I hate that most modern games are no longer possible to 100% complete for the average gamer.

[AtomicShroom]

I miss being able to say I fully 100%-ed a game.

It seems that games these days are made to be filled with so much arbitrary goals to complete and huge amounts of checklists of things to complete, or made too difficult, that it's just no longer feasible for the average gamer to 100% them. It feels like completing games 100% has been made to be exclusively reserved for the elite of the obsessives or ultra-skilled, and it really sucks.

Back in the SNES/N64 up to the PS2 days, I would be able to say I 100% completed most games, and feel really proud about it.

Mario World? Got them 96 exits.
Donkey Kong Country series? Got them 101%, 102%, 103%, 105%'s no problem.
Yoshi's Island? All 100 scores everywhere.
Mario 64? Got them 120 stars.
Jak and Daxter? Completed 100%.
Etc.

But then something started happening around the HD era where developers began to go completely apeshit and out of hand with things to complete and goals to reach just to artificially pad out a game's length and make you replay the same content a bazillion of times with little or no variation.

Open World games? Too many damn copy/pasted side-things/outposts/hidden collectibles to complete. 900 Koroks you say? Get the fuck out.
Mario 3D World? You have to complete every single level and reach the top of the goalpost with each of the 4 characters. No thanks. Also that last secret level is bullshit hard.
Yoshi's Crafted World? You have to complete every level multiple, multiple times carefully looking for devilishly hidden whatevers in the blurry background to hit. Fuck that.
Crash Bandicoot 4? Absolutely insanely difficult 100% completion. Having to replay each level multiple, multiple times to get all boxes. Then do it again in the invert mode. Then you get insane time trials to beat. Fuck that.
And the list goes on and on...

It leaves me feeling empty and hollow when I have to stop myself from playing a game because I realize that 100% completing it won't be possible or fun. I don't feel that sense of accomplishment that I used to anymore. I makes me feel like I have given up, not succeeded.

Sure there's the rare oddball here and there that adheres more closely to the old-fashioned standards for 100% completion, but the general trend has been migrating away from that.

Am I the only one who wish they'd tone down this shit down to be more accessible? The average gamer should be able to 100% complete a game in a reasonable time frame.

 

[Grouch Douglass]

I don't agree. Devs should be able to create the road to 100% they want to since it is a totally optional pursuit.

I also don't agree games have been easier to 100% in the past.

 

[DarthWalden]

I was talking to a friend about this and all the fluff and challenges and stuff that is added to games and he made a good point... a lot of people only buy two or three games and play them for 100+ hours at a time....

I play probably 30 games a year and so I prefer games that cut out all that stuff.

 

[fracas]

I agree wholeheartedly that games are just ridiculously bloated to the point it's borderline insulting but at the same time playing them isn't a job

If you aren't enjoying finishing a game's main storyline or collecting 10,000 golden eggs then just drop it imo

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Why is it so important to 100% a game? I've never seen a good reason to do this in almost any game. I just do content as long as it's fun and when I have enough I just finish or drop the game.

 

[thankyoumerzbow]

the only AAAs i've 100% this gen were the imsoniac's spider-man games and i believe gears 5. most of them go bonkers with random stuff, but if they dont add it most gamers complain because hames have to be 30-40 hours juggernauts.

 

[Dizastah]

I hate that I have to complete Demon's Souls 2.5 times to get the platinum trophy. (Actually 3.5 since I screwed up with one of my boss souls....smh)

 

[Pein]

Spider-Man was such a good platinum just do all the normal tasks, didn't need a guide or a video to show you what arbitrary thing you need to do to finish your run.

 

[TubaZef]

Some games are indeed bloated, the 900 koroks in BOTW is ridiculous.

But that's nostalgia talking, getting 100% in the games you listed was not easy, you were not an average gamer doing those things, you were a kid with plenty of free time.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I would argue that games from the NES and SNES era took a lot more skill to 100% complete whereas modern games simply take more time. Skill can definitely prevent a player from completing it but time cannot. I think it's better to have a time barrier than a skill barrier in most cases.

