Games you nearly beat, but then you stopped for no particular reason.

[NotMiki]

I know, I know, you'll beat them any day now.  Just kinda curious, particularly about games you still intend to come back to, rather than ones you gave up on because you suddenly discovered that they suck.  Stopping 95% of the way through a game seems silly, but also quite common.  I won't elaborate on what it means to beat the game, just the you subjectively feel like you haven't beaten it but are nearly there.

For me:
FFXIII
Atelier Ayesha
Shadowrun Returns
SMT:N
Wild Arms
No More Heroes
Muramasa (beat it with both characters, but still missing 1 ending)
SaGa Frontier 2
Wild Arms 4
FFXII
Okami (probably not that close, but it's a long game!)
P3 FES: The Answer
Vagrant Story (one of the few games on this list that is here because the final boss was too hard for me at the time.)
Mana Khemia
Shining Force
Shining Force II

I'm sure there are plenty of others, but this is what comes to mind for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm... not sure there's anything that qualifies here for me. The RPG that stands closest is Project X Zone which I got over halfway through but is on hold... that's a bit too recent to really count here though. Otherwise, the RPG I've gotten furthest into without beating is Dragon Quest 9, which is 30% completion or so. So... yeah, I always finish RPGs once I invest a certain amount of time into them. For me, I usually prefer lategame of RPGs to earlygame (there are a few exceptions), and in particular I rarely like the first 3-5 hours of many RPGs gameplaywise, so once I'm past the price of admission I really like to finish the things.

Non-RPGs?

NES Batman - I got to the final boss, but was never able to beat him.
Brave Fencer Musashi - I was something like 75% done this? Played it while spending a week visiting one of my friends, and never bothered to pick it up again / borrow it / etc. later, despite enjoying it well enough. I'm not sure why.

Probably the two biggest.

[Hunter Sopko]

Close to End Before Stopping
Spectral Souls

More Than Half
Final Fantasy IX
SaGa Frontier 2

Less Than Half
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy V
Fire Emblem 8
Breath of Fire


As you can see, for the most part I stop half-way or so now. I did this a lot in the past though and eventually got around to finishing a bunch of them, with games including...

Legend of Legaia (Started 1999, finished 2008)
Final Fantasy 6 (Started 2005, finished 2007)
Final Fantasy 10 (Started mid 2004, finished late 2005)
Fire Emblem 7 (Started early 2005, put it down, finished last two battles December 2005)
Dragon Quest 8 (Started 2007, finished 2010)

[VySaika]

* Gatewalker sighs.

Lemme grab my game case and go through it. Oi. This is...going to be awhile.

Close to the end before distracted
Final Fantasy 2
Atelier Iris 2
Atelier Iris 3
SaGa Frontier 2(The Egg. The motherfucking Egg. Never beat it.)
Shadow Hearts 3
Thousand Arms(Sorry Soppy!)
Mark of Kri
MegaMan X Command Mission(Stalled out on endgame boss rush)
Monster Rancher 4(I would beat this, but my PS3 won't play it. The one game it won't play. ;_; )
Monster Rancher EVO(This on the other hand I just stopped because it's bad.)
Tales of Graces F
Soul Nomad
Grandia 3
Mass Effect 1
Devil Survivor 1(Stalled out on hard endgame fight)
Valkyrie Profile: CotP(Stalled out on A ending boss)
Radiant Historia
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time(Wrecked by final boss too many times)

Halfway through or more, but not close to the end before distracted
Final Fantasy 12
Final Fantasy 13
Romancing SaGa: Minstrel's Song(just for one char, mind)
Grim Grimoire
Disgaea 2
.hack//Mutation
Ni No Kuni
Tales of Vesperia
Enchanted Arms
Blue Dragon
Final Fantasy 4 DS
Endless Frontier
Devil Survivor 2

This is all without going into my PC games or PSP games, which I don't feel like going through atm. -_-;

Or getting into the games I stalled out on before even reaching what I feel like was the halfway point.

Feeling kinda lame atm.

[Captain K.]

Most notable two are Final Fantasy X and Xenosaga.  Both of them suffered from the same fault - they were good games for their time but by the time I got around to them not so much.  In particular I played SO3 before them and SO3 shares a lot of similiarities with both games but does it better.  I am really far in both games though!

Also P3 Answer, because it's just dull.  What made P3 so exceptional was the pacing, breaking up fighting with school events and then back.  When the game is all fighting it gets old quickly.

