Oh the joy of a nice long Jrpg. Hours and hours wrapped up in a wonderful story with an amazing battle system, great music and captivating visuals. Most of us imagine that and feel a little bit of heaven on earth. But for others that, can bring up some scary feelings of anxiety. Even from those who also love Jrpgs. But how did we get here and how has the industry responded?
More "Kal Vas Flam" For Your Buck
Rpgs have always been the champion of Videogames run times. When it comes to the value of your dollar, they just can’t be beat. When people would complain that I spend too much money on video games, I would always use Jrpgs to easily explain my reasoning. I’d say that for 40-60 dollars, I’m getting hundreds of hours of entertainment. The value is obviously there.
This expectation became standard in the gaming commuity and is what lead to a length of time when people thought, if an rpg wasn’t at least 40 hours on the first play through, then it wasn’t worth your time.
A good example is Nier Automata. Released in 2017 , Nier Automata is a magnificent game with amazing music, story and characters, but was criticized during its initial release because it is only 21 hours on a single play through.
But in order to get the full story of this game you need to finish it multiple times. So essentially, it’s like eating a bunch of delicious snacks to become full instead of one large meal. In the end, if the result is the same then does it matter how you get there? It turns out that people at Square Enix may have been onto something.
Nier takes about 60 hours to fully complete according to the Howlongtobeat website But according to the PSN trophies at the time of writing this 63.83% of people who played the game and had internet access finished the first play through. But that number drops to 52.54% when you look into how many people finished the the game a second time.
What makes that so interesting is that at first glance, the numbers look really good. More than half the people that played the game finished it and a little more than half beat it a second time. On further inspection, you realize that the second play through of Nier only takes about 5-6 hours, it’s a bit shocking.
This may sound confusing but Nier Automata endings are more like chapters than anything else. So the first play through is a long 21 hour “chapter” but the second play through adds to the story and is a short 5-6 hour chapter and so on until you finally finish the game having seen all the endings.
When we get to chapter 3 or the third play through, less than half the people who played it have completed it. So even though at that point it would only have been about 27 hours, which is short for a Jrpg, many people complained and yet did not finish even half of the game. So is it possible that Square Enix knew this would happen and purposely cut the game up into digestible pieces so that most of the people who played it would have some sense of completion and ownership of their experience? Is this the best way to convey a complex story? Which brings us to our next question
Do Videogames need to be shorter?
Another great example for this topic is Persona 5 Royal. Persona 5 Royal is a re-release of Persona 5 with with all of the DLC. Its lauded by many Jrpg fans as one of the best games of all time. I am definitely in that camp and I highly recommend it. Why is this game perfect for this topic? its because no matter how you approach Persona 5 Royal, it will take the average player over a hundred hours too complete.
I was reccomending it to a friend and they could sense my excitement and enthusiasm as I tried to layout the story and mechanics while a avoiding any potential spoilers.
This was enough to make them want to get the game immediately, but then they asked about how long the game would take to finish, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I knew this would be an issue. When they heard it would take more than a hundred hours to complete, I could see the excitement pack up and leave their eyes. This was too much.
Things have certainly changed. there is a lot of speculation for how things got this way, but here is my belief.
Videogames, our longtime friend.
We have all seen the memes. you get a job so you can buy video games, but now you cant play video games beause you have a job. this all boils down to time constraints.
When we were kids, for many of us, time seemed truly infinite. Most of our responsibilities loomed around school and chores.
While we could get tangled up for a day or two and miss a gaming session here and there, for the most part, these challanges could be navigated and were predictable. This meant we could usually find time to play video games without having to sacrafice too much sleep.
At some point, our gaming was put on a schedule and every hour of the day was slotted with an activity. In short, there isn’t enough time to play our favorite games, but i don’t think it stops there.
As video game prices began to increase in the late 90’s and early 2000’s a games value began to be increasingy measured by its length. The amount of hours it took to beat a game became so important that at one point, a common complaint in many videogame magazine reviews was a game was too long and felt drawn out. I remember reading on a few occasions that a game would have been better if it had ended a few hours sooner.
On the opposite side of that, games were being condemned for being too short regardless of their quality. Ninja Theories Opening Hit on the PS3 “Heavenly Sword” is one game that received praise for great grapchics, gameplay and voice acting, but was constantly under fire for its short campaign at about 7-8 hours.
At some point video game players and developers found a sweet spot for the length of games. Usally accepting that different genres should be different lengths and that every game doesn’t require online multiplayer and 30 hours of story.
