It hurts!

So, you're a gamer, huh? Do consider any game to have a special place in your heart? Something you finished more than twice? Okay. Good. So we're on the same page - cause I have games like that too.

So, you're playing your favorite game for 5th-6th time and by now you know the main plot pretty well, and you get to this one point in the story you really didn't care for in your first playthough. You know, the one mission that is either boring, or suspends your disbelieve more than you can handle. Or maybe it's the bit that is just tedious and hard to complete?

I'll use, as an example Final Fantasy VII. When your team arrives to the city of Kalm you have this giant retrospective to Nibelheim when you learn first bits of the major story. And by the end of it, characters learn that there is something odd about Cloud memories and the plot thickens... but the whole retrospective scene is completely and utterly boring. Nothing you do or say has any impact on the world - cause it's a story WITHIN the story. So all you do is just follow the track and watch the dialogues.

That retrospective scene comes soon after adrenaline-pumping escape from Midgar, fighting bosses on elevators and fleeing on a motorcycle... getting out of the city. The whole sequence - since going into Shinra's building has the feeling of.. endgame. You know your characters, you know the story and you care for what will happen. You're like six hours into a game at this point. Some modern games have shorter storyline than that...

And then, after the great escape, the wall of watching retrospectives for an hour stares down at you with evil grin. This backstory is important and will be revised few times during the later game, and is used to bring the main bad-boss into the story - but I just can't do it.

So, what do you do? Rush though those parts of your favorite game, or drag it slowly, in two or three sessions, not to overload your brain with the content?

Me? Well, that sort of moment often makes me stop playing my favorite game altogether. I just stop, go play something else and don't look back at the game for a long while - and then, probably start all over.

In Dragon Age that sort of "dry patch" happens to me in the Magi Circle.
In Mass Effect - reaching Feros.

Each game I finished more than twice has those boring parts I'd skip if I could. This is one big plus of playing games with someone else. No, not like multiplayer - but having some living person with you, next to you. Yeah, in real life. I know, crazy - but that's how I played some games on PSX back in the day.

You can make that person click for 30 minutes button X.

Eh.. I feel like playing FF7.

You know, that's the other thing? You got it too? You feel like playing a game, it follows you for few days, then when you finally play it, after 2-3 hours you're done with it. What was that all about? Feeding nostalgia demons in your brain?