[SnowFire]

Normally I'm fairly good about finishing what I start (ignoring stalled replays of games, of course) if I've played any of it all (read: ignore games dropped in the first hour), but I've gotten worse lately.  At least that usually means "buy games and don't play them" now, I know not to try and play 5 games at once.

Have played in 2013 but still haven't finished:
X-COM - Enemy Unknown: I had fun with the game!  Just screw waiting for the 2nd plot mission with the Oracle ship to show up in the right continent.  I'm maxed out on Colonels, just let me freaking advance the plot without doing stupid missions that don't get me anything useful now.

The Last Story - I'll definitely finish this though, but taking a break from it for awhile.

FF13-2 - I don't know if I'll finish this!  Only halfway throughish, though.

Potential infinite backburner:

Mega Man 10 - I enjoyed this game too, but got into Wily stages, started writing up detected weakness of the MM1-9 cameo robot masters, realized I shouldn't use consumables, died, realized I should theoreitcaly grind a bunch for screws to take on Wily, thought that was lame, never went back to it.

Avalon Code - I don't think I got fair enough to call this one "nearly beat", but I got ~20% of the way through this or so (wild guess?) which is usually enough to hook me, but dropped it.  Unlikely to return.

Finally, the big one, been on the backburner for ages yet might still be returned to some day:

Tales of the Abyss - Hey, I love this game, I have it as 9/10 in the RPG Ratings topic.  I just don't need to actually, uh, finish it.  I like Tales gameplay but can only take so much.  (I know that for Symphonia I was pretty much running away from every single enemy in the final dungeon to finish the damn plot.  Despite liking Abyss's plot more, I still wanted it to just hurry up and end.)

[Luther Lansfeld]

I don't really do this anymore, although I used to. Took me two tries to beat FF7/8, SH1. Stopped about 30% through G1, 60~%? through SaGa Frontier 2, 60% through CC. About 30% through MK2 Ulrika path. All but the last were due to disliking the game though, not for no reason.

[AndrewRogue]

Pretty much every game I play. I play erratically sometimes and like variety, so I get trapped into starting games, progressing, then something new and shiny distracts me.

[Sierra]

I have a pile of unfinished replays sitting around, but I usually finish things I start for the first time. Notably excepted: Heavenly Sword, saved at the final boss. It's one of those final fights that forces you to rely on a technique that was wholly unnecessary throughout the rest of the game or get horribly mauled. I lost interest there but still have the save sitting around. Maybe someday. I also got distracted 75% of the way into Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines: Game of Too Many Colons, which I plan to finish since it's actually good, maybe after SR4. I dunno why I suddenly lost interest. As much WoD as I could take for a while I guess.

Other stuff in the 10-30% range I just wasn't in the mood for at the time and will (probably) come back to later: God Hand, Breath of Fire 4, Blood Dragon.

That's pretty much it!

[Meeplelard]

Mostly a number of unfniished replays like WA5, Xenogears, FE10 and Xenosaga Ep 1, but first time playthroughs?  None that come to mind.

The closest offhand is Fire Emblem 2 and part of that stems from my computer exploding leading me unable to finish it.  Super Mairo Galaxy as well, but that has to do with some oddball things I won't get into.

For the longest time, Star Ocean 1 was on that list, but I eventually got around to finishing it...and I'm not sure it was worth it!

[superaielman]

Once I get a ways into a game, I tend to finish them. Getting that far is the tough part though. There's a ton of games I've started and quit after an hour or two (WA5, Luminous Arc, Vagrant Story) because they didn't hook me in.

[Pyro]

Romancing Saga Minstrel Song: I got to a really late ER, beat the Jewel Beast (at the final city it destroyed. I tried to catch it napping but got there on the ER it was waking up on, where it can use Jewel Blaster). After that I didn't feel like messing around for an ER or 2 until the endgame opened up.

Xenosaga 2: Almost beat, but got bored with randoms in some timed section and quite.
Xenosaga 3: Got a decent way through and then something (a mech dungeon?) turned me off.

Final Fantasy 13-2: Stopped playing when the game wanted me to find a bunch of invisible crystals

Etrian Odyssey 2: Stopped playing when I had to find a bunch of invisible snow crystals...

Etrian Odyssey 4 Had some problems with the second-to-last boss and put it on hold.

Saga Frontier 2: Hit a brick wall for difficulty midway through or so.

[Meiousei]

This is going to be a long list. Warning:

Meiousei takes a deep breath.

