How often does this happen to you?

I've been playing Link's Awakening on the Switch recently (Zelda being about the only reason for me to own that device), and have been relatively enjoying myself, up until the very last boss battle.

The boss battle involves:
- First navigating through a randomly generated cave using directions you got from a book (I had to take a screenshot when I read it, because there's no way to carry it with you)
- Arriving at the boss with unskippable (but thankfully short) intro animation (dialogue is skipped on subsequent tries)
- The first form the boss takes needs a consumable, depletable weapon (magic dust) to battle. If you don't have it, then you have to leave the boss dungeon, get a magic mushroom, take it to a witch who converts it to 20 units of magic dust. It only takes 3 close attacks of magic dust to kill the first boss form, but it isn't hard to miss (it's jumping around a lot)
- The 2nd form is relatively easy, but the 3rd form involves the boss randomly throwing their spinning weapon at you. After they throw 5 projectile firebats at you, you have to basically guess which direction they throw it, run the other direction, go towards them (hoping they didn't randomly move towards their own spinning spear), and unleash a single charge-up sword attack on them, then backing away before the spear spins back into their arms. It takes about 4 hits at max power to get rid of this form
- The next form is also relatively easy, but the one after that then requires precise timing while also simultaneously guessing the speed of tentacle arms that you have to dodge and jump over while waiting for them to open their eye so you can shoot an arrow (depletable) or throw your boomerang (less powerful).

I made it that for several dozen times- the 3rd form actually being the one that trips me up the most, with my hearts going down so low that I know that even though I'm still trying, I probably won't get through the next form, even if I do this one. And every time you lose, or if you save and exit, you have to traverse the dungeon again (I had the directions open on my phone before, but at this point they're burned in memory), and if you die, you restart at the entrance of the dungeon with half you hearts, so you feel it would be smarter to leave and explore the overworld to hopefully find enough hearts to make it the next time.

Sorry for the long rant, but yeah, after trying to go through that a couple dozen times, I gave up, watched the outro and end credits on youtube, and decided to stop. I've done this a couple times before on other games, and it always bugs me, but I can't bother with the hassle of such gameplay any more. When I was a kid, and there was only one game you could play for months and months, it might have made sense to design like that (although this game is a remake, and the original had the final boss battle much easier), but as an adult, I can't be bothered by something that wastes my time in such a way, and hopes to use the sunk cost fallacy to keep me hooked.

Other games that I still remember that I abandonned near the end were Torchlight (I had built up my character in such a way that just so happened to be incredibly ineffective against the final boss, so I gave up), and Trine (the end boss was just too hard for me, that might just be due to my low skill, rather than luck being against me).

So yeah, what would it take to get you to drop a game near the end? Or is it something you'd never do out of pride/falling for the sunk cost? Does it happen a lot? Are endings of games "special" things that not everyone should expect to experience?

I had a similar experience with Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, except that I abandoned it near the end of the second playthrough (new game +).

I wanted a "perfect" save for importing into the second game, and it's impossible to fill your notebook on one playthrough. Since new game + keeps your levels, I figured I'd try to level as much as possible without trying by increasing the difficulty level. The enemies were not really any harder than the first time around, except for one: the final boss.

The stupid game does the "triple boss fight" with lots of (luckily skippable) cutscenes and no saving between fights at the end. I don't exactly breeze through the first two, but I also rarely fail (and by fail, I mean I don't tolerate even one character dying, even if I win the battle). Still, it's a pain in the ass to retry the third by repeatedly doing the first two. Not as bad as having to do lots of other stuff first, as well, like you, but still painful. To the point where I quit the game after 15-20 tries. And the entire series as a result. Until I get enough energy to try that triple boss fight yet again, only to yet again fail. It's been so long now, though, that I forgot how to play (i.e., I don't remember how to do combos). There are cheat guides that provide pictures of how to do the final boss fight, but they don't help me.

I hate boss battles in the first place (they generally don't build on the experience gained from regular battles), and multi-battles in particular (lots of console games had them). This game in particular basically puts you in a mech for the final battle, whose characteristics don't seem to be affected by your character level / character stats. Thus the difficulty setting actually makes the battle more difficult.

