The slowest game beginnings ever?

[Level 7 Dragon]

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!

Agreed. Christ, if this was the first Zelda game you played you might think that it's a farming simmulator rather than an open world adventure game.

Will ya look at here, it's Link the Shepard. Mind scaring all the sheep in to the barn, preparing lunch, getting the cat out of the tree, planting the crops, entertaining the kids, catching the bugs, help the nice old lady to reopen her shop, feed the horse.

Christ, by the one hour mark I was itching to see goblins to arrive and set the village ablaze. It's just, every NPC has their feet nailed to the floor and does nothing but give out fetch quests. After spending the first two hours doing farm work via Wiimote, I just wanted every villager to be eaten by spiders.

 

[sageoftruth]

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.

Oh man. How could I forget MGS 4? Thank goodness the scenes were all skippable. Still, it sucked sitting and watching Snake smoke forever at the beginning of each chapter. So much waiting in that game.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Ah yes, this the fourth time you've told me earth was destroyed by aliens within a 30 minute time frame? And the second time you've recycled this cutscene, but just put it in black in white this time, correct?

MGS:V- Now, I've never played a Metal Gear Solid game before, and I was fairly warned about how slow they can be; but Jesus, that opening/tutorial is dense as fuck. I've actually not gotten around to playing past that part, yet, mainly due to lack of time, and not actually disinterest. I feel like I need to put like a week aside to play it properly.

Kingdom Hearts 2: That opening sequence is just so long. I just want to bash some heartless with a keyblade, not worry about summer ending and fake effigy guy having to go back to school But hE neVeR doES because he doesn't exist technically.

 

[Cold Shiny]

KOTOR.
FREAKING.
2.

Peragus is not only boring, it also lasts long enough for regimes to rise and fall.

The rest of the game's really good though.

 

[LordLundar]

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.

I use that mod every time I play. The first character you talk to when you get a dialog option (which boils down to "what do I do?") you get some additional options. You can skip the ship and go straight to Taris, or you have a choice between light side and dark side Taris skips. Selecting either one puts you on your personal ship with all the items and experience (though not selected levels apart from the forced one on the Spire) that coincide with your choice as if you did a 100% completion for Taris on your selected alignment.

IT is always useful because that section is so dull.

 

[Odbarc]

Final Fantasy # whichever one has Lightning.

I think it's like an 8~12 hour tutorial or something? I never broke that number fans say to get to/past and was my breaking point for Final Fantasy games. I really liked the old style of medieval swords and magic style fantasy. 7 started to trend into anime styles and tropes which really, for me, took/takes away from it's best.

I like when things are fun.

 

[Dalisclock]

KOTOR.
FREAKING.
2.

Peragus is not only boring, it also lasts long enough for regimes to rise and fall.

The rest of the game's really good though.

Thank you. I was gonna mention that. God, that intro lasts fucking forever.

 

[Jingle Fett]

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!

Agreed. Christ, if this was the first Zelda game you played you might think that it's a farming simmulator rather than an open world adventure game.

Will ya look at here, it's Link the Shepard. Mind scaring all the sheep in to the barn, preparing lunch, getting the cat out of the tree, planting the crops, entertaining the kids, catching the bugs, help the nice old lady to reopen her shop, feed the horse.

Christ, by the one hour mark I was itching to see goblins to arrive and set the village ablaze. It's just, every NPC has their feet nailed to the floor and does nothing but give out fetch quests. After spending the first two hours doing farm work via Wiimote, I just wanted every villager to be eaten by spiders.

Ugh agreed as well, Twilight Princess was the first game I thought of when I clicked on this thread. I think the thing that makes it so unbearable is that if you compare it to Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, even Windwaker...at the very beginning you have an indication that stuff is going to go down. In Ocarina you get a look at Gannondorf chasing Zelda via dream, in Majora's Mask Link gets robbed by skull kid and then things get weird, and in Windwaker it's not long before sister gets kidnapped. But in Twilight Princess? NOTHING.

Even if the first hour of any of those prior Zelda games was nothing but farming, you'd still know that it's not a farming game because you understand the basic plot/conflict early on. You need to give the player some indication that something bigger and darker is going on or going to happen, that way the player knows that while it might be dull or slow now, things will pick up. In MM you're not playing hide and seek with the brats for shits and giggles, you're doing it because the effing moon is falling.
I mean shit, even when something DOES finally happen in TP (Colin needing rescuing), it still doesn't give any hint at the bigger adventure. The solution could have been as simple as the girl getting taken sooner or showing the twilight in the distance and the villagers getting worried. Or something, ANYTHING.
/vent

 

[lechat]

MGSV
I genuinely believed I was getting trolled by the devs. Just when your character is about to stand up and walk at a reasonable pace they fall back down forcing you to crawl painfully slowly to the next hand hold so you can attempt to stand up..... and then fall down again.
that literally happens a half dozen times.

 

[votemarvel]

I think there is a difference between a slow opening, or indeed any section, and a poorly paced one.

For me Mass Effect has it right. It takes me around a half hour to get off the Normandy at the beginning, I still like to talk to everyone and don't skip the dialogue, but I'm never bored or frustrated at how long it takes. I suppose it is the knowledge that I can just skip everything if I wanted.

