Can a game be too long?

[babinro]

Games can easily be too long when the main story tends to lose interest and there is a lack of evolution in gameplay. I still believe that too much content is better than not enough...however, delegate tons of extra content to side quests...much like Dragon Age: Origins did.

I found Neverwinter Nights 2 to really drag on and lose interest over time.

Tons of games are guilty of senseless backtracking to prolong the game, or needlessly long corridors and streets to run through that serve no purpose. These tactics make a game longer than it should be while doing nothing to enhance it.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Couldn't get through ff13

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Games can easily be too long when the main story tends to lose interest and there is a lack of evolution in gameplay. I still believe that too much content is better than not enough...however, delegate tons of extra content to side quests...much like Dragon Age: Origins did.

I found Neverwinter Nights 2 to really drag on and lose interest over time.

Tons of games are guilty of senseless backtracking to prolong the game, or needlessly long corridors and streets to run through that serve no purpose. These tactics make a game longer than it should be while doing nothing to enhance it.

Yeah,Dragon Age was bad.

 

[Tonythion]

Final Fantasy 13, my god I tried loving that game, but I just couldnt

Damn ninja'd

I quit like after fifty minutes of cut scenes...and 3 minutes of gameplay--aka the beginning of the game.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The first two Elder Scrolls Games. If I recall, the map for Daggerfall was somewhere around the size of the United Kingdom.

 

[theSovietConnection]

A game is only too long if the story wears out, and in my opinion, that's more a problem with the story then game length.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

It isn't so much a case of "So many hours/discs of play" as it is "So many hours of cutscenes or redundant dialogue".

Several minutes of boarding a ship and watching it take off? That's fine if it's important for the game because it's leading to some major battle. If you end up going through that scene dozens of times? Then it's just fluffing the play time without actually adding time to playing.

Have to go through a long dialogue to get ready for some major event in the game? Fine and dandy. There may even be some useful insights as to what I should do or not do to succeed. Is every interaction is a monologue to rival Hamlet? Again, that's wasting a lot of time that could be better put to giving the player something to do besides mashing buttons to skip through it.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Games can easily be too long when the main story tends to lose interest and there is a lack of evolution in gameplay. I still believe that too much content is better than not enough...however, delegate tons of extra content to side quests...much like Dragon Age: Origins did.

Yeah, Dragon Age was bad.

It's even worse when you realize after all the ambushes and endless trekking back and forth for each mission, that the leveling doesn't even matter! I don't mind a long game but I would like to feel like I've gotten something out of it =(

Yeah,the combat wasn't really that great.Personally,all the talking killed me.I just plain don't care about the lore when everyone sounds stereotype 12th century drunk.Really,I don't know anyone from Europe who talks like that and some of the people I have known were from Wales and England

 

[Defense]

A game can have a main story that's too long, but when there's a multitude of optional side quests, then I don't think you can get too long.

Then it's about whether the side quests suck or not.

 

[Wharrgarble]

So long as it's not artificially padded so the developers can claim "OVER 100+ HOURS OF PLAYTIME ZOMG!" when all you're really doing is fetch quests, then no, I don't think a good game could ever be too long.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

A good game is never too long, even if it ends up being hundreds of hours long.


It's as simple as this, no matter how long a game is, if it's a good game it's not too long. Some people may be like "well, I don't have the time to enjoy a 200 hour game" well, that's your circumstance, the game still rocks and you WOULD like it if you had the time to play it so that problem is bypassed as being irrelavant. Inconvenient games can still be good games, even if not everyone can play them. (not everyone gets to play every game on every console right now anyways, most people only play a few dozen games a year and hundreds if not thousands are released)

 

[dagens24]

I've come across many a game that were too long. Every Final Fantasy comes to mind. A game can usually keep my interest for a maximum of 20 hours unless it's a great game like Fallout or Mass Effect.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Anything much over 10 hours is too much for me. We get tied up in the idea that a game isn't worth the $60 unless it's over a certain length, but as far as I'm concerned, no game is worth more than $20, regardless of length. People who pay full price overpay no matter how great the game is. Anyway, going back to the 10 hour figure, it's extremely rare that I will put more than 10 hours into a singleplayer experience. If a multiplayer component really grips me, I'll put dozens, maybe even hundreds of hours in over the course of months or years, but if I don't finish a single player game a few days after starting the campaign, I'm probably not going to finish it at all.

