What made you stop playing a game?

Waluigi Time

The Slapstick
Core 'Shroom Staff
Awards Committee
Poll Committee
Retired Wiki Staff
Pronouns
He/him
I'm not talking about "I beat the game" or "I got bored", what's a specific event or roadblock that frustrated you enough to put either a temporary or permanent hiatus on your playthrough of a video game? Doesn't matter how inconsequential it was, if it was enough to put a stop to your playthrough, feel free to discuss it here.

Two of my examples: My 100% playthrough of Super Mario 64 on All-Stars grinded to a halt after I died on the slide trying to get the Tall, Tall Mountain 100 coin star. Probably the most stressful star I've ran into so far.

Similarly, I haven't worked on 100%ing Odyssey since I got back to New Donk City and realized jump roping exists.
 
In Color Spash, my L-Stick drift has prevented me from finishing Kiwano Temple.
 
i remember not being able to get through 1-castle in nsmbwii cause the thwomps scared me so much that id run out of my room every time i saw them

more recently, on my first mario & luigi superstar saga playthrough, i remember kinda giving up at the point where you need to find the beanstar pieces cause i was finding it tedious, especially while trying to find the bean fruits for the hungry yoshis.
 
yeah my left stick is also having the big ol drift so i couldnt play ssbu even if i wanted to! and i dont because of lack of interest but yknow. so i havent played it in almost a year
i havent played starbound in over a year as well because i found out chucklefish, the dev/publisher, is kinda sorta terrible : (
i tried to play eufloria and it was neat but once i got to that level where you had only 100 seeds to worked with i got pissed off at it being hard, or something, and simply havent played it since.. that was years ago im better at video games now so i bet i could get through there
similarly. i remember some flash game, dinomelt, that was a really neat metroidvania, but i gave up once i got to the second boss? it also kept killing me and it sucked

i did also havee some points in some games that i kept being stuck on for, like YEARS lmao (but now i can breeze through them!) we have several points in all of the first three harry potter games, with chamber of secrets (first the goyle transformation where the cutscene scared me off, then years later the spongify challenge which i can just speedrun now), philosopher's stone (i dont remember what it was the first time but in 2017 i dropped it just close to the final boss because i couldnt beat fluffy. only overcame this earlier this year so wow it really did take me 11 years to beat the game), and prisoner of azkaban (mostly just breezed through it over and over and over and stopped at the exams because those were tough to baby me)
ahhhhhhhg zelen rambling about harry potter game again
 
The Golden Banana in Crystal Caves in Donkey Kong 64 that requires you to use Diddy Kong's guitar to open up a room where you have to beat enemies within a very constrained Time Limit. I ran out of Coconut Crystals re-doing it over and over and that was precisely where I stopped playing the game.
 
Mario Sunshine's lily pad mission.

Trying to get S rank on Cuphead's plane levels (with the djinn, the zeppelin and the mermaid boss). I couldn't complete the game 100% because of these levels. Rest of the game? Cakewalk tbh.

In the "I got bored" category I'd put Ocarina of Time 3D.
 
  • Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mini Land Mayhem: Lost the game cartridge in about 2015 and never re-obtained the game
  • Mario Party 9: Was for a long time on hiatus because I struggled to surpass the boo stage in singleplayer, I eventually beat the singleplayer mode much later on.
  • Clash of Clans: Prevented from playing the game by my elder brother at around 2014, later returned in 2020.
  • Battle Beach: Game glitch in 2015 caused me to lose 2/3 of my parade grounds (equivalent of army camps from CoC, meaning I could only have a very small number of troops) and my engineer's house (equivalent of builder's hut in CoC, meaning I couldn't make any game progress not even rebuilding the parades). Later tried to return to the game in 2020 but couldn't because it was discontinued by then.
  • Minecraft: Story Mode: got stuck at some point in the first chapter idk where, that was in 2016, never went back to it but may do at some point
  • LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham: During my 2016 playthrough I got stuck at approximately "Space Station Infestation" (I distinctly remember unlocking Superman who is unlocked from that level, and I do not at all remember being able to control the villains which takes place in the next level, but yet a part of me remembers seeing Plastic Man and Solomon Grundy being playable which is later, so idk exactly but I was definitely nowhere near beating the game). Returned to and beaten in 2020.
  • All four Zelda games were generally very tough games, Majora's Mask in particular I can't make it past the starting point as I got so confused.
  • Super Mario 3D World's finding all the green stars to get 100% got very tedious
  • Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels: can't get past 1-3
  • Super Mario Advance (SMB2 remake): the sand sinking levels were really annoying
all others are just a case of getting bored / finishing and not being bothered to go back to it / growing out of it
 
