There’s an expression which has come to mind more and more for me lately. When you’re young you have the time but not the money; when you’re older you have the money but not the time. This applies to so many things in life, gaming included. When I was younger, I missed out on a lot of games simply because I couldn’t afford them. Whilst disappointing, it made a lot of sense. Also, it wasn’t difficult to acquire games by *ahem* other means. Not that I would advocate that (specially not now). If my younger self could see the number of games I’ve bought and not got around to playing though…

I find myself buying fewer and fewer “epic” games simply because I won’t have the time to enjoy them. Work, family and life in general are all more important (to varying degrees…screw work!) meaning that hobbies have to give way. Regardless, it is still disappointing to intend to play a game but never get around to it. So here are 5 games from last year that I had every intention of playing, but probably never will. Oh, and Overwatch isn’t here…

Rules are different this time! Obviously these have to be games I haven’t played that were released last year. I’ve not included games from last year that I’ve bought and not started yet, as I probably will play them. Onwards!
Final Fantasy XV

I’ll start with the big one. I dearly wanted to play this. It looked gorgeous, had a fun tone, unusual mechanics for the series and a huge world to explore with meaningful content. Monsters! Swords! Magic! Kick-ass sports car! Silly hair! Everything I could want in a Final Fantasy game. Even an indecipherable story (probably).

But the size of it moved it further and further down my wish list. That ever present issue of time ate away at my desire to finally pick it up. Even seeing how much reviewers and other bloggers loved it wasn’t enough to save it from the slide. It’s still on my wish list, so maybe some day.
Super Mario Maker (3DS)

I don’t own a Wii U, so Mario Maker was off the table, but the idea of near limitless Mario levels was quite appealing! Whilst I’m not the most creative of people, seeing and playing the levels other people would make sounded great to me. So when I heard that there was a 3DS version on the way, I was certainly interested.

Then it turned out the feature set was going to be severely limited by comparison. You couldn’t access all the levels you could imagine, only the ones that were “featured”. Levels could be exchanged via street pass, but browsing through the tens of thousands (or more?) of levels that people had created and picking out one that looked and sounded interesting was part of the appeal to me. Maybe it will get patched in some day, but with the Switch being released, I doubt it.
The Turing Test

I may, may still play this one. A sci-fi puzzle game with a (supposedly) interesting mystery story certainly sounded appealing! An interesting twist on the “weapon” as a puzzle solving device (a la Portal and it various imitators) along with inventive challenges made this something I was very interested in. In fact, Vahrkalla made a very convincing argument for playing it, and I still very much want to give it a go.

This one came along a few weeks after I’d played a few other first person puzzle games in the form of Pneuma and The Talos Principle, so the idea of another one put it to the back of my mind for a long time. Some day I may well be in the mood to give this a try, but as it stands it’ll just have to wait its turn.
BlazBlue: Central Fiction

I like fighting games. A lot. I am terrible at fighting games. Whilst I can pick up mechanics well enough, I struggle to put them into action during an actual match. This is even more of a problem in anime style fighting games most often associated with Arc System Works due to them being so insanely fast. But they’re so gorgeous! And the action is so fluid! Varied characters and bizarre attacks! Things like Guilty Gear, Chaos Code, and BlazBlue really appeal to me. Mostly for single player though.

The thing with BlazBlue: Central Fiction is that it came out about 6 months after I’d picked up Continuum Shift, the previous installment. More fool me (perhaps) for not waiting for the newer version, but seeing as I was playing mostly offline, having the most up to date version wasn’t a huge concern. Having said that, I would have liked to have seen the online community before everyone switched back to playing as Noel and using her silly endless combos. Like I do.
Salt & Sanctuary

I was put onto this one because I love Dark Souls far more than is healthy. Salt & Sanctuary was sold to me as a 2D Dark Souls, and if you watch it in action it’s pretty clear why. Every action needs to be planned out to avoid silly mistakes and a resulting death. The grimy art style is also reminiscent of its inspiration’s medieval world. I should have picked this one up straight away by all rights.

