Length In JRPGs | Quality Vs. Quantity Game Time
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
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As the years go by my free time tends to get smaller and smaller while JRPGs on average continue to get longer and longer. Back in the day everyone loved super long games but it seems like the sentiment has slowly shifted over the years. This video examines length in JRPGs and why more isn't always better.
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Intro Song
weirddough - flowerz
Outro Song
Music by Chinsaku - Departure - thmatc.co/?l=3B0051A4
00:00 - 01:43 Intro
01:44 - 03:14 Wandering Sword Sponsored Segment
03:15 - 05:10 Length Through The Generations
05:11 - 06:30 Chrono Trigger's Perfect Pacing
06:31 - 07:24 Pacing of Battles
07:25 - 08:36 Quality Vs. Quantity
08:37 - 09:18 Dragon Quest VII's Slow Start and Long Length
09:19 - 10:32 Closing Thoughts
10:33 - 13:17 Outro
#LongRPGs #ChronoTrigger #DragonQuest - Ігри
As a 31 year old father and husband I just can't physically devote that much time anymore to jrpgs. I think 20 to 30 is the perfect length nowadays. I can do 40 or more but at some point it's going to feel cumbersome. I recently sank 88 hours completing the True Demon Ending of SMT Nocturne. I felt so burnt out, and went to play Chrono Trigger for the first time ever. Oh man what a night and day difference. (Mind you, I still consider Nocturne one of my top 5, but it's so hard to devote that much time and energy to one thing)
Dropped the difficulty down toward the end of Nocturne, not because the game was hard, but because I was done fusing more demons.
It's not my first Atlus RPG, been there done that. While the world and characters were fun and interesting, the fusing aspect of the gameplay just got tiresome.
For me it's the grinding that all feels necessary in order to prepare for the next phase. I can get by with long games for as long they keep me tuned in to the characters and the adventure that they set themselves in. Grinding gets boring after a while.
Sometimes it's also this thought of not wanting the game to end yet. As a consequence, I shelve the game away and not play it for a long time...a really long time.
Yeah the smt games a brutal as an adult arent they? I beat persona 3 this year and I had to use ever bit of my free time over the course of 3 months. By the end I felt so burt out
Pouring one out for a fellow true demon nocturne ending person. ✌️
I absolutely agree, 36 year old father of 5 checking in. I’ll take a shorter rpg any day these days. Time simply does not exist anymore
Over the last couple console generations I've really grown to appreciate shorter and sweet experiences. I love a well crafted 10-15 hour game. I can still get into a 40+ hour game, but they have to be something special with good pacing and combat to keep me engaged. I'd love to see more bigger budget rpgs aim for 20-30 hours.
Same. I just finished cloudpunk. Only about 10 hours, but there’s so little fluff that the story hits way harder.
I would prefer a game that is between 10-15 hours on the first run, but has plenty of reason for repeat playthrough's.
Resident Evil games are usually great for this. Chasing special weapons, faster clear times, etc.
Mario games, where you reach the end credits and can 'feel' done, but then are left with a ton of extra stuff to do if you choose.
Platinum usually makes games like this as well. I used to love Souls games for that. NG+, PvP, challenge runs, different builds, etc.
@@phant0mdummy ye but for me i prefer it to be around 50 - 60 hours main story, because i want to at least get 50 hours in on something that i pay 60$ for. The problem with new jrpg is the price, all these new jrpgs are good and all but paying 60$ for 30 hours of gameplay that you beat in a week and then not touching it again can be expensive to some people. Reason why games like league, valorant, dota 2 are so popular is because they are free, anyone can play it and you get thousands of hours in. Prices is what killing single player games not the players.
The games that can fit the most amount of personality and story into the shortest amount of time possible while still making it seem natural and not rushed is what makes a great game.
Very good! Sounds like you know your stuff. Which examples can you think of, please (apart from those mentioned in the vid, of course)?
@@hyperplayrpg if you play more recent games generally playing on easy boosts experience for your party or reduces enemy stats(either way is less grinding). That could help with future games. Although, I guess it depends on what you're playing a game for.
@@GamingTranceSeer Thank you! You're quite right: Xenoblade 3 allows players to play however they like, with generous bonus EXP and other nice touches.
Try Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming. Amazing game only about 20 hours or so kong for the main game. But by the end it feels like you've been through 40. Just so much happens and so quickly that it just feels like it's much longer. Plot is just good fun as well with a few really standout moments.
@@hyperplayrpg a short hike
I also wholeheartedly agree with your Chrono Trigger take. I also played that game way after it’s release when it came to the DS and as I played I thought “now I understand why this game gets the praise it does. WELL DESERVED.”