In Super Mario RPG, I got stuck at the final Smithy battle, and in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, I got stuck at Cackletta in Woohoo Hooniversity. Generally, boss battles in RPGs tend to be a huge roadblock for me, likely due to the strength of their attacks combined with my lack of experience in using items and special attacks. I tend to stick with jump and hammer in both of these games, so when it comes to the other attacks, I'm rather bad with them.
 
Digimon World DS: I finally finished the factory dungeon and got the rank of Gold Tamer. However, in order to get out of there and beat the boss without grinding levels, I used a Digi-Volve Disk for the first time in my walk-through. However, by the time I got to the Sky dungeon (this is when every other level is closed for some reason), my team was severely under-leveled and I had no chance of beating the game legitimately. I restarted my game a few months ago, but I haven't been interested in playing it that much anymore.

The Legendary Starfy: I got to Mashtooth and managed to beat his first and second phase, however, his final phase where you have to press the Y Button several times in order to push back the moon in order to defeat him I could just not accomplish. Although I got all the collectibles, I wasn't able to finish the game and haven't tried battling Mashtooth ever again.

Kirby Planet Robobot: I had just beaten President Haltman and was about to face Stardream. However, I was not prepared for the control scheme that they were going to throw at me in order to fight it. Instead of a normal boss fight, it was a shooter, and you know how much I hate shooting games! I just couldn't come close to beating Stardream, and even if I could grind lives I still wouldn't beat it. Star Allies had a boss that was similar to this, but it was a lot easier and simpler to understand since there were some small sections where you played normally.

I also stopped playing Pikmin 3, NSMBU, NSLU, Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Pokémon Pearl, Heartgold, Black 2, Y, Battle Revolution, Pokepark Wii, Pokepark 2, Crash N. Sane Trilogy, Super Mario Maker, and Super Mario Run without beating the main game.

Reasons:
1. Got to the level where you were supposed to find Charlie and just quit the game after getting there.

2. Only got to World 4, than stopped playing.

3. Only got to World 2, than stopped playing.

4. Couldn't beat World 2-8 without using a guide, quit after trying the level a few times.

5. My mother stopped playing after beating Volkner and getting the final badge and I had no interest in challenging the Elite Four and Cynthia.

6. Beat the first 2 gyms, than stopped playing.

7. Same as 6.

8. I managed to beat Malva and Drasna and would go on to battle Siebold. Though I managed to beat his Clawitzer, the next Pokémon he sent out, a Gyrados, managed to crush my team. I stopped playing after that and haven't challenged Kalos' Elite Four again.

9. Got to Neon Coliseum, and just couldn't beat it because of that wheel you spin just before the battle starts. The Pokémon the computer players use are very lame, and if you get stuck with them instead your own Pokémon, you're in danger.

10. Finished the Meadow Zone and entered the meeting place, only to not be able to reach where Chikorita was heading. I jumped and jumped, but just couldn't get there and I wasn't willing to ask anyone what to do next.

11. Got to the lab in the Tech Area. After watching my older sister play the game and seeing that after you enter Wish Palace, Oshawott, Tepig, and Snivy lose their memory of Pikachu and you are forced to befriend them again just made me feel sad. I didn't want to go through that in my own walk-through and feel sad again, so I stopped playing.

12. Got to the 3rd warp room's boss after losing so many lives in the previous levels. Did not want to lose any more of them, so I stopped playing.

13. I just did not want to wait for new items and enemies to arrive in 24-hours, so I stopped playing.

14. I haven't committed to paying the $13.00 price tag to access the full game and probably never will.

I had a similar affair with Kirby Triple Deluxe where I just couldn't beat Sectionia in her true form and stopped playing until I started grinding lives and somehow getting to where you use Hypernova Kirby to battle her and I somehow managed to beat the game. I guess I got lucky that time!
 
Zelda Minish Cap, I couldn't figure out the puzzle to the mountain area and refused to use a guide, in the end I gave up and forgot to go back to it.

