What drives you to revisit games?

[Zerohour2k12]

A lot factors in but mostly when either I remember how much fun I've had the first time I played or If 100% is worth it.

 

[Spyrone]

I'd say my drive is one third nostalgia, one third loathing of what modern gaming has become and another third of playing various games I never played before but always wanted to as a kid.

I can't really stand a lot of modern games, as not enough of them have settings, design or gameplay I like, are prohibitively expensive, uncompressed and unable to fit in my storage, entirely to focused on graphics often to the detriment of those graphics- I don't care how many shaders you cram on to each individual hair folicle for characters if those characters simply look like the same scifi scavengers or generic military dudes with no unique, interesting or truly eye-catching elements to their design and levels just look generic and boring as hell.

Not to mention often multiplayer driven with no single-player component. If I'm I have to pay upwards of $60 for something it had better be a full package instead of an exclusively MP thing with no single-player campaign for instance, otherwise I'm not gonna shell out the cash. Especially when that cash is padding the massive, echoing vault chambers the corrupt and megalomaniacal uber-rich like to swim around in Scrooge McDuck-style while the entire fucking planet burns down around them.

So, I'd rather go back to an era when I actually had hope for the future being anything other than a cyber/biopunk dystopia ran by pederasts. Thus, I play a lot of the games I enjoyed as a kid, as well as trying out the ones I always wanted to but never got the chance to or playing the same games nodded to be even better, like Halo Havoc, Super Mario SunBurn or RealRTCW.

 

[Badseed Badseed]

A lot of times for me revisiting old favorites gives me a certain feeling of comfort
be it nostalgia or otherwise. Though these days it's my ever-growing massive backlog of
partially played games that i want to get through.

 

[ThomatoSauce]

I don't really have a reason, personally. Sometimes I revisit my old games simply because I feel like it.

 

[b1tchcelcracra]

i think its really easy to get back into a game for the nostalgia and then quickly give it up bc you get bored and youve already seen all that shit before, so for me i sometimes want to get back into it to learn something new about it; such as sound design
even though ive already beaten it twice now, im opening up symphony of the night every once in a while just because i want to hear all the specific sound effects that go on; i realize its genuinely got its own style and its amazing

other times i revisit certain games because ive played other ones like it and i want to see if ive improved on it at all; i got a bunch of s ranks on resident evil the mercenaries 3d when i got my 3ds a while back, and i wanted to see how much better i fared in resident evil 4

 

[shadowcat]

If enjoy something I beat, I know I can't go wrong with picking it to replay.

Sometimes also to keep the story fresh in my mind. Some plot points fade from memory of you haven't played a game in 10+ years.

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

i cant afford new games

 

[Bakuma1997]

The same reason one rereads a book he loves or watch a show he likes, be binge watching or mere entertainment for lunchtime

 

[TheMinuMaster]

I always get the same food, the same ice cream flavor, and the same games because I never get tired of what I truly love.

 

[Isegrim]

A variety of reasons...Nostalgia usually...wanting to re-experience an enjoyable game.

Music is another strong reason. If I recall a game's amazing OST and if it's a tune that only sounds good if you're playing the game, then I might replay that game in full instead of looking for it's OST in youtube.

Or sometimes, it could be a line in a comic/novel/story or a scene in a movie that sets me off, say a fantasy movie of someone fighting a dragon and the fight scene was particularly exciting or compelling...that might cause me to march off, fire up a Monster Hunter game and fight the monster that resembled most the thing in that movie while I was still fired up. Zombie movie and they all died, play Dead Rising or Killing Floor (X). Martial arts movie...Street Fighter or KOF... And so forth...

 

[LaserMoose]

Character-action games like DMC3 have modes like Dante Must Die, which changes how enemies behave compared to other difficulties - that in itself can make a revisit of a game an interesting undertaking, with a change in game difficulty/balance.

Other games I've revisited are those that I didn't originally "click" with upon my first playthrough, and wanted to give the game another opportunity. Ghouls n' Ghosts is a big example of this for me, as my first playthrough relied on savestates to get past the trickier sections, especially for the boss gauntlet that is Stage 5. During my second playthrough I finished the game without savestates, and gained a greater appreciation of the game's level design.

As I was a big fan of Pokémon as a kid, I also must add that I've loved revisiting games in the past to play using a different team (in the case of Pokémon) or character build, which can make a revisit very fun, while also being a vastly different experience from a first playthrough.

 

[redux007]

I realize now I've been here for... almost a year now? and it's been a long, long time since I posted a thread, so why not?

I've been thinking about something lately, something I personally call revisitation drive. We tend to have a pretty good idea why we play games, why we like the genres we like and so on, but it seems, to me at least, that we think a lot less about why we replay games, at least I hadn't given it much thought until now.

The low hanging fruit would be nostalgia, I suppose; we miss what the game once meant, or the memories we had associated with them, good or bad. Another possibility would be genre burn out - playing too much of one kind of game can sometimes make us want to revisit something of a different flavor or speed. Yet another possibility is something random like using an online wheel or rolling a die and let fate decide.