I think of it like reading a book. I like books, but sometimes I realize the quality isn't there the whole way through, so I stop and find something better to do with my time.
Sometimes, though, It's not the game's fault, but extenuating circumstances that force me to stop. I'll always come back to try again, but even that can be hard because I might have forgotten the story. I like when RPGs give you a recap when you load up a save, so you don't feel lost, and don't have to replay earlier parts. I feel that's a considerate move by the developer that values my time.
Well said. That's why a website like timetobeat is so valuable. Know in advance of the necessary time commitment.
I had to restart so many RPGs when I was a kid because I forgot what I was doing after awhile. Agreed on having recaps or some type of synopsis log that you can always go back to and read that fills you in on the events of the game, the Tales series is great with this
Length is the ultimate reason why I had finished so few JRPGs and played so many. And each time I finished it was for 90% due to an outstanding story which could keep me playing through many hours of boring gameplay.
I remember ps1 games like ff9 8 and 7 being multiple disks and loving it!
me too! And they weren´t full of lame side quests or backtracking either. It was quality from the beginning to the end!
@Steven Goodman exactly. Today's 100hr games r big but it's got too much filler not enough substance
Word i remember when your mom was multiple disks
All that matters is that I'm having fun I don't give a shit if anyone else thinks it's too long I don't care I just want to have fun and as long as I'm having fun it can be as long as it wants, eventually I will finish it.
@UncleJD that's how I was with assassins crees valhalla and odyssey. Such big games with so much side content I got burnt out. Forgot about the games. Came back months later and finished them and loved them.
My favourite jrpgs for a replay would be these for sure:
-The Alliance alive
-Suikoden 1-2-5
-Suikoden Tierkreis
-Radiant Historia
-Chrono Trigger
-Shadow hearts 1-2
-Dragon Quest 9-8
-Final Fantasy 5-6-9-10
-Bravely default & Second
-The 4 heroes of light
-Summon night X Tears Crown
-Golden Sun 1-2
-Lunar Legend PSP
-Romancing Saga Minstrel song
-Ni No Kuni DS
-Metal max 2-3 DS
A perfect length for a jrpg imo is around 20 hrs for the story, and 30-40 hrs including side quests.
I seriously need to steal your list)
Man, I must have been playing Suikoden 1&2 the wrong way. I see now people saying it should take 40-50 hours to beat. I feel like it took me 20 hours or so more than that to beat 1, and I got burned out playing Suikoden 2 right after and never finished it. I couldn't convince myself to care about more than 5-10 characters. Having 108 or whatever was just ridiculous.
The thing with rpgs is that they should at least be long enough to let you utilize all or most of your skills and the character that you built over that time with a sense of progression. If they end too soon without enough challenging content it feels dissapointing.
FF12 still has some of the best end/post-game to this day for this exact reason.
Excellent video. I never got to play Suikoden 1 or 2 but after watching this and understanding they are more of a manageable gameplay length I’m excited to give them a go when the remasters drop this year.
god I wish I could experience them for the first time. Suikoden 1 is one of my top 3 favourite games of all time (along with FFIV and Secret of Mana) the soundtrack is absolutely god tier
Suikoden 1 and 2 felt too short for me
Its like a good show that ends in like season 3 but with enough good content for at least 2 seasons more
When quality is good you dont mind the time
They are much more manageable with time compared to most other PS1 RPGs back then. They’ve aged pretty damn well I think, hope you enjoy your time with them
@@GamingBroductions 5:59 HOW did you get to walk around on that map in that timeline?!
Excellent video and dang, the visual scenes were perfect. Blended good points with nostalgic viewing. Couldn't agree more, 25-35h is my favorite game legnth. Its like a single season anime, nothing more than just a tight storyline with a few side bits here and there to break up the pacing a little. Snes and PS1 games just do that so well.
Exactly, but ocassionally an 80 hour XenoBlade is appreciated.
Just needs to be done well.
Plus playing on switch/steamdeck with a sleep mode is a game changer.
15-20 hours is a great length for me but even short is good too. My favorite thing about Live A Live is the short length of the individual stories. It lets me get in a complete story after work and then I can come back to it in week or two to do another story. It works really well with the stage of life I’m in right now.
Also… SURF NINJAS!
congrats on the sponsor!
love coming home from a long day and watching a gaming broductions vid
Thumbs up for that 90 plus hour Xenogears playthrough. Good club to be in.
An awesome club for sure. After all those hours it was bittersweet to finally beat it
@@GamingBroductions I have both dreams and nightmares of what could have been, had they the time and budget to properly do the second disc.
