One of my first real jobs was as a clerk at a pawnshop. During a conversation with the owner who was deep into video games, he asked me what was one of the hardest games I’d ever beat. My answer? Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. For a moment, he looked impressed before quickly responding with a ‘Yeah… Okay.’ I had never beaten Zelda II. I tried most of my childhood and couldn’t get past the first dungeon, and somehow this stranger knew my whole video game prowess was a lie with just that statement.
I think back on that moment a lot, mainly because when you’re deep into the culture of video games you develop almost a sixth-sense for sniffing out the games that people are most proud of beating and start to take those confessions with a grain of salt. Thus, I present to you 10 games I’m positive people are lying about beating, ranked from ‘I believe some of you’ to ‘absolutely nobody finished this.’ By a guy who is still lying about beating Zelda II.
10. The Witness. (2016)
The Witness is designed to make you feel smart for the first few hours, then slowly reveals it’s actually testing whether you have the patience of a saint. Most people walk around, solve some panels, appreciate the art direction, and then quietly uninstall when they realize the philosophy lectures aren’t enough to keep them engaged through 600 more puzzles.
I don’t think people finish The Witness. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s annoying. There’s only so many times you can listen to pretentious audio logs about perspective and observation before you realize you’ve been staring at the same panel for 30 minutes and you still don’t understand what the game wants from you, almost like you’re being trolled by someone who thinks they’re smarter than you. It’s a beautiful game. It’s also exhausting, obtuse, and way too proud of itself. And anyone who tells me they finished it are coming off just as much of a pretentious loser as the voice in those audio logs.
9. Heavy Rain. (2010)
I don’t think a lot of people realize what Heavy Rain meant to the PS3 when it came out. If you were part of the PS3 hype cycle, that thing was marketed as a cinematic dream machine, but instead we got the nightmare that was Heavy Rain. Heavy ‘quick-time events: the movie’ Rain blessed us with janky face mo-cap, David Cage dialogue that sounded like it was written by AI, and SAW-wannabe storytelling that thought it was deep. The entire game became the laughing stock of YouTube Let’s Plays with its ‘Press X to Jason’ button prompts, and yet people will say with a straight face ‘Yeah, I beat it, wasn’t that bad.’
‘Press X to DOUBT.’ They watched someone else play it on YouTube while the comments roasted every plot hole in real time. Heavy Rain isn’t even ‘so bad it’s good’ it’s a tech demo that accidentally became a cult curiosity. If you actually sat through all of Heavy Rain’s QTEs and made it to the end, you either have incredible patience or you’re lying. And honestly? I don’t blame you for lying. Nobody actually wants to admit they spent 10 hours pressing buttons to dig their way through David Cage’s fever dream.
8. Silent Hill 2 Remake. (2024)
Everyone ranks Silent Hill 2 as one of the scariest games of all time, but I don’t think people are finishing the remake. Like, genuinely. Yeah, the original was terrifying and hard to navigate, but the remake? It’s LONGER! Bloober Team looked at an already exhausting horror game and said ‘you know what this needs? MAXIMUM content.’ Expanded sections, better graphics - WHY? To make us scared in 4K? No thank you, I’m good. People out here telling me they sat through 10+ hours of psychological torture, navigated those apartments, dealt with Pyramid Head, and made it all the way through? Doubt. Steam’s 20% completion rate calling y’all bluff.
Listen, I’ve seen people quit horror games because a door creaked funny, and Silent Hill 2 Remake wants you to feel miserable for its entire runtime. Back in 2001, I told people I couldn’t beat the game because of the fog, and that was a legitimate excuse. Now the remake is running Unreal Engine 5, and we’re getting jump scared by Windows crash reports. Silent Hill 2 is a masterpiece, but I’m calling cap on anyone who says they beat the remake without at least considering uninstalling it halfway through.
7. MYST. (1993)
MYST strikes fear into me. I can remember sitting in front of my family computer, loading up MYST, and realizing I was too dumb to understand anything on the screen. Twenty years later, I stare at screenshots of MYST and still feel like a dumbass. I still don’t understand what it’s about or what it’s trying to convey.
MYST showed up on every family computer in the 90s. You clicked around an island, stared at some books, turned some valves, and had absolutely no idea what you were supposed to be doing. Then you told people you ‘played MYST’ like that meant something. It felt like we were all given MYST as a deterrent to hogging the family computer so our Dads could spend more time finding ‘hot singles in their area.’ Yet I’ve met people who told me they beat MYST as a kid, and all I have to say to that is: You watched somebody smarter than you beat it. And the fact you’ll lie to my face so boldly means I never want to speak to you again.
6. Any Kingdom Hearts Game. (2002 - FOREVER)
What is Kingdom Hearts? Where is Kingdom Hearts? Who is Kingdom Hearts? These are questions that Kingdom Hearts fans can’t even answer. Believe me, I don’t dislike Kingdom Hearts. I WANT to like KH because I want to understand what the fuck it even is. But the story doesn’t know where it’s going half the time, and I’m almost positive it doesn’t want you to follow it. Just to comprehend the story, you gotta play multiple titles across console and mobile, read different manga entries, follow fan Tumblr accounts with cryptic lore breakdowns, and commit to 5-hour video essays about Mickey Mouse.
Kinda like Kingdom Hearts, I just got lost in my own rambling. But the point still stands: the individuals who have beaten a KH game and actually understand it have committed their lives to the cause, and I salute you. For everybody else? If you tell me you beat a Kingdom Hearts game and understand the story, you might as well hop inside Monstro with Pinocchio with yo lying ass.