I feel that at the time I was a little burnt out on super challenging games. Since then, Nioh has come along and rekindled my love for those sort of games, but at the time I needed a break from them. With that in mind, now may be the time to look into giving this one a go.
Some honourable mentions as always. Hitman didn’t interest me during its development, nor upon its initial release. But since then I hear all sorts of stories about hits gone wrong, elusive targets and bizarre successes. I regret not giving it a go when it came out. The Bunker was a really interesting one, being a throwback to the “interactive movies” of days gone by. I like a good horror, but I feel this one may be more suited to a Let’s Play for me. I loved the Attack on Titan anime, so the game was something I really liked the look of. I got the feeling it may get repetitive quickly though, so I passed it by. This one’s also still on my wish list though, so maybe someday I’ll pick it up on the cheap.
How about you? Are there any recent releases you regret missing out on at the time? Let me know! I hope I’m not alone on these ones…
play overwatch obviously
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Played the beta. That counts right?
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I can think of quite a few games that I missed out on or just didn’t have enough time to play.
Dragon Quest 7 (3DS)
Super Mario Maker
Stardew Valley (played enough of it for it to get my Indie of the year award, but still not enough to satisfy my cravings for it…)
Forza Horizon 3
Quantum Break
Final Fantasy 15 (waiting for the PC release)
I can’t think of anything else at the moment :).
I highly recommend Salt and Sanctuary. It’s cheap, has local co op, and you can easily get over 100 hours of gameplay from it. My wife and I played through this game a lot. Each time was different and the art style is amazing too.
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I have to admit, of the ones above Salt and Sanctuary is probably the most interesting to me. Quantum Break was an interesting experiment but it’s fairly flawed. The story was fun though. I’d definitely give Horizon a go though 😉
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The only thing stopping me from buying Horizon is the download size. It’s a 60GB download… It’s bigger than most open world RPGs :).
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I just continually add things to my backlog and watch it increase. FFXV is one I’m still determined to play, one day. I’m still trying to find time to play the one ten games before that, probably because I’m currently obsessed with Brave Exvius, the freemium FF game. I haven’t heard of The Turing Test (the game at least), and while I haven’t played Portal either, I’m still quite familiar with it, because I still live in the world. I’m terrible at fighting games, too. I can usually do the button work to make most moves work, but when it comes to applying them in the midst of battle, I fall flat (literally). I’m just not good at that type of action strategy. My mind doesn’t operate quickly in that fashion. I can pick up patterns, but when you’re playing against another human (or even the computer), there’s really no way of knowing what they’re going to execute.
Hopefully, you’ll get some time to play at least some of these in the future!
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Arc fighting games are really bad for that too. There tend to be tons of mechanics to remember and each character is quite unique. If they made a movie of it, I’d pick it up!
I have to say that I respect what Lightning Ellen is doing with giving up on the whole backlog idea. Hopefully I’ll get to that point and just sack off the games I don’t get around to!
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It took a lot of strength for her to give up her quest, I’ll say that! I’m going to keep my backlog, but it doesn’t really trouble me that much? Like I know it’s there, but I definitely have the games I really want to play, and the others, well, one day I’ll retire :p
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I think it’s fine to have the backlog, just don’t force your way through a game you’re not enjoying just to prove a point. Retiring them is fine!
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100% agree. I’ll declare something DNF if it’s not holding my interest. It’s what I did with fLOw. I played for ten minutes and realized it just wasn’t doing much for me. No point wasting your time with something you don’t enjoy just for the sake of completion. I’m the same way with books, and it took me a LONG time to get there. I used to feel obligated to finish things. Not anything. I’ll declare DNF and then in the review talk about why.
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There’s so many games iterative of the Souls series nowadays, like S&S and Lords Of The Fallen. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and out of those two I’d say Salt & Sanctuary has the most ambition to translate the combat into side-scrolling. I just wish I git gud’d enough to play the actual Souls games :’)
Thanks for the shoutout btw!
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Lords of the Fallen was alright, it was too generic in so many ways though. It was Dark Souls lite. I wish I’d used that time for Salt & Sanctuary in hindsight!
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hmm, for be it would have to be the following
Overwatch – I got this December last year and wish I got it sooner, it’s a blast and fun even for non hardcore competitive folk like me
FF15 – i don’t have a Ps4 but heard many great things on this one
The Last Guardian – again no Ps4, watched my brother play though and looks quite fun and unique
Witcher 3 expansions – mainly because I am still playing the original game and just don’t have enough hours
Stardew Valley – Again not enough hours and I am want to on a handheld platform. I wish it could come to 3DS but looks like I’ll have to bank for the Switch version
Darksouls 3 – I am back logged with the originals and again not enough hours 😦
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FF15 is on Xbox One as well I believe, but the time issue may well crop up again! It always comes down to time once you reach a certain age!
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Oh yea Xbox forgot it was on that. I’m still not used to FF being a multi platform release these days
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FFXV is a game I’d like to play eventually, but I doubt I’ll ever buy a PS4. Hopefully it comes out on PC one day. Mario Maker is very cool but my creative talents are just… not there so I don’t think that would really work out for me.
Salt & Santuary is a good one though – I’m picking it up for Vita as soon as the physical release is available 🙂 Heard a lot of good things and I think it’ll be a good game to test my patience to see if I could ever handle a Dark Souls game.
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Salt & Sanctuary is certainly the one I’m most likely to finally get around to. FFXV is on Xbox one if that’s any help, but it probably won’t be on PC for a while!
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I’ve just started Salt and Sanctuary now that it’s on Vita, and I can chime in with the others and agree to its quality.
I think about this topic literally almost every day. So little time to play all the games I want. From last year, I’m still looking to play Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, Rez Infinite, and Titanfall 2.
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I may well play Rez Infinite (loved the original so more of it is fine by me). That’s mostly because it’s a short game though. I’m finding myself actively seeking out shorter games these days.
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My list of games I have but have not got around to playing is quite long unfortunately… among them is Super Mario Maker for the Wii U. I thought it looked awesome, bought it not long after it came out… and it is still in its wrapper. 😦 Someday I’ll get around to playing it!
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I love the idea of playing that one. So many creative levels to choose from!
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Me too! I really need to start playing it. I don’t know how good I’d be at making my own levels, but I’ve seen videos of some really insane creations!
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