100% completion is something to prolong the player's experience with the game as long as possible but also allowing them to stop at any time. Not every player will be compelled to complete every task and they will be satisfied with standard completion, but players who really love the game and want to take it as far as they can are likely to really love that the game affords them such a prolonged opportunity.

Some people finish Super Mario 64 and stop at 70 stars. But for people who don't want to stop, they have the choice of all 120. For a game like Super Mario 64, that's the perfect way to give players and easy out but reward the dedicated players who don't want to stop playing. As part of the latter group I only wish there were more.

 

[AtomicShroom]

Why is it so important to 100% a game? I've never seen a good reason to do this in almost any game. I just do content as long as it's fun and when I have enough I just finish or drop the game.

Click to shrink...

Well you just highlighted the problem right there: Because they made this completely unfun to do in modern games.

Getting all 120 stars in Mario 64 didn't feel like it was a chore or being uselessly stretched. Every star had a proper original content/mission tied to it. That's how it used to be, and that's why completing something 100% felt great. I wish I could still enjoy that feeling today, but I can't.

 

[Mendrox]

Did you at least have fun? I never thought about accomplishing something in a game. It's just a game which I am suppose to have fun with. If there is a grind I like and have fun with (like Yakuzas Real Estate Management or Hostess Club which are a bit grindy) then I will do it. If there are things for a true ending which are not overly complicated or have me waste hours and hours without having something meaningful to do in the game then I will skip it. Developers pad their games nowadays with tons of useless things (loot that you just waste your time selling for example). I don't know what to tell you, but how about just doing the content you will like? Just ignore the rest. Gaming like this is not a competition.

All those things you mentioned are really only available for the hardcore people that can't get enough or love to challenge themselves. It seems like it's just not for you. If you want to do everything then do everything and if you don't have the time or are frustrated then just skip it and do something else.

Not to mention that achievements and trophies made this even worse in the last 14 or so years. People should stop giving a fuck and not torture themselves for something that nobody except themselves will see and care about. If you care about it - fine do it for yourself and enjoy it. If you just do it to 100% something and you really have a big problem and feel down and then you should ask yourself why you even care about that. Isn't doing the main story and meaningful optional content enough? Do you need to do everything in a game? No not really.

 

[entremet]

Interesting discussion.

However, stuff like the Koroks seems mega optional.

To me, 100 percenting BoTW would be doing all the shrines and all the dungeons.

Games today are more a choose your own adventure in design, so I have no problem with it. I do not like padding generally, though.

 

[KOfLegend]

Crash 4's shit was infuriating. I love 100%ing/Platinuming games, but it really is ridiculous what they ask you to do. I don't agree with your other examples (time sinks are fine for me) but when a game encourages you to 100% it like Crash 4 does, only to lock that behind a ridiculous challenge like the platinum time trial relics, it's really frustrating. What stings is that you only needed the gold relics for Crash 1~3. They changed it on purpose.

I have 237 platinum trophies, so I've done some hard shit in a lot of video games, but not of it was that egregious.

 

[yyr]

In many cases, I think it just seems a lot harder nowadays because
1) we have responsibilities now and don't have nearly as much time to play as we used to
2) there are a lot more games now and/or we couldn't afford as many games back then

Sure, it was much easier to 100% everything when we only got 10 new games a year and we had twice as much time to play them.

 

[Pizza Dog]

I'd argue that the "average" gamer doesn't really care about 100% completion, so this isn't really an issue for them. It's only really an issue for the people who want to 100% every game they play. The problem with that is developers are planning the achievements/trophies/100% win conditions for their own game, not for all the games you own. They want to put a lot of content in there to keep people engaged, and there are good and bad ways to do that, but when everyone is doing it then you end up with a lot of timesinks an you need to decide if you're going to spend that time on one game or spread it around all your games.

 

[Tuorom]

Nah

If you're going to have achievements, make them actual achievements. They are useless if they are just Oblivion - "yay you completed the content congrats" banners.

Also, old games were miles more difficult than games today. The achievement was playing and overcoming the BS.

