Games that have taken you the longest to complete?

[poppycock]

Whilst speaking to a friend not so long ago we got onto the subject of the Nintendo 64. We were discussing our favourite games/memories of the console and he told me is has still not completed Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time. Now I am pretty sure he doesn't play it too much anymore and just gave up way back when but it got me thinking about games it took me a long time to finish. Either through difficulty or not having much time or just having other games around at the same time that I put more effort into.

Comix Zone for the Sega Mega Drive took me ages to finish even though it is not a very long game at all. Whilst being one of my all time favourite videogames and one that fills me with nostalgia, it is bloody hard because of the small amount of times you are given health throughout the game plus the fact you take damage whenever you hit anything, which you have to do all the time obviously. I love the game and have completed it a few times now I am older but back then I found it very hard.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

There's this game called Wiz 3, which is sort of like Super Mario Brothers, that I started in 8th grade in 2001. Throughout the game, there were certain levels which took me years to get through. In one instance, you have to get a key in Level 11 and keep it because if you got to Level 12 without the key, you're screwed. The reason was because Level 12 was basically just go through a door to get to Level 13 but there was a key at the very top and unless you had double jump, you were stuck. Any other level in which you died, you could resume it at that level. With Level 12, you couldn't so you could imagine that being frustrating.

The last level was challenging where I was on the left side of a platform and the exit was all the way on the other side. Even with double jump, I couldn't get to it. I was just fooling around one day and noticed that there were invisible platforms and I was pumped. It took me a few hours but I finally got to the exit, and guess what happened...

Spoiler

It took me back to Level 1

That was in January of 2008. Seven years of this game and that is what I got.

 

[poppycock]

Great post LittleJerryLawler. I hate it when not only does a game take you ages but when you do finally finish it the ending is awful. Strange enough but a game that represents that happening to me is a game I made a thread about yesterday. That game being Turok 2. It took me quite a while to fully complete and when I did the ending was very disapointing. I got lots of pleasure playing the game and I guess that's what matters over how it ends.

I love the feeling you get from finally working something out that you have been stuck on for days. I never use cheats or look up hints until after I complete the game by myself.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Most Pokemon games take me a long time to complete but Pokemon Platinum has to take the cake for me. In most cases I grow disinterested in a game after playing it for a long while but Pokemon Platinum was one game that really pissed me off. Reason, the distortion world puzzle. That has to be the most annoying puzzle that has ever been made in a Pokemon game. There is really no way to deduce it and thereby involves too many trials. That would not have been a problem had there not been so many options available. On each floor there are literally like four platforms out of which only one is the correct one. On top of that you have to revisit floors at certain times and push boulders in certain places. It really got unnerving after a while. That's why I did not touch the game for about 6 months and completed it just recently. In total, it took me a year to complete.

I do not really think that Pokemon games should have such types of puzzles. On the other hand the battles, which is what Pokemon is all about, should be tougher both in terms of the level of opponents as well as the AI. Trainer AI's in these games are very weak except for the later gym leaders or the Elite Four. That is why I guess Pokemon Black and White were so successful. They made it more about training Pokemon than any other Pokemon game has ever been.

 

[RicoLen]

Chaos Strikes Back.

In most cases I'll tell you that if it takes too long, or if the game is too hard, it's a crap game and not fun... I wouldn't do that with Chaos Strikes Back. In fact, Chaos Strikes Back is the expansion pack to my personal favorite game ever, Dungeon Master by FTL. This was the first, first person perspective (semi) real time role playing game made. It was before Eye of the Beholder, or Lands of Lore, and it was the best by a mile.

Chaos Strikes Back is more like Dungeon Master 2 insomuch that it's a totally different dungeon, and in no way connected to the first, except that you're allowed to import your characters from the first game to the second. And damn dude you better have kicked ass in Dungeon Master if you want to stay alive if your imported characters in Chaos Strikes Back or you'll be dead in the very first room you start out in.

