Let’s face it: someRPGsjust don’t respect your time. They’ll dazzle you with gorgeous worlds, deep lore, and epic quests, then make you dig through hours of busywork just to get to the good stuff.
As much as we love the genre, it’s hard to ignore how often these games lean into bloated systems and endless fetch quests. This isn’t about hating long games. It’s about calling out the ones that mistake tedium for depth. So here it is, alovingly frustrated lookat RPGs that really need to learn when to get to the point.
For a game fans waited over a decade to play, Kingdom Hearts 3 sure likes to stall. You’ll spend hours replaying watered-down Disney plots before the main story remembers it exists. Every world felt more like a detour than a true part of the story, adding to the runtime without really meaning anything.
And just when the plot finally kicks in, it unloads a flood of lore that’s impossible to follow unless you’ve played every spin-off. It’s beautiful and polished, sure, but it constantly tests your patience.
Final Fantasy 13 is legendary for its hallway-like structure, but the real crime is how long it takes to open up. You’re easily 20 hours in before you get any real freedom.Combat is stylishbut mostly on autopilot for much of that time, and the game keeps teasing bigger things that never really land.
Even when it opens up, it throws you into a barren overworld full of monster hunting and not much else. It’s not the worst RPG ever made, but it’s definitely one of the most bloated.
Theworld is massive, gorgeous, and impressively detailed, but also full of nothing. Xenoblade Chronicles X demands a serious time investment just to get around, and even more if you want to unlock a Skell (mech suit), which the game teases early but holds back for way too long.
Missions often feel repetitive, and the story is buried beneath fetch quests and opaque menus. It’s a game that could be 40 hours shorter and lose absolutely nothing of value.
Here’s a classic case of side content gone wild. The Hinterlands alone are enough to wear down new players, luring you into a massive zone full of dull fetch quests and busywork. The campaign itself is strong, but it’s buried under hours of optional content that feels anything but optional if you’re trying to level up.
It’s not that the world isn’t interesting; it’s just overstuffed. There’s good writing here, but it’s often trapped behind a to-do list that never ends.
Yes, it’s stylish. Yes, the music slaps. But Persona 5 Royal drags itself out to an almost absurd length. Between the social sim segments, dungeon crawling, and added content from the Royal edition, this game clocks in at well over 100 hours.
A lot of that time is spent on repetitive conversations and teaching you mechanics that don’t need that much explanation. It’s a great game, but it also desperately needs an editor with a red pen and a sense of urgency.
Starfield promised the stars and gave us… loading screens. This is a game that’s obsessed with menus and fast travel. Want to explore a planet? Load in. Want to board your ship? Load again. Despite its massive scope, Starfield feels strangely small. Most of your time is spent navigating interface layers and jumping between lifeless outposts.
The game hides its best content behind dozens of hours of uninspired missions, resource grinding, and inventory juggling. It’s not about space exploration. It’s about bureaucracy in space suits.
Charming on the surface, tedious underneath. Octopath Traveler 2 gives you eight characters, each with their own story, and expects you to play all of them. The problem is, the structure never evolves. Every chapter feels the same: new town, new boss, same formula.
There’s barely any interaction between the characters, which makes the long hours feel disconnected. The combat is deep, yes, but it’s also slow and repeated constantly. You’ll hit the 60-hour mark and wonder when the party will finally feel like one.
At this point, it’s more RPG than stealth game, and it’s a very long one. Valhalla floods you with content from the start, much of it feeling like filler. Every region has the same checklist of objectives, and the story wears thin well before the credits roll (which might take 100 hours).
Worse, the level scaling means side quests aren’t really optional if you want to keep progressing. You’re not roleplaying a Viking. You’re moonlighting as a regional manager with too many open tasks.
This one’s tricky. The combat is flashy and fun, and the characters are likeable. But wow, does Tales of Arise talk. Every tiny event triggers another skit or long-winded dialogue. It’s not uncommon to spend 20 minutes watching conversations about dinner or vague philosophical dilemmas before being allowed to move again.
Side quests often involve running across multiple zones just to trigger another speech bubble. There’s a great game buried here, but it keeps stopping to hear itself speak.
Unmodded, Skyrim is fairly lean. But once you start adding survival mods, realism tweaks, and 200 extra hours of content from Nexus? You’ve officially wasted your life. Inventory weight becomes a crisis. You spend five hours gathering firewood so your character doesn’t freeze to death in Falkreath.
There’s always one more patch to fix something that broke another mod. Eventually, you realize you haven’t played the main quest in years. You’ve just been adjusting sliders. Congratulations: you turned a game into a job.