The enjoyment comes from playing the games.

 

[gnexus]

I think games nowadays have more "difficult/time consuming" 100%'s because they track engagement. More people spending more time in a particular game is good.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Why does it matter? If you make it easy for everyone to 100% then the people who are willing to put in the extra hours and effort feel underwhelmed. Let's say you make that extra content optional DLC, you run into the same issues of the "average gamer" not being able to 100% that. It's impossible to satisfy both groups.

It's why to this day people still complain about easy moons in Mario Odyssey when it's literally an example of what you're asking for "making the game completable by the 'average player'"

 

[AtomicShroom]

Some games are indeed bloated, the 900 koroks in BOTW is ridiculous.

But that's nostalgia talking, getting 100% in the games you listed was not easy, you were not an average gamer doing those things, you were a kid with plenty of free time.

Click to shrink...

Come on now. I think you don't remember how relatively short the games I listed were. Completing Zelda Link to the Past 100% with all heart containers and upgrades takes me a day at most. My BoTW save has 100+ hours and I'm at around 300-ish Koroks? It's not even close.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Why is it so important to 100% a game? I've never seen a good reason to do this in almost any game. I just do content as long as it's fun and when I have enough I just finish or drop the game.

Click to shrink...

Unless the game is pulling you forward to do so in an intriguing way, I agree that it's pointless to 100% a game. If I can't stop playing and have a legitimate desire to clear every nook & cranny and get 100% through that process, then it's worthwhile.

But yeah, if a player if ever in a situation where they're like "shit ... I gotta do x, y, and z to hit 100% ... sigh here we go", it's pointless. Unless of course that person gets satisfaction at looking at a save file that reads 100 and not 99.

 

[Ralemont]

The meaning of what it is to 100% a game has certainly changed, and not for the better.

JRPGs are the best example. It used to mean all sidequests done, ultimate weapons obtained, any post-game or optional bosses completed. Now there's often a bunch of weird shit. For example, Chrono Trigger released today would probably make you see all the endings, Chrono Cross would make you craft every item, Legend of Dragoon would have you hit max level, etc.

Nah

If you're going to have achievements, make them actual achievements.

Click to shrink...

I agree, but the current achievement system literally does the opposite, and incentivizes going after things that aren't actually that notable. Who actually cares if the Eleth Mixer gets maxed in Tales of Graces?

 

[Mobius 1]

The real issue with completion in the post-2005 era is that some completion goals can be tied to online components that eventually become unavailable. If the servers are turned off or the community dwindles, it's locked away forever.

 

[Joltik]

Well you just highlighted the problem right there: Because they made this completely unfun to do in modern games.

Getting all 120 stars in Mario 64 didn't feel like it was a chore or being uselessly stretched. Every star had a proper original content/mission tied to it. That's how it used to be, and that's why completing something 100% felt great. I wish I could still enjoy that feeling today, but I can't.

Click to shrink...

Some of those 100-coins Stars beg to differ.

 

[BobbeMalle]

AC: Valhalla the thread
Funnily enough, Immortals: Fenyx Rising 100% is much more achievable

 

[Mendrox]

Come on now. I think you don't remember how relatively short the games I listed were. Completing Zelda Link to the Past 100% with all heart containers and upgrades takes me a day at most. My BoTW save has 100+ hours and I'm at around 300-ish Koroks? It's not even close.

Click to shrink...

How long is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? | HowLongToBeat

How long is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? HowLongToBeat has the answer. Create a backlog, submit your game times and compete with your friends!

howlongtobeat.com

For you - because you know what to do. On average it takes at least 2x 8 hour sessions for people.

 

[AtomicShroom]

Some of those 100-coins Stars beg to differ.

Click to shrink...

Okay maybe those ones didn't. But getting them wasn't particularly long or hard.

 

[-Tetsuo-]

Getting all 120 stars in Mario 64 didn't feel like it was a chore

Click to shrink...

It did to me, thus why I have never done it and I think Mario 64 is one of the greatest games ever.

