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[Mendrox]

How the hell is BotW not bloated? 900 Korok seeds, 50 blessing and combat shrines, 3 minibosses that are repeated 20-30 times each, dozens of enemy camps filled with the same 3 enemy types, etc. Don't tell me that it's not bloated because these things are "optional", there is more to a game then just beating the final boss. Besides, there is no way to know what content to skip unless you have already played the game, on your first playthrough you'll have no idea if you are going to discover something good or not.

Yes this is not bloat. It is optional. You get handed every main quest and can ignore optional content. The game gives you enough stuff to easily finish it just with the main dungeons. This is your problem and not the games.

It depends what you mean by bloated. Nothing In Zelda feels unnecessary, but equally the game being as big as it is DOES feel unnecessary. I think I'd enjoy it twice as much if it was half as big.

But why? You can traverse so fast without any trouble. I never even used a horse and felt I was too quick on my foot, but I guess many dont know about unlimited sprinting. But still there are so many towers in this game and even a main dungeon run is so short in this game. People just play differently and I guess slow gamers just feel out of touch? Zeldas world needed even a bit more content tbh.

I think people complaining about the repeating dialogue in Persona 5 also dont use the fastforward button in these scenes? It is there for a reason and not exclusive to NG+

 

[ryseing]

I consider Assassin's Creed Syndicate the definition of bloated

Gross amount of mechanics, leveling system, collectibles, side quests, and a long ass story. None of which were great and it really just made a mess of the AC II / Brotherhood pinnacle of the series' critical success.

The side content is very skippable though, and the mainline missions are good, particularly the black boxes. It also gets going quickly.

 

[Nickle]

Yes this is not bloat. It is optional. You get handed every main quest and can ignore optional content. The game gives you enough stuff to easily finish it just with the main dungeons. This is your problem and not the games.

There's more to a game then just beating the final boss, optional content is a large portion of Breath of the Wild and you are encouraged to complete much of it.

 

[Mendrox]

There's more to a game then just beating the final boss, optional content is a large portion of Breath of the Wild and you are encouraged to complete much of it.

No you are not encouraged to do that. You get handed the main quests and get told that you should do that and then defeat Ganon. This is your problem and not the games. That would mean that every Final Fantasy is like this because there is more than defeating the final boss or any other game which is not 100% linear.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

There's more to a game then just beating the final boss, optional content is a large portion of Breath of the Wild and you are encouraged to complete much of it.

Nah that "encouraging" is entirely on you. I'm not even sure why a game naturally making you want to explore optional content is a bad thing, or in an way bloat, just because some of it isn't as worth it in the end

 

[Nickle]

No you are not encouraged to do that. You get handed the main quests and get told that you should do that and then defeat Ganon. This is your problem and not the games. That would mean that every Final Fantasy is like this because there is more than defeating the final boss or any other game which is not 100% linear.

So the devs don't want you to explore the world, complete shrines, or fight enemies?

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

I'm tired of long games at the moment too. Yakuza, Nier automata, BOTW and persona 5 back to back did it. Am happily playing arcade games to take a break.

 

[spekkeh]

So the devs don't want you to explore the world, complete shrines, or fight enemies?

It's set up as a buffet. You sample what you want. Don't eat too much or you'll get sick. It's a problem when devs try to force feed you their stuff. That leaves a rather bloated feeling.

 

[Nickle]

It's set up as a buffet. You sample what you want. Don't eat too much or you'll get sick. It's a problem when devs try to force feed you their stuff. That leaves a rather bloated feeling.

I like that the devs didn't force the player to do most things in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that a large portion of the content in the game was repetetive.

 

[spazchicken]

Uncharted 4 is as linear and straight forward as it gets. It was a good story told at a good pace for a good length of time. If you feel that game is bloated I don't know what to tell you.

 

[QisTopTier]

Ys Origin is great if you are ever in the mood for a straight forward action rpg

A+ game

 

[Cracklox]

I feel like there's something to be said in this thread about journey>destination, particularly to some of those knocking the Witcher 3 main quest

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

This is why you should dump story-based games, OP. In my 30's they're nothing but trash and a waste of my time besides the occasional exception. Stick to multiplayer games. I've quit the RPG genre because of it. Persona 5 was the last straw. Fighting games and first person shooters only from now on unless it's an FF or a DQ or a Shenmue. If you have a story mode that's the main allure to your game, I ain't playing it. I have enough limited time as it is and don't need to spend my hard earned free time listening to a cat tell me what I can and cannot do. RPGs are for people who have that patience; I don't anymore. You seem to be on the same boat. Just dump them and don't buy anymore. Play pick up and play arcade games or platformers or something instead. Life is too short to play games you don't like. If you don't have the patience anymore, stop forcing it and play something you actually enjoy.

