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There's nothing worse than a good game that just doesn't know when to end

Wind Waker runs out of steam BIG at the end. As much as I love that game, I cannot believe I put up with that bullshit at the end.
Uncharted 4 - again, great ending, but dragged so much to get there
God of War 3 had such a dazzling first hour it was all downhill after that. The beginning should have been the ending!!!
Fable 3. I never finished it, but it all felt so samey I just stopped and have no idea how far I got.
I feel like God of War ALWAYS hits the first boss out of the park and the rest of the game sometimes struggles to live up to it
 

njean777

Member
I feel this way with a lot of games, you know you are towards the end and they more often then not throw some stupid things at you that are just busy work just to pad it out.
 
I love Assassin’s Creed games (most of them), but, damn, they’re these kinds of games that drag on and on until you want to scoop your eyes out with spoons for fun.
 
You're having a blast playing a game and it's seemingly coming to a conclusion. You're ready for that final dungeon, another 1 hour at most and you'll be rewarded with the conclusion of the amazing time you spent with the game... and then the game just goes on for another 10 hours just to fill an arbitrary playtime metric or something. Yes, I'm looking at you Tales of Arise.

I was enjoying that game a lot. The exploration aspect was spot-on to my tastes, the discovery of new realms was always interesting (not to mention stunningly beautiful) and there was always something fun to do in each one... And then the game just decides to drop you into the most drab and uninteresting environments and to dump you with lore in VERY LONG cutscenes that are placed almost back-to-back with 15 seconds of walking in-between. What was supposed to be the final stretch is instead spread so thin that nothing feels meaningful anymore and you just want it to end... Only it doesn't. What was an otherwise amazing experience became something I wanted to finish and never touch again.

Any other examples of games like this?
I felt the same way with Tales of Arise. Had a blast when the goal was clear, then it goes NOWHERE for hours.

Why.
 

Melchiah

Member
Bioshock 1+2 and TLOU2 come to mind. Although, it was VERY satisfying to see withered and tortured you-know-who in the end.
 

tommib

Member
TLOU2 should’ve been 10 hours short. It just never stops.

Alien Isolation should’ve been max 6 hours. Talk about padding.

Interestingly, I couldn’t get enough of Tsushima or Days Gone. There’s a soap opera rhythm to those games that’s very addictive.
 

sigmaZ

Member
Final Fantasy 14 the thread.
I jest. No, but really.
You're absolutely right about this.
Balance or 'merihari', as they say in Japan, is crucial to solid game design. This includes the pacing.

Tales of Arise didn't feel that bad to me. I agree that it was unnecessary the way they made it seem like the second half was gonna be really long, but after that point it's a straight beeline to the ending in a rushed third act. I think in that case, they were just keeping with Tales tradition. (A dumb tradition perhaps.) Nothing will be worse than the drudge that was the end of FF15 or parts or 14's run here talk to person A, B, C, and D quests. Still bitter from it all.

This is a common issue these days as everything is about the amount of content. I can't blame companies though. There's so many gamers, even on this very board always going on about how there wasn't enough something or rather. I guess companies are doing things to keep people involved with a game as long as possible for extra profit, but also to hold them out until the next big release.
I will always prefer medium-length well designed games over games with a million different mediocre quests, tasks, etc..
 

Kokoloko85

Member
TLOU2 should’ve been 10 hours short. It just never stops.

Alien Isolation should’ve been max 6 hours. Talk about padding.

Interestingly, I couldn’t get enough of Tsushima or Days Gone. There’s a soap opera rhythm to those games that’s very addictive.

Nah I enjoyed Tlou2 being longer. I would of been pissed of it ended in the theatre
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I’ll say it for everyone.
Almost all of Sonys big budget games felt like they went on a bit too long or just way too long.
Felt that way especially with Spider-Man and GoW.

Gears 5 also over stayed its visit.
I felt like GOW was short. When it ended I was like is that it, wtf?
 

Ulysses 31

Member
TLOU2 should’ve been 10 hours short. It just never stops.

Alien Isolation should’ve been max 6 hours. Talk about padding.

Interestingly, I couldn’t get enough of Tsushima or Days Gone. There’s a soap opera rhythm to those games that’s very addictive.
I think it would've been better if the game story was split in 2 playthroughs and you'd get the Rattlers stuff once you've completed at least one of'em.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
Far cry as well
Far Cry games are long, but only about 1/3 as bloated as AC games. If AC were as short as FC they would be manageable.

I wish we could get focused 10, maybe 15 hour single player games that cost a bit less due to less content in them, but have sequels that add new gameplay elements every couple of years.
 
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MikeM

Member
I thought this thread was all about AC Valhalla. Thats a game that is FAR too long. 100+ hours in and still haven’t collected everything yet. Ugh…
 
Kingdom Hearts 3 killed me with this s@$t. Soooo annoying. OP it seriously sounded like it was me writing that second paragraph in my head while I was playing it, well done lol
 

tommib

Member
Metroid Prime. After the first couple of hours, it becomes a chore to play.
stand disagree GIF
 
My friend said this about the witcher 3. Is it true?
nah, the problem with Witcher 3 is that it goes in circles for a while in the novigrad map.

the white orchard map took me about 10 hours to finish. bare in mind this was 7 years ago so give or take some hours here cause i can't remember exactly. that's basically the tutorial area. the novigrad map starts off great with the baron questline (which everyone loves apparently) but once you actually get to the city it gets tedious for a while. maybe i just focused too much on the main quests. if you do side stuff it will help break it up a bit (my second playthrough it didn't bother me). once it's time to leave that map and go to skellige the game picks right back up and doesn't stop...until it does lol.

it took me about 110 hours to play through the main game. about 20 hours of that around 2/4's of the way in were a bit tedious. that's just the base game...the expansions add about another 70 hours of gameplay and it's so much fun. Hearts of Stone (expansion 1) is fantastic. Blood & Wine (expansion 2) has an interesting story but the best thing about that is another huge map to explore. there are 5 maps in total: white orchard, velen/novigrad, skellige, kaer morhen, and toussaint. blood & wine adds toussaint. hearts of stone expands the NW area of velen/novigrad map.
 
