Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. The "Ha-has" are sucking more with each passing minute! Don't say we didn't warn you.

It's another of those days when a million people wrote a million letters saying a million things on the subject at hand - and I just randomly chose a few for brevity's sake.

Yes. I know. You've heard it all before. So why, then, do you come back...?

I'm just sayin', 's all.

Hi Erin, I'd have to say that, for me, replay value in an RPG is usually provided simply because I tend to speed through my first time and miss a lot. I haven't seen most of the spheres in FFX, or gotten the last couple summons or any of the ultimate weapons or anything, and I haven't played a game of Blitzball since Luca. That right there is enough for me to go through again. Practically every Final Fantasy except IX had a lot to do. FFVII had the Battle Arena and Golden Saucer, though Chocobo wasn't my cup of tea; I actually managed to take down Emerald Weapon without KotR, and made two extra Master Magic Materia on my own to help take on Ruby, which took many hours of stealing Elixers from Master Tonberries to feed to those blasted Magic Pots. I also got Omnislash, which was an undertaking as well. Getting Cloud to a level where he could blast through anything himself was a bit of a chore. All said, I spent about 70 hours on that play-through before a roommate saved over it. Besides VII, FFVIII had Triple Triad and the hidden GFs, which were fun to hunt down, except for Doomtrain. Stupid Malboro tentacles. The only FF that's been boring on the second go for me was IX; the extra stuff just isn't that compelling, and Chocobo Hot 'n' Cold just drove me nuts. *Peck!* Nothing. *Peck!* Nothing. *Peck!* Nothing. Feh. A side note: does anyone else agree that the soundtrack to FFX is just superb? I don't think an FF game has ever had a soundtrack this EVEN; some songs from other games are definitely more stand-out, like Kefka's theme, "Dancing Mad" or One-Winged Angel," but even FFVI had some tracks that were annoying or throwaways, like "Spinach Rag" and "???." But on this one, EVERY SONG is good and appropriate to its situation, with some extremely pretty Mitsuda-esque guitar pieces and such. I'm just sayin', 's all. Mud Pepper

I'm looking forward to coming back to FFX in a few months, once I've gotten a few other titles out of the way. The game has a lot of hidden subtleties I breezed right past in my eagerness to get on with whatever there was to get on with at the time - it never even occured to me how much I was missing till I reached the final outpost of sorts that is the Calm Lands, with its min-game madness and barrage of allusions to cool things missed.

Cool things missed, as this column will hereafter manifest, are a big part of what drives us to the masochism of doing it all over again.

Incidentally, I'm pretty damned fond of FFX's soundtrack, as well. But more on that in columns to come: I fully intend to give a day (or two) to the game after the weekend.

Setting us straight

what makes me play a game again? FAQ"S AND GUIDES ever since i got the first final fantasy strategy guide from my nintendo power subscription, i have always went back for a second round. every, and i mean EVERY rpg i have played (and beaten) had it's second run. needless to say, it gave me the 108 from suikoden, all the cards from the FF cards games, and a host of other cool little secrets i missed (i accually didn't get vincent my frist time through FF7, which i normally don't miss things like him) So, now that i hav FFX, and i'm avoiding the blitzball drug, im going to finish it, and guess what? Hop over to gamefaqs.com to do it all again, this time the right way. Scythe Doombringer, still trying to understand the crappy FF9 strategy guide.

One of the things that characterizes the fanaticism of an RPG player is their childlike hurry to see what happens next in the (if somewhat hackneyed and cornball) story. And while it's all well and good to be so incensed by a cast member's death that you charge instantly forward in the plot to knock some pretty-boy villain's roof in, you tend to miss a lot of crap that way.

And so there's something to be said for strategy guides, which can point out all that we missed and compel us to go back and clobber that Ultima Weapon to get someone's ultimate weapon - the Ultima Weapon - so that we might knock that same pretty boy villain's roof in all over again - and laugh, pointing, when he dies after a single turn.