The last dungeon alone was probably 30 hours of finding out where to go
It's not just JRPGs that are suffering from length bloat. I recently finished Pathfinder: Kingmaker and by my estimation I put a bit over 140 hours into that playthrough. Now, part of that is because it's based on the tabletop Adventure Path of the same name, and thus has to adapt literal months worth of playtime. I was also trying to do most of the content the game had to offer and I mainly played with turned-based combat. Both can be changed to cut down the playtime. Yet, I loved the game. It COULD have been much shorter, undoubtedly, but I still enjoyed it.
Pacing is definitely the big thing that determines the perfect game time. I think that's why I like FFX so much, the pacing feels just right, and when the game opens up for minigames, it's often at locations where the game makes it feel like you've deserved a little break. Such as Blitzball after Luca and pretty much almost every side quest when you finally reach The Calm Lands.
That's also why I like Grandia, you feel like you're on an adventure, and the game never overstays its welcome when it comes to locations, with the older areas slowly locking you out as you progress. And it's always with events that make perfect sense. Can't go back to the starting areas if you've crossed the ocean.
Grandia has amazing pacing. You keep finding a bigger and bigger world and your characters grow naturally.
Agreed
Xenogears OST gave me goosebumps, still the best JRPG ever made imo (even counting CD2 )
FF3 and FF6 are two RPG that surprised me most. FF6 especially, because the post-appocalyptic themed on the other half of the game progress, the map changed creating entirely different places to explore, and this was coming from the 2D era of FF and SNES release.
Notice how they never even mentioned this game, but plugged ChronoTrigger over and over?
Lame.
Have you played 5? It might not be as polished aesthetically or have the same depth story and character wise, but the gameplay and job/class system is so good regardless. FF5 has more than one world too!
@@Liminal-Escalator Yeah FF5 job system is like the upgraded version of FF3.
@@mrdeatheli Maybe he (the content creator) haven't played FF6 yet, so he cannot put it on the list? No need to be that salty
This just popped up on my feed and I’m listening to it first thing when I get to work this evening. Thanks dudes!
No problem dude, hope you enjoyed it!
The length of JRPGs was one of the reasons I got into them when I was younger. I didn't have much money and I could only get a couple of games per year, so the length was super important. However, now I can't play as much as I did as a kid, so a JRPG might take me a couple of months to complete. I have the money to get any game I want, but that means I not have an insane backlog because I just lack the time.
Always love your guy's vids. I think were about the same age based on what games you played as a kid, and we seem have a lot in common. Keep pushing videos like this out. I really like the look of the videos and the commentary. In fact, I went ahead and joined your channel. Never done that with a UA-cam channel before. Keep the content coming.
Wow, thanks so much. Really appreciate that. Always really cool to see others from the same generation who grew up playing a lot of the same games.
Not sure if you use Discord, but I’m going to make a post for our UA-cam members specifically later today giving access to our server where us and our Patreon supporters just talk and hang out. It’s a lot of likeminded people from a similar generation so we have a good time in there
I believe the main part for me is that when I lived with my parents I didn’t mind being in my room or at my buddies gaming the entire time but now that I have my own life as an adult with a family, job etc I just can’t sit down and fully commit to every 30+ hour rpg anymore
Xenogears is one of my favorite games ever! But I do rarely like super super long games. Unless like you said, well paced!
Man I love your videos. Keep up the good work champ
I'm in my forties and have been playing through the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy since last October, putting 120 or so into each (now 40 into 3, maybe half way).
These games are amazing. The characters are fleshed out and often funny. Even the grinding is pretty fun. The story is bonkers, but everything is more or less explained by the end.
In other words, I still like a long JRPG as long as it's one of the best ever lol.
Edit: Tales of Symphonia Remastered just came out for Switch yesterday. Highly recommended.
I'm in my twenties playing through all 4 Xenoblade games. Finished the first one (the wii version because at the I didn't have a Switch), clocking in at about 100 hours. I've been playing X for about 90 hours and feel like I've barely seen half of what the game offers, though I am really taking my sweet time with it. I'm about 55 hours into 2, just a little past the Kingdom of Tantal. Eventually I'll pick up 3, it'll still be on store shelves a couple years from now when I'll probably be ready to play it. I rarely played RPGs outside of Pokémon growing up (and while I thought they were fun, I really don't consider those 'real' RPGs), so Xenoblade was one of the best things I've ever decided to put time into. It's literally changed how I think about a lot of things, I can't recommend it enough to people.
@@Sacren365 I don't have a Wii U so I can't play X. Hopefully it will be ported to Switch since 3 was so successful (GOTY nominations).
love your videos, not sure how i found your channel way back, but i recognized your voice. Great work on this.