Chaos Strikes Back was released in 1989 (I believe), and I played it for years, almost non-stop working on groups, leveling them up, and trying to figure out the Diabolical Demon Director section. Getting all 4 Corbums was nigh impossible because the dungeon was somewhat randomized and there was no mapping function, so mapping it by hand, which is what me and my brothers had done with Dungeon Master pretty much impossible and the puzzles were really smart.

I was able to get Ku, and Ros, but Dain and Neta were friggin impossible. The Atari ST we had the game on died before any of us could beat it, back in 1996, 7 years we worked on the game, playing Dungeon Master, leveling up our characters till they were practically godlike, then importing into CSB and getting our asses handed to us by 4-packs of Death Knights, the Dragon Den, the Naga Demons, that were more like dragons in that they had the same coloring and blew massive fireballs at you, and the char-black smoking hell hounds.

That game did an amazing job of filling me with dread every time I got near the DDD, and then on top of that Chaos is running around in the middle of the demon director room (he IS the Demon Director after all) tossing god only knows how many different spells that'll mess you up in one shot. Then on top of that, you've got the floating ethereal eyes that'll sneak up on you, surround you and trap you in one spot, and if you were dumb, or were just in a bad fight with demons or those nasty massive poisonous worms and you blew through your mana trying to finish the fight quick, then you're really screwed, because the floating eyes can only be touched by specific spells. Meantime more demons see you, come in to attack and they can blow fireballs through the eyes and hit you.

The whole premise of CSB is really easy. Get the 4 corbums and destroy them in the Ful-Ya pit beyond the DDD, and you can even get your first corbum pretty easily as long as you take it slow and burn through all the dragons in the dragon den and don't allow yourself to get trapped in the room with them, otherwise you're f**ked, but once you thin out the numbers of dragons and can get past them you can get to one side of the pillar where all 4 corbums are... so there you are looking at the corbum you need but the room is filled with pits everywhere, some opening and closing automatically, others are fake pits, others appear close but are trapped doors and if you step on them they'll drop you to the level below and you'll have to start all over, and others you have to close permanently with some key you get elsewhere in the four wings of the dungeon (Ku, Ros, Dain, & Neta).

So you're sitting there looking at that pillar, and you're thinking, man I can do this, I just need to find the other 3 entrances to this room, close the right pits, time my steps grab the corbums and then I can head to the DDD, find the master key, open the room to the ful-ya pit and toss the corbums in the pit and I'm done.

Problem is the monsters are killable, but numerous, and they'll mess you up if you let them get too high in numbers, and if you try and camp out in the DDD with stockpiles of food, water and potions and take it really slow, Chaos is invincible and will mess you up so fast you won't know what happened to you, so that's not possible, you have to be able get all 4 corbums (damned impossible on it's own -not really I finally did it) then be powerful, and fast enough to survive 1 well planned trip into the DDD room open that door with the master key and toss them in. Good f**king luck. I absolutely adore this game, so much fun, but so damned hard too.

Well after my Atari ST died, I'd given up hope on it, Dungeon Master 2 was released for the PC in 1995, and I picked that up and loved it, even if it wasn't quite as good as the first. Then in 2001 when I found a website dedicated to Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back, and Dungeon Master 2.

You can download the game there for free, it's been abandoned, FTL is out of business, and a couple of the original developers are still at this site supporting it through a clone they made. My only problem is that the clone isn't perfect, and it's much much easier now especially in RTC since the monsters barely even attack you compared to the insane attack rate they had on the Atari ST. BUT I downloaded it, played it and after about 6 months of solid work, creating a new group in Dungeon Master, training them, fluxing Chaos and beating the first game, importing, raising them up even higher, and finally figuring out all puzzles, which are simply ingenious, and very tricky at times, and blasting through the DDD without anywhere near the same challenge as before, I finally got all 4 corbums, which was the real achievement to me, and then made it to the ful-ya pit and destroyed them and beat the game, all for a 16-bit cut scene saying congratulations.