5. Disco Elysium. (2019)
GOD, I LOVE DISCO! Disco made me cry, it made me think, it made me fall asleep on my couch one time while playing it. My wife woke me up and said, ‘Aww, did your audiobook put you to sleep?’ I did finish Disco, but I keep my mouth shut about it because Disco fans are BIG NERDS. The type of poly-sci nerds who’ve actually read Marx and can spell bourgeoisie without spell check. Disco is bigger than just a game it’s a way of thinking about art, politics, and why you’re complicit in your own oppression. And if ‘The Final Cut’ with voice acting never came out, I wouldn’t have made it through all that text.
Most people barely make it even WITH the voice acting. Disco is difficult to navigate, nothing is simple, and it’s designed to be experienced from multiple perspectives. So here’s my advice: if you haven’t beaten it, don’t bring it up unless you want a lecture on Marxist theory. And if you have beaten it? Be careful who you mention that around. rather than asking if you beat Disco, fans are gonna quiz your knowledge of Deleuze until you feel like a college dropout.
4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
I don’t even know what Skyrim is anymore. In 2011, I played Skyrim every damn day. I did every quest, fought every dragon, and I still don’t know if I beat it. People love Skyrim because of how much endless potential it has for an open world game, but I don’t even know if that’s a good thing. Is Skyrim ever done? When you’re done playing it, are you ever really done? I know people who dive back into Skyrim every few months only to emerge from their living rooms weeks later like roaches after a nuclear apocalypse, and when you ask them if they’ve beaten it, even they don’t know.
So if you tell me with a straight face ‘Yeah, I beat Skyrim,’ you’re lying. That’s like confidently answering ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ anyone who gives you a straight answer is either a con artist or full of shit. We’ve all got 200 hours in Skyrim. We can name every standing stone, we’ve joined every guild, bought a house in every hold. But if I asked anyone what happens at the end of the main quest, we’d all have to Google it. Nobody beats Skyrim. We all just live in its world for a while until you remember you have to shower.
3. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. (2019)
I’m not a souls-type guy. I got maybe 45 minutes of playtime in Elden Ring, but I respect those who love their digital masochism so much that they get off work and wallow in a virtual ass beating. However, souls fans love to brag. They’ll tell you how Elden Ring changed their life and cured their depression. How Dark Souls saved their parent’s marriage and brought their goldfish back to life. How Demon’s Souls taught them to read, gave them discipline, and turned them into productive members of society. But mention Sekiro? Suddenly it’s hushed tones and quick subject changes. ‘Yeah, I beat it’ followed immediately by talking about literally anything else. So somebody’s gotta be lying.
I’m starting to think that ‘I beat Sekiro’ is code for ‘I got bonked by that ape, died to a fart, and then uninstalled.’ Unlike Elden Ring, you ain’t farming your way out of skill checks. Sekiro doesn’t have summons, or co-op, or broken builds. You either learn to parry or you’re going in the grave. And for many of us, Sekiro is sitting in our backlog graveyard. Admit it, once you realized the game wasn’t going to let you brute-force your way through, you realized you had better games to play. But so nobody would revoke your souls card, you watched the ending on YouTube and told people you beat it. That’s okay. Sometimes we beat the game, and sometimes the game beats us. And sometimes you die to a fart.
2. Final Fantasy VII. (1997)
You beat FF7, right? Bet. Remember when Palmer got hit by that truck? What about fighting that Demon Wall? Cloud’s wheelchair era? No? Of course you don’t, because you only played up to Midgar. Look, everyone knows Aerith dies, Sephiroth is the villain, and Cloud is that guy from Super Smash Bros. But if I asked you to explain golden chocobo breeding, where the hell Gongaga is, or what’s happening at Fort Condor, you got nothing. You and I both know you didn’t finish FF7, we’ve all watched the story beats on YouTube.
A lot of us spent 20 plus years nodding along when people called it a masterpiece, and we’ve never swapped the disc. And I can hear the Remake players yelling right now, but take a seat. Remake and Rebirth breathed new life into the story, but it’s not the same. FF7 IS A MASTERPIECE AND YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY PLAY IT. But we both know you won’t, because it’s sooo much easier to keep lying instead of fighting three forms of Sephiroth. (okay, two and a half, but you’ll never know because you won’t beat it.)
1. Super Mario Brothers. (1985)
I’m positive a majority of people NEVER beat Super Mario Bros, and are misremembering their childhoods. We all played it as kids, made it to World 4, and died to Lakitu. But I can hear you now saying, ‘I made it to the end!’ The ‘our princess is in another castle’ line ain’t the end, that’s just World 4, genius. Admit it, you spent 30+ years telling people you ‘beat the first Mario’ because it’s so foundational that nobody is gonna press you. And even if you DID ‘beat it,’ you definitely used the warp zones, which means you skipped 75% of the game. That’s not beating it, that’s skipping content.
Nintendo got so fed up with y’all lying that they released “Super Mario Bros. 35” specifically to expose us all. And what did we do? We died to a Goomba in World 1-1 before we even got a mushroom. The entire world watched us get publicly humiliated by the first enemy in video game history, and we were outed. Shook the world so much they turned off the service. What a damn shame.
Sorry if I exposed anyone, Leave a comment and tell me what games you been lying about. Remember it’s all love. I appreciate the 30 Followers. Love all yall. Stay Silly. - BPM+
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