Fantastic vid, subscribed!
Another excellent video! Shout out to the Surf Ninjas (a hidden gem in its own right) nugget at 9:31, and congratulations on the sponsorship! Much deserved
Surf Ninjas is such a 90s movie in every sense of the term, it like epitomizes that decade lol. And thank you very much!
@@GamingBroductions the plot point of the kid's video game affecting real life was ahead of its time for sure. Also I really wanted the video game he was playing to be real so I could buy it, alas that wasn't the case
Fantastic editing in this video my man
Dude I’m 36 and it took me 150 hours to beat Persona 5 Royal. I have heard people beating it between 115-130 hours. Play at your own pace. I enjoyed it.
Honestly, I ust loved getting to see so many clips of all of my favorite games :)
I think you hit it on the mark. Just goes down to how much we are enjoying a game and how long it can keep us engaged.
Great video man. Hit the nail on the head
Love your vids! Keep em coming!
Will do and thanks for watching!
Gz on the sponsorship and mad respect for only using one you actually support
Great work as always!
Wandering Swords seems really cool, I´ll try the demo!
Great video. This is why I loved Chained Echoes so much. It had incredible pacing. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves Chrono Trigger.
Totally agree. It's the only rpg in years that I haven't given up on!
BEST CHANNEL EVER!!! You had me at Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG in the thumbnail ❤
I love the fact that you guys have FF9 as your favorite FF cuz thats mine too. Being such, my favorite JRPGs to replay have been Tales of Symphonia (my fav JRPG and game of all time), Kingdom Hearts 2 (second fav JRPG and game of all time) and FF9. Those are my top 3 more replayed JRPGs and games in general.
A person of culture I see, you have some great taste. Tales of Symphonia is my favorite in the series and one of my all time favorites as well, I have such fond nostalgic memories with that one. I had a blast replaying it last year
FFIX tough is hard on replay compare to FFVII or even VIII due to the very slow animation in combat and even how slow the ATB fills compare to VII or VIII, thank god for the speed up option on the Latest ports.
I think my top 3 in order are chrono trigger, FF tactics, then FF 9 or xenogears also I great game I played recently was chained echoes... man so good 👍
@@noble61483 playing chained echoes now, the story has been a pretty wild ride so far
@@CubicleJ0ckey agreed protagonist has a ff7 or xenogears vibe to it. It was done so well!
I love JRPG with branching storyline and post game content like Chrono Cross.
Ff7 is also pretty open ended
3 channels I subbed to all had wandering sword as their sponsor today. No complaint, it truly is a good game haha
Very well written and concise video. For me after about 30-40 hours of a game I start to feel like I have to play something else to have variety and often forget the previous game I was playing. So the 30-40 hour mark is the sweet spot for myself.
This video just made me a sub, a really great video.
Appreciate it, thanks for subbing!
Great video. I think having the “save anywhere” option and/or a game being available on a portable console like the Switch definitely makes me more likely to go all in on a longer game.
I also really like games that make good narrative use of their side quests. I really liked the way Tales of the Abyss did that. There’s actually a lot of lore and world-building for Abyss (so much they couldn’t fit it all in the game) and many of the main characters have their plots developed moreso through side quests than the main story. It makes the main game compelling but reasonable to get through, but then there’s plenty of side content with actual narrative depth if you’re really enjoying the story and cast and want to go deeper.
The side quests in Abyss are indeed super fleshed out, I remember being impressed by how story/character relevant they were and how a lot of them easily could have just been part of the main game. My only gripe is the window to trigger some of them is so small that it’s basically impossible to see them all without a guide. Some of them span across the entire game too so if you miss that first trigger you’re screwed. Love the concept behind the side quests, just wish they would have been a little more forgiving with how missable they are
@@GamingBroductions definitely agreed! We missed one of the triggers for the Contamination sidequest with Jade and Dist and realized it too late.
Great video! Awesome topic too - I like 20-35 ish hour JRPGs because while I have played some 100 hour games that I LOVE...they take me so long that it becomes frustrating. Takes me 3 months when I could have beat three other games in those three months. I don't want to spend 100 hours on anything really...so it gets tough lol
Totally, it gets a little harder to manage a 100 hour game with life gets in the way you know lol
I would say the perfect rpg to me would be like having a decent length on the main storyline (25-35h), but being jam-packed of content and extra stuff, like side-quests that would flesh out the world.
I'm actually playing DQ9 on ds, and it is kinda like that. It's nice to chill and go for a quest here and there.
Thats what i like with FF7 crisis core, its perfect for short bursts of play.