I still pull this game out annually to play through it again. Now that I know what to do and how to do it, I can plow through it in about 40 hours of gameplay. But I started playing at the age of 10, played until I was 17, picked it back up when I was 22 and I was 24 before I beat it. Nothing will ever compare to that game, not for me at least. Hardest game ever, most amazing game ever, best gaming memories ever.

If you guys want you can get it and try it here: http://dmweb.free.fr/

 

[Dagger Dias]

The games that take me the longest to complete are the ones that have a lot of extra content and are good enough to convince me to be a completionist. I generally do not let myself be a completionist anymore because of a lack of time to do everthing in a game anymore, but if I like the game enough.... I try to do it all.

Dragon Age Origins had a ton of side quests and I spent a lot of time at the camp site talking to every party member to hear their backstory or earn their approval. I clocked in around 75 hours on my first run in that game as a Dalish Elf Warrior.

Then there's Pokemon Diamond. I made it a point to get all 482 without cheating. Every evolution whether it was by level, friendship, trade, or insanely annoying criteria such as Milotic.... I did it. Then I used a gameshark to get all the 11 "event" ones like Mew or Celebi. I had gotten all 151 in Blue and all 251 in Gold but both paled in comparison to how long it took. I burnt myself out on Pokemon in the process and have retired from that series.

Finally.... The game that took me longer than any other. Dragon Quest 7. It had a LONG main story and a ridiculous amount of extra content. I mastered every job class for all 5 characters, caught monsters for the monster park, won the best looking contest, and filled up my beastiary. I also enjoyed going back to old towns to look for more things to do. By the time all was said and done.... I had put in over 250 hours into that game.

 

[hatehabsforever]

I too would have to suggest a Pokemon game as being the longest one for me to complete but for me, I think it was Pokemon Sapphire. It could be because it was the first Pokemon game I ever played, but some of those Pokemon were extremely difficult to find, such as the various Regis. I guess Diamond, Platinum, Heart Gold, and Black may have taken longer in terms of time in the grand scheme of things, simply because there was a higher number of Pokemon to catch, but in terms of relative difficulty and enjoyment, I'll go with Sapphire.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

For me the game that took me the longest to complete was Sonic Adventure(1999) for the Sega Dream cast It's successor Sonic Adventure 2 took me almost as long to finish.

I was about 4 years old when my Dad brought home SA1 for our Dreamcast and me brother and I got right to work on it. We beat the entire storyline for every character (which was no easy task for a 3 and 4 year old.) Then we breezed through Sonic's until we got to stage 9 (at this point I still do not remember the name of it.) It was the second to last stage of Sonic's story so then we could go beat Chaos. We never got passed the level no matter how great our persistence was, we gave up a year later. My Dad sold the Dreamcast, we got a PlayStation 2 and moved until almost a decade later. We saw an ad for the Re-release of the game on the PlayStation Network and we bought so we could see how our new little brother (4 at the time) could do on it. I ended up doing most of the work and to my shock got through the levels we could not before in 1 try. When it came time to face Chaos it was really disappointing due him . looking like garbage compared to the other PS3 titles we had played and their graphics. He was easy and the game that had taken us a decade complete was finally defeated. On a side not Gamma's death was the saddest video game moment ever related to Sonic The hedgehog.

Sonic Adventure 2 we got about 2 years later and I was 6. It was for the GameCube and we encountered a similar problem. It was a lot harder than the original and it took us much longer to get to the end of the Hero and Dark stories. Our cousin passed it for us but for some Idiotic reason we did not have a memory card inserted so the data was forever lost. A few years later we passed it with our time, and beat the final boss with ease.

Every other game I have played I completed within at least 2 months.

 

[RicoLen]

Finally.... The game that took me longer than any other. Dragon Quest 7. It had a LONG main story and a ridiculous amount of extra content. I mastered every job class for all 5 characters, caught monsters for the monster park, won the best looking contest, and filled up my beastiary. I also enjoyed going back to old towns to look for more things to do. By the time all was said and done.... I had put in over 250 hours into that game.

