As any RPG fan knows, the story is one of the driving forces behind playing and finishing one of these behemoth games. These monstrous storylines can take anywhere from ten to twenty to forty hours or more to be revealed to the player, as bit by bit the plot is slowly fleshed out through cutscenes and in-game dialog. As games have advanced it's become easier and easier to figure out where to go next to move the story along, as vague comments about cities and dungeons unknown to the player have evolved into hand-holding linear pathways, neon sign lined routes, and quest reminder pages. However, one thing these games lack is a synopsis of what has occurred throughout your playing time, leaving it up to the player to remember what has happened and why it's so important that you should care about moving to the next level, why you're so dead set on defeating the plight that darkens the horizon. So what happens when an influx of new 'must-play' games comes out and your current RPG flame is put on the back-burner at twenty hours in?

The story that's been invested in so far is forgotten, and the urgency felt during the initial playtime is lost. Trying to get back into a subtle and nuanced storyline after a long delay is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to accomplish. Remembering who hates who, who likes who, what I've done in the world to change it, why this town hails me as savior while that town hails me as villain, all lost. That's one of the reasons this is my second playthrough of Lost Odyssey, and why my copy of Persona 3 is laughing at my four month absence.



Now, of course, this isn't limited to role playing games, as similar things as this can happen in any type of game. Set a game down for two weeks and the vague outline of plot can still be remembered, but other parts of the game can be forgotten. On games like fighting games or action games, the hardest part of picking it back up is muscle memory based on button combinations and combos. On platforming games timing, level memorization, and character movement are what's lost during long absences. On shooters the twitch specifics are lost, control placement becomes muddled(on consoles at least), and weapon preferences can be forgotten. However, these problems are just a lack of fundamentals, and if picked up and played for an hour or two they can be adjusted to.

In a longer, more story driven quest however, the controls aren't the problem when picked back up. In fact, most RPG's these days all play the same with 'twists' to the control scheme to differentiate them from others in the genre, so getting back into the swing of things is usually pretty easy. The same can be said for action RPG's too, as usually attack is mapped on one button, magic another, items another, etc, and can be found through trial and error in the course of about ten minutes. The problem is direction. If you lose the jist of the story, you lose the sense of direction you've been following from the beginning of the game, and the flow of the game is directly impacted, as you spend the next several hours trying to pick up hints and clues to what has happened before and what's to come next. And most likely the NPC's that you're questioning are commenting directly about what was occurring in the storyline right then, and oftentimes have no context relating to anything helpful unless you know what has been going on.

So what does one do? Well, one option is going back through a FAQ and trying to pick up where you left off, however the problem with this is that most FAQ's don't involve storyline in their pages, leaving you with how to do the next objective, but not why. Wikipedia can be helpful, but usually the story is stripped down to a bare bones synopsis, and spoilers can be found a mere sentence away. Besides, reading the plot of a game from a webpage is like reading the story from a movie in the newspaper, it gives a nice overview, but much of the emotion and life is taken out of it. So often times I find myself lost, frustrated, hitting the reset button, and starting over with a new game.



Is this a bad thing? For me I don't think so. Yes, it sucks starting in a thirty hour pit, yes it sucks losing all that time that I'll never get back, but it really makes you appreciate what you've been through. Not only that, but as you replay through the game the memory of what has previously been accomplished slowly comes back, and the time spent between story advances becomes less than it was the last time the quest was attempted. Previously convoluted parts of the story line may become clearer, and previously unknown areas and secrets may be found due to a more focused second run of a game. While I don't always want to go back through a game, sometimes a second run can help smooth out the edges of the story, or let's you see more clearly how you end up where you end up.

On the negative side, you are going back through hours upon hours of already accomplished game, so if there was a slow part that didn't really appeal to you the first time, it has to be fought through again. On the 360 this can be a mood killer too, as all those achievements already unlocked won't give you the smug satisfaction of bloop, and makes it seem as if you're playing for nothing, at least until you reach where you last left off. Grinding too can be off putting, as on a second play you generally know what level you need to be around to push on through, and may try to skirt it to more quickly reach further in the game, leading to more deaths and furthering frustrations.

So, in the end, is it really worth it to play back through twenty hours of a game to get to and through the remaining hours? Or is it more worthwhile to forget about what you've learned and press on regardless to finish the game? For me, I'd rather experience a game as a whole, enjoying it from start to finish with no questions besides what is presented to me in the game as opposed to what I should know but have forgotten. I'd rather replay through what I've already seen and done to garner a greater appreciation of where I stopped the last time, to justify the time and effort spent, and also to be more dedicated to finishing the story and wrapping up the tales of these characters whose lives I've gained a vested interest in.