Face it, we all have at least ONE game that has eluded us

It’s a day like any other. You check out your nearest brick and mortar game shop, whether it be a local mom and pop, Gamestop, or any other well known chain. You’re just there to check stuff out, absolutely nothing will come out of this. Or you are browsing online, apps like Best Buy or Amazon. Just as you ever so innocently were perusing the shopkeepers’ wares…it calls out to you. The Sale. Buy-one-get-god-knows-how-many. You fight it but the willpower is fading away slowly, and The Sale consumes you.

I’m a sucker for a good sale, especially since I’ve been trying to build out a decent physical collection. This is fine until you realize you’ve done this over and over and you have a stack of games that have not been touched yet, or have been played briefly. The dreaded backlog is omniscient and omnipotent.

It becomes so much more difficult to manage it when, let’s admit, there’s just so much out there to play. I can easily think of multiple titles from now till early next year that have been announced and I’m looking forward to. This isn’t even taking into account those games I’ve picked up on those sweet sales I’ve mentioned earlier. The logical solution would just be to avoid buying new games until you’ve played the untouched or unfinished ones. This idea is great on paper, but the dedication to that must be real to avoid anything new, especially moreso for expended periods of time. There are plenty of ways you can go about tackling your list, and while I’m no expert, I can share with you what I’ve personally done to combat it.

Out With An Old, Out With A New

This one is simple enough. Sometimes backlog games tend to be older. I think we tend to be attracted to the newer games as they generally run smoother, look better, and have better QoL features. That’s obviously not the case all the time but let’s just assume to make things easier. So you have your older backlog game…balance it off with a newer game. Ying and Yang. Equilibrium maintained. Recently I completed Hades (excellent game, by the way), and my backlog game? Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3. DWG3 fell into the cesspool of my backlog for years because of a dead online, and slow paced stories that all seemed to barely evolve from where they started. We are talking some serious contrast here: A game that was a smash hit on the switch and has also garnered excellent reviews on the current gen consoles, and a game that released stateside in 2011 using a franchise that I feel has still hasn’t been properly pushed outside of Japan. Hades, as difficult as it was for me, served as my buffer for the monotonous gameplay that has always plagued Musou games.

Compare And Contrast Same Style/Theme/Genre

Continuing on using the same examples for this, I really enjoy the Gundam franchise and all that it encapsulates: the drama and rivalries, the eclectic cast (seriously..Full Frontal? Where do they get these names from?), and the mobile suits most of all. Hades, to me, was top tier design for its genre and excelled with its character dynamics. I feel like the character banter, relationships and rivalries mirrored DWG3, so I enjoyed seeing how well those dynamics are portrayed and handled in between the time difference of these games. In this instance,, I compared how two vastly different games handled those relationships and character interactions,, because they implemented it in very different ways.

Perhaps playing two similar games might help make it easier. A better comparison would be games that are a similar genre or even franchise. Ys IX Monstrum Nox was a great game, and it finally pushed me to at least boot up Ys VIII Lacrimosa Of Dana. Playing a current gen Final Fantasy and an older, classic title might be a way to help tackle the games by giving yourself the chance to critique them both, see the evolution of the series and how those traditional designs and systems impacted the game in its most recent iterations.

Make It Fun!

This one is currently my go-to backlog strategy, and I’ve had a reasonable amount of success as far as completion. I decided to set small completion goals for myself. I’ve created community votes, checklists, and challenges, all for the sake of adding a bit of fun to tackling some backlog games. Why? Well, sometimes some games are there because you didn’t like it at all, and that’s fine. Remember, as much as I love my collection of digital accolades like platinums, nobody is really going to go out of there way to judge you based off of what you play and why. So if you don’t like a game, don’t play it. However, sometimes giving that game a chance again and you might be quite surprised and thing to yourself, “why the hell didn’t I play this sooner, I love it”.

Right now I’ve given myself an A To Z JRPG Challenge, in which I’m taking some lesser known games from the genre that I own, and finally playing them. That’s a lot of letters, and we all know JRPGs are not known for being the short, hop-in-and-out type of game. I’ve taken plenty of breaks and for some games, just flat out swapped them out. I’m doing it to make reducing my backlog FUN, so the last thing I want to do is make a huge chore out of it. By doing this I’ve played some games that are ‘meh’, some that have been good, and some that completely exceeded my expectations, but I at least make sure I’m having fun while doing so.

Acceptance

If you have a massive backlog like me, this one is crucial. You may need to come to terms with the fact that, the only way you are going to clear your backlog is if you quit your job, sever all social and romantic ties with people, and become a recluse. The sooner you can acknowledge that you don’t need to play every single game, you can then make some important decisions. If you find yourself at this crossroads, take a look at what you own own sort out what you really want to play versus what you you absolutely no intention of even starting. One way to address this is, if you decide you are only going to play 10 out of these 30 games, is to get rid of the other 20. Sell them, delete them, ignore them. If you are collecting games then go ahead and collect, and keep the collecting aspect separate from the completion aspect or you will drive yourself crazy.

As I’ve begun to seriously tackle my backlog, I’ve learned to focus more of a select few big, new games, and just wait for sales for stuff I have only a mild interest in. I’ve been able to clear out some pretty old games that have stagnated in the depths of that hell for years, and some of them felt pretty awesome to finally check off the list. As long as you are having fun doing it, don’t beat yourself up over it too much. Worst case scenario, you can do what I plan on doing, and pawn off all the unfinished games to my kids on my deathbed. “Go forth, children, uphold my honor”.