Sure, that has got to do with its portable roots..
I may be a freak, but I like them to be around 100 hrs or so. 50 to 70 hr storyline with about 30 hrs of side quest 🤷♂️ I don't dislike shorter games, but I'm the type that wants to stay in these worlds as long as possible. Lol it's rare if I revisit a game I've completed so that probably has alot to do with it.
Yeah I feel that. So many games out these days. Harder to revisit games you played when your list is longer
Ok but you probably have more time than most. Try playing JRPG when you have a family and a full-time job.
@@drnanard9605 you don't play the game in one sitting. You play when you play, then save the game and turn it off, then pick it up later. Whether the game is 30 hours or 200 hours makes no difference to your daily schedule
@@MinecraftMartin it does mate. Do you expect people to want to play a single game over a whole year? It becomes boring quickly. And you lose track of the story and what you're even supposed to do. Adults often have to stop playing for long periods of time and only have a few hours each month.
@@drnanard9605 hasn't been such a detriment for me, at least. I have kids, work full time and am in school. Somehow I've been able to manage whatever game I've got my eye on. Just recently finished Dragon Quest 11. Took me 140 hours and a long ass time, but wasn't catastrophic.
I think being busy isn't the factor. It's a mix of your personality and nuances to the way you manage your time, how alert you are to remember where you left off.
So to you it does, mate. To me it doesn't. Sorry
Hilarous that you put a clip of the Thunder PLains of FF X😆 I used to think as a kid, I had to complete all of these nonsence side quests. Be a 100% Completionist in every game I ever played. I even spent 400 hrs mastering the sphere grid on the PS2 back in the day. Now I ask my self, why in the hell did i do that? What just so a few friends of mine can see my progress because this was back in the day where you didn't really didn't have social online communities or anything like that. So much time in my opinion wasted that Could have been spent playing other games and with so many games in the world to play, time is everything and as a gamer I have now learned to priorize my self alot more effeciently.
Yeah we spent our lifetime in games cause we do not understand how precious it is and how many good choises around. It is cool that you still playing hard and so like it but i wish in my 15 i rather spent all times to friends and girls than to games but no one told me then how do it right
This was an awesome topic! I love this channel even though I rarely play RPGs anymore. As a father of three it’s hard enough to get time to play anything anymore… I got into JRPGs during the PS1 era and that’s all I played!
Xenogears to this day is probably my favorite game! But I’m with you on games over a hundred hours. I just can’t do them. Hell, I would have a hard time at 50 hour games…
I actually haven’t played any RPGs since the PS1, even though I do own a PS4. Although I think I may pull the trigger on CrossCode. I think it’s the graphical style that is pulling me in.
But anyways. I’ve been having a hankering to get back into the genre and those older SNES era RPGs are starting to look like a great option for me since some of them are as little as 10 hours! I’ve got a handful of them from collecting over the years but never played them since I felt they couldn’t hold a candle to the PS1 stuff at the time. (Haha! How naive)
One of my most precious games I own is a copy of Lufia II that a good friend and coworker loaned me to borrow and said It was his favorite game.
Well the years passed and we both forgot I had it and several years ago he actually committed suicide and I never had the heart to delete one of his save files…. I should though since he told me to play the game and most likely the save battery will die soon anyway.
Sorry for the long story, really did enjoy this interim shorter video! Keep up the great content!
Gameplay has to keep me engaged. Legend of Dragoon, FF7, FF8, Wild Arms 1 has fun gameplay that will keep you hooked for that long time.
Dang, as soon as I saw your message on IG, I'm BLESSED with a new vid! On the road for work but will watch this asap 💪🏾
Comment for the Algods
Appreciate you my man! Gonna send you a message back on IG later this week, there’s something I wanted to ask you about
@@GamingBroductions Let's wrap bro! I'm down to chop it up any time.
Excited about the Wild Arms retrospective!
Little late on this, but we hope you enjoyed it 😂
I remember when I played Dragon Warrior 7 for the first time. I put over 120 hours into it and still had a lot of stuff to do! And this was in the early days of the internet, so there weren't FAQ's readily available.
Same thing with FF12, i spent tons of hours to seek some secret monsters cause without any clue it was blindly searching
I bet you had fun.
It’s crazy how long the game is lol, so much stuff to do. I remember spending way longer on some RPGs too back in the day before I found out about GameFAQs and places like that
@@GamingBroductions when I played it again years later, I made about the same progress but about 40 hours less playtime!
