Is there a game that you tried to beat, but could not? Perhaps long ago as a kid, or maybe not so long ago as an adult... a game you nearly beat, but it beat you? Does the shadow of that failure still haunt you?
I will start with my current white whale; Shadow Hearts on PS2. About five years ago this game's final boss beat the piss out of me. I mean it beat the bloody snot bubbles out of me. I gave up on it, hanging my head in shame. But now, years later, I have replayed this game. Now using better equipment strategies and more thorough leveling I've built a far more powerful party than I had before. I am currently saved at the final dungeon, and hopefully tonight (or at least this week) I WILL beat that final (final) boss and put the shadow of shame that Shadow Hearts left upon my gamer soul (is this melodramatic enough yet?) to rest at last.
But alas, Shadow Hearts is not the only white whale in my sea.
So what about you folks? Slay any whales lately? What's your current white whale(s) of gaming? Are you ready to slay with the moral support of this thread? It's time! Let us ban together to aid and encourage fellow slayers until all our white whales are dead.*
*Exhuminator does not support the actual killing of real white whales. (Clubbing baby seals is okay.)
White whales, white whales...well, truth be told, I don't think I have one at this point. Most of the games that haunted me as a child, I have successfully returned to and beaten. And truth be told, the only reason any of these haunted me was because I borrowed them from friends and had to give them back before I got to the end. Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy IV, Secret of Evermore, even Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, I've managed to track down my own copies and play through them to the end.
Oh, wait, no, I know of one. This will probably be a surprising one too, considering my pedigree, but my real white whale would be...
Silent Hill
Seriously, before you ask how this is possible, know that I have never beaten Silent Hill. Not because I'm afraid of it, but because of one single puzzle that thwarted my attempts as a child: the piano puzzle. I originally purchase Silent Hill at launch in 1999 and hungrily played until I reached the piano found in the school...and nothing. My ability to read musical notation is limited(as is my musical ability. You'll note I have not played any instruments in over 15 years), which rendered me unable to grasp the puzzle at the time. I eventually sold the game because I just didn't get what I was doing.
Some years later, I borrowed Silent Hill from a friend and played to the puzzle. This time I managed to make sense of it! I happily pushed past that point...only to have my friend suddenly ask for the game back because he was moving with no warning. Don't ask why the sudden move, it apparently involved Haitian organized crime. Anyway, more time went by, and eventually I managed to secure another copy of the game. But I have yet to go back to it. I just haven't been interested in playing a PlayStation game. Maybe for next year's summer gaming challenge...
I admit I'm also probably the only person here who can say he's been blocked on beating a game due to Haitian gangs.
My white whale is probably Legend of Zelda - the whole franchise really. It's a shame because I love Legend of Zelda. I have started playing nearly every game in the series, but I have never finished a single one. This has more to do with my attention span than any challenge. I tend to love quick, arcade-style games that I can play for a few mintues. I rarely play any video game for more than one hour at a time.
The Final Fantasy Series as a whole . I always get side tracked by something else before I finish them . Literally the only one I have beaten is XIII and yet I own one or more versions of every entry released in the US aside from a few of the spin offs. That being said I have gotten to the final boss or area on 5 or more of them and just not felt enough of a push to grind through it.
For as long as can remember I have tried to beat Bee, Pump it Up's remix of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. I was attracted to its fast beat, sky-high difficulty and unending torrent of challenging steps. It's one of the sons I played over and over and yet I never beat it.
I had the endurance but not the skill. I knew I could beat it without using the bar and kept working on it day after day to achieve that goal. After loads of practice my number of misses dropped under 100. Months later I was getting close to 90. I knew I could pass it if I only managed to hit a couple more steps, you beat the song if you get under 90...
I never did, my best attempt sits at 92 misses.
It's a very demanding song and once I started to play less and less I could see my chances dissapear in the distance. I still love to play it in the rare ocassions I go to an arcade, but chances are I will never beat it.
GRADIUS II
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I chronicled my fight against Gradius II on this forum. You can read how I beat the treacherous fourth stage, how I found the right strategy for Death MkII and how I learned to tackle the Boss Rush. I was making it to the final base alive and digging deeper and deeper into it each attempt, the only obstacle I still hadn't beat was mechanical spider that acts as the game's "last boss".
But I had to study for my exam and my play time was brought to a complete stop in just a few days. By the time I could play freely again, I couldn't get past stage 3.
Looking for a cool game? Find it in my blog! Latest post: Often, games must be difficult http://eriktwice.com/
When I look over my unbeaten games list for games I owned BEFORE I started actively collecting retro games, I've actually beaten almost all of them now. These are the ones I've still never taken out:
Super Tennis For SNES
This wasn't a game that got much play as a kid, but it got just enough play that I have some sentimentality. I love the 'Rats' excalamations when you use and the side change music. Unfortunately, I really suck at the game though. I'm not even sure I've won a single tournament, although in all honesty I've not given it much of a go.
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger for 3DO
Oddly enough, despite being way behind on consoles and having all second hand stuff as a kid, I did have a 3DO (this was post PS1 launch mind, so it was as cheap as it ever got). I had a bunch of games for the system, most of which have been lost by people over the years - games like Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller. No big loss imo. Anyhow, other than Road Rash, most of my 3DO games got no play time at all. I gave this one a go and didn't have a clue what I was doing. I gave it a few more goes recently and I still don't have a clue what I'm doing. I managed to shoot down at least one ship this time, so progress? Maybe in another 20 years I might finish the first level!
