The slowest game beginnings ever?

[Fox12]

You see, this is where I disagree with most of you. I hate the game design argument that every game needs to start with action. That every game needs to start big. I loved the opening to Persona 4. It was a great introduction. Besides, the story and social sim aspects of the game are arguably its biggest selling points. I hated the dungeon crawling segments. They felt like a chore I had to slug through before I could enjoy the full game.

Sometimes it's nice to have a story with a slow build. I liked Kingdom Hearts 1&2. I liked Persona 4. I liked the slow buildup in Silent Hill 2. I can't stand the way Infamous 2 or Uncharted throw enemies at you in the first five seconds of the games, as if they're scared that you'll get bored and wander off. I like some action, but lets get grounded before you start throwing enemies my way. I like to know why I'm fighting these people. Randomly throwing monsters my way is lazy. It's all a matter of taste, of course, but a little variety never hurt.

 

[CaitSeith]

Zelda: Skyward Sword. With so much dialog and very little action at the start, this Zelda game is probably the one with the slowest beginning in the series.

 

[Autumnflame]

Yuioh duelst of the roses

and Deus ex HR wwere both urrrmuguuurd let me play already.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

The original Final Fantasy XIII takes several chapters before you open up the Chrystarium and gather the entire party. It takes up to chapter 11 (roughly 20 or 30 hours into the game) for the single wide-open space to open up, and side-quests with it. I'm pretty sure tutorials continue happening after that point but I could be mistaken.

Zelda: Skyward Sword. With so much dialog and very little action at the start, this Zelda game is probably the one with the slowest beginning in the series.

Absolutely this. Twilight Princess didn't feel as drawn out as the Skyward Sword beginning.

 

[MeatMachine]

Zelda: Skyward Sword. With so much dialog and very little action at the start, this Zelda game is probably the one with the slowest beginning in the series.

I haven't played Skyward Sword, but if the beginning is ANYTHING like Twilight Princess was, I'm perfectly fine remaining that way.

Fuckin' whee, I'm Link, and imma save Hyrule with swordplay and dungeon crawling!

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Though one of my favourite games ever, Mass Effect 3's first true levels, Mars and Menae are a bit of a pisser since they're very rail-roady but Mars is worse since you've got the VS bitching in your ear hole the entire time. At least Menae has Garrus.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I was just going to post about Persona 4! Been playing it on my PS2.

Fffffffffffff- I knew I'd be ninja'd... As slow as an opening it is, the game is great. But it is a bit hard to get into right away

 

[Elfgore]

Surprised nobody has brought up the Metal Gear series, specifically, Metal Gear Solid 4.

Now I can't quite remember if the opening specifically was super-long, but I don't think it ever felt like it properly got started, certainly not for a long while. That game just felt like 70% cut scene to me.

Still enjoyed it a lot though.

Been playing Tomb Raider and I feel sort of the same, it almost feels like one long cut scene with QTE and I get to move Lara occasionally.

 

[EyeReaper]

Well, for a more recent example, I've been seeing quite a lot of people (mostly on gamefaqs, so grain of salt) going on about how Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth doesn't really start going good until Chapter 10 out of 20. Personally, I disagree but the games been out 12 days and I've already put 100+ hours in so maybe I'm tad biased. Besides, all the really good and really obvious ones were taken.

I also have to mirror what some others have said though, slow boils don't pop my fun bubble. I'll take a three hour intro over the "You start out with all the powers for the tutorial mission and then OHNOES plot contrivances have reset you to level 1" any day.

Although I will admit, long intros are a new game+ killer. Persona 4 did that right though, by having certain dialogue options be only available on new game+. Sure, it's still a bit of a slog, but at least there's a few new lines peppered in here and there.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Harvest Moon a New Beginning: I picked this up as a nice relaxing game to play with some interaction with the townsfolk and unfortunately as my first harvest moon game. The first month literally nothing happens at all. Wake up water plants, pick up bugs, water plants again go to bed. The townsfolk(what little there are) wander around and rarely say anything new. I was expecting a tutorial or at least some direction or ANYTHING but the game just keeps torturing me with these empty grindy boring play sessions that I don't even care if there is something at the end.

Dragons Dogma: the game starts out fantastically with as far as I can tell a completely unscripted fight with a chimera that I found to be a crapload of fun. Then for the next hour or so it either talks at you or sends you on scripted fights. After the last scripted fight against a Hydra ended with me attacking its head once and the camera being stuck inside the tree most of the fight I just snapped and returned the game. The sheer amount of talking at me coupled with the scripted fights just really made me angry, killing a cyclops that's already 80% dead doesn't make me feel accomplished, it makes me feel cheated, having a battle end the second I accidentally touch an enemy's head also makes me feel very cheated.

I honestly can't be bothered to care if Dragons Dogma gets any better after that, it burnt up all my goodwill by talking it away.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Sometimes it's nice to have a story with a slow build. I liked Kingdom Hearts 1&2.

as far as KH goes though, I think they did a good job with the mystery and pacing at the beginning, (KH2 intro was a *bit* more of a slog, but not by much) so it didn't feel like you were railroaded in tutorial mode on destiny island.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

KOTOR! The Endar Spire and fucking Taris! All just one huge tutorial and if you've beaten the game before, oh man...running around talking to Mission, finding the wookie fucker, getting the droid, not killing the clown, seducing the Sith officer, beating the StarGazer dude, playing blackjack, curing the dudes of the albino weresquid disease all in the service of finding Bastila only to have her tell you off for being slow and stupid...

