A good RPG cannot be short

[Sinatar]

What's the definition of short here?

 

[RoSoDude]

What's the definition of short here?

Not only that, but the "what's an RPG" question rears its ugly head too.

System Shock 2 is 15 hours, give or take 2-3 hours. Is that primarily an RPG? Or is it more a dungeon crawler/survival horror/FPS? What am I even talking about?

I think the sentiment generally holds true, though it really is a case-by-case thing. Digging deep into a cRPG only to have it blow its load after you've gotten invested is going to suck.

 

[bminorkey]

undertale

fight me

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

undertale

fight me

I don't understand why it would be considered a good RPG. Explain, because I don't see it.

I'll submit Brogue (if that even counts) as my option, though we're still waiting on some definitions.

 

[Blaine]

So far, as "evidence" that short RPGs can be good, we've got:

• Fallout (not actually short in practice)
  
• a JRPG (also not actually short either in theory or in practice)
  
• Age of Teleportation (retards can't differentiate between sessions and an entire game)
  
• a CYOA book/board game hybrid
• Undertale
  
• Alpha Brotocol, disqualified because it isn't good
• System Shock 2, clear hybrid of some sort
  
• a roguelike (debatable, see: Age of Teleportation)

I can never show my face around the Codex again after this humiliation. Truly, every time someone slams that Disagree emoji, it rubs salt into my wounds.

I died after the first five minutes in ADOM. Even a five-minute-long RPG can be good! What a fool I've been!

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

You kind of need to establish where the goalposts ARE, not just where they aren't.

Brogue is good, it's short unless you DELIBERATELY drag it out. POWDER is the same way, good but short unless dragged out. In POWDER particularly you can clear all content (optional and mandatory) in a few hours of play as long as you don't get unlucky in the early-to-mid floors.

 

[Blaine]

You kind of need to establish where the goalposts ARE, not just where they aren't.

I've made it as clear as can be without devolving into the dreaded "What is an RPG?" death spiral. In my first post, I specifically mentioned Quest for Glory, which is an RPG/adventure game hybrid. This is a strong hint that hybrids don't really count. First-person action-RPG hybrids are held to a different standard (although some can be very long), as are roguelikes which revolve around trial-and-error and starting over from scratch multiple times before reaching the win condition (and can also be extremely long), et cetera.

A better approach would be to look at some of the hallowed classics that are fairly definitively "pure" RPGs, and clearly not hybrids of any kind (not an all-inclusive list): Wasteland; Betrayal at Krondor; Darklands; Planescape: Torment; Arcanum; the various Realms of Arkania titles; Baldur's Gate 1 and 2; Ultima VII; Fallout 1 and 2; and of course Wizardry 7 and 8, which are absurdly long even if you're hustling. We may not be able to pin down exactly what an RPG is, but we can be sure that all of these games are definitely RPGs. Some people would argue that point too, and have on countless occasions, but they can blow me.

Quite a few of the above CAN be completed (without meta-cheating, foreknowledge, or speedrunning) in 20-30 hours, including Fallout, but it's clear that there's a lot more meat on their bones than arrowing directly for the conclusion of the main story. Every single one of them are over 30 hours if you take your time to poke around, and many will clock in at 40-60 hours. This applies very neatly to many RPGs that are technically hybrids as well, such as V:TM: Bloodlines, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Deus Ex.

I can accept System Shock 2 (hybrid or no) and a single hustling playthrough of Fallout as evidence that, once in a blue moon, an RPG can be short, or at least on the shorter side. However, these are the exceptions that prove the rule. In my mind, a definitively short RPG is one that lasts for 10-20 hours and then is pretty much done, either because it's not particularly replayable or because one has no desire to replay it. Not even SS2 falls into this category, since everyone (everyone who's cool, that is) has played it at least 2-3 times.

 

[Sinatar]

Still waiting for a number.

What do you consider short? 10, 20, 30, 40 hours? How many hours does it take for a game to be good?

 

[Blaine]

Still waiting for a number.

That's convenient, because it's located about a hundred pixels above your post:

In my mind, a definitively short RPG is one that lasts for 10-20 hours and then is pretty much done, either because it's not particularly replayable or because one has no desire to replay it.

How many hours does it take for a game to be good?

The sweet spot is between 30 and 60 hours, while taking the time to stop and smell the flowers as opposed to arrowing through the main story. This is pretty clearly implied by that same post that's about a hundred pixels away from your latest post.

 

[Sinatar]

So anything sub 30 is "bad".

The entire Gold Box series
Dungeon Master
Eye of the Beholder 1/2
Lands of Lore
The Dark Sun games
The Ravenlofts
Might and Magic 1 - 5
Dungeon Master

All bad games.

Right. Gotcha.

