When the narrative of the game is complete. When it's finished telling its story to you, be it told through main plot, sidequests, gameplay, etc. It can change greatly from game to game. For most games it'd be enough for me to do the main storyline, but in games like FFX-2 I kinda feel like most of the Episode Completes are an important part of the game's overall narrative (plus the Den of Woe quest is probably the best portion of the game's original storyline, and it's hidden away in an obscure collection quest).

Quote Originally Posted by WarZidane View Post
Basically, I consider a game beaten when you've gone through the entire main story. In games with multiple routes but no "true" ending, that means yeah if you've seen the end of one route, i'll consider that beaten. If it has a true ending, I'll consider it beaten when you've achieved that. Fate/Stay Night would be an example of the former, Ever17 an example of the latter.
Bit of a tangent, but I question putting Fate/Stay Night as an example of a game you've beaten if you see the end of one route; all three routes in that game are equally part of the overall F/SN narrative and even though none of them are the 'true ending' (although I'd argue Heaven's Feel really does close out the overall narrative arc) I really can't consider the game beaten until you've read all of them. Also you only unlock the second and third routes after beating the previous ones so it's not like you can pick and choose which route you want from the getgo.

An interesting one to consider is Umineko though for example, which is a linear story but the first half of the story reads *very very differently* when you've finished the game once. So it's perfectly viable to consider the narrative incomplete until you reread the first half again, lol. I'd say it gets very subjective at this point though.