Tell GR | What difficult game have you never completed?

There are some games that are so difficult we’ve never been able to complete them. There are other games that are so difficult that, despite our best efforts, we’ve found them so off-putting that we’ve never bothered reaching the end of them. In this week’s Tell GR, we discuss these games and share our shame.

What difficult game have you never completed? Let us know in the comments below!

Here’s what we think…

Paul Tamburro, executive editor: “I’ve never completed a Dark Souls game. I haven’t even completed Bloodborne and, if we’re to stretch the Soulsborne sub-genre out a little further, I haven’t completed Sekiro, either. I’m aware that in some circles this is akin to admitting treason, but the dull reality is that I’ve played each of them for a bunch of hours, got bored of dying so often, and then have moved on to something else. I never really face an insurmountable hurdle, but rather I lose interest in being punished. This is why I’m not cut out for both Dark Souls and BDSM.”

Jason Faulkner, senior editor: “There’s a huge amount of SNES-era games I haven’t completed because they were too hard. I don’t know how much focus there was in difficulty balance in game design back then, but a lot of titles are just unfair. In particular, I’ve owned Beavis and Butthead for SNES since it came out in 1994 and have tried beating it probably 50 times or more. I just can’t do it. Something always happens and I get wrecked by Todd or something.”

Mack Ashworth, lead editor: “I’m going to say The Witness. As much as I love, love, love the game, the difficulty of the puzzles proved too much for me. I refused to cheat and now my save file is sat there, awaiting the day when my brain has matured into a more patient and capable state. I still fully recommend the game, but wow, those puzzles require you to think outside the box and then some!”

Michael Leri, features editor: “I’ve never not finished a game for being too difficult but there is one recent instance of difficulty haunting me: the platinum trophy for the first Crash Bandicoot game. The unfair jumps and punishing difficulty made doing those time trials an utter nightmare and I didn’t have the patience for it like I did with the other two Crash games in that collection. I beat the main campaign like I did so many times as a kid but that extra stuff pushed me past my limit. Those time trials can go get bent.”