But for course, like everything that gets brought up in the sunny little courtyard that is DA, the walkthrough coin has its flipside....

Overkill (P.S. is a FFX spoiler of sorts)

Ah, replay value. So often sought after, so rarely achieved. The lack of any replay value whatsoever in many recent RPGs (or just the old ones I pirated off the internet) seems to me to be that many game designers have forgotten what makes such a thing. Going back to find each of the 500 super ultra hidden characters, each with little to no character development to speak of (Chrono Cross, I'm looking at you) does not make for much replay value, at least to me. Granted, each game is permitted one hidden character to be tacked on in the end and hidden in an incredibly obscure location where no one could ever possibly find it without a guide, because that's just fun. And, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't mention that, because Umaro rocks. He's the freakin' abominable snowman, for crying out loud. Ahem. Back on topic. I look at a number of things when determining a game's replay value. Multiple endings are a plus, but not required. Hidden (but developed!) characters are a nice touch, especially if they're complete bad-asses like Vincent. Mini-games, the subject of yesterday's DA are all very good if they're integrated into the story well and have some decent rewards. But for me, the meat of replay value lies in side-quests. Not just a hidden boss or a few levels of random battles like the Gelnika, but a good-sized tangent that complements and adds to the original story. Think Chrono Trigger, better known as the epitome of replay value. CT had just about everything I mentioned above and more, and remains my favorite RPG to this day, largely in part due to the fact that you can play through it half a dozen times and still not complete everything there is to do. Innovations like 'New Game +' add a good amount of replay value also, and it's something I would like to see imitated more often. However, it is worth mentioning that a lack of replay value is not always the designers' fault. Playing through the game with a walk-through at your side often destroys any replay value the game may have. After all, what's the point of going back to play the game again if you already found everything the first time around? FFVII is proof of that for myself; after finishing the game with almost every materia and weapon my the first time through, I found there was little point in playing again. Curse you, gamefaqs.com. Curse you. - Matt "Playing through FFX without a single walkthrough or strategy guide" Douglass On a side note, you've completely wrecked the ending of Final Fantasy X for me. From the FFX international story: "...this completely new scene takes place two years after the end of FFX, and features Yuna..." Damn the inadvertent spoilers to hell. At least mark it off next time, hmm?

The use of strategy guides - and the more recent and prolific beast that is the GameFAQs walkthrough - really do decimate a game's would-be replay value.

I've long since lost count of how many times I've played through FFVI. In days gone by, I'd rather snort barbed-wire than buy a strategy guide, and I hadn't yet experienced the mind-contorting wonders of the internet. And so finding everything - or at least feeling vaguely satisfied that I'd found close to everything - hinged upon playing through again and again... and yet again when I realized I probably had to do whatever it was I wanted to do before the upheaval that marked the midpoint of the game.

But, through perserverence, I managed to find GoGo and Umaro, save Shadow and unlock Cyan's final SwdTechs, sustain my frail "Grandpa" Cid and find every pesky piece of Magicite. I never did find the Marvel shoes, though. Suppose I could always bust out the SNES one last time...

Oh, and yeah... On a side note, you've completely wrecked the ending of FFX for me, now, as well. I'd steadfastly been avoding any specifics regarding FFX International because I feared something of the kind. Is your lust for vengeance sated, now, lad?

It's all about the cows

In order to figure out why some games are impossible to stay away from, I hereby analyze three amazing addictive games. Advance Wars - Game Boy Advance - I come back to bask in the sheer joy of a flawless strategy game with an infinitude of options and polish to spare. Pokemon Puzzle Challenge - Game Boy Color - Humans were put on earth solely to create and play this game. With GBC selling for $30, there is no reason you shouldn't have played this game. It is a brilliant brilliant BRILLIANT game. Harvest Moon: Back To Nature - PSX - Cows. The common thread is cows.

Why didn't I see it sooner...?

