Feels like developers overestimate how much some of us care about replaying their games even if we love them.

[Sonic Boomer]

I feel many game developers overestimate just how much some of us care about playing their non-arcade games past the initial run.
This has been a problem for me since childhood, really. Locking extra ending behind 100% completion and said completion is often just more and more item collecting that ultimately serves no purpose if you've finished the initial run of the game.

Dragon Quest XI for example did this well, it didn't have "post game" focused on completing challenges and collecting items, but rather a whole new chapter, a new episode to round everything up and lead the player to the true ending. You weren't forced to complete some annoying challenges, collect annoying items and so forth from what I remember, you just had to go through the story as it develops. We did complete some trials but those were part of the story and as far as I rmemeber, it's been over half a decade now, they were seamlessly integrated.

On the other hand, I just finished PRAGMATA, decent enough game. Nothing outstanding but not bad at all, a nice 8.0/10 experience and then it hits me with this absolutely utterly annoying post game content for me to get a supposedly True Ending and what is the content? More of that Training/Sim stuff that's ok if you want to play it but to lock a true ending behind it, no thanks. I 100%'d every area because exploring was fun, but no I don't feel like doing all this now for a few seconds at the end and a bunch of artwork. Alan Wake 2, one of my favorite modern story driven action/adventure games also did the same thing, I am not going through the entire game again just to get a literal 3 second dialogue at the end and a few changes here and there no matter how integrated in the main plot the second loop may be.

I can play and replay short, fast paced pick up and play arcade style games.
I can replay sessions of Tetris and Kirby Kira Kira Kids (SNES) or even Panel de Pon, Yoshi something or other I can't remember the Localized name now.
That's arcade stuff.
I can play my favorite shmups and beat em up indefinitely.

But I am not doing post game content just to see a few seconds of extra footage at the end of an 8-15 hour game or longer.

This isn't just about PRAGMATA, I've had the same issue with games as far back as the SNES, DKC3 locked an entire boss and portion of the world behind 103% collecting nonsense, I dunno how did it as a kid but I did it and never attempted anything like that since lol
Banjo Kazzoie did the same thing and so many other games.
It's such a tired formula, to me it doesn't add replayablity or more content, it makes the games feel like chores, so naturally I opt out of such things most of the time.

A game's value shouldn't be determined based on how much "CONTENT" it has, it should be determined on how much fun that game is for you on your first playthrough and sure, branching paths and different choices in games to add replay value for people who don't mind replaying games, that's fine...but collecting stuff, completing some dumb challenges I dunno it all feels tacked on to me.

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

Yeah as you said arcade style games like shmups and beat em ups are much better suited to replays since they are on the shorter side. What's funny is that expecting the player to do all that busy work might've worked decades ago but with internet being as big it is now it no longer works. You can just go to youtube and watch the supposed true ending, find out that all the effort is just to get a few seconds of dialogue and decide you don't want to spend your time doing it since it's not worth it.

 

[plaindillo]

I agree. You see, I dont even find older JRPGs to be worth replaying immediately. If its a game that really sticks ill definitely replay it but usually within a 1 to 3 year range. I mean, I've always thought the most replayable games are the ones you can down within an evening or less. If the game is fun, its a fun way to spend a portion of your day. Replayability should just be about going back to rexperience something you love. If replayability stretches to a new campaign or experience then i think thats already doing more than replayability. Chrono Trigger is a game that has a great example of a smaller rewards locked behind replays, as it has a million different endings you can easily hunt down by doing new game plus runs.

 

[random0nonsense]

I would argue as long as they don't put more effort into the new game + modes than they do the main game that it doesn't hurt anything. I feel those modes are more for the people who either achievement hunt or the folks that absolutely love the game. I just finished Mina the Hollower and I won't be touching that post-game because of how bloody difficult it is. Despite that, there are other games that I simply can't bring myself to put down even after finishing them.

 

[Metroid_Hybrid]

As far as RPGs are concerned, I think Chrono Trigger did a decent attempt at this with its New Game+. Because in addition to overpowering your characters with otherwise unique equipment, more importantly, you can challenge the final boss at virtually any point in the story for somewhere around a dozen different additional endings..

 

[Anim8rDude Anim8rDude]

Replaying a game should come from the heart with a dose of curiosity. "What should I do differently this time?" or "Which type of character do I want to play?" is what drives my replays.
I say the shorter & more linear the game, the better.
New Game+ is best when they offer new enemy layouts/challenges/areas on replays, which is something devs unfortunately don't do as much anymore, outside of action games anyway.

Indie games seem to understand this though, hence all the roguelikes out there I guess!

 

[Mal]

for retro games, i think you are forgetting that back then you couldnt just play them all.
You would be lucky to have 2 or 3 games per year at MOST.

the amount of times i would replay a game i loved, cause it was either that or nothing, is huge!

games had all of that cause they were made to last, nowadays they now you can just google it and just leave the mystery of getting there to whoever feels like doing it.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

for retro games, i think you are forgetting that back then you couldnt just play them all.
You would be lucky to have 2 or 3 games per year at MOST.

the amount of times i would replay a game i loved, cause it was either that or nothing, is huge!

games had all of that cause they were made to last, nowadays they now you can just google it and just leave the mystery of getting there to whoever feels like doing it.

It doesn't matter, because I'd just do other stuff like draw or play with toys instead of constantly trying to get everything in a game, I'd play and replay my arcade style pick up and play games or play my favorite levels from longer ones where you could choose the levels, but that's different from trying to 100% everything. Granted my case was a bit different thanks to multi-carts and piracy we had more games here, plus arcades and cheap game cafes/game centers, also renting games was very cheap. But even so I still had other things to focus on than to keep trying to 100% a game.

 

[Kovlak]

Publishers are worried about the runtime. A lot of people focus on length when evaluating if a game is worth the money or not. So we still get these very padded out experiences.

 

[Appiplyer]

Fr i also hate it when 100% completing game was all about collectibles and even weirder puzzle, and i would hate it even further if the true ending was locked behind those collectibles.

But on the other hand i've quite literally replayed pokemon fire red like a hundreds of time, replayed final fantasy 6 for several times (somehow i can't save shadow in any of those playthrough). Replayed any MMBN game several time and also Replayed my Summon Night Swordcraft Stories (i literally have beaten the game with using every single weapon type as my main weapon, and also every single summon for each type of those weapon)

 

[Graw]

Having excessive unlockables and stuff made more sense at a time where chances are, most people only had a handful of games they could actually play most of the time anyway. It's not like i've ever really enjoyed 100%ing games with a ton of obscure things but when you only have like 5 games to choose from for months at a time, you have a lot of time to dedicate to unlocking everything.

Most jrpgs with missables or 'incentives' for a second playthrough just suck because most jrpgs are such linear experiences replaying them is basically the same as rereading a book or rewatching a movie. The only ones I've really ever actually liked replaying are ones where it's been so long I can't remember them any more or they have some kind of interesting gameplay mechanic like Final Fantasy V's job system or Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song's free event system. I actually played Minstrel Song three times in a row back to back the first time I played it and it's probably the only rpg I've ever done that with.