 

[chromewarriorXIII]

Most of the Tales games are too long, IMO. Great for the first playthrough, but going through it again is like pulling teeth, especially if you are a completionist.

Really? I played Tales of Symphonia twice back-to-back and started a third playthrough after that. I've been trying to go for 100% but it's so hard.

I've never complained that a game is too long. I've never complained about it but I think FFVIII is too long. I've never completed it. Twice now I've gotten to the same point and then lost interest. I really want to finish it though, I just never find the motivation to do it.

 

[Netrigan]

Certainly. It's usually a case of not having a diverse enough set of game mechanics and/or environments to keep the game interesting in the long run.

Such as Doom II and Unreal both wore me down. I've played other 32 level Doom games and thoroughly enjoyed them, but Doom II just got repetitive as it wore on. The original Doom had about the same number of levels, but split it up into four different episodes, so you didn't spend the vast majority of the game maxed out on weapons and ammo. Just didn't like the pacing of Doom II.

Unreal's combat is a bit too slow paced for me, so trudging my way through its large levels wore on me more and more as the game went on. Afterwards, I played the add-on pack, which was about half the length and rather enjoyed it.

I also thought Wanted: Weapons Of Fate was too long... at six hours. First four or so hours were quite a bit of fun, but near the end, it just padded out the fights too much and it became a trudge. I was happy to see the back of it.

In my opinion, if someone says a game is too long, it's really an indication that something else is wrong with it.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Hm...the only games that I think can be too long are those games that allow you to play after you have beaten the story. Now, MMOs are the exception to this rule, but a game is about getting to the end of something. For me, this end is the completion of the story in the game. A clearly defined goal of "Save world/rescue princess/claim treasure/get revenge." Once that is accomplished, the game is over. Games like .Hack and Mass Effect 2, which allow you to play after completing the storyline, are too long because there is no longer a driving force. I have seen the ending, and doing anything more just feels like work. When a game feels like work, it has become too long.

 

[kotorfan04]

I am having trouble plowing through New Vegas, it is funny and all I just can't keep plowing through it. Raised the bomber have a ton of quests and can't do a darned thing.

 

[feauxx]

Also, Assassin's Creed. That game just wouldn't end. I loved it, but it reminded me of Return of the King. Just end already!!

i'm with you on this. i love long games when it's a game i love.
but with the repetitiveness of assassin's creed (one) the story was smeared out way too much to keep me interested. i actually stopped half way though and finished the game almost 2 years later.

a game i liked that suffered this same problem to me was alan wake. when i thought i was nearing the conclusion, the game proceeded to get lost in a dozen other spooky forests. up till the point where it stopped being spooky because it was too hilarious to predict how he was going to end up alone in a forest again. that made me want the game to end.

 

[onewheeled]

The way it's looking right now with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, I think that game might be a tad bit too long for my tastes. I'm playing quite slow, though, I've been playing for about seven hours or so, with Laharl being level 10, and my other 6 party members (minus my prinnies, which are set at level 5) are all level 7 or higher. I've just beaten the first level of episode 2. Seven hours. One out of fourteen episodes complete. Damn.

 

[PeePantz]

Also, Assassin's Creed. That game just wouldn't end. I loved it, but it reminded me of Return of the King. Just end already!!

i'm with you on this. i love long games when it's a game i love.
but with the repetitiveness of assassin's creed (one) the story was smeared out way too much to keep me interested. i actually stopped half way though and finished the game almost 2 years later.

a game i liked that suffered this same problem to me was alan wake. when i thought i was nearing the conclusion, the game proceeded to get lost in a dozen other spooky forests. up till the point where it stopped being spooky because it was too hilarious to predict how he was going to end up alone in a forest again. that made me want the game to end.

Seriously Alan, stop going in the forest. Or get your shit done during the day.