PSX:
Star Ocean 2
Tales of Destiny
Tales of Destiny 2 / Eternia
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Beyond the Beyond
Wild Arms 2
Final Fantasy 5
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 9
Breath of Fire 4
Rhapsody (I couldn't take the singing.)

SNES:
Breath of Fire 1

Gamecube:
Tales of Symphonia
Lord of the Rings (forgot the rest of the title. I know I was pretty far in)
Baten Kaitos (*HISS*)

GBA:
Rivera: The Promised Land
Breath of Fire 2
Fire Emblem 7 (Hector Hard mode ONLY)
Fire Emblem 8: The Sacred Stones

DS:
Final Fantasy 4
Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings (I was literally near the end)
Lunar Knights (<_<)
Fire Emblem 11
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (It was the Sky one)

PSP:
Star Ocean 1
Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core
Persona 3 Portable
Persona
Persona 2: Innocent Sin

PS3:
Wrath of the White Rabbit
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (?)
Tales of Graces f
Final Fantasy 13

And that doesn't cover the fighting games...or emulated games. Though for my PSX, there IS a reason. It broke.

[Meeplelard]

Can't believe i forgot to put Unlimited Saga on my list...but I'm not sure that qualifies as a game <_<

[NotMiki]

Can't believe i forgot to put Unlimited Saga on my list...but I'm not sure that qualifies as a game <_<

when I said "no particular reason" what I had in mind was games you drop despite not much being wrong with them.  Not "there's so much wrong with this game I can't express it with words."

[Grefter]

I do this a fair bit.  Enough that I don't really have memory to catalogue.

Honorable mentions for a specific reason (lololol take that Jim) is Tales games that e"nd" part way through and have a bonus bit afterwards either just because like Legendia or the fffffffffff arc of Graces.  Though I enjoy the series l, their penchant for filler (especially back loaded filler) really doesn't endear me towards that practice.

Edit - Actually one that I really can't justify is FF8. Many replays stop at disc 4.  Because clearly that is the point the game grinds into a pile of stupid (? Error).

Blue Dragon is even worse.  I am up to like my fourth run through Disc 1 at this point and I have never got more than just the start of disc 2.  Not because it is bad or boring.  Entirely because like a new Bioware game  came out or something (I think ME2 and 3 and DA2 each killed a run). I keep restarting because "I am not that far in right and job systems are fun!"  Ciatos and elves can attest to my affection for the game in theory (and watching final dungeon hard mode shenanigans only improved my opinion of it even if I think Nene is buuuuullshit design choice and it really is broken in half with specific builds you would go for with foreknowledge).  I dig the game in spite of itself (Toriyama, characters not Jiro and Kluke [a Diva is a female version of a Hustler], criminal under usage of sick metal wails for standard Uematsu tracks), but I never finish it in spite of myself.

[Meeplelard]

Can't believe i forgot to put Unlimited Saga on my list...but I'm not sure that qualifies as a game <_<

when I said "no particular reason" what I had in mind was games you drop despite not much being wrong with them.  Not "there's so much wrong with this game I can't express it with words."

As if I'd avoid a chance to snipe at Unlimited Saga.


I guess I should add NxC to the list, thinking on it, though part of the reason I stopped was because of legitimate loading issues, which may have been my PS2's fault.  I have since got a different, more functional PS2 and thus have no excuse to at least try the game and see if it works.

FF12ZJIS is the same way, for the most part.

[Otter]

The first time I played FF7 (sometime in middle school, age ~12?) I stopped right before the North Crater.  Did some sidequesting, tinkered with stuff to get ready for the big finish, and then just never went for it.  I'm not even sure why, so I figure it counts for a list like this.  Was I distracted by something in real life (impossible, I was in middle school)?  Did I just not want it to end or something (I don't think I loved it THAT much)?  Maybe the idea of a point of no return just made me skittish.

There's a bunch of PC RPGs that took me forever because I kept going back for more in the character generation screen.  Oh my God.  I played the first three hours of, like, Arcanum about twenty times.  But eventually I finished that one and others like it.  This has been much less of a problem for me lately as I grow less concerned about whether I'm missing out on something or not playing a game perfectly.

[Lady Door]

My most notable one:

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I thought it was an awesome game and was really enjoying it. I have no idea what caused me to completely forget about it and stop playing.

(I have done this recently with a lot of TV shows, too. Sherlock, Doctor Who, DS9...)

[Monkeyfinger]

I may have done this a few times over the course of my life, but the only game I can specifically remember is shadowrun returns, a real stinker that came out a couple months ago. I made it to Dodger's mission, only because the game is so short.