During this time Jrpgs remained consistent. The average game was 40 hours and if you wanted to get everything in the game it would require an extra 20 hours of your time. This was fine for awhile as a great JRPG or truly must play game usually only came about two to three times a year. but now all that has changed.
As Jrpgs became more popular, it felt like a new one was coming out everyday. They were not all perfect must play games, but they did enough things right to keep us intrigued and wrapped up in the game. Things seemed managble but then the unthinkable happened.
Trophies and Remakes And Sales Oh My!!
The advent of trophies had a big impact on the way JRPGs were percieved. Ignorance being bliss could not be any more accurate in this case. For fans of other genres, a trophy list is a bunch of things that might happen through out the length of a game but for JRPG Fans the trophy list is task list of things that must happen.
Seeing a long list of things to be done can make anything, even something you have loved since childhood, seem laborious. Many people even choose not to play a game at all, than to get 20 hours in and feel overwhelmed by the judging eyes of all the trophies they wont be able to finish in the next 20 hours and the specter of having to do another play through.
Of course they could just finish the game and ignore the trophies, but the seeing that platinum trophy or full list of achievments next to a game that you love and adore and the knowledge that anyone who sees your Trophy list will know that game is special to you, is just too intoxicating to resist.
Who am I? Where Am I? What Am I?
I have some unsolicited advice for anyone in a conundrum about what games to play and the affect games can have on their time constraints. That advice is to play videogames. Play the games you love and Enjoy them. Break up the games into digestable times and enjoy a delicious helping of fun and excitement. Research can be fun but don’t overthink it.
If you know that you are the kind of person that can’t stop playing and go to sleep then avoid playing at night or start playing early if you can. You’re definitely going to have to adjust your schedule and it will take more work through out the day to get things done, but the game time is worth the effort
If you know that youre the kind of person that needs to complete every task and side mission in a game and you dont want to do a second playthrough, keep a strategy guide near by and check your progress. You can still solve puzzles on your own and make your own choices but at least you can leave chapters and areas with out a fear of missing out on great loot.
Lastly, if you know you are a person that is affraid of what others will say if they know or find out that you have been playing video games for hours then think about this for a second.
People plan whole weekends around binge watching shows on Netflix that they just found out about. Why is that perfectly acceptable, but when you decide have yourself a little Staycation to get immersed in a game that you have been excited about for almost a decade it becomes something you should feel Guilty over?
Regardless of what any one says, its up to you to decide how to spend your time. So many great games get released back to back these days that it can really be hard to make a choice of where to invest your time, but if you love Video games then dont deprive yourself of a great experience beause the game might seem to Arduous because you know that once you get started, Time will just fly by.
Hey just leaving a comment on your blog post above.
To add to what you are saying is that for us who play video games often it’s ironically that life lesson about using our time right. That time is “spent” literally on games; ya know, the whole “time is money” value that I’m sure so many of us are aware of is obviously applied to this experience with playing lengthy rpgs/jrpgs. So in that essence, I agree with that wise advisement you gave at the end that even as the length of rpgs changes on certain games, it is much greater to be self-aware of how we ourselves operate day to day to know how we can best use our time while still enjoying the games we purchase and love. Not everyone would be willing to spend lots of their time playing some rpgs than others. I even have a friend who knows that he couldn’t spent time playing an rpg like Genshin impact because of on-going farming activities and other things you gotta do to build characters and so forth.
I’m sure there can be those out there who just can’t take out their time to play persona 5 due to lengthy gameplay and the conflict it could create in their own schedule.
P.S. I’ve yet to play Persona 5 knowing how long that game will take, but one thing that I won’t do is stream it cause of its length for me. Playing it on my spare time weekly is best according to my own time standards lol.
Thanks for taking the time to read the post. I want everyone to be able to enjoy all wonderful JRPG stories and experiences. As much as it breaks my heart to admit it, I know some people wont have time to play. So If I can mitigate that at all and encourage people to start a game they might love, then its a good day. Also, Please play Persona 5 If for nothing else, then to get that soundtrack in your life. It is amazing.
Good write up. I loved Nier and the model of story telling – lots of snacks as you put it. I can’t find the time needed to put into the other brilliant games. So this way I at least get SOMETHING for my time instead of missing out
I hear that!! This form of story telling may be the future of video games. Episodic content already exists but there is something about that label that innately makes me feel like I’m going to end up with the short end of the stick. I’m right there with you, i need an ending.