There are a couple of reasons why I may stop playing a particular game. The most obvious and ideal would be that I have rolled credits and there’s nothing left for me to do. This is usually the case when it comes to narrative-driven games. I recently rolled credits on Spider-Man 2, but I still have many tasks to complete in order to achieve a platinum trophy. So, I guess rolling credits is not always suitable.

A second reason is I may realize that a particular game is not suited to my needs, or I have reached some sort of stopping point where I feel fulfilled. There are so many video games out there and it turns out that there’s a good percentage that just aren’t made for me. When it comes to rogue-lites and rogue-likes I rarely reach the end. I do spend countless hours trying though, and at some point I usualy decide to move on. I do end up coming back, especially with Hades and Dead Cells recently.

A third reason is perhaps I have become stuck on some particularly frustrating part of a game, whether it’s a boss fight or a tricky puzzle I just can’t seem to solve. I have come across a few “broken” games, that I know exactly what I need to do, but the game won’t let me (I will not name them at this time). Other games may be too tough or complicated for my gameplay style, and I end up quitting them due to frustration.

A few weeks ago, I was really enjoying Gunbrella on the Nintendo Switch. I was having a blast with the story, the world, the art style, the characters and their humor. Everything about this game had me hooked. That was of course until I came across the first boss fight.

That’s when this happened:

For weeks, I had been stuck on the same boss fight above, with nowhere else to go in the game. The video above shows only nine of what felt like hundreds of failed attempts — possibly thousands. Each night, I reached a point where I would tell myself, I’m done with this game, only to return to this same battle again the next day. It was like a video game Groundhog’s Day — until I finally beat it this past weekend.

My current total hours played in GUNBRELLA would not reflect how far I am in the game’s story. In fact, I’m sure more than half of those hours were spent on this initial boss fight.

The funny thing is that once this boss battle became such an unattainable obstacle, it made beating this boss the equivalent of beating Gunbrella the game — in my mind. Once I finally took this monster boss down, I sort of lost interest in Gunbrella — at least for the moment.

*Side Quest: This all reminds me of my relationship with the show The Newsroom (HBO).
I was visiting my cousin in Tampa one weekend, and he was surprised to learn that I had
never seen The Newsroom — this was back when the show was still new, or new-ish
(almost ten years ago). We watched the first episode together and I really enjoyed it,
but I also never continued the series. The first episode felt like a perfectly told story.
It was almost like a short one hour film that left me thinking, I wonder what’s next?,
but not quite enough to actually find out.

I’m pretty sure I will get back into GUNBRELLA at some point, but for now I’m taking a little break. That one boss fight really took its toll on me. Even with so many games to play on the Nintendo Switch I spent so many hours on this one part of this one game for weeks. It’s time to move on — for now.

What game has made you feel this way? Is there a video game you were terrible at, but couldn’t stop playing it because you loved it and just wanted to be better? Tell us in the comments below…

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*myVGBC.com was given a review code for Gunbrella by Devolver Digital.