 

[fantadomat]

Lol a lot of special people here claiming that games that have pretty long playtrough are short. MM games are pretty long and there is a lot of exploration and they end when you decide to end them. I can spend 50 hours having a blast if i decide to or blast trough it in 10 hours because i have played it 50 times. SS2 is a great rpgs and if you are finishing it in 10 hours on first playtrough then it is wasted on you. It is a game of exploration not a game about running around zombies. For me golden place is from 20 till say 50. I am surprised that you brainiacs didn't list Skyrim,after all it could be finished in a few hours.

 

[Blaine]

So anything sub 30 is "bad".

The entire Gold Box series
Dungeon Master
Eye of the Beholder 1/2
Lands of Lore
The Dark Sun games
The Ravenlofts
Might and Magic 1 - 5
Dungeon Master

All bad games.

Right. Gotcha.

If you think that Might and Magic I, II, and III are sub-30 hours, then you haven't played them, period. They're all 50+ hours, easily, and up to 80+ for obsessives. IV and V are World of Xeen, they were supposed to be released as a single game, and together they're also 50+ hours.

Dungeon crawlers can be shorter without being bad. I realize that some people consider them to be the purest form of RPG, but I personally consider them to be a specialized subset, not unlike Icewind Dale which was clearly designed to be combat-heavy and everything-else-lite.

SSI Gold Box I'll give you, yet the vast majority in my experience certainly edge up to 20 hours and are fairly replayable. Pool of Radiance easily hits 30+ hours however, or close to it, as do both Dark Suns.

Even scraping the 1980s for the shortest RPGs and dungeon crawlers you can think of, you've mostly failed, and played yourself hard by revealing that you've never actually laid hands on a Might and Magic game.

 

[Sinatar]

I just finished playing through the entire Might & Magic series (starting with 2) last month. Outside of Might & Magic VI (which is enormous) the longest playthrough was Might & Magic II at 29 hours and 33 minutes.

You should try actually timing your playthroughs instead of using your vague perception of how long it took. I played all these games on stream, I have exact times for all of them and I got as close to 100%ing them as I could without using a guide, this include mapping every square in the world and every dungeon as well as beating every dungeon and all the optional super bosses. The might & magic games are not as long as you remember. World of Xeen in it's totality (which is 2 full priced games combined) came out to 29 hours, 57 minutes. That's about 10 - 12 hours for 4 and 5 each and then a few hours for the World of Xeen post game stuff (most of which was spent in the optional dungeon of death).

EDIT: I just double checked and Might & Magic VII altogether came out to 34 hours, so that and VI exceeded your 30 hour barrier.

 

[Longshanks]

For me reactivity and replayabillity based on character and decisions are the main goal of RPGs. A bloated size most often hurts both. In my view a dense, well contained, RPG is ideal. Fallout is the best example and AoD is somewhat similar. The main problem with the genre is that there are far too few of this type, I'd be fine with games significantly shorter if innovation around the pillars mentioned were the goal.

If you like we can say that these RPGs aren't short because of the breadth of content and options across various playthroughs and builds. Fine by me, I'm not trying to win an argument.

Certainly I can say that I've never played an RPG I'd consider too short. I've played many (the vast majority) that I'd consider too long and too filler filled.

 

[Blaine]

I just finished playing through the entire Might & Magic series (starting with 2) last month. Outside of Might & Magic VI (which is enormous) the longest playthrough was Might & Magic II at 29 hours and 33 minutes.

You should try actually timing your playthroughs instead of using your vague perception of how long it took. I played all these games on stream, I have exact times for all of them and I got as close to 100%ing them as I could without using a guide, this include mapping every square in the world and every dungeon as well as beating every dungeon and all the optional super bosses. The might & magic games are not as long as you remember. World of Xeen in it's totality (which is 2 full priced games combined) came out to 29 hours, 57 minutes. That's about 10 - 12 hours for 4 and 5 each and then a few hours for the World of Xeen post game stuff (most of which was spent in the optional dungeon of death).

EDIT: I just double checked and Might & Magic VII altogether came out to 34 hours, so that and VI exceeded your 30 hour barrier.

I don't buy this for a hot second. None of these people have any agenda to draw the game out or portray it as being longer than it is:

Unfortunately these are very old games, so there isn't much data for them and all of it is anecdotal, but being random people on the Internet their credibility is as good as yours.

 

[fantadomat]

I just finished playing through the entire Might & Magic series (starting with 2) last month. Outside of Might & Magic VI (which is enormous) the longest playthrough was Might & Magic II at 29 hours and 33 minutes.