Special people with special problems

I seldom replay any of the RPG's I buy. Usually they are followed by another RPG, and another, and another...you see where I'm going (god, how I love the RPG genre!). I have only ever replayed four RPG's in my life (note: replayed immediately after they had been beaten). These include Chrono Trigger (a great experience the first, second and third time I played it), Suikoden (You mean Gremio can come back to life!?!?!?), Final Fantasy Tactics (Being the freak that I am, I mastered EVERY job class with EVERY Character - even the duds!) and Xenogears (see: Chrono Trigger). As you can guess, I have quite a few more RPG's than this but I am never motivated to play them right after having beaten them - there just wasn't any point. ...then there is the evil creation known as Phantasy Star Online (and Ver.2)...I've lost count of the number of times I have "replayed" this STUPID game. Granted, the only point in playing is to "replay" or revisit areas in a futile attempt to find those rare items that, by the way, you can't find. I wasted over 2000 hours of my life playing this accursed game. When Final Fantasy X came out, I was able to box this twisted malevolent creation away, forever locked in my closet where even the brightest light cannot penetrate (in other words, next to my copy of Lunar: SSSC and Azure Dreams). There was a new game in my life, one that promised hours of great gameplay and rare items that I could find.... ...until you....You had to bring up this replay nonsense! That chapter of my life was closed until you had to stir the melting pot within my head and conjure up nightmares of me spending hours and hours looking for a Yasminkov 3000R, a weapon I had no chance of finding. Now I have to slay thse demons and reseal the nightmare back within my closet! NO! [breaks down and begins to sob].................................................................[sniff] But it's ok now, Lulu, Yuna and Rikku will make it all better. They will cheer for me when I pound the stuffing out of the Luca Goers in a game of Blitzball. They will help me forget.....those things......that I do......what was I saying? From an institution for "Special People with Special Problems"... - Justin

Look! A letter naming obsessive-compulsiveness as the prime motivator in replaying a game!

Truth be told, these made up for the massive bulk of this topic's reader response.

Anal Retentiveness: nature or nurture?

I'll tell you what makes me want to spend (waste) another 50 hours of my life to replay a game: my mother's anal-retentiveness, which raised an anal-retentive son (when it comes to videogames anyhow). There is no possible way I can live with myself if I didn't get most (if not every) good item/weapon/etc. in the game, so I have to go through the game once again (twice again if the game's Legend of Mana, curse you blacksmith!). Which is probably why I have yet to finish FF7-9 (I'm so sorry...): The dire task of getting everything is too epic for me (not to mention pesky battle load times, how I long for the old-school days!)... which means I'll probably trade DW7/FFX/MGS2 playing time for a brainless Quake3 match or a good ol' session with the monkeyballs... can you cry with me? Cursed with too many (quality) games, Quincy

I could cry with you ... But I think I'd rather just laugh at you.

Refinement

Dear Erin, I must be the only one who ever liked Tetra Master more than Triple Triad. Moving on to Replay Value. The only game (without a New Game +) I've played more than 3 times is FF7. The reason being that everything is just....streamlined. As you play the game, your materia just grows along with you. You don't have to make the tedious trip of walking around to power up your materia to new heights. As you walk around, it just happens. No fuss, nothing. I've always wanted to replay FF8, but the thought of drawing spells ALL OVER AGAIN makes me weep. You'd weep too if you spent the bulk of FF8 drawing 99 Comets and Ultimas for EACH AND EVERY MEMBER and imagine doing it again for a second time. As for FF9, no way am I going to walk around learning skills for each and every single person regardless of participation (I'm a completist, sue me). As I look at Ogre Battle, I doubt I'm going to play that game a second time to get anything. But on the other hand, it's just so interesting and fun to smash into your opponents and beat the living daylights out of them. Even with New Game + I don't even play the game. I have a New Game + save of Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story, and I don't see myself playing them anytime soon. I've discovered everything I can get my grubby hands on, not much reason left to do anything (except see your overly powerful people beat everything up in sight, heh heh heh). I do recall playing FFT up to a certain point to see some of the story scenes I'd miss (not everything is recorded). In a nutshell: If I have to divert a few hours of my time to get all my FF8 GFs to level 99 and everyone except Rinoa at level 100, I'm not going to touch it after the end credits. DMJ - Rinoa was level 14 till the end with only Invincible Moon. Whee.

