Not every great game offers replay value; others might, but then age to a point where we no longer really enjoy them ... and then there are games that are too time consuming for where we are in life, etc.

A few games that I'd like to replay, but can't ...

1) Night in the Woods. My remembering of this game is that it was difficult to play at the time; when it was discussed by the Giant Bomb crew during their game of the year discussions, it was described as sometimes 'hitting too close to home'. A lot of the story revolves around, more or less, what the sociologist Emile Durkheim called "anomie", a sense of normlessness or purposelessness, as the protagonist, Mae, bails out on her college career and returns to her narcoleptic hometown in the Rust Belt, since it seems to only have fits of life. Mae doesn't appear to have solid friendships--one of the trophies is "Best Available Friend", intimating that she is a benchwarmer of sorts--and is jobless in a wrecked economy. The game has some Donnie Darko type vibes, where fate hangs over the character's head in a way that is equal parts psychedelic and hellish ... and there is a cult who resorts to sacrificing their neighbors to try to change their town's fortunes, echoing Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery".

The game, overall, is an aesthetically and verbally attractive presentation of social dregs, and both economic and emotional depression. It's nice enough to play once; but it's too ugly to play twice ...

2) Disco Elysium. I absolutely scum saved my way through this game. While it is the developers' intention that the player fail a lot of the skill checks, to paint Harry Du Bois as pathetically as possible, I felt it erred too far in this direction. I rebooted as many times as I needed to pass checks, and really enjoyed the game. That being said, that was f*cking time consuming, and I'd never do it again. I think I took Harry as far I could in a "redemption arc", which is probably all that I wanted in terms of the ending. The historical setting, and complementary visual style, was neat to sink into; however, none of it really lended to another playthrough, either.

3) Jade Empire. This might be a game that hasn't aged well, or I might just need to connect a controller to my PC, I'm not sure which. I remember the controls, even at the time, being kind of clunky, and that cannot have improved with time. I tried replaying this on keyboard, years ago, and couldn't get into it again. I will say, for now, the jury's still out ...

What are your games that you enjoyed, but cannot play again for one reason or another?

Jade Empire is one of my all time favourite games, it was the first game on console that I truly was obsessed with. I want to replay it again, but we have it on the Xbox and currently the cord? (Maybe even the console) has died and we haven’t been able to get it connected.

I still need to play through Disco Elysium, but I’m definitely not good at it hahahaha

Games I can’t play again:
House Flipper (PS4) - I absolutely love this game and it was so enjoyable, loved they constantly added to it - but after the last few DLCs releases it became so buggy that it’s impossible to enjoy the game anymore, just nonstop freezing which makes it unplayable. The sequel has now come out so I should look into getting it.

Sekiro Shadows Die Twice - I absolutely suck at this game and can’t even beat the sub bosses. I was planning on going back to it because if I learned to be more patient maybe I could beat it but the idea of doing that already pisses me off 😂

Final Fantasy VIII:

got right up the final part when I was younger. Keep in mind I made sure to get every GF, every side quest etc.

For whatever reason I never finished it.

Remaster comes out, I get to pretty much the same area. Upon transferring my ps4 stuff to ps5 I lost the save. The start of the game is so tedious and slow even with the game speed up & I had a lot more patience for games when I was younger.

Cuphead:

I’ve finished the 3 souls games and Sekiro and I’d put this above all of them. So a lot of the times the meter just seemed to take pity on you and never be a real measurement of how far you were in the boss fights.

So not in a rush to play through it again or any DLC.

To be honest I don’t finish many games in the first place anymore let alone replay them

Most visual novels because the story is mainly the intrigue but if you've played it and know the twists & turns, then the element of surprise is gone. Danganronpa for instance I know the fate of each character and there isn't alternative paths so outside of playing just for the trophies, why spend 30-35 hours again?

The only way I would ever replay Danganronpa would be if I was a streamer and the 1st playthrough wasn't streamed. Great game/series but there's no reason to replay it. Same with Ace Attorney games, there's only 1 path and if you know the story more or less of each one, why revisit it? No real element of surprise. 

I would like to play these games but the first impression is everything for a lot of visual novels. Might as well watch someone's blind reaction at that point on Youtube or Twitch. 

Return of the Obra Dinn, was a puzzle game quite unlike almost anything else, was fascinating unraveling every story and identifying ever crew member. Problem is, once you finish it, now you know the answers, so that mystery is gone. Really wish they’d franchise this one.

Same goes for the Sexy Brutale, a game in which you play a time loop and try to save all the guests from death, great to slowly piece each event together, but then that mystery is gone.

The only games that I wouldn't want to replay are games with heavy story elements: once you know the story, it's hardly worth playing again. Namely visual novels as Blindy has mentioned.