AND THEN EVERYONE DIES ANYWAY!

Its an absolute chore and on additional playthroughs really makes you want to start slapping people.
In the gut. With the business end of a lightsaber.

there is a popular skip taris mod that's been around for years when you are getting off the endar spire, I think it teleports you right to davik or something...can't remember. after my like 8th playthrough I used that mod a bunch, the fucking rackghoul part of taris was such a slog getting through.

 

[Fox12]

Sometimes it's nice to have a story with a slow build. I liked Kingdom Hearts 1&2.

as far as KH goes though, I think they did a good job with the mystery and pacing at the beginning, (KH2 intro was a *bit* more of a slog, but not by much) so it didn't feel like you were railroaded in tutorial mode on destiny island.

It helps that they're plot relevant. The reason I think it works is that you get a taste of normal life before something fantastic happens. Collecting melons and getting odd jobs may seem dull, but it makes the rest of the game so much better. This was notably absent in Birth by Sleep, and the game suffers for it. Heartless are just accepted parts of the world. There's nothing strange about them. In Kingdom Hearts 2 you get a taste of real life. Then, when things get really weird, you can sympathize more with the protagonist.

Well, for a more recent example, I've been seeing quite a lot of people (mostly on gamefaqs, so grain of salt) going on about how Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth doesn't really start going good until Chapter 10 out of 20. Personally, I disagree but the games been out 12 days and I've already put 100+ hours in so maybe I'm tad biased. Besides, all the really good and really obvious ones were taken.

I don't care what anyone says. I'm going to play the shit out of that after my next paycheck. I didn't even know it existed until two days ago : P

 

[Dalisclock]

Going old school here, but FF II doesn't really open up or get particulary interesting for the first quarter of the game. What's worse, that first quarter is basically a long chain of fetch quests and there are invisible beef gates funneling you in the right direction, though you only discover this when you walk too far in the wrong direction and are jumped by monsters much, much stronger then you are. It is kind of fitting, considering the very first thing you experience in the game is a group of riders murdering your group in a hopeless battle, setting the tone for the hatred the game has for both your characters and you as a player.

There are good reasons FF II is probably the least played game in the series.

 

[Flathole]

luv u OP. I've played the Monty Python Mantra plenty of times during unskippable cutscenes, lonnnnnng tutorials, etc.

Like others have mentioned, 3D Zelda games have notoriously long intro tutorials. Especially Skyward Sword.

I usually shout (ok, whisper) GET ON WITH IT during loading times with online games. This impatience made me Leeroy the fuck out of every dungeon post-WotLK.

And whenever my console decides, "LOL u need an update for this game! did i mention the download will take 45 minutes? no? tee hee hee!" fuggoff Playstation, I really really realllllly don't care about trophies. Actually, I don't want them. Leave them as they were. Dying, gasping, tortured, unloved. Yes. Exterminatus. The trophies and achivements must suffer. No I don't want to "show my friends," if I really want to flaunt my gamerscore I'll take a screenshot, make a video, or bring them to my house show them myself, aye? guurl u know u luv a man that can beat DMC3/4 aye yah ya do, Iga Wyrwal ooooh no your big breasts are interfering with my combos! SSS rank or my life is forfeit! you think they would make good pillows? well if you-

sorry.


Also, the Metroid Prime series in particular. disguising loading areas with door openings is one thing, it's entirely another when it's my 5th time backtracking through here and OPEN THE DOOR, OH CHOZO CMON, THERE ARE GIANT WASPS IN HERE.

oh look, i was supposed to take the OTHER elevator. perfect.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Admittedly one of mine is self inflicted - Pokemon games. After so many years of playing them, the opening introduction tends to just draaaaaag on with the unskipable tutorials surrounding mechanics that haven't changed in 20 years. Of them all however was probably Pokemon X and Y, since there were huge gaps between the early gym leaders and very little extra areas to really explore.

And I'll throw another one in with JRPGs - I know most of it is supposed to be establishing the story, but if it's taking me 10 hours to get into the meat of your game and your game is advertised as having 60-100 hours worth of gameplay, then... yeah. At least pull a Final Fantasy XII and start introducing side-quests or exploration at the same time as well, so the gameworld starts opening up early instead of just dumping you right into it at the end of a 15-hour tutorial.

...To balance it out with Western RPGs - Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. Bioware games in general as well, really, but those two were probably the worst offenders. As neat as the different introductions were with Origins, the fact that they were followed up by the sizable - and slow - Battle for Ostagar very quickly burnt me out on the idea of multiple playthroughs. ME2 just didn't feel like it opened up until Horizon, with everything before it being rather... plodding.

Though maybe that's because the few characters you can recruit aren't... that good (Garrus and Mordin are great, but Grunt and Jack are... very specialized against targets you don't face pre-Horizon) and all the basic weapons feel horribly ineffective (besides the Mantis) so combat tends to be very clunky and slow.

 

[Buckets]

One of the worst examples for me was Okami, it is a beautifully produced game, but that annoying squeaky fairy thing spewing multiple walls of useless text almost made me quit right then.

 

[The White Hunter]

Kingdom Hearts 2 and all it's Twilight Town bullshit

 

[09philj]

Persona 4 aside (And since it's essentially setting the pace for the rest of the game, does it even count as a slow start?), Twilight Princess drags on and on for ages before you get the hero's clothes and a sword and shield.