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Games that just go on too long

I thought Dragon Quest VII-IX dragged on. The latter to a lesser extent (50 hours completion) but the VII and VIII are way too long IMO (80-100 hours each).

I think the perfect Dragon Quest length would be 25-30 hours (V and VI).
 
SecretMoblin said:
Yep.

The Dragon Quest games are, for the most part, excellently paced. I think the only two that could be considered annoying due to their length are DQVII and DQVIII, but both are still great if you enjoy the mechanics and charm of the franchise. DQVI is probably a bit longer than it needs to be, but otherwise the games are actually quite good about length.
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Definitely. However, I can understand that many people do not want games with the earnest fairy-tale charm of Dragon Quest and therefore see these vignettes as a diversion from the game.

Imp the Dimp said:
The Witcher 1 is excellent but it sure is about 8h too long. They should've scrapped chapter 4 altogether.
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I really enjoyed Chapter 4 - it was a great release of tension after all the politicking and grime of Vizima. A palette cleanser, if you will.
 
TranceKuja said:
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is the most recent game I've played which comes to mind. I had to force myself through it even though I loved all the different environments.
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This. I liked the game but it was laborious to get through. About 4 hours too long.
 
CorvoSol said:
I dunno, though. DQ is just the perfect example of how RPGs will complicate simple tasks for the sake of making you waste more time. Example: I needed to find a lizard to get a fruit for my quest. Of course this means I had to explore the entire castle, play a lizard catching mini-game, then hand the lizard over, then explore the castle again to find a secret passage leading to the bath, then explore an entire dungeon to fight a boss to get the fruit back.

It just seems to be annoying distractions from the actual plot, as opposed to tying the various places I go back into the story in any meaningful way.
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Actually, in Dragon Quest I'd say the actual plot is really just filler or an excuse to go from point A to B, and definitely not the reason to play the game. You're playing for those simple tasks!
 
Kusagari said:
Okami is the poster child of this thread. Game just went on and on, and it was nowhere near good enough to back up 40 hours of playtime.
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lol I bought this thinking it was maybe 15 hours.... played it for 74 hours and love ever minute of it.... I was waaaayyy better than TP.
 
when i play the Tales of...games, when there's a skit too much, when there's the usual third chapter that comes after the apparent ending...i sometimes wish they were shorter. Not saying I don't enjoy them but you know when you come to a certain point where you just want to see how it all ends and game keeps going and going
 
SS was too short if anything. I was really disappointed to learn that the game would end soon, when I was searching for the song. TP felt longer and more satisfying. :(
But I'm also kinda fast, even when I actually try to discover everything (but still fail with that). My playtime for Okami was slightly above 20 hours.

Sometimes I feel that RPGs like Skies of Arcadia or Xenoblade could have been shorter, but I imagine that the sense of an broad, epic adventure would kinda suffer.
 
Okami. If I remember correctly I had about 30 hours into the game and when I killed that fox(?) boss I was so happy that it was over until it continued. -_- I never finished the game.
 
I felt like Alan Wake and Uncharted 2 both fall in this category.

Halfway through both I was raving about them to anybody who would listen. By the end of both I was sick of them.
 
I knew the first reply would be okami even though i loved every minute of it.
My answer is twilight princess, by the time i got to the final boss(es) I was too worn out. SS is not as bad, but it drags especially because of the reuse of bosses.

I played Xenoblade more than those games combined and I loved every hour
 
Okamiden!

I've never played Okami but can only assume this 'sequel' contains the same problems.
Just when the game seemed to be ending and just where would've been a natural point for the game to wrap up... it continued on... and on... and then made you refight all of the bosses... then went on a little bit more :(
 
Fjordson said:
Your favourite game. The one you've loved for years and years. Shit just dragged and dragged. Real snooze fest.
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yup.
i wish okami and zelda SS were twice as long, cause they're better than so many other games.
tales, on the other hand, is more story-driven and i dig it, but i dont know the last JRPG epilogue mode ive liked since Lunar 2. Castlevania LOS definitely fits the bill, but then i wasnt enjoying it.

Allan Holdsworth said:
Pushmo
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okay, this one's controversial - its a puzzle game! weird choice man.
 
InFamous 2 really dragged towards the end. The early parts of that game have an amazing sense of progression with the combination of the new powers you get and the new environments you unlock. You start off on the first island of the city with few powers, getting into combat mostly on a 2D plane because you can't climb all that speedily. Halfway through you get the Ice Launch and it changes the entire game so completely that all of a sudden you're spending more time in the air than you do on the ground, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and having fucking awesome fights against huge new dudes. And, to get you used to the new style of combat you move to a new, half-flooded area of the city where huge pools of water are strewn everywhere and the new enemies you fight jump just as well as you do. I absolutely adored the middle part of that game.