I don't think you could even beat the game with less than 100 hours put in can you? That game was simply massive! DQ7 was the second longest game I've ever taken to beat. SOB that game was huge!

On the whole, I believe DQ7 is a classic answer for biggest game ever. I wish they'd re-release THAT game for the NDS... they have all the others, why not 7?

 

[Cracka Jack]

Depends on if you mean just the main game or everything in it. If it's just the main game, then I think I sunk more hours into Dragon Quest VIII before finishing the main quest than any other game, with somewhere over 100. Part of that was me messing around with side quests for a lot of the game. As far as trying to do everything in a game, I did eventually achieve my goal of catching all 151 Pokemon (including Mew) in Yellow Version. It technically took me a few years, as I would get burnt out on it every once in a while, but I ended up putting more than 300 hours into one file that I still have on my copy of the game. That's probably the last time I'll follow through on a crazy, time-consuming task like that again.

 

[Y-2-Jay]

Ocarina Of Time


Get ready for this... 6 fucking years!!! From 2000-2006 obviously not playing it everyday i had no clue what to do at all and when i finally got some strategy guides i got past the rest of it. 2nd playthrough was much quicker about a month and now i could probably beat the game in a few days.

Best. Game. Ever.

 

[JWGunslinger]

Gun, I had this one on my old Xbox and it's one of my favorite games that I have ever played, but it took me a good 3 months to finish this one and I was playing pretty often. This game is western themed and it's alot like Red Dead Repemtion, and it has a very cool cast of voices for the characters including Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt, Thomas Jane, Brad Dourif and Kris Kristofferson. But this is one hard game to finish, apart from all the side missions you have to take care of, there are alot of very tough levels usually including several dozen enemies and having to protect an unarmed ally while he performs a task. The game is tons of fun but there are some plain impossible levels, I spent a good week and a half trying to finish the final level which is ridiculously hard because Magruder(main baddie) has old spanish armour and a shotgun that has I believe 6 barrels. Amazing game, but be ready to work on it for quite some time because it's difficult.

 

[therockiswwf]

Mass Effect 2
The game took me 66 hours to complete. I probed every planet till it was empty, did every side quest and every companion quest. It took me 3 weeks just to finish Operation Overlord. I searched every square inch of every level which made each mission really long for me.
My second longest game was Jade Empire (36 hours). But I'm pretty sure Fallout 3 will will take me a lot longer to beat than Mass Effect 2.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Final Fantasy XIII... Dear lord, talk about a game that takes about 20-30 hours to actually get good and truly grab your interest! But, as a hardcore Square fan, I had to complete it. But it took me about 6 months to actually force myself through out, slowly but surely. Once it got good I actually enjoyed playing it, but I was so burnt out on the time spent getting there that I never fully enjoyed the game. Plus, it played itself anyways, so you powered through the crap to get to what is basically a hands-on movie...

The Elder Scrolls games...I guess you never really "complete" them. I got through the main quest of Skyrim in about 20 hours, and Oblivion in about 15. Buuut I also have about 200 hours of data in the later, and I'm working on my 60th hour so far in the land of Skyrim.

If we're talking about games you can get through the QUICKEST, I can beat Super Mario Bros. 3 in under 15 minutes using both the flutes in World 1.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I don't think you could even beat the game with less than 100 hours put in can you? That game was simply massive! DQ7 was the second longest game I've ever taken to beat. SOB that game was huge!

I spent an entire schoolyear on the main quest and then the following summer on extra content. The optional temple where you faced "god" was worth the time I spent on mastering all of the character classes. Dragon Quest toned down 8 and 9 in comparison when it comes to content, and within reason. I loved that game but I will never, and I mean NEVER replay it unless it gets remade. I poured out 250+ hours on that game back when I had an overflowing amount of spare time. It's limited these days and I'd rather focus on games I have yet to beat such as Skyward Sword.

On the whole, I believe DQ7 is a classic answer for biggest game ever. I wish they'd re-release THAT game for the NDS... they have all the others, why not 7?

