Topic: DS games you no longer own and why

oh you're serious

oh dear

It's an rpg, I expect to put in more time with them, simple as that.

Most good RPGs I've played are about...20-30 hours long.

I don't mean main storyline takes 30 hours I'm talking side quests and other things as well. I expect a storyline to be around 20-30 but it needs to have more for me. Just curious but what would your prime examples be?

30 hours is 30 hours, man. That's a lot of time. Have you ever sat around for 30 hours and not gone mad? I haven't. At least you spent those 30 hours entertained (I assume). If not, then at least it didn't waste more time from your life that could be spent on things besides gaming.

I've actually never really gotten into a DS game that didn't say "Pokemon" on it, so the only one I have left is Pokemon White 2. I did have Mario Kart DS, Sonic Rush and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but I just stopped playing them, especially with Mario Kart 7 and Sonic Generations being better than the former two IMO. No point keeping a game I won't play in my opinion, plus Rush knocked something off Generations' price and MKDS still got a surprisingly big trade-in price when I swapped it in at HMV!

Come to think of it, the GBA had the same fate until I got my 3DS and the ambassador program showed me excatly what I'd missed. Well, at least the Game Boy and 3DS get love from me, Game Boy doubly so because most of my 3DS library is Game Boy games!

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Who sits and plays a game all at once? It only provided me a week of decent entertainment, it wasn't something you'd want to play again, so to me it wasn't really all that long.

Star Fox Command
It sucked horribly!!! The whole fog of war thing in each level was really annoying!!

Yeah, I can agree with that. I thought it was fun during the flying parts, but whoever decided to put in fog of war like that needs to be slapped.

...30 hours in only a week? That's at least 15 days for me...anyways, I can sorta see where you're coming from, but I still think your last point is where you should be focusing your attention. It always seems more like you (and honestly, every other person I've seen complain about games not being long enough when they're already an absurd length...which is still rare, thankfully) focus more on the game's length, it sounds to me like you're not even asking yourself: was it fun? I mean, was it fun? If so, then at least that was 30 hours well spent. You could always go back and replay it if you really want to experience it again. If it wasn't, why would you want to spend more time with it? I just don't get why need it to be longer for it to be good.

In fact, to put it bluntly, it sounds more like your objective is to waste your time, instead of "to have fun".

It's only an average of 4 hours each day if you finish it in a week. I see your point about fun, it's just often times when a game is a decent amount of fun but not enough fun for a replay I'd like it to be a little longer.

Just to put this conversation into perspective... an old friend of mine had these books from the 90s of NES and SNES game hints. It also defined various genres of games. Under RPG, it actually defined them as taking anywhere between 60-100 hours to play. There main references were really the Final Fantasy series or even the Breath of Fire games. I think part of the length that they quote here may come from grinding, which some people like, and some people hate - so really I think RPG length is fairly subjective. At the time, there were also games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG or Earthbound offering shorter, but still worthwhile experiences.

I think the main issue right now is that it seems ALL RPG developers are aiming for making their games to be around 30 hours, so those of us who do like a longer game are often left in the cold. When I try to think of a lengthy RPG experience produced in the last decade, pretty much the only game I can think of is Skyrim, and even there, the majority of that comes from side quests, whereas the main plot is actually quite short, and, in my opinion at least, kind of boring haha.

I think the key here is to recognize that both audiences have a right to like what they like - and often both audiences may venture into the other group and enjoy the games there. I certainly don't recall anyone ever complaining that Chrono Trigger was too short.

AS FOR THE ORIGINAL TOPIC OF DISCUSSION:

I tend to keep games. I have a very hard time parting with them, so it wasn't until very recently that I decided to trade some in. Included in the games I decided to trade in were Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Platinum. I really love the Pokemon series, but Gen 4 just... didn't do it for me. There were very few Pokemon I liked. So few that I struggled to pick 6 I wanted to have as my main party. The problem for me is I can't play the game and be like "Well, I don't have any grass types, and this one is grass, I'll go with that". I get really emotionally attached to my Pokemon, and part of that has to do with their appearance and personally. I only "clicked" with a few in gen 4 - Luxray, Lucario, Shellos... and... hmm... those are the main ones that come to mind haha.

On top of that, if I play two games from the same gen, I like to use different Pokemon in each game, so it just wasn't happening. In the end, it turns out to be a good decision, because once I traded them in, I BLASTED through Black and Heartgold, which I had yet to actually play all the way through. Apparently never finishing Pearl and Platinum but having them on my shelf was holding me back!

Can I just point out that "only" 4 hours a day is considered a very, very long time to have for gaming for many people. I guess maybe that's why there is the discussion about game length on here - if I really get into a game, I might play a few hours a week (perhaps 10, if I'm REALLY not doing anything, but generally more like 3-4). As a result, a 30-hour game will likely take me a couple of months to finish.

I'm not making a judgement, I'm just saying that the length of a given game will be valued quite differently by different people, and I guess a large factor in that is the amount of free time one has to play games. I actually tend to find myself preferring games that are sub-20 hours long - that way, I can finish them in a reasonable amount of time. Any longer and I run the risk of losing interest or losing where I am in the game long before I finish it.

When I was younger, I'd have afternoons, evenings, weekends, school holidays etc. to play games, and I could power through a lot. Then, a 30-hour game would have felt about average length to me. However, with a job, house, family and other commitments, finding those 30 hours will take me a while.

a SpongeBob game my cousin gave me and, well, it sucked so I traded some of my games in for SOUL SILVER. HEEEEEELLLLLL YYYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!