Speaking of "Legend of Heroes", I had a similar breakdown near the end of Trails in the Sky 2, where I realized that I would never get the final fish for the fishing minigame because I skipped one of the fishing spots early in the game. You can revisit that spot, and get the fish only available there, but the final fish apparently doesn't trigger if you didn't do it earlier. I hate fishing minigames (and most minigames, in general). I also refused to restart or do a new game+ just for that stupid fish.

In fact, the third game I can think of that I abandoned near the end is for the same reason: my completionist side wants to do/get as much as possible in the minimum number of playthroughs (preferably just one). I sort of abandoned The Alliance Alive because I wanted to fill my skill and item lists as much as possible before trying a new game+, and ended up just getting bored and doing something else.

There are quite a lot that I stopped at some point through. I have played that Zelda, it was ok, but I lost interest several hours in. Much the same that I last interest in skyward sword very rapidly (awful camera controls). Breath of the wild, seemed ok, then got boring rapidly. Not really enjoyed much from Nintendo since GameCube days. Might sell my switch.
Not listing all the games out. I just recently dragged myself through Ys9, which is pretty bad, endless (and I mean endless) crappy unskiappable dialog, followed by cutscenes, then a button mash fight, followed by more dreadful dialog and cutscenes. It’s more of a visual novel with action scenes. But I made it through to the end, and I still wonder why I bother (note I played 8 before and that was better).
But most games I will ditch quite soon in, or complete. Thing is there are so many games out there, if i don’t enjoy the first hour or so, then move on.

I might be starting Torchlight soon. Any advice about the character build, so I don't get frustrated like you?

When did that get into games? I mean let’s play an action RPG, and stop once in a while to bash the same button until we get a fish? Really hated that in ys8, even didn’t bother with one side quest as it was that.

I played the game years and years ago, so I barely remember much, but I picked (as I always do in games where I get such an option) to play as a fire-based mage. This served me quite well throughout the whole game, and I maxed out the fire-based skill tree of my character.

The final boss is resistant to fire.

I don't think that's the only problem, though. The internet is full of people complaining about how bad the final boss was, and how much of a difficulty jump it was from the whole game up to that point.

Ha!

I mean, sorry to hear that dude.

All the time. Some selections:

* Arcanum's final dungeon is just bullshit filled with tons of instant-death traps everywhere. And I was playing with a rogue-type character!
* Rimworld. I play it a ton, but I'll likely never get any of the "endings" since they all require playing beyond the point where I continue to have fun. Especially that the endings all erquire you to survive a prolonged siege during which you're constantly under attack.
* Dragon Quest 11. After the 2nd "false ending surprise it continues", I'd played enough. It's been ~2 years now and I'm not sure I'll ever go back to finish it. I should, but when I boot it, I'm like, "Where was I? What'd I have to do?" I guess I could probably just rush the last dungeon, but that feels wrong too.
* [Eventually did complete!} Final Fantasy 12 was like DQ11, except FF12 has an awful enough late game that I did just rush the last dungeon to see the story's conclusion.
* Craft the World. I just regularly replay the first few stages, because the last ones are just ungodly difficulty. Less important here since there's not really any "story" to speak of.
* Aground. Super awesome game, but it just keeps "zooming out and teching up". I'd had a blast, and devoted a few weeks of nearly non-stop [when not working] time playing it. I just had to call it quits at a certain major game-changing moment.
* Oriental Empires. I can't even finish a single game of it because the succession mechanic is so harsh. Eventually you have a rapid succession and the empire you've been building breaks up. Realistic? Sure. Fun? NO.
* Guacamelee. Because of the absurd shenanigans between different editions having different content (and being sold separately!) and not being able to transfer saves in either directions, my husband and I gave up pretty close to the end. We were just disheartened, and there was no way in hell we were going to repeat our progress in the other edition that had all the added features.
* Age of Wonders 3. Eventually scenarios became too hard, or, more like "impossible to do if you don't play a pure rush strategy". Which isn't fun for me.
* Speaking of Zelda games, I never finished Twilight Princess. I got to the desert and just got...bored. It hadn't hapened with a Zelda game before. And I haven't played any since. (Skyward Sword was a Wii game with its awful gimmick controls, so I didn't try it. And BotW isn't even a Zelda game, and is just a horrible game overall.)
* Eternal Sonata. A JRPG, but, sort of like AoW3, the game ever escalates the difficulty settings and turned into sort of a fast-paced action-RPG late game, and it broke the battle system. Husband and I were co-op playing it (the whole reason we started; co-op JRPGs are too rare!) and agreed to stop. We once tried to go back, but we'd have to start over, since the difficulty 'level up' is fixed at the higher level and there's no way to lower it to re-learn and practice the combat system again.
* New Super Mario Bros. U + Luigi. I guess we technically finished it to an ending, but we didn't "complete" getting all the stars and side stages and stuff. We also didn't tackle the +Luigi stages at all. It's clear they were designed like Mario Lost Levels to be unenjoyable and require use of the stylus to draw "boosts".

