Replay Value

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I got to thinking about this from a topic that I happened to come across on the VG board of TZ. Its interesting to think about since in this day and age most casual gamers are used to only playing through a game once. Most of my friends who play games like God of War or Uncharted, while they like them, admit that they never bother playing through them again after they merely beat them once. For me replay value is an essential thing for a good game to have going for it.

Here's what I ended up posting on that thread as my own response:

Like with others, for me it really depends on the game.

If its a completely linear game full of scripted set-piece events such as Uncharted games or a game that's really slow and repetitive like Assassin's Creed, then I'll likely only ever play through them once and then never touch them again (I don't care much for multiplayer and don't play it for either of those game series, so I'm strictly only referring to single-player campaigns here).

On the other hand there are many games which I will want to experience more than once. Even if they are linear games, if they have multiple paths or multiple different ways to approach them on replays, I'll likely play them a few times over before I'm done with them. To give a few examples here are some games that I replay the hell out of:

Classic 2D Sonic games- Each zone in pretty much every classic Sonic game is big and full of multiple paths, and even after doing stuff like completing all of the bonus stage challenges to collect all of the Chaos Emeralds and exploring the various paths in the levels in general, I still find replay value in the game in trying to beat my previous times and complete levels as fast as possible and without getting hit (or getting hit as few times as possible). So a game that essentially would only take a little over an hour to complete (even less if you're really good at speed-running it), can easily last me over 10 hours based on how much I replay it.

Ninja Gaiden Black- I've played this game at least 8 times and its for a lot of reasons. First of all this is a case in which harder difficulties are handled right and change up enough stuff to keep me interested in coming back for more, such as having new enemies appear and having the locations of certain items that you find switched around (it also changes up the items you get out of chests, and in some cases lays traps for you in some of them). On top of that, though, the game is addicting to replay because of stuff like trying to improve your previous scores for each Chapter and also to try and speed-run through the game in about an hour (for the record its a game that takes most people 15-20 hours to beat on their first run through it, so its not exactly short, either). Also, its just a quality game and the deep combat system featuring numerous weapons is enough to get me to come back just to experiment with different free-form combos. And that's only in terms of its story mode, since Mission Mode more than doubles the play-time that I've spent on the game if you take that into account.

Halo- Say what you want about Halo games, but they have fun enough campaign modes and to me the clever and challenging AI and the harder difficulty settings keep things interesting enough for at least a couple of play-throughs. I usually play each game until I beat them on Legendary (I haven't done that for Halo 2 or ODST, though). Overall, though, this is one of those games that is fun to replay because there are multiple strategies to approach different challenging fights and situations with, and its just fun to jump in and play at any time I feel up to it, and its also good for playing in short-bursts, so I get a lot of accumulated play-time out of the campaign modes for Halo games.

At any rate, those are just a few examples of games that I personally find highly replayable. Like I said, I really only don't like replaying the games that are too heavily scripted and feel like they have nothing else left to offer (or not enough left to offer) after my first time playing through them. Other than that, I'll usually replay most games that I own at least once.

So, what do other people here look for in games that motivates them to replay them? Or do you rarely ever bother playing through them more than once?

[talonmalon333]

One of the most replayable games of all time, it's gotta be. I can't count how many times I've replayed it. Different endings, various ways to get to those parts, trying to do better on levels you've beaten, there's just so many reasons to come back to it.

Typically, I always come back to the games I love, for various reasons. But replayability is an especially big part of Star Fox 64.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well it is nice when there's some sort of incentive. Ratchet & Clank Up Your Arsenal- which I just finished twice, offered new weapons and an upped difficulty level. Since the game was so fun, I didn't mind playing through it twice. I ended up getting almost 25 hours out of it by the time I put it back in the case (I will definitely play it again someday) and I'm struggling to think of many shooters that offer that much content nowadays without tacking on multiplayer.

Even if there's no incentive, if the game just manages to offer the person playing it options (whether in variety of play style) in addition to being fun and polished is enough to make the player feel like they need to keep playing to keep feeling like they should.

[Rynnec]

If a game is so good that it makes you want to play it again almost immediately after you finish it, then it's done its job. This mostly applies to action/shooting games, and platformers.

And as talon already said, SF64 is probably the absolute best examples of a game with great replay value. Played the hell out of that sucker.

[gunswordfist]

What motivates me to replay games is going up a difficulty and/or New Game+s. Devil May Cry 1, 3 and 4 being my best examples. I also want to finally finish going through Halo: CE's Legendary mode. I was doing fine and then my Grandma's copy of the game stopped working. Either way, that made me love Halo again because I thought the game got a bit dull after the first Hunters encounter back when I played it years ago on whatever mode is called Normal. I do like challenge in my games.

With that said, I rarely replay games and rely on liking how long they were.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Branching paths is another good one. I still imagine what a 2D Sonic game could do with them, I would probably never get tired of it.

[gunswordfist]

I also love multiple paths. Which is why I played SORR so many times.