| Michael-5 said: Is Secret of Mana really that short? I don't believe you. Yes games are getting long, some (like skyrim) are too long. However if you really like the game, then you can still go crazy into it (I got 60 hours into XenoBlade, at 80 hours into Fire Emblem Awakening). Personally I feel a game should give you options. a <40 main story for an RPG + optional sidequests is good. ---- I kinda agree with you, but I also kinda don't. All the great RPG's of the past were around 20-30 hours (Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VI, etc). Now a typical RPG lasts 20-40 hours, with a few lasting 60+. Yea, that can be a bit long, and I agree I'd rather have a 20-30 hour RPG and finish it within 30 days, but a 3 hour game is still depressing.... For non-RPG's replayability is important. I've put in over 1,000 hours into Mario Party 2 with friends, and I love the game for that reason. FPS's like Call of Duty are a blact because of multiplayer too. As for great short games like Portal, I think the reason people love them is because they make such a good break. I'm not complaining that Metroid: Other M is a 3 hour game, but I wouldn't pay full retail price for it either. Metroid Prime (and Portal 2) are the best of the respective series, and look how long they are. ---- My Complaints: Some games getting short though. Mario Party 2 was a 1-2 hour session, Mario Party 9 is always 20 minutes (because there is an end to each map). I don't have ADD, I would like to play a bit longer then my coffee is warm......Same goes for FPS's, 4 hours for a $60.... :-/ Feels like a tech demo. Resident Evil was never 4 hours. Achievements/Trophy's. I used to be able to boot up an RPG, and enjoy. Now I have to have a guide for collectables, and side quests......just annoying. Think I might give up on this. ---- Edit: Like someone said, Quality is the most important thing. I can always beat an RPG twice if it's good. Think I beat Pikmin 1 multiple times too. Same with a lot of SNES games. |
There's a playthrough of Secret Of Mana on YouTube that's only 2.5 hours long, but apparently it's a speedrun. Seems the average playtime is closer to 7 hours, with it topping out at over 20 hours if you spend time exploring the game in full.
I think you make a good point about full retail price, and perhaps there should be a second pricing structure for games. Perhaps the standard $10 indie, $60 AAA simply needs a middle ground, like a $40 episodic/budget game. Some companies have tried this with Half-Life 2: Episode 1 which was purposely designed to be shorter and cheaper (and released more frequently, but Valve suck at that last part). The only problem is, RPGs are niché titles as it is. If we priced the 3-8 hour games lower, and the 30+ hour RPGs and Sandbox games at the full $60, less people are going to buy those games, and it'll only encourage the likes of Call Of Duty to make short 3-4 hour campaigns, a couple of maps for multiplayer and throw it into the shops as an episodic game, (that said they're not far from doing that already).
Achievements and trophies are something I personally ignore. They're nothing more than skinner box game lengthening techniques anyway. I did the whole "complete Final Fantasy using only Red Mages" thing before, and I didn't do it because there was an achievement, I did it because it was fun. I've played multiple Nuzlocke runs of Pokémon games, again because it's fun to add restrictions sometimes. This is how I see achievements and trophies (which are really just Sony me-too-ing the achievements idea), an artificial attempt to force player restrictions and added challenges onto games that don't deserve them.