I was a bit put off by the thought of acquiring a second arsenal of spells through the tedium that is the Draw system, myself. But on a second playthrough of FFVIII, I hurried my GFs along in the learning of their Mod abilities, and modded 100s of the the necessary spells from items and cards rather than doing it the old-fashioned way.

One thing you have to say for replays - when you go into a game knowing exactly what you're doing from the start, there's often a good deal of entertainment to be had in refining your techniques and strategies to a lethal artform, you know?

For all the right reasons

Dear Erin, What makes me want to play a game over and over and over again? Hrm, time to analyze my favorite games I guess. Suikoden 1 and 2 had extremely good storylines (I can overlook Suikoden 2's translation errors most of the time). That seems reason enough to play them over again. But is it the only reason? Oh no sir, it isn't! To touch on yesterday's topic, there are a plethora of mini-games to play (I tought people to play chinchirorin at school... I'm a geek). The fun doesn't end there however. Those games had cute boys in them too. That just feeds my yaoi lovin' mind(way to go Konami!) and gives me more desire to replay them. Finally, the multiple endings, the likeable characters, and the quest to get eleventy billion people into your army require replays. Dance Dance Revolution (insert mix number here, preferably DDR MAX) has good music that I like to step on arrows to. And who can honestly say they hate having a crowd watch them while they look like a crazy person having a seizure. Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like being embarrassed in front of a crowd! Did I mention the series has good music? I mean REALLY REALLY good music? *Runs around singing Flash in the Night* Wow, my interests really don't go much beyond those three games. That's a lie actually. I just don't feel like listing more games because I really touched on all the reasons why. Ooh, I smell a recap! Shane's Reasons to Replay a Game *Note: Reasons in no particular order* 1.) Good storyline 2.) Super fun mini-games 3.) Hot boys 4.) Multiple endings 5.) Likeable characters 6.) Eleventy billion characters to aquire 7.) Really good music 8.) To show off/make a fool of yourself 9.) Really really good music 10.) REALLY REALLY REALLY DAMN GOOD MUSIC -Shane, who turned into a Konami fanboy all of a sudden

Good, concise list of replay factors - though a list that leaves me with little to comment on. Especially considering how many people have made me promise never to mention Y-A-O-I in my column.

Classic Gaming 101

Yo. The factors that contribute to me playing through a game twice really depend on the game. Witness, for example, a game like Xenogears. Awesome does not begin to describe Xenogears, and yet I haven't even looked at it since beating it, so very long ago. Why? No need. Then, take something like Fallout, or Baldur's Gate 2, where there's about a million different ways to do everything. I'm not the sort of extreme gamer who'll go through thirty-odd hours of gameplay just to hear what Imoen says if I pick reply B instead of reply A. I will, however, go through those same thirty-odd hours of gameplay to try and hook up with Aerie, quite possibly the cutest video game girl ever. Finally, there's something like FFVII or Zelda 64, where I'll run through the game again in order to obtain "the perfect save", with all the secrets found and weapons obtained and monsters defeated. Oh, and there's FFX. That has blitzball and Lulu. 'Nuff said. -Northwind, who thinks that FF heroes, always go for the LEAST cute playable character. I mean, come on. Quistis? Beatrix? Rikku? Lulu? Man, what are they THINKING?

Well-put, sir. An awesome game with a memorable story does not a repeat play make. Not necessarily, in any case.

