Anything past 40 ish is too long for me. I don't have the free time anymore that I once had, so I prefer shorter games that I can actually get through in a reasonable amount of time.
I agree on the 30-40 hour mark. But I do like when a campaign is 30-40 then there is lots of extras that can drag it to 50-60+.
I think this is a good compromise. I never finish super long RPGs but I love doing the extra missions. Just don't tie me down to a long rail road commitment.
I also really enjoy the shorter 10-15 hour games as an inbetween diversion.
50 hours is about my sweet spot, should be able to tell a good story, have some extra content, leave time for grinding, mind you, there's games like Disgaea where you'd be pushing 300+ hours to fully complete, anything with a good enough story to suck you in and keep you wanting more is acceptable at 100+ hours, I'm looking at you, Dragon Warrior VII. Other times, some games at 20-30 hours just feel too short, like the Star Ocean remakes on PSP, They we're quite good, but left you wanting more.
60 hours minimum, 100 hours preferred. Of course it has to be good, currently playing Tales of Legendia and oh god is it slooow. Way past the "forcing" point with that one.
Games are too long as it is. Something like 80% of players don't even bother to finish most games. So no idea why developers feel the need to keep padding them out. Not everything needs to be some 50 or 100 hour marathon.
When I look back to really the golden age of RPGs that would be the SNES. Final Fantasy IV/VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, those could all be finished in 20-30 hours. Solid storytelling and gameplay bottom to top. You are always getting to new areas, getting new items and spells, grinding is minimal and not required most of the time. That is the sweet spot.
Games are too long as it is. Something like 80% of players don't even bother to finish most games.
I doubt it's anywhere close to that.
Also, everyone's talking about 40-80 hour games, but there's a lot of difference in gameplay between how two people do it. I have a goal of beating Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy in the same day sometime. Right now my average time for DW is 8 hours. Wizardry & Wiz 2 I generally do in 5ish days at 2 hours a day, while HLTB lists it as 36 hours. SNES BoF is like 15ish for me (If I remember to keep running it fast; sometimes I forget and start goofing off). Heck, BoF I think I grind like in 3 spots, once before the frog for a bit, once near the dark tower cause exp is so good, and once more when I start getting underpowered. Items in this game are over powered, and you can spam mrbl's to get criticals and avoid encounters. It's really hard to judge RPGs on length of time.
Also, it's a bad thing to. Cause fetch quests and back-tracking add time to the game, but they make the game get old quick. Optional quests are great, even optional fetch quests are ok, but mandatory quests make the game drag on. Also another trick for quests, make the rewards scale with the game. If you solve a quest in the beginning and it would give you Sword+1, having it give you sword+5 if done later in the game can make quests a bit more interesting. It sucks completing an old quest you missed only to get an item that had about as much damage output as a spoon.
I don't even think I can do turn-based RPGs anymore in the traditional sense. Strategy RPGs don't bother me because the taking your time and thinking between turns is the main draw for me. With traditional RPGs I just can't go back unfortunately. I would not be able to go back and play an 8-bit or 16-bit RPG and come anywhere close to finishing it these days. I don't have enough time and there's so many other games out there that I already move on to the next shiny object I see as it is.
Comments
I agree on the 30-40 hour mark. But I do like when a campaign is 30-40 then there is lots of extras that can drag it to 50-60+.
I think this is a good compromise. I never finish super long RPGs but I love doing the extra missions. Just don't tie me down to a long rail road commitment.
I also really enjoy the shorter 10-15 hour games as an inbetween diversion.
When I look back to really the golden age of RPGs that would be the SNES. Final Fantasy IV/VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, those could all be finished in 20-30 hours. Solid storytelling and gameplay bottom to top. You are always getting to new areas, getting new items and spells, grinding is minimal and not required most of the time. That is the sweet spot.
Games are too long as it is. Something like 80% of players don't even bother to finish most games.
I doubt it's anywhere close to that.
Also, everyone's talking about 40-80 hour games, but there's a lot of difference in gameplay between how two people do it. I have a goal of beating Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy in the same day sometime. Right now my average time for DW is 8 hours. Wizardry & Wiz 2 I generally do in 5ish days at 2 hours a day, while HLTB lists it as 36 hours. SNES BoF is like 15ish for me (If I remember to keep running it fast; sometimes I forget and start goofing off). Heck, BoF I think I grind like in 3 spots, once before the frog for a bit, once near the dark tower cause exp is so good, and once more when I start getting underpowered. Items in this game are over powered, and you can spam mrbl's to get criticals and avoid encounters. It's really hard to judge RPGs on length of time.
Also, it's a bad thing to. Cause fetch quests and back-tracking add time to the game, but they make the game get old quick. Optional quests are great, even optional fetch quests are ok, but mandatory quests make the game drag on. Also another trick for quests, make the rewards scale with the game. If you solve a quest in the beginning and it would give you Sword+1, having it give you sword+5 if done later in the game can make quests a bit more interesting. It sucks completing an old quest you missed only to get an item that had about as much damage output as a spoon.
Just joking. 50 hours feels perfect to me.
45 minutes max.
Just joking. 50 hours feels perfect to me.
funny you say that. I was just pondering the idea of a really short RPG, and how that would be an interesting challenge to try to do well