• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Short RPGs?

S

StoppedInTracks

Member
What are the available short RPGs no matter the system? By short I mean 10-20 hours doing 100% of quests - not speedruns or achievements farming. I guess most of them will be on handhelds (GB, GBA, DS)?

In the past I've beaten Ancient Land of Ys (that was Ys 1 on NES?) in one day, under 10 hours IIRC. That is a short RPG in my eyes.

For instance is Undertale short?
 
StoppedInTracks said:
What are the available short RPGs no matter the system? By short I mean 10-20 hours doing 100% of quests - not speedruns or achievements farming. I guess most of them will be on handhelds (GB, GBA, DS)?

In the past I've beaten Ancient Land of Ys (that was Ys 1 on NES?) in one day, under 10 hours IIRC. That is a short RPG in my eyes.

For instance is Undertale short?
Click to expand...

It depends on which endings you'd want to get.
 
Age of decadence. A play through takes between 2 and 12 hours, the game is built around replayability instead and it's amazing too.
 
Mega Man Legends, if you're into that kind of RPGs. The first one can be finished within 3 hours 100% if you're pretty good with the game. The second one can be a decent 10-15 hours, or may take 20 hours at most.
 
StoppedInTracks said:
For instance is Undertale short?
Click to expand...

Undertale is pretty short, by average a run through takes me about 5-6 hours and honestly that works out pretty well since you'll be playing through the game around two-three times depending on your choices.

Although I was thinking of it as a gag recommendation, I have to say Half-Minute Hero might actually be up your alley. Despite the title it's definitely a longer game than 30 seconds, and it has grinding and party members, just all boiled down to stages that are 30 seconds long and for that it's really fun and I remember it being quite a journey throughout the game.

Around the 10-20 hour range, I'd say stuff like the Tales of Xillia games might fit the bill. They've been getting shorter and shorter and although I don't know if you can 100% them in 10-20 hours, you should definitely be able to play through them in that time.

Oh yeah, and Chrono Trigger. How could I forget that? That might even fit your craving the best since it can be considered a relatively short JRPG but damn if it isn't good.
 
The Zeboyd family of games (Breath of Death VII, Cthulhu Saves The World, Penny Arcade Adventures episodes 3 and 4) at least so far. I think Cosmic Star Heroine's going to be a bit longer, though?

As an added bonus, the double-pack of BoD and CSTW is ludicrously cheap.
 
Undertale is short, even doing multiple runs is shorter than most other short RPGs.

Most of the Ys series is short, though they've become more and more bloated lately.

The Shadowrun reboot games are shortish, though I think I ended Hong Kong and Dragonfall around 30 hours, not 20, so maybe a bit long. Returns was in the 20ish range.

Vampire the Masquearde: Bloodlines is in the 20 hour vein.

Deus Ex games tend to be in the 20ish hour range.

Costume Quest series

The Banner Saga series

Lisa The Painful RPG.
 
Dragon Quest 1 is 10 hours long and Dragon Quest 2 is about 19 hours long.

Costume Quest 1 and 2 are each about 6 hours long.

I Am Setsuna is about 17-20 hours long but I haven't finished it.

http://howlongtobeat.com/ is a pretty good resource for game lengths.
 
Parasite Eve is a great little 8-10 hour affair.

I played through it in 2012 (after shunning it in its day and age! - 1998) and I loved every moment of it. Very easy to play a nice full game of that length, nowadays.
 
Star Ocean 5 - Main game + 100 quests is around 20-30 hours
I Am Setsuna - Main game + sidequests will be around 15-25 hours
 
Vampire:Bloodlines being between 10-20h is super optimistic. Outstanding game and one of my favs but I found it rather lengthy. Took me 36h according to Steam.

CecilRousso said:
I beat Mass Effect 1 in 16h, but I guess I missed some things in it.
Click to expand...

None of which were worth doing so don't fret. 16h for the main story is realistic and there is not much more worthwhile content in the game beside that.
 
ULTROS! said:
Star Ocean 5 - Main game + 100 quests is around 20-30 hours
I Am Setsuna - Main game + sidequests will be around 15-25 hours
Click to expand...

Wait... is that true? It took me 95 hours to beat Star Ocean 4 excluding Cave of Seven Stars but I topped Collisseum Solo and 9th place Team.

Also please get real with Mass Effect 1 being 16 hours and Vampire being 20 hours. Those are much longer games - took me 3x this time to beat them.

Enter the Dragon Punch said:
South Park: The Stick of Truth is about 10 hrs long
Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks. Will pick this game up now.
 
Vampire is in no way a 60 hour game. Unless you spent like 30 dancing at The Asylum. Just replayed it and capped out at 23, and that's after a quick restart a couple hours in AND the additional content from the fan patch. HLTB also has it at 24.
 
Already been said but I will also recommend Child of Light and South Park Stick of Truth. Can get them real cheap. I played CoL a while back but currently playing Stick of Truth.

I would also recommend The Witcher 2. How Long To Beat says it can be done in 24 hours. My playthrough lasted 19 hours but I did skip some side quests.
 
Deus Ex, Deus Ex HR and Vampire are all roughly 20 hour games. HR a bit longer with the DLC included.

60 hours to beat Mass Effect 1 = you are probably an insane completionist and spent an inordinate amount of time going to all the UNC worlds. ME1 is like 20-25 hours. You can do it much faster too.
 
Lisa RPG is one of my favorite games ever and I was surprised when I reached the end. It's about 10-15 hours long. Still, a very satisfying experience and there's the DLC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
RPGs from my backlog
20
147
PeteBull replied
The Lack Of Star Wars RPGs Disturbs Me
2
57
320
simpatico replied
Atari Acquires Rights to the Legendary Wizardry RPGs
0
101
falconhoof replied
The year of no RPGs...
2
53
1K
Northeastmonk replied
Best RPGs for main quest / side quests?
2
81
1K
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt replied
Top Bottom