Past battles over its narrative merit aside, Xenogears can, at least, be likened to literature in this regard. The game was, by and large, a complete, linear thought with very little left to the player. With a few notable exceptions, how often to we re-read books? Even those we enjoy?

It could be summarily said that interactivity is directly proportional to replay value. Except in FFX's case, of course - FFX has T&A:

It had to be said

"What makes YOU want to spend another 50 hours with a game you just played, and what games have that certain something that drags you unwittingly back, just when you think it's finally over." 50 more hours of staring at Lulu's chest & Rikku's butt!!!!!!! wooo -z

C'mon. I was obligated to show my respect for his honesty by representing this near-universal (admit it) POV.

That special feeling

Blitzball is a damned cool mini-game. So cool that it almost atones for those awful birds that keep hitting me in the chocobo race mini-game. That is, without exception, the most horrible, insufferable, psychologically scarring experience I've had to endure since I finished chemistry class. Oh yes, today's topic. I have a terribly short attention span, so I rarely play games more than once. Stories turn stale really fast, especially on the second time through. (Try playing Xenogears again and see how far you get.) RPGs that are more gameplay-oriented, conversely, have a lot more replay value for me. I'm on my third time through FF Tactics, and it has yet to get old. Hidden items and replay bonuses (such as the additional characters in Chrono Cross) are usually appealing as well, but they have to be substantial enough to justify another 30 hours of my time. Getting new characters is (sometimes) worth it; simply having twice the HP is not. Multiple endings (like those in Metal Gear Solid) help as well. The most important criterion in determining a game's replay value, though, would have to be its overall "feel." I don't quite know how to describe it, but the Final Fantasy series is a perfect example: although no individual element stands out, the game just feels much more immersive than a game that lacks this kind of appeal. Grandia succeeded in this respect; Suikoden did not. Both were excellent games in their own respects, but I'll only remember one of them five years from now. And then there are the games that exhaust their play value about 1/6 of the way in. Anyone want to buy my copy of Dragon Warrior VII? Mike

I wish I could lend a hand in defining this "feel" you speak of, but alas, it's a pretty nebulous quality, despite my being acutely aware of it. I fully intend to one day saunter through FFIX again, though exactly why I couldn't tell you. Not for Tetra Master, that's for goddamned sure.

The game's renaissance-reminiscent environments and whimsical inhabitants were just ... neat. For their sake, I'd do it all again.