One thing that makes longer RPGs more fun is if their plot is more episodic, as it you get a story with beginning middle end villains victims and heroes and maybe a mystery to solve in just a few hours then you move onto the next town and get another one. Then it isn't a question of spending dozen of hours to resolve one story but one or two more to resolve the next. Dragon quest 7 did this very well until near the end where the dungeons got too long and each other told part of a story and the villain was a generic ultimate evil dude those name I forgot. Same with 11.
That's the main reason I live Sryth - it keeps up the plot density of the first quest through hundreds of hours of gameplay.
WONDERING SWORD!!! I still havent tried the demo but that game looks so good, I cant wait to give it a go
Speaking of quality; Mitsuda’s soundtrack to CC ❤❤❤ Best video game soundtrack ever created.
Excellent video.
This is definitely a topic that seems to pop up the older I get. I guess when you’re young and the years seem to last forever, 60+ hrs doesn’t seem all that intimidating. If anything, with all that time I had on my hands, length was never a factor. So of course, as I got older and life became a needy bitch, time became a much more limited resource. At 40, I’ve become acutely aware of how long a game takes to complete and it’s one of the first things I consider when deciding what to play. Now, 10-20/25 hrs is kind of the sweet spot for both my attention and what I’m still willing to commit to. Long-ass RPGs will always have a place, but a tight, well-made adventure will always be preferred. I’m just glad I’m not the only one to feel this way. I mean, my generation that was raised on first-gen Nintendo, PSX, Xbox, etc., and now we’re all busy with lives and kids and careers, and not endless summers with nothing to do but play games.
Jeez, this turned into a rant.
Funny you say that 60 hour JRPG's were not intimidating for you as a kid, but as an adult you stick to 20 odd hour JRPGs.
I'm the opposite, as a kid I went out a lot so I only had time for short games. Now that I'm older (and after XenoBlade/FE Awakening broke the shell) I find myself "binging" more on long games.
Xenoblade, Zelda, and recently Grandia PS1 were really fun games to play over 3-6 months bit by bit.
End of the day, Tactics games are my go to. Can play a "level" in an hour, very episodic and easy to stop.
Ooo wandering sword looks really promising. On my wishlist tonight!
I used to listen to the song that plays during the outro all the time a couple months after it dropped and I just got hit with nostalgia hard lmao great vid too
The Xenogears music in this video is really taking me back. So many memories with that game.
You can also make the long grind or some of the extra length, optional content, such as when near the end of a game the world opens up to you to explore and revisit places. That way your initial play through can be as long as you want of it, and replays can be done much quicker, or you can select which side content you care about for like your main characters special weapon or something.
We didn't have a lot of money so never could afford a lot of games, but the ones I did have were RPGs because they were so long.
You talk about long games in a short video i like that
played wandering sword demo. it was dope. thanks
I wish I had the time for these. It's been yrs since I've sat down and enjoyed a good old jrpg without constant interruptions every 2 minutes
Skies of Arcadia 🔥🔥🔥
~40hrs
Just replayed it last year, just as good as the previous half dozen times I've completed it! Story, characters, world, gameplay are all fantastic! AND THE MUSIC!!! ❤😭💪 Game needs a remaster-battles could easily be sped up, make it high def maybe even higher poly count, add a couple new places to explore-everything else is simply perfect 👌
It's very interesting you have clips of Chrono Cross in there because while I definitely enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone, GOOD GREIF am I glad I played the remake because some of those battles can really drag on. Other than that though, definitely recommend it!
Gotta say once I found your content I have been binging it the last several days, really great videos. I'd love to hear your take on Level-5's games of the 2000s as that company was definitely had a ton of games.
To speak to the video topic though, I think any length is fine as long as there's enough story to tell. Persona 5 went on for 100+ hours but there's so much to do and experience and there's so many interactions and a lot of interesting story beats, it doesn't feel overly long. Conversely, Chrono Trigger is incredible and moves at a brisk pace, and is highly replayable, so despite only lasting about 15-20 hours for most people for a single playthrough, that's more than sufficient and you can always go back and get all the endings and spend as much time as you want with how opened ended it is. What I don't like is when a game drags out the plot too much, making the game feel longer than it really needs to be
I spent 200+ hours on dragon quest 11. Loved it.
We had access to a much smaller pool of games back in the day and most of us were kids so the amount we could buy was also limited. Long or replayable games were a much bigger deal. Now we have an oversaturation of games, life stretching our time thin, and shorter attention spans.
In the 90s we needed to make a handful of games last. Now we need to squeeze games into our limited free time. Of course we switched from long to short games.
exactly, i just finished Grandia 1. 30 years ago i wouldn't complain much but now i just feel the game can do away with or half the size of a lot of the dungeons to reach the next plot point
You are so right!!