The game that annoys me with its opening is Burnout Paradise. That game really annoys me at how long it takes before letting me drive a car, in a damn driving game.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Jade Empire. But why talk about just the beginning. What a shit game, absolute rubbish from start to finish.

 

[Adam Locking]

Metal Gear Ac!d 2 tops the list for me. I spent a whole hour watching, then skipping, cutscenes in desperate search of the game, then my PSP's battery died. Fuck that.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well obviously personal opinion but the slowest start to a game that I actually continued on through and completed was FFXII I actually looked at the in game clock when I thought finally its moving along and it was at 66 hours. The first 10 hours in particular were beyond excruciating if it wasnt FF I would not have pushed on. Finally beat Yiazamat and Omega Weapon (names may be slightly wrong its been a while) at 129 hours.

Wasn't there pretty much a consensus that FFXII takes 20-30 hours to "get good?" I don't think it's just you.

 

[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.

I use that mod every time I play. The first character you talk to when you get a dialog option (which boils down to "what do I do?") you get some additional options. You can skip the ship and go straight to Taris, or you have a choice between light side and dark side Taris skips. Selecting either one puts you on your personal ship with all the items and experience (though not selected levels apart from the forced one on the Spire) that coincide with your choice as if you did a 100% completion for Taris on your selected alignment.

IT is always useful because that section is so dull.

thanks for the more in depth explanation, I couldn't remember but that is definitely coming back to me now, it might make me sound lazy but finding the promised land or whatever for the slum citizens was annoying as shit, so getting all that bonus xp and stuff for free was very nice with the skip mod.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

For me it's Dragon Age: Inquisition. Origins is definitely my favorite opening, one of the few games I look forward to replaying just so I can see those different origins. Ostagar was interesting, too, still feels epic everytime I play it

And then Inquisition just drops you into the middle of some random battle with no explanation, and you are automatically made leader of the "Inquisition" (never explaining to you what exactly you are supposed to be inquiring about) and dropped into the Hinterlands, the most generic and boring looking place imaginable.

Which is a shame because some of the other areas are really pretty, but it's not worth it to slog through the Hinterlands for

 

[Zaltys]

Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages.
It's a story-based scifi 2D shooter. I'd say that it's undderrated, but for an obvious reason: the main features (ship customization, special abilities, research, etc) only start unlocking after dozens of missions. About six hours in. Until then, you'll be flying some of the worst ships, using some of the worst weapons. Which isn't exactly enjoyable.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well obviously personal opinion but the slowest start to a game that I actually continued on through and completed was FFXII I actually looked at the in game clock when I thought finally its moving along and it was at 66 hours. The first 10 hours in particular were beyond excruciating if it wasnt FF I would not have pushed on. Finally beat Yiazamat and Omega Weapon (names may be slightly wrong its been a while) at 129 hours.

Wasn't there pretty much a consensus that FFXII takes 20-30 hours to "get good?" I don't think it's just you.

I dont know to be honest I know lots were saying that about FFXIII and yeah that did take me about 20 hours before it picked up and 40 hours until I thought it became good but dont remember hearing much about XII. It seemed to split opinion more I know just from my small pool of friends who even bothered to pick it up that 3 stopped playing two within 10 hours and one after 30 saying it was terrible while another played for 60 and said he loved it...but never completed it.

But yeah I am almost certainly not alone and for me it is the game that took the longest to get going that actually got going and I actually completed. Longest I think I have played an RPG without it getting going and just ended up dropping it was in the 80 hour mark. I like to give them what I think is a fair go or at least used to as I dont have that much time I am willing to gamble on anymore. I am unlikely to spend more than 20 hours in an RPG now if it doesnt get going and thats if I am being generous. Ofc it also depends on how long I think the game is going to be so pacing etc.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Heavy Rain.
"Ok, that's one son down. One to go and this thing should finally get going."
Pity the game that followed was also terrible. God I hate David Cage...

 

[thedoclc]

Sunless Sea.

It's a small Indie game, so it's less likely to have been known, and it's by the Fallen London people. The premise is you're a ship captain in a Victorian Lovecraftian ocean that exists after London and a lot of the earth fell down some deep, dark thing and wound up under the earth.

Jumping in to do something takes a mere minute after you go through chargen, but you can easily spend the next five to six hours visiting the same five to ten ports just grinding for stats and pocket change in the hope of being able to survive to the next part of the game. With permadeath and a near total loss of all progress when you die, very few players ever are going to be willing to grind it out.

 

[Valkrex]

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.

As much as I will hold Okami up to being a masterpiece, holy hell is the opening slow as balls... Especially since Issun won't SHUT THE FUCK UP! Once the game takes off the training wheels though the game is absolutely fantastic.


As for another game with a horribly slow opening... Borderlands 2. Wake up, get yelled at by claptrap. Get a quest to kill Bullymongs. Okay. Then another quest to... kill bullymongs. Then oh a quest to kill raiders... riding bullymongs. Oh hey a new are- more bullymong hunting quests. Oh you want to to go get something for you so we can head towards sanctuary? Of course, its in a bullymong nest... Seriously the first 5 hours of this game is the same quest OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, along with just AWFUL gunplay... by the time I got to Sanctuary I wanted nothing to do with the game anymore.