I'm omitting games I started and they sucked and I gave up quickly (Like Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars, which disappointed me GREATLY. Very much did not live up to expectations.)

I could go on, but this is enough shame already.

I'm sorry; what?

I've played through the game several dozen times, with a variety of PC styles, and I've never run into any late-game issues. I'm not even sure what you mean by the final dungeon, since I can think of at least three possibilities, two of which aren't final and one of which isn't a dungeon. (The hardest dungeon in the game, relative to your character's ability, occurs about 1/4 of the way through the main quest, and is hard enough that doing side quests to level up first is highly recommended.)

Has happened a couple of times:

Syndicate Wars - bug in the penultimate level, where any explosion whatever destroys the space station you are on and results in a game over. Unfortunately several enemies drop armed explosives when they die, and for some reason on this particular level your agents' 'willingness' to pick up explosives (which disarms it) is inconsistent. Seemed that about half of the time they just refuse to pick up an explosive, even with inventory space to spare. Tried a few times, realized there was a bug, and just gave up trying.

Homeworld 1 - I think it's also the penultimate level, where you have to destroy a massive asteroid hurdling towards your disabled mothership. Unfortunately I didn't bring enough ships with me from the previous level to destroy the asteroid before it hits, and I just didn't have the strength to replay the previous level again, as it was a very long and difficult level.

Icewind Dale 2 - Dunno why, but I always seem to tire of the game a significant distance into it, even though I think the game is excellent.

It does happen to me occasionally, expecially since I'm not a fan of boss battles and that's what many games feel obliged to end with, a big bombastic boss battle that's even more annoying than the ones before it. I loved Aquaria but abandoned it at the end because I didn't feel like doing three of such boss battles in a row, without any checkpoints in between. Same with Hand of Fate, which admittedly has more tolerable boss fights (just tougher opponents, less pattern puzzles) but throws in devastating QTEs on top of it. The end boss of Marlow Briggs was too much of a sponge for me to enjoy the battle, so I stopped there, too. I abandoned Anodyne because of the jumping pad mechanics introduced near the ending, which seemed very flawed and almost impossible to pull off at some spots, especially since you had to succeed several times in a row and it felt so random, hit or miss.

I didn't really decide to abandon these games for good though, I just stopped playing them. Even left them installed for a long time, thinking that maybe one day I might be in the mood to try again, but this day never came. So after a few years, I chose to just watch the endings on YouTube and then uninstalled the games. In hindsight, I should have done that right away. The videos just showed me that I hadn't really missed anything by stopping where I stopped. I could have forced myself through the ending just to say I beat the damn game eventually, but I would not have enjoyed it. It's all just about a false sense of pride in an achievement that's worth nothing in RL, a waste of time without the fun.

There were other games though that I left unfinished shortly before the end due to frustrating missions or boss battles and then actually came back some (often a long) time later and this time I managed to beat them. It brought me a better closure than the other cases, but not necessarily more enjoyment either.

Yeah, had to push myself as well, after a number of events I lost all interest, the last hours were a real drag. I honestly thought the game would be a sweet, upbeat experience...nope. :P

Sometimes it gets to the point where I realize that nothing the game does after this point will actually improve the experience, so I just walk. This happened with a few PSX games, like Legend of Mana or Final Fantasy IX.

This also happened with Twilight Princess (a game that outstays it's welcome.) where I decided that dealing with the penultimate dungeon and beyond wasn't worth the effort.

It doesn't help that the casino was just plain awful and disheartening and timesucky.