Game with the longest story?

[Ashhearth]

The Tales games are good timewasters, at least for me. I think my last run on Symphonia was somewhere around 40 hours, and somewhere around 25 for my (admittedly incomplete) Vesperia run.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

This. Tales of Symphonia should definitely be on your list and ranks as one of the best gamecube games in my book. The game has an excellently crafted story and characters that you can relate too.

 

[go-10]

only one I can think of that's a single game and following ONLY the main story, Tales of the Abyss for PS2/3DS

 

[Yopaz]

A lot of people have been saying Tales of Symphonia and Xenoblade Chrnocles. Seriously if you want a long story go with either of those. I don't know which one took me the longest, but I think Tales of Symphonia, but that is in part because some of the sidequests took me a long time.

 

[teebeeohh]

deus ex and system shock 2
while they may not be very long individually they have huge amounts of replayability.
and no/very little sidequest, unless you count exploring.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The only two I can think of is Xenoblade Chronicle and Tales of Symphonia (and maybe Skies of Arcadia but I haven't finish that game).
Xenoblade world is really huge in a good way while the plot to Symphonia is quite long (it start out as a cliche story but when that's over then you will know it had only just begun).

 

[Cheesepower5]

Mount and Blade -... What? It counts!

Alright fine. Dragon Warrior (Quest) VII took me about 300 hours first time sucking at the game. Slightly less being awesome and doing everything. A DQ is much faster when you're not hopelessly lost, confused or underpowered.

 

[Terminate421]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has a campaign total of 35-40 hours long. (The last 15-20 are done with an "epilogue")

Also, the story is fucking aamzing.

I wish the dialogue wasn't so cheesy though >.>
The gameplay is fun, and the story is actually pretty good, but the dialogue is enough to put me off those games.
IDK why they kept it so kiddish, when the game is a lot harder then most children would bother with, and the story actually is fairly dark and sad, but I can't take any of it seriously cause the dialogue is so obviously geared towards 7-8 year olds. Even though nothing else about the game is :/

OT:
Maybe metroid prime? I don't really remember how long that took, and it was probably inflated because that was one of the first 3d games I seriously played, apart from maybe doom, and I was absolutely terrible at it. 3D platforming takes a while to get used to.

Meh, the only cheesy parts I really remember at all were some parts in the beginning or any part involving Bidoof (THE ONLY CHARACTER I DISPISE).

I think they kept it cheesy because they realized half-way through that a dark story like this requires some uplift every now and then. Besides, due to experience I blast through the beginning relatively quickly on re-plays.

 

[Darks63]

Phantasy star 3 generations of doom just when you think you beat the game you take over as your offspring.

Phantasy star 4 is also long

Final Fantasy 6 is quite long as well.

 

[octafish]

Any Generation?
It can be a series of games?
Start with The Elder Scrolls: Arena 10th Anniversary Edition (I believe it is freeware, I have the disks) and then work your way through...

EDIT: Noooo! Why do I have five badges? I don't need no stinking badges!

 

[Eddie the head]

Umm. Metal Gear? I think the first Metal Gear to Metal Gear Solid 4 is all one story right? So that has to be up there.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I want to say Final Fantasy X because of the long pilgrimage to Zanarkin, the various locales and places that you visit, and the final confrontation with Sin and Yu Yevon.

I want to say about 60 hours, but I'm not too certain of that.

 

[Bobsonnn]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance took me a hella long time. AND ALL OF IT WAS AWESOME.

 

[aceman67]

If I remember correctly, my Mass Effect 2 100% completion run (All DLC) (In prep for ME3) took me around 75-80 hours, so tack off 20 hours for sidequests/dlc), decent length.

After that, its gotta be Dragon Age: Origins with the Awakening expansion (And all dlc), easily 100+ hours of awesome story and lore.

 

[mrhappy1489]

I don't know if it has been recommended, but Dragon Age: Origins (also to a lesser extent DA:2) is actually a pretty long game. I bought just the standalone version and it took me about 30-40 hours to beat without doing any of the side quests. WIth them it's even longer and if you get the version with all the DLC, the bastard will last you a really long time.

 

[hermes]

Persona 4 Arena has to rate up there. Over 40 hours in story mode, and don't even have the grinding aspect of most RPGs...

 

[Mirroga]

Persona 4 Arena has to rate up there. Over 40 hours in story mode, and don't even have the grinding aspect of most RPGs...

I might also suggest Blazblue but it would require playing all character story missions on both games (3 if you count the unreleased 3rd installment).

 

[eimatshya]

While a lot of RPGs are really long, I think those that suggested the Longest Journey may be on the right track. A lot of time in most RPGs is spent wading through combat areas. As such, you aren't really engaged heavily in story elements for much of the game. In the Longest Journey, however, there aren't any combat sections or side quests, so the entirety of that rather long game is spent on the central story. As such, while a playthrough of the Longest Journey wouldn't take as long as a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII, if you cut out all the time spent fighting random monsters, I think the Longest Journey would win.

 

[Frission]

Persona & Dragon Age 1 and Planescape.

Does the Whole Baldur's Gate series count? If so that is by far the most epic trilogy in gaming. It also paced itself very well, and there was so much content that you could look back on the games and think "Wow, I've come a long way".