Glad you agree!
Wandering Sword almost looks like a rom hack of Live A Live
I completely agree on pacing, even a brief pause on bubble dialogue could add up and kills the flow for me. “If you can't make it fun, at least make it quick”.
Combat in ATB games only consists of like 5 actions max per random battle, but ATB add unnecessary layer to make it feels like I already did twice the action.
Trails was popular for its world building and attention to details, but sometimes I found that you can cut almost half of the dialogue in it *and still provide you the same details*. I just found “lengthy” is the worst way to implement any sort of content. Yes some games can have that 60 hours contents of worth, but surely some tedious part can be trim down and doesn't reduce any value the game has except playtime.
The biggest example is that I never really completed lots of JRPG on PSX, just because lots of it has this “invisible padding” where everything is just slow. Manage to complete them on emulator where frameskip exists, which really helps the pacing on random battle and backtracking.
This topic hits so hard right now. I’ve always loved JRPGs and wanted the 80-100 hour epics. Now being 35 with a wife and 2 small kids (1 and 3) I get maybe 3-5 hours a week to play usually after everyone goes to bed. While I bought Xenoblade 3 it’s nearly impossible to play it right now. If it was 15 years ago and I was in college with a ton of free time I’d probably be singing the praises of Xenoblade 3 right now.
Chrono Trigger would be the perfect length for me right now and it’s pacing is amazing. It’s like watching a Shonen anime without the filler.
Get a deck. 20 minute gaming intervals will add up and chew games down.
Get a deck. 20 minute gaming intervals will add up and chew games down.
I agree totally with the pacing of Chrono Trigger. I would have liked a bit more of a complex story however.
Another game with about as good of a pacing (at least once you get to Tormund) is Chained Echoes. The plot is almost as well paced as CT and the side quests feel meaningful and usually adds to the world building or the character arcs. Masterful game really and in my Top 5 rpgs of all time.
Man I’ve heard so many great things about Chained Echoes, I really need to check it out here soon enough.
Wish I could have explored 1999 AD in Chrono Trigger...
Interesting video topic. :) Nowadays I kinda prefer short games as my backlog is so long, that I feel stuck with long games many times specially when they get boring mid game.
Great video, but now I want to know what your tier list is of games that respect your time! Please make a followup video.
Definitely agree with the “games that respect your time” sentiment. I usually skip over crafting and collecting when I can because a lot of the time it doesn’t add to the story for me. Also as a 40-year-old, it’s really hard to go play PS1 and some PS2 JRPGs because I just don’t have the patience. It’s not even necessarily load times, but the long, drawn-out battles. I’ve restarted Legend of Dragoon so many times because the battles just bog me down. I got to disc 4 when I was in college, but lost that save file, and it’s just so hard sitting through the battle system with the long animations, load times, and QTEs. That’s a game I want to finish and want to love, but I don’t feel like it respects my time in 2023.
You nailed it man. 20 to 50hrs for a game is perfect.
In general, but Elden Ring took me 120 hours to beat and was amazing from beginning to end.
@@JFinns There are some 100 plus hour games that I think are totally worth completing, but I feel like they need to have that rightfully satisfying gameplay loop for the individual. Persona 5 is one of my favorite games of all time, but there are other long and we'll reviewed games that I had to drop because I just didn't feel like playing them anymore. Elden Ring is a blast for sure btw.
@@bobbysturdy8727 Agree on Persona 5 that's another top tier 100 hour game from beginning to end.
Great video! I only recently began playing my favorites, and I am so excited to relive and reignite the passionate love I have for games - especially a good RPG. Currently have Chrono Cross, Breath of Fire 3, and Grandia 2 on my list. I can't wait to get going on them!
Keep up the wonderful work! ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ
All classics right there, some good times await you! And thank you friend!
Breath of fire is soooooo good
I have a feeling that Final Fantasy XVI will definitely be a great example of this when it releases in a few months. Hopefully it does well and helps curb the over-abundance of way-too-open worlds in the RPG space these days.
*Transistor* was one of my favorite recent gaming experiences; despite only being about 5-7 hours long if you're not rushing, it's pure magic. And dirt cheap on any sale!
I did my first playthrough of Chrono Trigger last weekend and it still hooked me.
I'm really enjoying this millennial UA-cam channel. Time is a big factor as we all get older. It's the main reason I don't play games all that often, and when I do, I take long breaks in between. Thank you for the great content.
