Topic: How long do you like your RPGs?

Does anyone else prefer RPGs to take less than 20 hours to beat? Lately I've been feeling like a lot of the longer ones are artificially lengthened to increase their "value," and I end up losing interest in them. This always drives me crazy because while I want to finish the story, I couldn't care less about the long, dull slogs preceding the end. Also, the mandatory beginning tutorial period is typically way too long and feels like a complete waste of time.

So here's a question: would you prefer a shorter RPG that takes around 10 hours to beat without the filler (i.e. limited grinding, more unique boss fights and a better-paced story) and high replayability (different ways to play/optional side quests), or the more traditional huge, epic-scale, open-world 40-60 hour RPG?

I really enjoyed both Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, both which took around 40 hours to complete. I think that's a really good amount of playtime for any game, not only RPGs. And neither of those games felt artificially lengthened, either.

However long they need to be.

So long as they're fun to play it doesn't matter how long they are

@WanderFan91: Well, idk... sometimes if a game is really fun, but also really short, it leaves me thinking "I wish this went on longer!" ...I'm not always a fan of games that end too early. I'd much prefer that they last me a long time!

The longer the better. The Dragon Quest series, Lunar, and Shining Force 2 are some of my all time favorite RPGs.

@pixelman: I agree with you 100%. I dont care how long an RPG is, as long as they can keep me in grossed in the story. If I have to take to much time away from the story such as grinding for levels or items or whatever and will get bored and not finish the game. If the game has to man subplots that too will cause me to get bored of the game. Also in all honestly I just have the time with family, job and other games to dedicate to a 60 hour RPG which is why I dont play games like Skyrim. I tend to play game in short bursts so in that time I want to feel that my time was spent worthwhile not just some chore so I can be able to take on the next boss.

I use to be able to do that back in the days with games like Final Fantasy III(VI) but nowadays I just can't sadly.

I love me a long RPG that I can be completely absorbed in, but it depends on the individual game. The Last Story and Fable II's lengths felt right despite being fairly short. The early Final Fantasy games are also quite short for RPGs, yet Final Fantasy IV is my most completed game in the series (3 times). It's easy to get into and doesn't take a month to complete.

I prefer shorter ones, if only because 9 times out of 10, the longer ones are just packed with needless filler that's just there to waste your time. It's all about pacing rather than length. So long as it doesn't feel too rushed or drawn out, I'm fine no matter how long they are. Take Tales of Graces for example. The main game can be beaten in under 40 hours, but it drags out the pacing so much throughout the game - forcing backtracking on foot, no flight until the last 5 or so hours of the game, artificial barriars, fake "exploration", sidetracking, etc. - that the whole thing becomes tiresome despite not being that long.

Then there's Xenoblade, Pokemon X, pretty much any Atlus game - they're all 50-100+ hours long, but they offer enough interesting things to do and have enough story crammed into those hours that it won't get boring during that time.

I generally prefer them to be relatively lengthy, but they have to stay interesting.
RPGs that takes forever to beat and get boring half way through are the worst.

Around 20 to 30 hours on average. Really I prefer shorter games in general. There are still a lot of games I need to play, and getting wrapped up in a 60 hour quest can run my patience sometimes. There are notable exceptions though, the most recent being Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I played almost 70 hours of in a single playthrough.

I like long RPGs but I do agree that most of them tend to drag out stuff.

Long enough to feel worth buying (15+ hours), but in most cases not much longer than 30 hours because most RPG's fail to keep the story and game interesting up to that point.

Tbh I haven't played many rpgs. I sorta just started getting into the genre. So for me, I like the short ones for their concentrated, filler-less stories, and I like the long ones sometimes if they keep me interested. I was addicted to Skyrim for about 60 hrs until I got over the novelty of being able to "go anywhere and do anything." Every game does that these days so it got boring.

LOL you should play Shin Megami Tensei IV for 3DS. Its story is insane and constantly changes repeatedly.

I agree that pacing is an important factor. Persona 3 and 4 are perhaps two of the best paced RPGs I've played because of how the games are structured. They're both very long, but aren't needlessly stretched out. I happily played through P3P twice (once as the female protagonist).

Like others have said, a lot of it depends on the pacing. I'm just as fine sinking my teeth into an 60+ hour adventure as I am a 20 hour one, so long as I don't feel like the game is often stalling for time, and the story and/or gameplay remain compelling (which should go without saying).

I was about to bring up the Persona games actually. Persona 4 took me 80+ hours to get the best ending the first time through but I always felt like I was doing something to progress the experience and never like I was wasting my time with dull filler. A large part of that is allowing the player some degree of choice in what to do with their PC's days and having non-battle activities affect how well your party can perform in battle while also imposing deadlines to make sure player doesn't monkey around too much and strives to keep the story moving.

somewhere between 15 and 25 is ideal unless they can justify making it longer

Depends on the game. When it comes to something like a Mario RPG or Kingdom Hearts, I'm fine with them being about 25 hours, but if I'm playing something with a more "epic" vibe (Tales, FF, etc.), I want to get 40-50 hours out of it.

Of course, I'm content with smaller download RPGs being 10-15 hours.

It is hard to say. As a norm I never replay RPGs so I want them to be long since I will not play them again.

But on the other hand, starting a game feeling that it will take me forever to beat discourages me from playing them. I have several RPGs that I haven't started (Solatorobo, SMTIV, Chrono Trigger, FFVI, FFVII, Xenoblade Chronicles and even Fire Emblem if you wanna count that ) because I feel I need a lot of time to invest in them.

But to answer your initial question I would rather have the replay value heavy but short RPG. The thing that I hate the most is grinding for levels, which makes the combat boring and repetitive. I loved Grandia's combat as that managed to be interesting as you needed to level up elemental stats in order to unlock new attacks and abilities. Zelda's combat is interesting too (I loved Skyward Sword in that regard) so I don't mind them being long.