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for Gamecube
Bear with me on this one, I'm gonna go on a journey of reminiscence here...
Back in the day in the UK, there used to be a Nintendo magazine called Cube. I mostly bought Official Nintendo Magazine, but I'd pick up Cube now an again. Cube game with 2 discs each issue - 1 had cheat codes for Gamecube games (basically action replay stuff) and one was a gamecube disc sized DVD which had game trailers and stuff on it to watch. I remember 4 trailers I was obsessed with.
The first was Tales of Symphonia - the music was amazing (for those in the know, it was the Tethe'alla Battle Theme) and the game looked a ton of fun. I bought it at launch and put hundreds of hours into it. I must have beat the game about 10 times over 3 years or so. The 2nd trailer I lvoed was Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I lovede the music there too (the intro music) and the game looked action packed and fun. I bought that at launch too, and didn't love it until I played it properly years later, with 4 people.
The third trailer I loved was the one for Baten Kaitos. I'd just gotten into the idea of big RPGs after playing games like Golden Sun on GBA, and playing Final Fantasy IX at a friends house, and Baten Kaitos looked amazing. Unfortunately, money was limited back then, and to this day I've still never owned or played the game. The final trailer I was obsessed with was for Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life.
At the time, Animal Crossing was all the rage in the UK Nintendo mags. I can't remember if this was before it got released here (there were campaigns and hype around the game for years) or just after (when I would have played it to death and been obsessed with it) but those Life sim games looked really awesome. Cube magazine talked Harvest Moon on Gamecube up big style and gave it a score in the high 80s upon launch. I couldn't wait! Even Nintendo Official Magazine's lower score didn't dissuade me.
At the time, in my home town there were no game shops at all. For UK locals, there was a Woolworths, a Dixons and a Choices Video. Those were my options. You just hoped the game you wanted would be in stock when you looked for it. So I looked, and there was nothing. I asked all the checkout people - they had never heard of it. So I found the phone numbers for the GAME and Game Station the next town over and rang them, and they told me the game was delayed. But I put a preorder down at GAME, and waited.
And waited. And waited. After 8 months the game still wasn't out, but the GBA game that was due to release at the same time was out. And in my hype, I decided to buy it. The game was called Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and I loved it to death. It is amazing - I nominated it for Together Retro because I wanted you guys to feel the wonder I had with this game back when, even if you could probably never fully recreate it. There was so much to do, so many secrets, so much charm! And the amazing GBA game just made me even more hyped for the Gamecube game.
Then, months later still the day finally arrived. I phoned GAME, they told me A Wonderful Life was in stock. I had to wait to the weekend, through 5 painstaking days at school, pay £5.50 (no small amount back then for me) for a return trip to the next town 11 miles over, go to GAME, pick up the game itself, and then wait another 45 minutes for the bus, an hour back to my hometown and a 30 minute walk to my house to finally play the game.
And you know what? It kinda sucks. It's slow paced, the characters are less lovable and there's less to do. Farming can't be made any more efficient. And the game as an actual ending. Unlike other Harvest Moon games, where it goes on forever but you get credits when you get married, this one ends after 6 chapters totallign 12 in game years. I never made it past year 3, and that was with a concerted effort.
And that is the story of how I ended up with one of my most disappointing games ever, but coincidentally enough ended up getting one of my favourite games because of it.
Nothing even needs to be said. Can anyone here confidently tell me that you beat this back in the day on the actual hardware? No password/save system. The game does not have infinite lives I believe and it's open world for the most part, with the first person maze sections getting more complex as they go, tons of trial and error triggers... seriously. Who's beaten this game?
Always been a fan. Rented it a lot, some friends owned it, I owned it off and on and still have a copy now, etc. But I have never beaten this monster.
Generally I beat games, I'm a completionist and like "closing" the game off with those credits rolling. I either beat them or drop them and don't care. But Jurassic Park SNES will forever haunt me, until I finally somehow beat it.
Ironically enough, Jurassic Par 2 The Chaos Continues is a Contra styled shooter that is insanely hard and with a very weird level selection idea and multiple endings I believe. Confusing stuff. Not sure if I've ever officially beaten this one either.
Actually, I have beaten Blaster Master. But for being one of my all time favorite games for 20+ years now, pretty sure if I've only beaten it legit once, and with emulation/save states another time. Anyone who has cleared it knows that the difficulty skyrockets after stage 4-5.
Zelda 2 was a big one, but I finally closed off that chapter in my life and beat it last year.
Ninja Gaiden comes to mind. I've owned it since 1992 or so. Haven't beat it. I think I've made it to level 6-1 or so.
Zelda II and Metroid I finally finished about 15 months ago. But those were the GBA ports - I feel like I still have unfinished business with the NES originals.
. I always get side tracked by something else before I finish them 
. Literally the only one I have beaten is XIII and yet I own one or more versions of every entry released in the US aside from a few of the spin offs. That being said I have gotten to the final boss or area on 5 or more of them and just not felt enough of a push to grind through it.