Completing Zelda Link to the Past 100% with all heart containers and upgrades takes me a day at most.

Click to shrink...

This absolutely is not normal or average lol

 

[TubaZef]

Come on now. I think you don't remember how relatively short the games I listed were. Completing Zelda Link to the Past 100% with all heart containers and upgrades takes me a day at most. My BoTW save has 100+ hours and I'm at around 300-ish Koroks? It's not even close.

Click to shrink...

They were shorter but getting 100% in Yoshi's Island and Mario 64 required a lot of practice and that's definitely not something I could do nowadays.

 

[AtomicShroom]

How long is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? | HowLongToBeat

How long is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? HowLongToBeat has the answer. Create a backlog, submit your game times and compete with your friends!

howlongtobeat.com

For you - because you know what to do. On average it takes at least 2x 8 hour sessions for people.

Click to shrink...

And that compares to 320 hours how?

https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=38019

 

[Lothars]

I don't agree, games are just as easy to complete as they have ever been and if you want to 100% games it was always difficult. It's a challenge and that hasn't changed.

 

[Kyoufu]

The average gamer never 100%'d games back in the day either. If anything it's much easier now thanks to guides, trophy checklists etc.

 

[Razmos]

I cannot stand games with multiplayer only trophies in a game that I want to play single player. For example Borderlands 3 has a trophy for duelling another player, which I have absolutely 0 interest in doing, and it puts me off from trying to get the rest of the trophies since I will likely never get that one

 

[Rune Walsh]

I don't mind difficulty spikes in order to get 100% but I straight up won't bother with time sinks. FF7R has that whole bullshit of playing through half the game, doing a different sequence of events just to get dresses in order to unlock an achievement. That's horse hockey.

 

[snausages]

The reason there was so many koroks isn't to make it hard to 'complete' the game according to some arbitrary metric but to include butt loads of those cute little interactions you could have with the environment. BOTW is primarily about that, not about doing every single little thing in the game. That's why you can beat the game whenever you want. The game is full of things to see in every nook and cranny, it's not really supposed to be a thing that the player has to find every single thing in the world.

IMO people need to try and liberate themselves from this kind of thinking, that all the 'content' in a game has to be checked off.

With Ubisoft games though it is kind of like they looked at MMOs and tried to find a way to just pad out their games with uninspired 'content' for hours and hours. BOTW is the antithesis to this kind of design though

 

[ZeroX]

I agree with you OP, but coming onto a game forum to make that complaint may not go over smoothly as this is the place where the few people that still 100% games (other than kids with lots of free time) remain.


also games haven't gotten literally harder to 100%. If anything they're easier, they're just much longer and grindier. Obviously Crash 4 is an exception in that it's all of those things

 

[Slacker247]

I get where you're coming from. I stopped caring about this stuff a long, long time ago though. Maybe even PS2 era.

What's really happening with a lot of them though is what a handful of players originally would have made as self-made challenges, are now basically tied to trophies. E.g. you wouldn't necessarily have time-trials in certain games, but now you do because a few players certainly found it fun to self-impose. If not time-trial, then no form changing, or no summons, or other arbitrary things. Simple things that can just be slapped on to provide replay value or longevity to their game. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I do get it's annoying if the game has so much of it, you just finished only the campaign and the "Completion Rate" still sat at 10% or something, heh. Look away!

Like the typical adult I am, I just avoid most of it now unless I find it fun or am up for a challenge of some sort. I definitely would be more interested if I had less disposable income and thus fewer games/entertainment to consume.

My big issue is when it becomes too much of a need in order to unlock something else. I feel maybe Kingdom Hearts is slowly getting towards this point, and I don't like it.

 

[808s & Villainy]

The reason there was so many koroks isn't to make it hard to 'complete' the game according to some arbitrary metric but to include butt loads of those cute little interactions you could have with the environment. BOTW is primarily about that, not about doing every single little thing in the game. That's why you can beat the game whenever you want. The game is full of things to see in every nook and cranny, it's not really supposed to be a thing that the player has to find every single thing in the world.

