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Games that take a ridiculously long time to get going

Except when you're trying to show friends how cool it is :\

I made the mistake of starting from the beginning when I had friends over... was damn near finished, on hard too.

Recently bought it again, 29 on psn... Same fucking thing. GF leans over "Are there aliens in this game?"

Bah. JUST YOU WAIT!

trying nightmare this time, or whatever the hardest difficulty was.

The game takes a lot of heat for being too "padded" or having nothing happen but open doors. While some criticisms may be valid, I think maybe the game just isn't for them. I really enjoyed the immersive, creepy experience of playing through the game, and the early encounters with the alien, for me, were electric. I was so fuckin' afraid of that thing.
 
Kingdom Hearts II is the only game where I consciously make multiple saves starting after getting control of Sora just so whenever I feel like replaying the game, I don't have to play through that garbage ass prologue again.

Tried to get into the Persona series with 4, played an hour or two, and just gave up. Apparently, I still had a a couple of hours before things really started moving. Haven't touched the game or the series since.
 
Honestly can't understand why MGSV would be in this thread, it's just an intro (Wich wasn't boring at all at least for me), and then you are completely free in an excelent first mission wich you can beat in any way you want.

That talk about the ending has nothing to do with the premise of the thread
 
Twilight Princess, of course. I don't think the content is badly designed, but the opening stretch of the game before you're given a bit more freedom in discovering the world takes far, far too long to go through the tutorial motions, set up the premise and setting, and push you through the (otherwise fun) forest temple. It drags its knuckles a bit to no real benefit.

Shadow Warrior is another one I think, the reboot that is. It's a fun-as-fuck shooter with a lot of content, but the earliest chapters drip feed you boring, limited load-outs that do zero service to the agility and speed based game systems. The game doesn't really hit its stride until your loadout is buffed with more options and you've unlocked a couple of powers. Once you've hit that point the encounters really open up and become much more exciting.
 
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros.

Even though I was about 40 hours into the game, it still forced me to learn new shit and gave me no sense of freedom whatsoever.
Agreed. I played about the same amount of time and then realized it was slowly driving me insane.
 
Honestly can't understand why MGSV would be in this thread, it's just an intro (Wich wasn't boring at all at least for me), and then you are completely free in an excelent first mission wich you can beat in any way you want.

That talk about the ending has nothing to do with the premise of the thread

It was an hour and half I will never get back that was the exact opposite of what made the game good. Maybe length in minutes wasn't as great as other mentioned titles but within its own logic took forever to get going and made me want to quit( waiting for the scenes in the bed was excruciating) actually did shut it off once and started again later.

as for the end comment maybe it was not necessary but I was using it to illustrate how tedious the prologue was to the degree I will never even try to platinum the game because I cannot sit through that again for tasks.

Time is relative and I have played slow RPG beginnings that kept me a lot more invested making the hospital seemed longer.
 
I simply could not continue playing Mario & Luigi: Dream Team after spending like 5 hours learning all the simple mechanics the previous 3 games in the series had already taught me (faster).

Edit: I see that people are already calling that shit out here. It's so bizarre that the fourth game in a franchise lost its way so badly.
 
snake_phantompain.jpg


Still great though.

Great first post. The beginning of MGS5 is one of my least favorite experiences in gaming. Just garbage dragged out far past its shelf-life. It's so dissimilar from the rest of the game, it doesn't even seem like it should be part of the same title.
Nearly turned the game right off when I saw I was expected to do it a second time.
 
The Last of Us finally starts when
Tess dies.

That game has one of the best/most soul shattering intros of any game I can think of though. Would say that balances it out a bit.

Came to say Twilight Princess, it's probably my favorite Zelda game but damn does it take forever to get started.
 
The beginning of most Zelda games. Just throw me into the action damn it! I don't want to play the village sequence at the beginning of every Zelda!!! It feels like it lasts foreeeever. Link to the Past did it right.

You mean the first five titles did it right.

Okami
Twilight Princess
Skyward Sword
Majora's Mask

3D Zelda thread.

Well Ocarina of Time is exempt from it. With Twilight Princess I can agree, but with Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask I didn't feel like I was doing nothing.
 
Suikoden V. You do nothing but press x for the first few hours.

Damn good game though. It's a shame we haven't seen another game in the series.
 
What no Xenogears? You have to wait and track 25 hours into the game in order to start really enjoying it.. told myself never again when I play a game that takes at least 25 hours just to get to the good part.
 
FFX is like 4 hours until you reach the High Road which is where you can finally start playing around with a decent amount of characters and abilities. Until then its linear cutscene tutorials with one easy optional boss.
 
I'm absolutely dreading the beginning of Twilight Princess when I buy the WiiU version of it. It's a pretty good game otherwise but that introduction is an exercise in tedium.
 
Oh and also Assassin's Creed 3. The "tutorial" felt like it wouldn't fucking end.
That was the worst I've seen. Didn't manage to get through it.

And even for being a many hour tutorial, it was so overbearing in its handholding. You had to do exactly what it wanted you to do exactly the way it wanted you to do it.

A few hours into a game shouldn't have you feeling extraneous to the whole thing.
 
I think it would be a shorter thread if we listed the JRPGs that don't take a long-ass time to get going.

Xenoblade X has the perfect intro set piece. Quick story cinematic, then a quick run through a small part of the first continent with battles.

Final Fantasy 6 has a similar opening structure. Devs, please let me play your game in the first 15 minutes so I can decide if I'll care about your story.
 
Persona 4 Golden. But I love every second of it. I enjoy reading for hours and like when games have tons of story or dialogue.

I had the opposite reaction to Persona 4.

I love a good story, but this game just didn't respect my time.

In the time it takes Persona 4 to introduce a setting and a few characters, you could have watched an entire Lord of the Rings film, complete with character development, battles, world-building, plot and more.

The developers have stumbled across what is surely one of the least efficient storytelling methods of all time.
 
Xenoblade X has the perfect intro set piece. Quick story cinematic, then a quick run through a small part of the first continent with battles.

Final Fantasy 6 has a similar opening structure. Devs, please let me play your game in the first 15 minutes so I can decide if I'll care about your story.
Okay but how long does it take to get your skell
 
Twilight Princess was fine the first time through for me as I was just exploring Ordon village and soaking it all in. I never felt like the game was holding me back unnecessarily. But any future playthrough though was excruciatingly painful.

P4 felt super slow compared to P3 which started the action pretty quick. Again though first time through it was cool, but after that going through it again is pretty rough.
 
I didn't think that much about Tears to Tiara II being billed as a half-visual novel, half-strategy game until it took like six hours to get a map that wasn't 10 minute filler.
 
FFXIII is the wrong answer.

That game never gets going.

You reach Gran Pulse and.... it's just nothing. It's a pay off that never comes. I stopped playing just after it.

Anyway, Okami is fairly obnoxious.

MGS4 is also a bit annoying because it's a lengthy cutscene and then you crawl under a truck then it's another length cutscene then you walk up a street.... to another cutscene.... then you run away from Gekkos.... into another lengthy cutscene.... I think you get the title here as well.
 
Suikoden V. It takes like 15 hours before the game opens up and gives you access to your base and the very beginning of the game is so slow. It makes replays of the game a nightmare.
 
Bit surprised by the MGSV posts, that was a fantastic opening IMO.

Persona 4 and Twilight Princess were the most egregious for me.
 
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