Is the length of an RPG important?

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what peoples thoughts about how long RPGs and games overall should be.

Lately, I have had difficulty making it through many games just because of their length. I tend to leave games and come back a while later since I usually don't have time to finish them, but by this point, I am completely uninterested in finishing. This can be especially difficult with an RPG since they usually require a deep investment.

Now RPG is my favorite genre, but I have found myself being pushed away because I don't know if I will have the time to really invest into those games. Nier Automata is one recently that I completely lost momentum with after the first ending.

Many games in the past used the amount of content as a selling point, but, for me, I value a game that will only take me 10-20 hours* to beat much more even though it could be seen as a lesser value.

Is this a valid criticism? I know it could just be that I am just complaining, but I still really like these types of games and feel like I should not have to give up so much of my time for them.

*EDIT: I meant for the 10-20 hour game to be in reference to regular action/etc games. I usually expect a minimum of 30 hours for any regular RPG, especially for me since I take forever to beat any game.

I think a RPG is mostly played for that sense of progression. You want to learn new spells. You want to see the damage numbers become bigger. You want to be able to one shot the enemies that were hard earlier on.

To attain that sense of progression, and have time to unlock a lot of skills, a RPG simply needs more time than most other genre's. I'm not saying that every RPG has to be an 80 hour epic, but it's length needs to give you enough time to make it feel like your partymembers have gone through some shit and have become noticeably better fighters. If your game is 10 hours long, that sense of progression might feel too minor.

On top of that, RPG storylines concerning themselves with big topics like 'save the world' or 'destroy the ancient evil' also leads to longer games than a game where the question is 'what happened to this derelict station?'

It usually comes down to the common RPG mechanics needing a lot of content to justify their inclusion in the game. Levelling up, getting new stats, equipment, and abilities to use in combat so it has a sense of progression and getting stronger. They need to give you enough combat to understand the abilities and their strategies, and also enough that you level up to meet the intended difficulty.

That's all in the ideal RPG though, obviously it's not easy to get all that stuff right and some games struggle with their extended runtimes coming across as padding.

Something I've figured out over time but, for me, the ceiling is 80 hours and the floor is about 30 hours. When a RPG is longer than 80, even the ones I love to pieces, the magic kinda wears off for me and I start wanting the game to end. On the other hand, I love the progression and the feeling of growth and bond you gain over time in RPGs and less tha 30 isn't enough for me to have that connection. I know it's dumb but that's the loose law I've come up with about RPGs in my experience with them. Of course, I'm talking about good games. Bad games are bad period.

A 10 hour RPG would be pretty unsatisfying in most cases I would think. The only RPG that comes to mind around that playtime that still feels like a full adventure is Suikoden 1, which potentially complete in around 15 hours, but that game still pales in comparison to its sequel, which is more like a 25-30+ hour adventure.

I think it would be fair to argue that modern RPGs can be too long, or at least put too much value on ensuring that they will last 50+ hours when they don't necessarily need to, but it is very possible for them to be too short as well.

There was a time when I played mostly RPGs precisely because their playtime felt like a good value compared to other genres. I don't feel that way as much anymore, but if I'm paying full price for an RPG I still do expect a good 30 hours or so minimum of RPGing.

As someone who can barely stick to playing a single game for more than a week, an RPG that takes around 40 to 50 hours to complete is the sweet spot for me: long enough to feel satisfied after beating it, but short enough to not make me feel like I need to have a slavish devotion to finishing it. So I'd say that it's a fair to judge an RPG based on it's length because good characters, story and gameplay be damned (with a few exceptions); I just get bored and want to play a different genre after a while.

Long games aren't a deterrent, as long as I'm legitimately enjoying the mechanics. I played the living hell out of NieR:Automata, mostly over the weekends, because of how much it reminded me of older, 2D-action RPGs.

The wall I do have with lengthy games is sometimes I'll set them aside, when I'm not ready for the commitment; I just don't like juggling multiple extensive, story-based titles. I still have Persona 5 staring at me for this very reason.

On the other hand, I've gotten to a point where I'm fine with abandoning a game, if I'm not having fun. For instance, Dragon Quest Heroes (the first one) isn't extremely long, but I find the mission structure boring, and its core combat is still a repetitive musou experience (yet I still bought the sequel out of some fandom-spurred phantom fear of needing to support the franchise; at least I've read the second game is better).

As much as I advocate for shorter but denser experiences overall, I can't deny that the length of Persona 3-5 definitely can have a very strong emotional effect by the end of the game, since you've spent so much time in the world. However, given the unnecessary stretching that P5 started to pull at the end, I'd hate to see them continue to force themselves to follow a quota of some kind, I'm definitely okay with shorter as long as it's still a rounded experience.

Though not short for most standards, I thought Persona 2: Innocent Sin did a pretty good job of presenting a solid story in ~30-35 hours, which is relatively short for RPG standards. On the other hand though, I was pretty done with that game's combat system and dungeon crawling by the end, and not to mention, it's technically only half of the story. That being said, I think if it had more engaging gameplay like its successors, I'd probably still feel the same way. The World Ends With You is another example of a solid RPG around this length, and actually a little bit shorter. It changed up the gameplay frequently enough, had a pretty good story, and didn't drag things out more than necessary. I think what's important to me above a specific amount of playtime is that an RPG has a solid combat loop with a good sense of progression, and a story that doesn't try to do more than it needs to.

Thanks for all the responses everyone!

I guess it is a bit selfish to want all of the satisfaction without any of the investment that is inherent to the RPG genre. I just have come to think that, for me, the genre is a real double edged sword and a game has to be nearly perfectly paced for me to be able to fully enjoy the whole game.

