 2 the first time, as well.
You know, I had exactly that sort of reaction when I beat Metroid: Zero Mission. I was sad and couldn't figure it out for a bit. I've had different sorts of reactions to beating games, but that one really made me sad after I beat it, though it was also sooooo satisfying (such a good game!). I realized I was sad because I wasn't going to be playing it anymore currently. I had shredded the game. I beat it on normal and hard mode, plus did it with not 100% items and 100% items, and also got the speedy and slower endings. So I really went deep. I then realized that I was sad just because I was going to be moving on from currently playing it and instead playing something else I had picked up and hadn't played yet. I was sad because it was just that damn good. I wanted to keep playing it. Course, I realized that I could if I wanted to, but I probably needed to try something else as I had more games to get to. Lots to get caught up on!
Final Fantasy VII - that was a magical time for me when I had just moved from all my friends to another place and it helped me escape reality.. It's still my favourite game of all time and I beat it again last year for the 32nd time! It always makes me both sad and happy when I finish it, its like "well my friend, I guess this is good bye for now.. say hi to all my other friends... until we meet again..."
And then I gotta go over the other 15 consoles and pick out whatever I'm gonna play next.. although after long games like jrpgs I usually practice my speedruns of Super Metroid or play Red Faction 1 again for the umpth time... anything that is short and sweet ^_^
@Retro Bird - an idea for a video, if of course it hasn't already been done - "how do you chose your games?" - how we do it now...direct marketing...friends...blah blah...how we used to do it...in sight via a great cover...magazines...affordability...recommendation...experience with a previous publisher...aaaaaaand so on blah blah blah...
Outer Wilds is a game I was truly invested in and once you figured everything out it’s an extremely easy and fast to finish game. When I finished it I was in tears that it was over and I could never play it again without knowing what I know. Hopefully I forgot about it in 20y and I can play it fresh again.