What was that thread? I am inexperienced here and feel I can carry on the tradition.
I think it’s this one
 

Silvawuff

Member
I don't think it's an issue of games being too long, it's an issue of content quality. Nobody would complain if a game was fun to play start to finish.

Games like Hades that never really end have the right idea -- a core gameplay loop, cool down time for story/buffing, and you can drastically alter the gameplay based on the restrictions/weapons you go use combined with rng buffs. It's fantastic.
 

Laieon

Member
Wind Waker runs out of steam BIG at the end. As much as I love that game, I cannot believe I put up with that bullshit at the end.
Uncharted 4 - again, great ending, but dragged so much to get there
God of War 3 had such a dazzling first hour it was all downhill after that. The beginning should have been the ending!!!
Fable 3. I never finished it, but it all felt so samey I just stopped and have no idea how far I got.

Wind Waker is my favorite game of all time, and even I can't disagree.
 

Laieon

Member
Especially if you found out about the requirements to get to the added palace too late and have to restart the story... 👀

This was me. 😓 It was my first exposure to Persona...

Loved the game, but yeah; really hoping it comes to PC someday so I can just load up someone else's save. I don't want to play through 70+ hours again.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
The three that stick out to me are Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 5, RE: Revelations.

All those games, especially 6 and Revelations, just go of forever. The end of Revelations especially, it's laughable how dragged out the climax is in that game.

Funny enough, those are also 3 of the worst games in the series.
 

Doom85

Member
The three that stick out to me are Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 5, RE: Revelations.

All those games, especially 6 and Revelations, just go of forever. The end of Revelations especially, it's laughable how dragged out the climax is in that game.

Funny enough, those are also 3 of the worst games in the series.

Disagree about 5 and Revelations (though 2 is way better) being bad, BUT I will agree that Revelations could have been shortened near the end. The stuff with Jill and Chris was fine, but the whole thing with the final Terragrigia (I’m sure I misspelled that) scene Parker, Jessica, and the red-haired dude was too much near the end. Like, it’s meant to be this emotional moment, and I’m like, “I barely know you all! I obviously know Jill, I obviously know Chris, and I kinda know Parker, but that’s about it.”

Revelations 2 was so much better in that department. We knew Claire and Barry, Moira is Barry’s daughter, and Natalia is tied to the villain who was foreshadowed in a prior RE game. Felt more like a proper RE entry.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Disagree about 5 and Revelations (though 2 is way better) being bad, BUT I will agree that Revelations could have been shortened near the end. The stuff with Jill and Chris was fine, but the whole thing with the final Terragrigia (I’m sure I misspelled that) scene Parker, Jessica, and the red-haired dude was too much near the end. Like, it’s meant to be this emotional moment, and I’m like, “I barely know you all! I obviously know Jill, I obviously know Chris, and I kinda know Parker, but that’s about it.”

Revelations 2 was so much better in that department. We knew Claire and Barry, Moira is Barry’s daughter, and Natalia is tied to the villain who was foreshadowed in a prior RE game. Felt more like a proper RE entry.
Yea, I agree. Rev 2 is actually my favorite RE game from the PS3 gen. Wish it had online coop though, that would have been awesome.

There's aspects that I like about Revelations but the flashback levels are largely worthless and overall just too much fat in the game.
 
I love Persona 5 Royal, but the extra term... yikes.

I agree that for some reason I wasn't really feeling Tsushima Arc 3. There are a lot of reasons for this that I won't get into due to spoilers.

I think so many games want to claim x amount of hours that they just keep on going. The biggest problem with LOU2.
 

pramod

Banned
Grandia. I think there's a really great story in this game, it just takes waaaay to long to get anywhere. I think it would have worked much better as a 25-30 hour RPG than a 40-50 hour one.

In fact I think most JRPGs can benefit from cutting out a lot of the needless bloat.
 

pramod

Banned
The three that stick out to me are Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 5, RE: Revelations.

All those games, especially 6 and Revelations, just go of forever. The end of Revelations especially, it's laughable how dragged out the climax is in that game.

Funny enough, those are also 3 of the worst games in the series.
Wow, couldn't disagree more about RE5 and Revelations. RE5 would lose a lot of its epicness if it didn't have all those amazing action set pieces. I only found 1 or 2 places in the game that kinda dragged, the rest were all bangers.

Revelations is probably my favorite RE game of all time, it was so good I wish it was a bit longer. The scary atmosphere on that ship was just so good, I don't think it can ever be topped.
 
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This is huge problem in gaming in general IMO. I blame people who always complained about the games that are quite short compared to the others. But I always prefered quality over quantity, because it's better to be thirsty for more than to be bored. You can always wait half a year and start from the beginning or you can play on a different difficulty level or do a second run focused on getting 100% achievements. But if the game is too long and you want to know how it ends there is no choice - you have to get through the tedious moments.

In the end I just refuse to buy games that are longer than 25 hours.
 
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