I also played Chrono Trigger for the first time a couple months ago and it is perfect in length. I also loved how in the beginning, your actions have consequences, i.e. the trial. That seemed revolutionary compared to even modern day JRPGs where players answers ultimately leads to the same path. You might get a different response depending on the character but that has no significance to the story - its not a bad thing but I like games with different endings, and boy does this game have plenty! Its very charming and easy to play as well. I did all the side stories for the main characters before the final area. Its now one of my favourite RPGs ever.
I think quantity of time is fine as long as it's quality and well paced time, sure, it will take longer and can seem overwhelming, but putting down a game and playing something else for a bit exists, I am a massive Xenoblade fan, and I have 100%'d all the games, but I always broke up my 100-200h playthroughs with other games so I wouldn't be burnt out, except for Xenoblade 3 which was so gripping I stayed on board for nearly 170h straight, though that is a major exception, Xenoblade 3 is my bew all time favorite game, dethroning a shorter end game I adore, Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, a well paces 30h to 100% (which I personally always do lol) masterpiece.
20 hours is usually the make or break for me. I drop a lot of JRPGs at this point because they haven't given me enough to want to play them for another 40+ hours. Or I burn myself out on them, take a break, forget everything in the story, and then not come back because I'd either have to restart or continue playing at that 20 hour mark while not remembering anything about the story.
Skies of Arcadia, could have been one of my favorite JRPG's of all time. But the long drawn out battles took it from a top tier game, to just a good game.
In my younger years I loved how long some of the Jrpgs could be. It was so much value to find all the secrets, grind those end game dungeons and 'max' every little detail. I poured hours into FF3, Chrono Trigger, Ff7,8, fallout 2, Star Ocean and many...many more.
These days I find myself getting a little bored around 35-40 hours. I'm playing through Dragon Quest 8 on 3DS and getting to the point where I feel inclined to start grinding liquid slimes for XP is kinda taking the wind out of my sails (I'm about 40 hours in). I feel inclined to find all the loot... but sometimes that just takes some fun out of enjoying the story and actually completing the game.
I think game developers respecting your time us a really good way to look at it. Anything they can do to cut the fluff out (mandatory tasks that don't add to the story) and make leveling more efficient (i.e. fast forward combat in Bravely Default) is much appreciated. The days of me spending 250 hours goofing off on a game are more or less gone with a few minor exceptions. Diablo 3 has been one of my time sinks since release. 😉
Yup, RPGs being shorter is often a good thing. The RPGs I replayed the most as a kid are things like Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars and Paper Mario. The Mario RPGs are usually intended to be good entry games, so they don't overstay their welcome. They're not "overstuffed" as I like to say, so each playthrough doesn't feel bloated, it feels just right, meaning that I don't mind coming back for more if I feel like it. I like a good epic long game that uses that time well too, but it's harder to come back to on a whim.
Chrono Trigger is great for this reason too. Part of the point of CT is to replay the game using New Game Plus (the world's first NG+) to go back and find all the different endings, so it makes sense for each playthrough to not be filled with fat that needs to be trimmed off.
What a beautiful cat! 😻
I was 110 hours into Xenoblade 3 before I beat it and I loved every minute. Some of the best side content I've ever played in a video game
Weird, I had the completely opposite experience.
Watching the Chrono trigger part while coincidentally wearing my Chrono trigger t-shirt makes me glad I found this channel
Hell yeah, you are in the right place my friend!
Didn't expect hearing Amerie - All I Have beat in a video talking about JRPGs 😂
I think smaller, contained stories would be great. Like the games you mention, early FFs, Crono, Super Mario RPG, Lufia, etc are easy go-tos to replay over and over, BUT, I'd love more in their universes. Like, I love FF4:The After Years. I know it's objectively not fantastic, but it's the characters, world, and (mostly) system I love, only 20 years later so I can have more stories. That's fantastic.
Meanwhile, I LOVE games like Legend Of Heroes; Trails in the Sky / Cold Steel, but I'll probably never replay them. Their stories and gameplay are beautiful....but they are soooooo long.
Great content!
That's one way to go, of course the other is modding Skyrim with things like Requiem and Legacy of the Dragonborn, and dialing back the xp rates to the point you've put six months into a character before you have any shot at fighting dragons.
Of course I took a break from that to play FF7 (PC) with the New Threat mod.
Playing on my phone is the main way I'm able to play through JRPGs now because I can chip away at them minutes at a time in any small amount of free time whether I'm at home or not. Square Enix has been great at releasing a lot of their catalogue both new and old on mobile and JRPGs are a great option for emulation as well because they don't need to run at a perfect frame rate to be playable (plus the fast forward feature is great for battle startup sequences)
I play only jrpg games. Is spending time issue for me? No, because there are not enough game releases.
And i am picky what i play, but 100+ hours is no issue for me
Still loving the genre so much!