For me, personally, I tend to leave a lot on the mental backburner and then suddenly I just feel like going back to some of those game ideas that were in stasis for months, maybe years, and then sink my teeth into that, and it feels rather refreshing, I have to say; I guess you could call it revisiting on impulse, or thawing out an idea.

So what is it like for you guys?

I don't delineate time in terms of production and quality. Why should I? Modern day technology allows us to perfectly preserve media ergo something made today has as much relevancy as something made a hundred years ago. Meaning, I can live by my ideal standards. "Nostalgia" becomes my present, which means my ideal state never ends, and if anything. It can be expanded upon.

 

[Retro Doomer]

Well if they game has a fun Multiplayer mode or is just casual fun like the og Star Wars Battle front 2.
I do also tend to revisit older games thanks to nostalgia like Rayman Revolution which is a childhood gem of mine on the Ps2.

Nostalgia is one hell of a drug after all

for me games who hold sentimental values are often those I tend to revisit more than modern...em ''Games''
It helps to relax not looking at you Dark Souls....anyhow it helps to immerse one self and to forget all the shit happening around oneself and to feel like older more simpler times I had.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

Autism.

 

[skramz]

the indomitable human spirit

 

[here4outbreak]

for the most part i only really revisit dmc3 consistently so maybe im not the best example but i think its due to a something that goes deeper than just nostalgia

in the fog of the early morning brainspace, i think dmc3 just reminds me of the aspects of myself that i consider important if i want to reach anything approaching self-fulfillment
its not to say i would need a hit of dmc3 or else i die but its an easy way to keep those ideals alive in some form in a world that gets more complicated and confusing as you experience more of it

 

[Stookymalarkey]

It's a mix of nostalgia and the atmosphere the game provides. For example, Parasite Eve takes place around Christmas time and I consider it a great game to revisit every December.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Sometimes when I feel like I’d ran out of games to play that’s when I revisit those classics.

 

[Boofytan]

For non-jrpgs:After coming to terms with the fact that I have a mild coordination disorder, I want to give some games a try again.

As for the jrpgs though, I just haven't found anything that compares to the goats, and I have to force myself to give some games a shot. Basically, ff6 ruined me for all other games!

 

[RetroMule]

Trying new challenges or ideas to approach a game differently. Honestly I find it hard to go back to and stick to a game, even if I enjoyed it a lot. Mostly because I play RPGs and they are so long, I just wanna try new experiences.

 

[polter99]

Good question, honestly.

- Tradition
I know I make it sound weird, but hear me out, once a year, I have tradition to replay King's Field (the first and Japan-only), Armored Core, Armored Core: Project Phantasma, Armored Core: Master of Arena, and Armored Core: for Answer. For a simple reason, these five are like my top pick games to replay, it's like riding a bike, you never forget how to play the game even if my reaction time slowing down as I age.

Games in this category is the game that I will never get tired.

- Loved the franchise, but the older have more charm or far challenging
There are only one entry to this category, and that's lonely Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite. To me, MHFU is the best and the worst Monster Hunter. The only game in my entire life alongside Bloodborne BL4 Run to actually make me rage quit.

2 years ago I return to this for the reason to try clearing Fatalis solo, and boy, that journey took about 200 hours with plenty of desk smash and punching air. And this remind me why I love and hate Monster Hunter, I can't get enough of it even if I'm tilted 60% of the times.

Soloing Guild Hall is not a joke, let alone the G-Rank Hall. A single hunt could go to ~20 minutes (HR) and ~40 (G-Rank) mark, and by the time I reach Fatalis, I'm beyond exhausted. No sane person should gone this far.

- Comfort
This category slipped a little bit to the top one, since I blur the line between "actually comforting game" and "comfort as in it's the game I love back then and played so much that coincidentally a frustrating one." Urban Reign, Sonic Riders, and yet again Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite (god help me).

But don't worry, I have some games that are actually comforting, doesn't require too much brain power to play. Such as, Nascar Rumble, Big ol' Bass 2, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, and Sengoku Basara 2: Heroes.

 

[zacharinolongpants]

Nostalgia is a factor for some games, but there are other games like a good shmup that I find very revisitable because you can always come back to improve your skills and memorize a little more the levels. I'll go back to old Gradius and Thunderforce games and hit them hard, frustrate myself, take a break, and come back and take more punishment later, getting better runs after each revisit haha. Of course arcadey games are designed to be heavily revisitable.

 

[tselinoyarsk]

Nostalgia alone isn't enough for me to replay a game I tried as a child, to completion as an adult. It is enough of a drive to boot it up and experience it as an adult, but if the game is terrible or a chore to get through, then I'm going to drop it and never feel the need to play it again.

What drives me to revisit the games I play is simple:

• a fun gameplay loop
  
  
• an interesting story/good writing

Only one of these two criteria has to exist, in order to enjoy the game. For instance, Rule of Rose has terrible combat, but the story and the way it's presented is so intriguing, you'll push on through to figure out what really happened with Jennifer. I totally recommend the game, and it's worthy of a revisit.