Topic: What games do you REGRET playing for the second time?

Title.
I myself know just one such example, it is god of war 2018.
I have played it for the first time at the end of 2019, and it was total nuclear emotional explosion of how good it was.
And before Ragnarok, I have decided to play again, and since I already knew all of mechanics, plot twists and secrets, it felt kinda boring. And when I started to play Ragnarok, it also felt kinda boring because most of the gameplay and mechanics stayed the same.
So I have ruined my feelings for the first game and ruined my experience with Ragnarok.

Unfortunately nothing too interesting. Most of the “games I played as a kid but disliked as an adult” are really obscure and forgotten, for a good reason I presume.

the new god of war games unlike the classics aren’t really re-playable .

@nomither6 this pretty much. They’re cinamatic (which isn’t a bad thing), classic gow are pretty different. They’re also really fun (well, not to say the new gow isnt).

In general, this is partly why I don’t replay games. Sometimes it’s just better to leave the fond memories in place. If sufficient time has gone by then a game can still be enjoyable, but part of the fun of a game is the joy of discovery.

I know a lot of people will do a quick replay of a game in preparation to play its sequel.but with the relatively ‘safe’ sequels we get nowadays then it runs the risk of wearing the experience thin by the time you get through both games.

I try to counter this by spreading out the types of games I play and keeping a variety, avoiding playing something too similar back-to-back. If a game is short then it’s not as problematic to follow it up immediately with a sequel or a similar game, but two GoW’s in succession, or Horizons, or Spider-Mans, or Red Dead’s, or Dark Souls, or BioShocks, it whatever will run the risk of ruining the experience for me. Sometimes it could be okay for a Resident Evil or a Final Fantasy sequel I guess, since those tend to be quite mechanically different in subsequent games, but even then, personally I avoid it usually. I’ve got FF7 Crisis Core on my list to try to play in the next few months and also Rebirth, but after people complain how Rebirth drags by the end of it, I plan to give myself plenty of room between playing those two games also. And there’s no way I’m going to go back and play Remake again before Rebirth. That sounds like it would guarantee myself a worse experience.

I do think that the more gameplay heavy a game is the better it probably will be on replay. If it’s a narrative focused game then it’s probably not going to have the same impact the second (or third, or fourth) time around because the main draw of plot anticipation is diluted. We were discussing the Uncharted games on another thread and they are very narrative heavy and gameplay light, but I still enjoyed my replay of Drake’s Fortune. However, I wanted to definitely give some space between replay of Among Thieves, Drake’s Deception, etc. 100 straight hours of Uncharted to play the whole series together would ruin it for me. Same with my replay of Mass Effect.

My final thought about replaying games is just the issue of there being so many games now. When you take into account all the legacy titles one could try to go back and replay, along with all the new games coming out, as well as the general trend toward games getting longer and longer…, there’s simply not enough time in the day to get to them all.

Mass Effect 3. The amount of auto and forced dialogue. Ugh. Not our Shep anymore.

Actually Elden Ring. I played at launch (on PS5) and got the Platinum trophy in 1 playthrough, shamelessly scumming the endings. Had a blast, and was my unrivalled GOTY for '22. Playthrough was circa 90 hrs, then laid it to rest.

Erdtree approaches.... I'd since sold my PS, in favor of a Steamdeck due to travelling for work. Re-purchased Elden Ring, and went (again) for 100% achievements aka platinum on the deck. Managed to half the time here, just bee-lining for the achievements and key items for my build - focussing on being DLC-ready.

Loved Erdtree, but replaying the base game straight before really burned me out on ER and also open-world style games... I still adored the DLC, but think a longer break would have been much better

The Longest Journey. I had an amazing time playing through this when it came out. The original Norwegian VO is hilarious. But alas when I tried to get into it again a couple of years ago I dropped off within an hour.

I guess I don't have the patience for point and click adventures anymore. A bit sad, but such is life.

Can’t say that I remember regretting playing any game a second time… but there instances of the opposite where a few games that didn’t click for me during my first experience but I was then glad that I gave them a second go. Red Dead Redemption 2 is probably the main example… booked two weeks off work to play it at release and by the Thursday had already started playing something else due to multiple instances of falling asleep at the reigns. Went back to it a few years later and now rate it as an all-timer. Other instances would be Mad Max, Just Cause 3, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Metal Gear Solid V. Just didn’t get on with any of them at first try but went on to enjoy the hell out of them at the second attempt.

@LuXifer Synnøve Svabø FTW!
I remember loving the game back then; been wanting to replay it, but haven't gotten around to it (too much on the backlog). I still love a good point'n'clicker, though, so might still enjoy it. Think I have it on Steam, but not sure if it is with the Norwegian VO or not.

@colonelkilgore honestly yeah. Replays for me help me gain a new found appreciation. They also let me notice things I didn’t the first time, and the knowledge in-advance makes it easy to expirement. My favorite games of all time are ones with great replay value.

@FuriousMachine
It's still good game for sure, interesting world and great storytelling. I loved this, the old Lucasarts adventure games and Blade Runner.

These days the playstyle just sadly don't pull me in like it used to. Maybe it's just that I'm too busy these days and prefer my gaming time to be more instantly rewarding.

Buuuut with that said I've almost put in 1K hours into Owlcats two Pathfinder games combined. So I don't really know. 😅

Whatever the reason I hope that one day I'll be back in the headspace for point'n clickers again.

I haven’t really regretted playing something again, but I have definitely had multiple occasions where I have been a huge fan of a game on the first play through. A few years later I decide I’d like to play that game again…and after a couple of hours I quit and never play it again. It doesn’t mean I didn’t really like the game, I just often lose interest when trying to replay and don’t want to go back. That even happened with titanfall 2, which is one of my favourite FPS campaigns ever!

Even with retro games, which i really
Enjoy going back to play again, it’s usually a brief play of a particular game for the nostalgia, and then stop. Whereas as a kid I would have sunk hours into it! I can’t really explain it, I’m just aware it’s something I do.

@LuXifer Wasn't too long ago I replayed "Blade Runner", but I didn't finish it as I forgot two very important things: 1) You could die in the game and 2) Autosaves weren't really a thing back then. Still, fantastic game! So, I didn't regret replaying that either, so I guess I'm off-topic here.

Oh, I know: Defender of the Crown! Filled with nostalgia, I bought the Cinemaware collection with lots of classic games that defined my Amiga days of yore... boy had those games not held up well and my memory of them is now tarnished.

@FuriousMachine
Blade Runner was a technical marvel at release. Great story and atmosphere. Enjoyed the clue gathering and fancy story telling via the digital-photo-scanner thingy. The action sequences left a bit to be desired, but ah well can't win them all. 😋

Yeah, I can understand your feelings towards Defender of the Crown. Another graphical trailblazer (at least on the Amiga). Sadly a lot games from that era had somewhat archaic controls and/or unfulfilling gameplay loops once the lustre of the visuals wore of.