Super Monkey Ball 2, I don't remember the name of the stage but it involved an extremely fast spinning pillar that you had to lunge yourself at or something I forget, I think it even involved bouncing. Anyway it felt like a total luck and chance stage because I couldn't figure out how to apply both trajectory of the monkey down the ramp & timing of hitting the super fast spinning pillar. If I'm remembering it correctly..

And more recently,
Mario & Donkey Kong Minis on the Move, it's just not my type of puzzles, especially the Mario themepark having to focus on 3 things at once!
1. Making sure Mini Mario doesn't walk off a ledge
2. Making sure the tiles don't fill too high and collapse.
3. Figuring out where the heck to place the tiles
Nooooo thank you.
 
I stopped playing LEGO The Lord of the Rings because the game glitched during the level The Battle of Pelennor Fields and I couldn't get past the level and there are literally only two damn levels after it and I just do not care about starting the damn game over.
 
Update: I actually managed to beat Mashtooth in The Legendary Starfy! Well, that's one game I can eliminate from the never finished list. Now I can go onto the secret World!
 
Oh yeah speaking of glitches, I literally could not beat Rayman Origins as the game crashed in the steampunk level with the lightning clouds. I was pretty upset when that occurred.
 
Mr. Sandman put an abrupt halt to my attempt at beating Super Punch-out

like, it was already a big ask to beat Masked Muscle, and I felt like I was really learning my stuff only to get completely wrecked by Sandman. There's two whole circuits after that, sometimes you just have to accept that you are not good at a game
 
I remember having so much trouble outrunning the walrus chef in Crash Twinsanity, and every time I lost all of my lives, I'd have to restart at the last save point which was SO FAR AWAY, forcing me to go through all those levels (and a boss battle!) again. I had to do that so many times while re-collecting the collectibles I lost only to Game Over at the chase sequence, and I eventually stopped playing the game.
 
i gave up on undertale because by the time i was playing it i had already inadvertently osmosed every little bit of it

and the game proper wasn't enough to carry me through
 
Yet another update: a few weeks ago I managed to beat Planet Robobot! I can say that yet another one of the games I listed is now finished. Hopefully bosses in future Kirby games aren't shooters.
 
In Test Drive 5 it was impossible for me to get first place in most tracks.

In Ridge Racer Type 4 you have to get first place in the last four tracks. If I get a very high-tier car using certain teams, their top speed is through the roof and the tuning is so hard that I can't turn the corners well. This makes winning the races difficult.

When we got a PlayStation 2, we stopped playing the PS1. Other hobbies prevented us from it, too.

Many tasks in Tony Hawk's Project 8 became tough.

In Tekken 5 and Tekken Dark Resurrection, I cannot bring most of my characters to the highest position because in the Arcade and Tekken Dojo modes, my opponents seem unbeatable starting from the Fujin rank.

Our PSP got stolen near the end of 2008.

So far there's no one with whom I can play my Wii. Therefore I play my Mario Party games by myself. I listed all my two-, three-, and four-player combinations in OneNote but I cannot find them anymore because I didn't have a Microsoft Account back then, which meant I wasn't able to sync my notes across multiple devices.

In Donkey Kong Country Returns and its port, there are some levels I cannot finish without Diddy Kong, when I'm playing them in mirror mode.

As I try more and more maze packs in the mobile version of Pac-Man, the ghosts become increasingly smarter, and I cannot finish all mazes because I cannot continue since the ads won't play even when there is an internet connection.

I stopped playing Super Mario Run and Mario Kart Tour because they require a stable internet connection to work. But personally, I learn that the storyline of SMR says that Bowser destroyed Peach's castle, and in MKT, I didn't know how to unlock the 150cc engine class.

When I learned about the paid version of Fruit Ninja, I discontinued the free version because the responses were no longer smooth, and watching ads to get more of an in-game currency eats up much of my work hours.

I didn't play Jetpack Joyride and Shooty Skies anymore because at some point the ads didn't work.

I ditched Williams Pinball because I had to keep spending money to get an in-game currency if I wanted to upgrade my tables and unlock more skins for balls and flippers, as well as ball trails. Also, it was hard to achieve realistic physics, and I was stuck with daily challenges and matches against other players.
 
Back