 

[spekkeh]

Lord of the Rings is just a bloated slog about hobbits taking a ring to a mountain, everthing else is just filler. /s

The books are definitely pretty bloated. IIRC it takes 300 pages just for some action to arrive. Conversely they waste no such time in the films, which cut out a lot of content while still staying true to the story. A lot of people were dismayed by e.g. Tom Bombadil getting axed, but I say good riddance. Additionally, in the nine odd hours running time of the movies, the plot is at least four times as dense as the 50 hours of The Witcher 3. The nice thing about LotR movies is that something important happens every ten minutes or so. Furthermore the Lord of the Rings is as much a war story as a hero's journey, so when it segues into Gondor it's not random lore filler, but it's a moment to set up one of the key players in the war as well as the motivations of the members of the Fellowship. Conversely a war is going on the Witcher 3, but outside of the visual hints you wouldn't really know it because the battle lines remain entirely static throughout the running time of the game. It's a side story to the 'main event'. Only at the very end do you realize your actions will have implications for the war. As such the better analogue is the Hobbit. You're off on your own adventure but find a MacGuffin that at first seems like it's only important to you in defeating a big bad but in the end becomes something else. You'll remember the Hobbit was a great 200 page book, that for the movies they stretched out to three films, by adding a lot of stuff that deepened the lore of the stories, but were also pretty exterior to what the main story was about. The consensus was that the Hobbit films were terribly bloated.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I kinda have a love/hate relationship with those games. I mean, I love to have a huge world to explore but mostly I loose interest after some time and then just move on - or at least that's what I used to do.

Took me a while to figure out how to tackle this but it really boiled down to three points:

1. Limit yourself. Don't try to play every good game in that genre.

2. Play only when you feel like it but at least once every week. Sometimes I will only play an hour of said game a week, sometimes most of the day.

3. Work with notes. This I found to be the best way to stay engaged with a story of such a game when you have varying playtimes. Otherwise you'll just feel lost at some point.

Been playing Mass Effect Andromeda like this for almost 2 months now. Sometimes I didn't dig it at all and only played like an hour a week, but other times (like yesterday) I would end up being totally hooked and play all day long.

The only downside here really is that it takes you very long to complete a game like this - and that means that you have to ignore other games for the sake of it. But I figured that's better than to buy every single game I'm interested in and never completing a single one of it.

 

[Marceles]

I can only imagine what would happen if you played Xenoblade Chronicles lol, that could be considered bloated if you tried to do every sidequest on there.

 

[Deleted member 59090]

I recently played through The Crimson Shroud on 3DS. I highly recommend it OP, you get the entire RPG experience with new gear, characters you get to know, story and even a plot twist within 5 hours.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

I disagree. P5 would have benefited significantly from adding at least one more month of gameplay.

 

[Lincoln6Vacano]

Naming both Witcher 3 and Persona 5 as "bloated" is kinda odd.

I'd say both games are the least bloated (although long) of all games out there. If you even feel those are bloated, I seriously have no idea what to recommend.

 

[Vulkar59]

So many games just feel littered with busy work. While I could tolerate it when I was younger, my time now is more limited as an adult. Things like level grinding, fetch quests and occurrences that don't add to the narrative end and frustrating and unwelcome now.

 

[Toparaman]

I'd rather have a short 3D Zelda come out every 2-3 years than a long one come out every 5-6.

 

[Augemitbutter]

time for some arcade gaming. king of fighters, street fighter, tekken. shoot em ups, rhythm games, and other stuff. buy a puzzle games, get puyo puyo tetris. i know lots of people that stick to arcade games because open world bloat is real.

 

[ghibli99]

Overly wordy dialogue does annoy me, but as long as I can read it and then press a button to skip to the next line(s), I'm good. Bloat doesn't bother me if it's optional.

That being said, after TW3, FF15, BOTW, HZD, and Nier... I had to play some shorter games before finally started P5 this week. It was just the palate cleanser I needed since I've read that P5 is one of the longer games in recent history.