Something I've been thinking about recently is game length and how that effects my gaming experiences. I'm quickly approaching 30 years old now and I simply don't have the time to play long 100+ hour RPGs any more, (even though I do love them), as most people I know around my age have even less free time than me thanks to jobs, children, responsibilities and such; it's shocking to think how much free time we did have as kids/teens to play games.
So with that in mind I started to think, how long is too long, and for that matter how long is too short? We've all seen the likes of Angry Joe on YouTube talking about game length with his now infamous cry of, "4 HOURS!?!", but is this really so bad. Back in the days of 16-Bit where I spent much of my childhood, games where 2 hours long as standard. Long enough to feel decent and impactful but short enough that you could concievably finish them in one evening. Here's a list of some of my favourites from the Mega Drive.
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - Platformer - 1.5 hours
Streets Of Rage 2 - Beat Em Up - 2 hours
Gley Lancer - Shmup - 1 hour
Kid Chameleon - Platformer - 4 hours
Golden Axe - Beat Em Up - 30 minutes (seriously)
Ranger X - Platformer/Shmup - 1.5 hour
Revenge Of Shinobi - Action Platformer - 1 hour
Now, the Sega Mega Drive was a very action/platformer heavy console so perhaps it's a bad comparion but even if we consider RPGs of the time, the only way you get long games is by going to PC. Looking as some of the SNES RPGs there's not much of a difference in length there either;
Terranigma - RPG - 12 hours
Secret Of Mana - RPG - 7 hours - (edited, bad source)
Legend Of Zelda: Link To The Past - Action/RPG - 6 hours
Super Metroid - Exporation based Platformer - 3 hours
Final Fantasy 6, (3 in USA) - RPG - 5 hours - (speedrun time, not representitive of the actual game).
Even an RPG can be easily finished in an evening/weekend back then, not now, where that franchise is well know for being hundreds of hours long per game. So why the change? I look at these games and I see something obvious about these games. I've played more than 20 hours in every single one of them, even Golden Axe... why? Replayability. These games are extremely tight and as such very fun to play over and over, even with changes in genre. I can replay both Streets Of Rage 2 and Final Fantasy 6 and feel very satisfied with both of them. Games today seem to forget this.
So what do we need with game length. Is it unfair to expect 40+ hour gaming experiences with every game as became the norm in PSOne and up games? Have we been spoiled by long games? Is it simply a false equivalency, comparing game length with value as though the only value a game has is in the hours it consumes? I ask all this because so many game I enjoy are trashed for having low game lengths, but I wonder if they should. Is it fair to trash games for being short. Some of my favourite games of last gen where quite short and looking at these games, I fail to see how these could be improved by being 40+ hours long;
Portal - Puzzle - 4 hours
Spec Ops: The Line - Third Person Shooter - 7 hours
Metal Gear Rising: Revengence - 3D Brawler - 6 hours
Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty - 3D Platformer - 4 hours
Vanquish - Third Person Shooter - 6 hours
Journey - Indie Adventure - 2 hours
Are these games bad because of their length? Hell no, many people consider the shortest ones there, Portal and Journey to be some of the finest games made that generation. So how should we judge game length?
Really all this comes down to one game that made me seriously consider this; Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. People are complaining because the main story can be completed in 2 hours, and even if you complete every single side mission and trophy/achievement it's still barely clocking in at 5 hours. So is this reasonable? I actually think that, yes it is. The game isn't being advertised as a long epic RPG or anything, they're openly stating that it's a short but focused game and that's something I can get behind and in fact, as daft as this may sound, the shorter play time made me want this game more. Knowing it's a game I can finish casually over a weekend in between other things, that's a good thing for me. It means I can get through and enjoy a game without having to budget time for it. There are so many games out there I want to try, sometimes I wish they where all only 2-5 hours long as I'd be able to enjoy more of them that way. All that said, especially with my current playthough of Final Fantasy VII on my Vita rekindling this for me as of late, I often long for my long turgid 100+ hour RPGs and I'd be truly sad to see them no longer available.
So, what does everyone else think about this? Do you share my opinion on game length or do you feel differently? I think this is an interesting discussion and one I'm not sure has a conclusion yet.