IMO people need to try and liberate themselves from this kind of thinking, that all the 'content' in a game has to be checked off.

Click to shrink...

I've basically said this time and time again, but it kind of gets glossed over. Korok seeds were never meant to be all found. They were meant to account for the fact that the game is an open world, one that doesn't constraint where or when you go places, and to always provide something to find no matter where a player went. Obsessive players took that as a challenge to find them all for some reason

 

[Mendrox]

And that compares to 320 hours how?

https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=38019

Click to shrink...

And it's bad in what way? Why do you complain about having more things to do? Nobody forces you to collect poop 900 times in this game. The main story + mastersword + secret ending doesn't even take 50 hours if you ignore most shrines too. I don't see your point really. You are essentially complaining about yourself.

 

[Transistor]

Is the average gamer even interested in doing 100% runs, though? That's more of an enthusiast thing.

I think having 100% for enthusiasts while still having a good amount of content for the average player is a fine balance.

 

[Tuorom]

I agree, but the current achievement system literally does the opposite, and incentivizes going after things that aren't actually that notable. Who actually cares if the Eleth Mixer gets maxed in Tales of Graces?

Click to shrink...

Exactly, who does care? Why do people care?

If you're not having fun just move on lol. Video games are for fun, they aren't a job.

 

[Deleted member 51789]

I think you're severely overestimating how many people 100%ed games in the 90s/00s. The 'average player' certainly wouldn't have been among that number either

 

[SunshinePuppies]

I still don't see the argument about why it's important to 100% any game? There's such a wide variety of games that exist, and I guarantee you that each game has an audience that wants to 100% them because they actually enjoy it. Of course the audience that doesn't 100% it will be larger and that's ok. This increases diversity in the games we see, not stifles it. Let devs make the kind of game they want in this specific context.

 

[HockeyBird]

Some games are indeed bloated, the 900 koroks in BOTW is ridiculous.

But that's nostalgia talking, getting 100% in the games you listed was not easy, you were not an average gamer doing those things, you were a kid with plenty of free time.

Click to shrink...

The 900 seeds where there so people would be able to find them across Hyrule's big map. You don't need anywhere close to 900 seeds to max out Link's item slots. They didn't design it for people to get 100% of everything. Nintendo has talked about this in the past. It's amazing how people here still don't get it to this day.

 

[The Albatross]

I kind of agree. I still think devs can do whatever they want and if someone likes finding 900 korok seeds, then more power to them.

I really appreciate a game that I can 100% without having to resort to an online guide or something lame. Guacamelee and Ori are good examples. I'm not especially good at any game, but it's easy to know what you have to do to 100% both games, and there's still a sense of accomplishment in doing it. I still remember when I beat Thule Trees or whatever it is in Guac 1, the 100% zone for that, I felt such a sense of accomplishment... but I also never had to google how to do that zone, it was self-evident what I had to do, I just had to execute on it.

 

[dalq]

The "average gamer" never cared about 100% a game. They finish it once and move on, even back in the SNES days.

 

[Dyle]

A lot of it depends on how you define 100%. Most games that people make an effort to 100% are consciously designed so that players don't feel forced to do that but people do it anyway. Only crazy people go for all koroks or all moons or pretty much any open world 100% and once they do it they always hate themselves for it.

 

[jelly]

I think your complaint would be more fitting to describe a lot of game content to be an overabundance of rubbish repetitive filler that isn't compelling to put time into rather than achieving 100% which I doubt many did anyway years ago, perhaps we did know a game back to front since we didn't play as many or games that large with filler tasks.

 

[supercommodore]

When I was a kid (SNES, N64, PS1, PS2 era) these types of hard challenges would be something I welcomed as I could only afford a handful of games a year.

 

[Grouch Douglass]

OP, maybe what you consider as impossible (tasks that take a long time to complete) is different that what other gamers consider impossible (ie A+ on all Super Meat Boy levels).

I got all S/P class on Cuphead even though it wasn't required for the Platinum, but some people would find it easier to play a game multiple times through than bang their head trying to perfect bosses. It's all relative.