Master of your own destiny

Yo! I've always found, oh great, wise, and ever so intelligent one, that I keep finding myself coming back to play Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. It is for a simple reason, that the game is just so involving to play. The simple yet exquisite way in which the battles are handled, demanding not just strength, but skill, is too alluring to resist. Add to that that the game penalizes you for becoming too powerful before you're supposed to, and that doing as such can get you one of the endings which pretty much puts you in the ranks of arch-villains Empress Endora and the ever-so-evil Rashidi ands ends in your termination. Not just that, to get the best ending, one is forced to be good from the start owing that the sword Brunhild that determines pretty much all is in the 7th or 8th stage. That's what draws me to it, is the control of the story, that gives it the flow that's all it's own. Add to that characters who are sketched out not fully, but just enough so that you look at them when their time comes. Witness the simple conversation between the angel Yushis and her prodical sister Mizal. You can't help but feel sorry for Mizal as you're forced to fight her, but there she is, casting Jihad on you. Sure, you don't read ten trillion pages of text about them, but their personalities are clearly shown in that one interaction, and the lore that you hear as you liberate the towns. Even the backstory is deep, with the evil Empress Endora of Zeteginea really turning out to be Rashidi's pawn, and she only submitted because she was attacked and had no other choice. Not to mention the myriad endings, that run the gamut from the previously stated Pure Evil ending if you choose to ally yourself with the demon Galf, or just are sadistic, or the happy ending that occurs with the fulfillment of all that is good. Even the gender of the hero can change it. All this combined to create an epic game that soars with the tale, waxing and waning to the beat of war. -Sir Blaze, who still goes off to liberate Zenobia from Endora, but still feels a pang of sadness each time she falls... Erin, Somehow, almost every question in the DA column instantly bring one game to my mind as an answer. Revelations: Persona. I have 5 saves on my memory card for that game: one with Ellen, one with Brad, one with Chris, one with Alana, and one without any of the 5th characters (yeah, it is possible. Took some gamesharking, but was possible). Which is the single most important thing to me in deciding whether to replay a game or not: whether I have gone through all possible situations and stories with different characters. Sure, each character in Persona had different personas they could use and such, but the real beauty was the little conversation blips in every room of the game that developed the characters so well. Which is why I don't see myself playing FFX over again, except for maybe Blitzball; I can use every character with relative ease, and they can all be developed at the same time. If you couldn't do the switching thing, then I would probably have played through it again to see how the game was using different core characters. Then there's the "Chrono Trigger" effect - namely, branching storylines or endings depending on how you play. Most games have some form of this; once again, FFX being indisputably linear, there's nothing of this sort of thing to motivate me back into playing the game. And you also have the "Fighting_Game_00" effect, where you keep playing just to further develop your skills with a character so you can beat your friends later on; or, possibly continue playing to master other characters that you haven't used yet. That's why fighting games have so much replay value - it is really hard to say you have "mastered" a character in that sort of game, regardless of its simplicity (read: Smash Bros.). To conclude, Persona has pretty much all these things (except the fighting game thing, of course) which is why I played through it fervently so many times. -Xaen P.S. I don't think, in my extensive history of videogaming, that I have EVER hated ANY character as much as I hate Wakka. But I guess that's a testament to FFX's incredible character development.

You're entitled to hate Wakka - because I didn't much care for Persona, though it's nothing to do with its admittedly well-drawn characters.

Interesting dialogue, branching storylines and multiple endings can go a long way toward making you want to slog through something again - provided characters are likable, real enough for you to go that extra mile for their benefit.

Missing out

Thanks for bringing up one of my favorite subjects! Replay value! This was something that didn't really sell games for a long time, only really becoming a focus in the market since Chrono Trigger brought up the new concept of "New Game +". What makes you want to replay a game, I think, is the feeling you've missed something. You can tell you're gonna replay a game when a certain string of scenes really calls out to you and you say to yourself "Dang, I gotta see that again.". Its really hard to tell which games will be your replayables, too! If you look at Grandia 2 - simple plot, set characters, semi-standard battle system, you'd think once would be enough. But its not - Grandia 2 is probably one of the most replayable games you could add to your library, because you're certain to miss certain bits of dialogue (often hilarious - I missed the bestiality comment directed at Skye the first time!) and for the darndest reason, levelling up is a blast in that game! I think what makes a game replayable are memorable scenes, obstacles that are more easily overcome with knowledge, "missable" things/scenes/whatever worth going back for, and shorter games are more likely to be replayed. For your next topic, might I venture a discussion about Replay Value's older sister, Lasting Appeal?

The only issue I have with CT/CC and all their multiple endings, is that the feeling of having missed something you describe never goes away for me in such cases. I don't know why, exactly, but playing out a dozen possible scenarios robs me of that nice, tidy feeling of closure I get from the likes of Xenogears with their simple, tidy linearity. If I wanted bleak uncertainty I'd quit playing games and head back to reality.

Anyway, venture on, my child. Tomorrow's Saturday - it's not as if I'll have to deal with it. Heh.

Closing Comments:

Yup. Lasting appeal. Does it even exist, as such? Yes, we all regard those early Zeldas, FFs, DWs, and PSs as timeless classics and could probably all pick them up and play even now ... but are there really games out there with enough timeless appeal to shine through their stone-knives-and-bearskins presentations? Enough to enchant a cynical, modern-day gaming neophyte?

Fly, my winged monkeys of doom, and tell Drew what you think.

-Erin Mehlos