You should try actually timing your playthroughs instead of using your vague perception of how long it took. I played all these games on stream, I have exact times for all of them and I got as close to 100%ing them as I could without using a guide, this include mapping every square in the world and every dungeon as well as beating every dungeon and all the optional super bosses. The might & magic games are not as long as you remember. World of Xeen in it's totality (which is 2 full priced games combined) came out to 29 hours, 57 minutes. That's about 10 - 12 hours for 4 and 5 each and then a few hours for the World of Xeen post game stuff (most of which was spent in the optional dungeon of death).

EDIT: I just double checked and Might & Magic VII altogether came out to 34 hours, so that and VI exceeded your 30 hour barrier.

It is clear that you lie mate,all MM games that i have played are above 30 maybe even 40 hours on first playtrough. I have played MM6 at least 20 times and can finish it in around 10 hours,that doesn't mean that the game is 10 hours.

 

[Citizen]

Blade of Destiny, Fallout, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, both Ravenlofts and Albion are all less than 40 hours, yet they are pretty good. Some of the Geneforge games, also.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Pointless discussion, whatever good short game anybody would come up with will just be dismissed as "not good". Even dumber is the premise that the game had to have seen "great success" (i.e. mainstream success).

Vampire Redemption can be finished in ~30 h, it's linear, you can't skip anything, so this is a complete run.
Bloodlines can be finished in ~22 hours, doing everything as well. You can finish it quicker I guess, if you sneak/obfuscate/stealth kill less and just hurry more or don't do all quests.
Blackguards 2 isn't that long either, I guess 30h max.
A lot of the user-made modules for NWN/NWN2 qualify as "good RPGs" and aren't very long.
Dungeon Rats is a good tactical combat RPG (more fun than AoD) and in my view qualifies as "good" and isn't that long.

See? All of it will be dismissed as not good and/or unsuccessful.

The question boils down to: is game length a decisive factor in what makes a game good? The answer is: No.
If a good game is too short, it doesn't change the fact that the game was good. You might be disappointed and / or dissatisfied that it's already over but what you had was still good.
A lot of games that are fairly good in the first half start to greatly overstay their welcome, so the opposite, games being too long, is a far more common occurence.

The statement a short RPG can't be good is as ludicrous as the statement a book has to have at least x pages or else the content can't be good.

 

[Blaine]

I'm ejecting from this thread. It's been a fun ride, but there's nothing more to be gained here—not that anything has been gained in the first place other than shitposting-based amusement. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of the games on this list...

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10010

...as well as Underrail, Age of Decadence, D:OS/II, and Pillars of Eternity (the latter included here out of sympathy for those who still think it's a good RPG) easily hit the 30- to 60-hour sweet spot I mentioned earlier when allowing for reasonable time taken to complete side content and smell the flowers rather than arrowing for a win condition, and also allowing for truly exceptional replayability (as opposed to nonexistent, average, or even good replayability) when applicable, a feature shared by Fallout, Fallout 2, Darklands, ToEE, Age of Decadence especially, and many others. In fact, the triumvirate of unquestionably, indisputably, unreservedly great cRPGs, which nobody can deny—Darklands, Betrayal at Krondor, and Ultima VII—are all quite long indeed.

The elite few that can get away with being truly short tend to be either hybrids like SS2 or QfG, Antediluvian classics from circa the 1980s such as Dungeon Master, or extremely focused on combat.

 

[Luckmann]

tyranny is short, is more reactive and has more replayability
so dex finally agree Tyranny is better than PoE?

Tyranny isn't reactive at all, outside of The Conquest, and you're practically railroaded all the way down to dialogue options in the vast majority of cases based on what set of rails you chose at some point, and the only way to switch rails is to act like a complete retard and/or psychopath.

 

[Jasede]

I'm ejecting

DarkUnderlord

Can you self-eject people?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Maybe I am just an old slowfag now, but dark sun shattered lands run took me 35 ish hours...

 

[Daedalos]

How many RPGs have consistently GOOD and amazing gameplay for 30-60 hours straight, though?

I imagine if you trimmed the fat of the bad stuff of said RPGs, the realistic hours spent would be alot less, but the experience would also be alot better. But who knows.

 

[ilitarist]

What's the definition of short here?

A game that you can beat in a day. Like maybe 12 hours if you spend whole day on it.

And again, it doesn't matter if the game is huge, only if it provides you with a full game experience without dragging on. Even if it's highly replayable shortness is a quality on its own.

 

[Efe]

tyranny is short, is more reactive and has more replayability
so dex finally agree Tyranny is better than PoE?

Tyranny isn't reactive at all, outside of The Conquest, and you're practically railroaded all the way down to dialogue options in the vast majority of cases based on what set of rails you chose at some point, and the only way to switch rails is to act like a complete retard and/or psychopath.

i agree some of the story is beyond bad but how do you expect them to seperate playthroughs otherwise? you choose a faction, you roll with it until you betray it.
do you think its bad overseer kicks out vault dweller every time?