Like most people have said, if it is too short, the player doesn't develop that same connection with the world and the systems for there to be the satisfaction of the. But if is too long, it runs into the problem of having the player possibly losing interest and then it being nigh impenetrable to come back. A good example of this would probably be the Persona series for me since the whole point is to develop connections throughout your progress through the game, but it can be a slog when sometimes when going from day to day and is also hard to jump back into if you had stopped playing for a while (me and P3).

I'm not saying that any of these game that are like this are bad, in fact, I still play and enjoy a lot of these games in spite of this. I just usually never actually finish them and as someone who can be a little OCD about seeing everything in a game and experiencing the whole story, it is frustrating (especially games that involve choice, but that is a whole different topic).

I just think it's a interesting topic and wonder if developers ever keep this in mind when creating these types of games, though most people probably know what they're getting with RPGs.

length is important for any video game, movie, tv series, book, song, or hot dog.

Don't overstay your welcome. That's basically all there is to it. Tell the story you need to tell.

I can relate to loving RPGs but not having quite as much patience as I did when I was younger. (throw in Tactics/Strategy games on that pile too, given a similar time commitment) I can still put in 60+ hours into something if it's worth my time and can hold my attention but I also think a lot of examples in the genre tend to overstay their welcome or have serious pacing problems. Divinity Original Sin is a great game, but it would be better if they cut a good 5-10 hours from the last area, which doesn't have a whole lot going on other than trash mob fights after a certain point.

I do agree that RPG's generally need to be longer than other games, what with progression and their tendency to tell larger, more involved stories, but this really all comes down to pacing. There are a lot of RPG's, even great ones, where things are stretched thin and that's just flat-out bad pacing.

I don't really like the idea of a "minimum or maximum" hour count for something to be of value. The Witcher 3 has hundreds of hours of content, the vast majority of it being pretty damn good content. The Witcher 3's total hour count does not make it a better game than Chrono Trigger, which has about thirty hours of content and the vast majority of it is also pretty damn good stuff.

Don't be too short, don't be too long. Make sure your progression and RPG complexity matches up with the length of time it will take to tell your story and go from there. This is easier said than done and I'm willing to give RPG-focused devs a whole hell of a lot leeway on this aspect. Still, it's very important for making a good game.

As far as actually finishing RPG's while maintaining an adult life goes, stick with an RPG and set a time during the week to play it. An hour every other weeknight and like three hours each weekend morning or something like that. You'd be surprised how quickly you can get through stuff if you stick to a schedule like that - you could get through a fifty hour RPG in a month and have more than enough time to do other things and even play other games.

I don't fully understand the question. The length of an RPG is "important" in that a game can be so long that it drags and gets boring, or so short that it feels truncated, but it's all about matching the length to what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to immerse the player in a world and let them grow attached to characters then you definitely need time to let that grow out. If your goal is to tell a tight story or explore a limited set of combat mechanics then I could imagine a 5-6 hour RPG being fun and satisfying.

Of the RPGs I have played recently, I was kind of glad that I Am Setsuna was only about 25-30 hours long because while I liked the game I was also kind of done with it by the end and ready to move on. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a game I never finished because it just drags on too long and has too many sidequests (in retrospect I shouldn't have done 3 of the faction questlines even though they are the best storytelling in the game, because they definitely sapped my momentum.)

Game length is a component of design and it should match the style and amount of content, but it's not a good or bad thing in and of itself. It's about how it fits with everything else.

That being said, if someone tells me a game is 200 hours long I am probably not going to play it unless it is universally acclaimed as one of the best of all times. I just don't have the time in my life for that commitment, and in my opinion most games are too long and tend to drag near the end. Even something like Horizon: Zero Dawn, which I really liked, had me saying "can we just get this done yet?" over the last quarter or so of the game.

The only time where I've been disappointed was with Fable. I and all of my friends were expecting this huge, massive game, and we all beat it in about 8 hours. It was still a good game, but man did we fall for Peter Molyneux's pitch. Other times you are expecting a certain experience. Like if Persona 5 was like 20 hours, and not a 60 to 100 hour game, that would have felt a lesser game when compared to the breadth of Persona 3 and 4. Or if you could everything in the next Elder Scrolls game in like 15 hours.

At this point in my life, I don't care so much about the dollars per hour ratio or whatever. Most RPGs just carry around a certain expectation of experience. If it was the same type of game, but trimmed a lot of the fat, and delivered a leaner 20 hour game, that would be alright too.

Good pacing is more important then length but it's really hard to maintain good pacing if your game is over 60 hours. I could see being intimidated by a long game's length, but man if you get bored and still enjoyed your 20-30ish hours with a game it's still worth it. You don't have to finish every game you buy, you're playing them for fun right?

If an RPG, or game of any kind, is less then 10 hours and 60$ I'm not likely to buy it till I see a steep discount. That said I have a pretty low tolerance for filler content and expect over 10 hours of good game for 60$. I think Persona 5 could probably have stripped out all of the grinding dungeon, re-balanced the combat a bit to compensate and been a much better game. That particular area felt like pure filler to me, with the only good moments being from the side quests.

I like most games to be under 10 hours, but with RPG's the sweet spot is between 20 and 30. That way I can get really invested but the game won't overstay its welcome.

I've played some amazing 50 hour RPG's when I was younger, but it's just hard to do these days. I absolutely love The Witcher 3, for example, but after 30 or so hours I fell off and haven't gone back. Some day, I keep telling myself.

Depends on the game. Some games are filled with meaningless filler content like Fallout 4 and other fleshed awesome quests like Witcher 3.