I'd rather see it on a PS3 remake, Dragon Quest 8 style. Can you IMAGINE how monstrous that would be? At least two more years of my life would be likely spent playing that if it happened! The graphical update would look impressive, and I would like to see even further bonus content thrown in. Perhaps a chance to go back in time to re-recruit Keifer or simply talk to him so he could meet Aira, that'd be rather interesting. Dragon Quest 8's graphics and gameplay with Dragon Quest 7's characters and content would be the perfect Dragon Quest game in my opinion because while they both always felt great, they both also always felt like they were missing one or two little things that could have been done to make the overall final product better. More content in 8, and a graphical/gameplay update in 7 rather than the same old formula from 1 through 6.

 

[captainjack]

The game that took me the longest to complete was Fallout 3, I put about 6 months work into it before I got to the end. The biggest problem I had was the fact that good stuff could be found anywhere, this meant I visited every building I saw just in case I was missing anything.
I also put about 100 hours into pokemon ruby and nearly finished everything, I think I only needed a feebas and a milotic to have caught every pokemon. In the end it was the countless hours of fishing that burned me out

 

[Johnny Scumm]

Whoever said "Gun", that game was mighty simple and I think I completed it in 10/11 hours.

As for games I've taken a long time over, people have already named them in here. Fallout, Oblivion, they're games you never really get to 100% on. You can blast through the main story easily, but then there's all the side missions around and in Oblivion, there's LOADS of quests you can find and that pop up all around, not including the two expansion packs that go along with it.

Grand Theft Auto is exactly the same in that area. However, I took around 25 hours to complete the main story, but then there's all the unlockables that come along with it. Stunt Jumps, Flying Rats (GTA IV) and all the secret packages in the previous GTA games. Oh, and finding Cars, Bikes, buying houses and everything. There's SO much to find and complete in these games its wonderful. But I've never really gotten everything so you can't say 100%.

Also, the addition of Trophies on the PS3 makes me play a game for longer, so that I can get them. I know that I replayed Fallout over again so that I could get certain trophies, the same with inFAMOUS, so I could play through different paths to get different trophies. They certainly add to the hours, minutes or whatever time you spend on playing the games. I like trophies for that reason.

 

[Larry]

Oh have I got some here for you.

First and foremost, you have no idea about longevity and hours played until you've beat Gran Tourismo 2, 3, and 4. Each one has taken me a couple years and help from other people doing parts of some of the races and trading off with me to beat. It's damn near impossible to be perfectly honest. Go ahead and try to get 100% on GT2, 3, or 4. I don't think it's possible, but you can get to a point where you've beat all the races, and won all the events is all the circuits which is ridiculously time consuming.

Need For Speed Underground took me 2 months to beat, Underground took about the same amount of time but was a longer game in general. I was used to the gameplay for that one though so I was able to move through it quicker than the first. These were both on PC, the real gamers console.

Mafia 1 took me over a month to beat on PC.

Dragonball Z budokai 1,2,3 all took absurd amounts of time to beat completely. Months and months on end to collect all the items and do all the achievements to get the items.

SVR 07 took a ridiculous amount of time to beat as well going through GM mode legit, career, and doing all the legends challenges. that took over 6 months.

Finally the grand daddy of them all. 18 years to beat Super Mario Brothers 1. From the time I was born until I was 18 when I finally beat the game. That was without cheats, going through every level, no warp zones, truly beating the game. I did it. Finally when I was 18 I bought a Nintendo after not having one for years, bought SMB, and got to geeking on it until I did it. I played that game for years and years and years and was never able to win it like that, and I finally did. The next one I beat was Lost Levels which is actually SMB2, that one I beat in 3 months. I have still never beat SMB3 or Super Mario World.

 

[Viggo]

Two games immediately come to mind: Dragon Warrior and FF 12.