Then in the third act you move to a new part of the city that's mostly just wide empty streets and buildings you can't climb very well, and you start fighting new enemies that are nothing but tedious bullet sponges. And, to make it worse, either Cole's damage stats are lowered or the enemies' health values get pumped up because you get to the point where every single enemy basic enemy takes five or six headshots to kill and you have to fight forty of them at once every mission. The huge Ice Conduit dudes take minutes of bombardment with all your explosive powers, so you end up just running around searching for places to refill your electric juice because the battles take so long.

I loved InFamous 1 and I thought the first half of InFamous 2 was gearing up to be something even better, but the end just spoiled it for me. And then it never capitalized on the amazing story threads from the end of the first game, and then it had a super shitty ending where it's revealed that the thing you've been trying to power up for the whole game actually doesn't do the the thing you were told it would do so the whole point of the game changes completely in the very last hour out of nowhere. Ugh.
 
lately
dead space (worried about starting no.2 actually), frankly i think it's because of the tension you get from playing it, too stressful to carry on that much
kingdom hearts 358/2...c'mon, 30-40 hours for that?
bioshock 2 a bit
 
Le-mo said:
Okami. If I remember correctly I had about 30 hours into the game and when I killed that fox(?) boss I was so happy that it was over until it continued. -_- I never finished the game.
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see, I don't think it was too long, but i do think that should have been the last fight. if they had put kamui before oni island it would have been better. kamui just felt tacked on and out of order (especially the robot clock owls). Ninetails could have been the boss of kamui and then the final boss could have been at oni island. And forget about the mega man boss fight thing at the end, that was totally unecessary.

the whole time travel back to the original village was cool, but it could have been better than 'aaand fight orochi again!'

still love the game though.
 
Persona 3
Dragon Quest VIII
Okami
Twilight Princess... I am giving up on these games, no chance that I will finish them... all of them quite good (except TP I guess), shame that they got caught by repetiveness or just being slow in general (DQ).


I don't understand what Persona 4 is doing here. I thought it had a perfect length.
 
Scanna said:
lately
dead space (worried about starting no.2 actually), frankly i think it's because of the tension you get from playing it, too stressful to carry on that much
kingdom hearts 358/2...c'mon, 30-40 hours for that?
bioshock 2 a bit
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Well if it's any help, Dead Space 2 is a lot less tense than the first one
 
Loved those, but definitely would have loved them more if they were shorter games:
- Okami (Kamui had a great overworld music, but I would have gladly stopped at Ryoshima)
- Wild Arms 3: The last part with Beatrice is too much. Still a great game.
- Persona 3: The story was great and had a perfect length. The dungeon is way too big though.

Liked those, but definitely they were too long:
- Xenoblade Chronicles: the overworld is so huge that every story bit seems too far from the last one. Even without doing sidequests. Would have liked a faster paced story/game. Around 50 hours for telling a story like this ? Really ? (Note: I still haven't finished the game, but I already feel like it's dragging on)
- Dragon Quest VIII: It's so long that it's boring after a while.
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days: Filler, filler, filler... Nice ending though.
 
LeleSocho said:
How can Skyward Sword be 35 hrs too long if it last 23-25 hrs on the first run?
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What? I hit 40 hours in SS and i hadn't even finished the game. I think when I finally beat it i was at or over 50. I can't imagine how much rushing you'd have to do to beat it under 30 unless you have a guide in front of you the whole time and did no sidequests.
 
Resident Evil 4 -- Awesome game, but started to drag in the Castle and the Island level (minus the lab) was extremely boring and repetitive. The game peaked in the first third, and it was a tough task for them to keep the entire game at that high level.

Skyward Sword -- Lots of padding. It's not that the game drags on at the end or anything; in fact, the last few hours of the game are done really well. There's just a lot of filler in the middle of the game that was totally unnecessary.

I'll also agree with those who mentioned Alan Wake and Dead Space 2, largely because combat got more and more repetitive as those games went along, whereas story and atmosphere was really why I wanted to play those games. It's not that those games were too long per se, from a duration standpoint. I just was not thrilled about more and more action as those games went on. I was engrossed in both experiences early on, but found myself losing interest late, and just wanted to get them over with.

But I definitely don't agree on Portal 2. I thought that it had a near-perfect length, and yet, I wouldn't complain at all if that game went on forever at the rate it was going. That game was pure joy.
 
I've always thought MGS3 dragged on way too long, but that might be just me being so OCD that I can't accept being detected.

Also the goddamn Metroid Prime games. First one took me months to get through. 2nd I really tried to enjoy, but after getting stuck for the 100th time trying to figure out where to go I gave up. 3rd one was just really bland imo.
 
Assasins Creed 2. Great game, but I was ready for it to end about 3 hours before it actually did. Put me off playing any of the sequels, feel like I got enough of that series to last me a lifetime (although I'll probably jump back in for AC3)
 
Imp the Dimp said:
The Witcher 1 is excellent but it sure is about 8h too long. They should've scrapped chapter 4 altogether.
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Chapter 4 was the best chapter in the game IMO! Even if a lot of the chapter wasn't relevant to the main plot... but I liked getting away from those damn swamps and Vizima for a little while, and the environment was the best looking one in the game.
 
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