So we’ve all gotten the power-up and won the game before. But how many games have you beat where you completed (or nearly so) every single aspect?
For instance, I’m currently playing through all seven Tony Hawks again on the XBox. Besides just beating the story modes, I am attempting to kill all the gaps I can find, get all the hidden money, do all the combos, beat all the secret levels, etc. As another for instance, in Painkiller I beat the game but then went back and replayed each level until I got all the black tarot cards, etc.
This would be hard for RPGs where there are so many lines of dialogue and so forth; but for most games, which ones have you played and played until you found or passed every possible challenge and secret?
The first ones that pop into my brain are the zelda games. Over the course of the years I’ve done them all (every heart piece, jar, etc…). The real bitch was all the photos in Wind Waker. It got to the point that I’d fire it up to play just to…snap more pictures. It was devious and evil and I’ll gladly never do that again, but at the same time it was strangely addictive. I just had to see all the little statues.
I beat ratchet and clank deadlock 100%, Also the original super mario world and yoshi’s island. Could never beat the zelda games 100% though. I don’t think I ever beat a rpg 100%, unless illusion of gaia counts.
I came close with Psychonauts, finding all of the psi challenge markers and cards, vaults, cobwebs, scavenger hunt items, and mental baggage. I went back and got nearly all of the figments in each level, but there were some that I just couldn’t be bothered to hunt down before I gave up.
Otherwise though, I tend to start working on clearing all those secrets, but never quite get them all. In Super Mario World I think I got as far as Tubular on the secret star road levels before giving up. In New Super Mario Bros I went back and opened all the levels for the two-star rating, but gave up on trying to get every single star coin. I started working on the Monster Arena in FFX, but there was just way too much grinding necessary.
I’ll have to look through my collection to remind myself of any older games that I might have fully completed though…
I never, ever do this but the gf? She is psychotic. A short list of some of them:
Psychonauts? 100%
Metriod prime 1 & 2? 100%
Zelda Ocarina of Time? 100%
Zelda WW? All hearts etc, though not all of the little statue thingies or whatever
Beyond Good & Evil? 100%
Eternal Darkness? 100%
Number of games where she defeated the end boss? uh… zero? Obviously her idea of 100% and my idea of 100% differ, but it’s still pretty impressive. She has me beat the last boss most of the time, but she does 99% of the rest herself. Psychotic I tell you.
It’s funny how easy the final boss fights are when you have everything the game has to offer. Prime was a totally different fight from my anemic weapons loadout to her completionist philosophy.
The Zelda and Mario games (I currently have all the star coins for the first 7 worlds in NSMB!) are the only ones that consistently get me to go for all the secrets. I did do “everything” in the original GTA3, but didn’t bother in the sequels. I also remember being home sick from school for a week when I was a wee youngin and playing Pitfall II over and over until I beat it with a perfect score.
By and large, though, I’m not one of those people that absolutely has to finish a game 100%.
Spyro the Dragon. I don’t know why, but collecting all of those Gems was hypnotic, and I just had to do it. I think this is the only game I ever 100%'d.
I think FF7 is the only game I could claim this on. Made level 99, defeated all the weapons (even defeated Ruby without KotR; I got my Golden Chocobo by killing Ruby instead of breeding it), had one of every Materia at the “*” level, etc.
I am working through FF X-2 to get basically the same, but I’m using a walk through to get the 100% because you have to do some silly stuff (like “talk to this random guy”) to ensure you get it.
I unlocked everything in F-Zero GX. Took about a month. Zelda’s usually are completed 100%. I might miss one heart piece and just decide it’s not worth looking for (WW). I did kill all of those spider things in OoT for 100%
GTA never. Doing all the side stuff is just not that fun.
I almost have 100% on Kingdom Hearts II (I had 96% as of last night). Some of it’s pretty obnoxious, though. Like getting 20-40 of every synthesis material, killing sepheroth, beating the 50-round (8th) hades cup, and getting rediculous scores in some of the mini-games.
Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 2, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Resident Evil 4 (GameCube version), Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy X (for work), Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy VIII (I’m not sure why, either), Soul Calibur…
I WILL get all the acheivements in Blood Money. I mean, I like the game, I might as well try it with one game, because most of the others are too damn hard. Maybe I’ll try it with Oblivion too.
Beating that on the top difficulty was a pain - had to snag every piece of cash in every level IIRC. I remember playing in my dorm room with my two buddies looking over my shoulder saying “bing” “ping” “bling” hoping for another coin to be revealed in each corner.
