What Generally Keeps You Invested In Games?

[Koh]

We've all been there.  You'll get a game, and not like several or most things about it, but continue playing it for some reason.  Could range from the act of spending money on it (making you feel like you need to finish it to justify the purchase), to some aspect(s) of the game itself (like only going on because of the story or gameplay, etc.).

In my case, at the very least the gameplay needs to hold up.  If the game plays like shit or is boring to get through, playing it will feel like a chore.  But assuming the gameplay is at least decent, the OST will be the next hurdle.  The OST doesn't need to be catchy, but if it at least gets me invested in what's happening around the characters (atmospheric), then I can trek through and enjoy the tunes.  Assuming both of the former are at least up to par, the story.  This only applies to games that actually have a story of course, so games like PacMan would be excluded.  If there's going to be a story, it may as well be a good one, and one that actually makes me have a reason to care about the characters.  And finally, at the last leg of it all, the graphics, assuming the others are at least okay.  It goes without saying that pretty graphics can mask a terrible game, but if the graphics are at least appealing to look at, and the rest of the game is okay, then getting through it won't be that much of a chore.

[upmagic]

For just a base level of investment, it has to show some evidence of polish. Must look and control decently so that it's not a pain to interact with. Any awkward interaction is a huge detractor for me.

Once it nails that I will give it a fair shake and it can engross me in a countless number of ways. I can't really make a rubric for that! Because some games may have 'bad' stories but do their job very well in moving the player along, in which case I'd consider it a good story. Sometimes mashing a button is bad gameplay, sometimes it feels absolutely right. Things get very messy when you try to compartmentalize game design. One thing always effects another, which is why that base level of polish is so important.

[psychospacecow]

I really stick with a story if its focused, with a solid aesthetic and gameplay. I love Fallout. Just about every quest in New Vegas feels like its relevant to the world. I didn't much care for Skyrim for the same reasons. I felt like a mailman, which is ironic because you actually are one in New Vegas.
I still go back to Chrono Cross and Trigger sometimes because they're beautiful, and I care about the story.

[Skyla Doragono]

Seconding the need for a good story, but the characters need to keep me invested too. The main reason I kept picking up and putting down Tales of the Abyss for years was because the main character was so intolerable in the beginning that I couldn't stand it. Eventually I played through and it got better, but the beginning made me lose interest so quick.

On that note: openings that are not just a wall of text please. Says the SMT fan.

[Kriven]

It's a lot easier to talk about this in reverse... erm, rather what kicks me out of a game.

If I have to grind for any amount of time longer than ten minutes, I'm going to check out. If I'm not making progress every ten or so minutes, I'm going to check out. If I have to run across a gargantuan map for fifty minutes out of an hour before I move the plot/quest forward, I'm going to check out. I don't even care if that map is pretty and has a lot of characters and environments to interact with, I don't want to trudge back and forth through it to pad out the game. It doesn't matter to me that "look, you can snap logs in half" if that doesn't do anything for progressing through the environment.

[Koh]

I hate grinding for hours on end too...Dragon Quest is the guiltiest series for that. But it's so hard to dislike the series as a whole, because the gameplay is simple and straightforward. I can understand that last one too. In most games that have big lands, though, they have some sort of fast travel at least, subverting that.

[Kriven]

Teleporting/flying/whatever is a fine way to get around Empty Overworld Syndrome. It also helps to make the areas both engaging and memorable... a lot of times it's easy to get lost in large fantasy worlds because they have forests and hills for the sake of "realism" and they just copy/paste the same assets, or barely altered assets, repeatedly... and it can be difficult if like "So... am I trying to go over that autumn-emblazed hill.... or that one? Or is it the one to the left?"

[Koh]

Oh I did forget to mention that sometimes the game is just so outrageous in concept or execution, that I'd stay as well, just to see what else it plans to throw at me.  Like most of the unlicensed Chinese game library...they make you scratch your head like "Who in their right mind would have approved this garbage for release!?"

[Koopaul]

I suppose it's as simple as this: How much fun am I having?

I replayed and beaten Banjo-Kazooie more times than I can count. It's hard to explain why.

[Arcrom]

Having at least an interesting main character that you see a development certainly makes one of main reasons that I may stick with a game for a long time. Giving support characters a chance to shine is also a great plus.

For games where you don’t have a main character, like some simulators or RTS, I would say that the amount of in game features that can be used is what I value to still keep playing the game.

[DioShiba]

I suppose it's as simple as this: How much fun am I having?

I replayed and beaten Banjo-Kazooie more times than I can count. It's hard to explain why.

This is really the same reason why I invested my time beating Super Mario World dozens of times since I was 5.

If I had a solid explanation to why I still will play that game it's simply because it's fun to find new ways to beat a level. I remember how hard it was to pull of using the P-Balloons in Tubular until I found a way to use the cape and the blue yoshi together, or being able to get that huge collection of 1-ups at the end of the forest of illusion's fortress by managing to use the cape.

In short, if there's room for experimentation, the more likely a chance that I can replay the game, the more likely I can replay a game the more fun I will have.

[Kriven]

Blue Yoshi for days, dude.

Just every problem I ever had in SMW was solved by Blue Yoshi.