Dragon Warrior:

I got this game when I renewed my subscription to Nintendo Power waaaaay back in 5th grade. BTW, that was the greatest giveaway Nintendo Power ever had. Anyway, it was my first RPG, so that's a handicap right there. Secondly, it was a true old-school RPG, in that you have to walk around for endless hours gaining experience before you can progress through each step of the story. I remember the sense of accomplishment I felt when I was finally able to obtain Erdrick's armor in that destroyed town.

Such a tough game.

So, I made it about 3/4 of the way through the game, and my game was erased because I didn't hold down Reset when I turned off the power. After that, I wised up and saved my game in three different slots to be sure. I was so pissed off after my game was erased that I didn't play it for a good six months. After I started playing it again, it took another three months to complete. Overall, it took over a year to beat that damn game, and I don't even remember the ending now, which probably means it sucked.


FF 12:

My favorite Final Fantasy. I took my time on this one and didn't use any strategy guides. I think I beat it somewhere around 150 hours. I may have to go back and complete everything and find everything on this game. I'm one rank below the order of ambrosia. I still have to beat Yiazmat and get a few rare weapons. Fuck the Zodiac Spear though, I'm not going all the way through the game again to get that piece of shit!

I've just completed the main quest in Skyrim, but I'm definitely going to go for 100 percent completion with this. The main quest was disappointingly short in this one.

 

[Mr. HD]

Two games immediately come to mind: Dragon Warrior and FF 12.

Dragon Warrior:

I got this game when I renewed my subscription to Nintendo Power waaaaay back in 5th grade. BTW, that was the greatest giveaway Nintendo Power ever had. Anyway, it was my first RPG, so that's a handicap right there. Secondly, it was a true old-school RPG, in that you have to walk around for endless hours gaining experience before you can progress through each step of the story. I remember the sense of accomplishment I felt when I was finally able to obtain Erdrick's armor in that destroyed town.

Such a tough game.

So, I made it about 3/4 of the way through the game, and my game was erased because I didn't hold down Reset when I turned off the power. After that, I wised up and saved my game in three different slots to be sure. I was so pissed off after my game was erased that I didn't play it for a good six months. After I started playing it again, it took another three months to complete. Overall, it took over a year to beat that damn game, and I don't even remember the ending now, which probably means it sucked.


FF 12:

My favorite Final Fantasy. I took my time on this one and didn't use any strategy guides. I think I beat it somewhere around 150 hours. I may have to go back and complete everything and find everything on this game. I'm one rank below the order of ambrosia. I still have to beat Yiazmat and get a few rare weapons. Fuck the Zodiac Spear though, I'm not going all the way through the game again to get that piece of shit!

I've just completed the main quest in Skyrim, but I'm definitely going to go for 100 percent completion with this. The main quest was disappointingly short in this one.

I can relate to this completely.

That game was really unnecessarily long. I found myself leveling up a good 4 or 5 times to even stand a chance to fight the monsters in the next world. I still haven't finished the game now that I think about it.

I got to the very last level: Sky Fortress Bahamut and my whole team died in the first encounter with some machines, or whatever those things were.

I'll finish it eventually.


Final Fantasy 10 wasn't exactly a short game. I thought the game was over a few different times, but then I kept remembering there were things that weren't tied up.

Throw in all the countless fights with Seymour, Finding the Aeons, Blitzball, and the last world which had annoyingly hard monsters, and throw in leveling up as well, it took a good part of 6+ months for me to finish it.

Kingdom Hearts didn't even take me long. I wonder why...

 

[J.J.]

Pacman, took me ages and even now I'm unsure if i beat it because of a terrible glitch in the game.

 

[Leafy]

Pacman, took me ages and even now I'm unsure if i beat it because of a terrible glitch in the game.

Are you saying you beat Pacman? Like, the arcade game? All of it. I find that hard to believe.

I would say Elder Scrolls or Fallout. I'm playing Skyrim right now and haven't finished the civil war quest or the main quest. That is how much stuff is in this game. And even then, you still really haven't beat it. It's a game that is impossible to complete, and I love it.