The older I get, the more I see the same question pop up on internet forums from similarly-aging video game enthusiasts. “Am I the only one who prefers shorter RPGs?” Typical examples include the topic creators discussing how they used to have time to play long games, but now they don’t. The broad-strokes argument is that role-playing games should not be so dang long, because free time is at a premium once we’ve struck adulthood.
You know… I get it. But I vehemently disagree. I love long RPGs. They do tend to have something in common, however. It’s by no means universal, but more often than not, they’ll take awhileto get going. The story starts out slowly, the earth-shaking plot moments don’t occur for dozens of hours, and the gameplay might even be utterly stifling - choking on the fumes of too many tutorials - before finally opening up. Frankly,whatever. The games I’ve listed here have one or more of these “issues”, but they’re masterpieces by the end.
WHERE TO PLAY
I debated whether to includePersona 5on this list because many consider its first arc one of its strongest. Persona 5 splits its story into distinct segments, each of which involving its heroes, the Phantom Thieves, attempting to outwit a specific antagonist. In most cases, this means “stealing their hearts”, which often (though not always) leads to some measure of redemption.
The thing is, even with Suguru Kamoshida’s first-arc storytelling strength, it takes a long time for Persona 5’s actual gameplay to come into sharper focus. You’re stuck to a narrow routine for several hours, which can be a somewhat dispiriting wake-up call if you’ve fetched the game because its myriad mechanics looked interesting from afar. It’s a while before you can really go out there, exploring the city, building relationships with compelling side characters, and so much more.
There’s also a reason I chose Persona 5 Royal here rather than the original iteration, Persona 5. The original game’s final arcisvery good, but I have a heavy emotional attachment to Royal’s added postgame arc. For me, it’s the most poignant part of the game, and it tackles the deepest themes with the strongest emotional resonance. Not going to spoil it for those who aren’t in-the-know, but whew, I felt it.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a fantastic installment in the Xeno series, and it follows Rex and Pyra as they seek to save their world from destruction. The engaging characters, gorgeous world, and compelling RPG mechanics make this an adventure worth playing.
Of the fourXenoblade Chroniclesgames, I’d say only Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - which is, in fact, thefourthone - has a sweeping, strap-yourself-in, early storyline. Even then, there are enough semi-mandatory “side quests” to bog those opening hours down a decent bit.
They all deliver with excellent finales, none more so than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the story of the junk-scrapping young Rex and his mysterious companion, Pyra. Their attempts at reaching the land of Elysium are fraught with all manner of turmoil, some of which definitely overstays its welcome. (A certain mid-game chapter which heavily features the antics of a Nopon party member tends to spring into most fans' minds here. I’m one of them.)
But Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s climax is one of the greatest I’ve gotten out of any RPG. Things really come to a head, and between the fascinating motivations behind the game’s main villains, and the terrific endgame dungeon design, I shed tears of joy every time I return to the world of Alrest.
Falcom has really had its work cut out for it over the years. Getting Western audiences into the positively gargantuan Trails series has not been easy. As of this writing, there are 13 games in total, with 12 released outside of Japan; the pivotal factor here is thatthey’re all deeply connected. It’s one ongoing story. The cast does change (albeit with plenty of returning party members over time), but Trails is every bit the epic, in the truest sense of the word.
Add the all-important fact that, up until recently, it took bloody forever for each game to be localized, and you have a recipe for disaster. Remarkably, things have stabilized; the release cadence is far better now, and while Trails will never be the least bit mainstream even within the JRPG sphere, it has a dedicated audience now that keeps coming back.
But the worst thing about getting people into Trails is that the very first game in the series, Trails in the Sky: First Chapter, has one of the slowest plots in a genre known for slow burns. It feels almost like an episodic anime, only coming together and shifting things into high gear in its final hours. Yet First Chapter has a photo finish. The revelations finally begin to drop, and the heroine, Estelle Bright, is left in a hell of a rough personal situation in the last moments.
It all pays off in the direct sequel, the unsurprisingly-titled Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter. But even within First Chapter’s own confines, it’s a darn good closer.
With a remake fast en route for later this year, I’m left wondering if a whole new crowd is going to give Trails a spin, only to hop off all too soon. For the love of heck, please, stick with it.
Experience The Past To Appreciate The Present
Final Fantasy Tactics
Considered one of the greatest tactical RPGs of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics first launched in 1997 for the PlayStation, before being ported to the PSP. Created by some of the minds behind the Ogre series, it takes place in Ivalice during a war of succession.
Final Fantasy Tactics has a tremendous remaster en route calledFinal Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. While I’ve been bummed to learn that much of the added content from its 2007 PSP version won’t be included, the original scriptwriter - the sublimely-talented Yasumi Matsuno - is back at the helm to pen plenty of new dialogue, so it’s a decent tradeoff.
Anyway. Final Fantasy Tactics is a picture-perfect example of an RPG that starts off quite slowly. Its entire first chapter, out of four in total, is essentially one long flashback revealing how protagonist Ramza Beoulve and friend-turned-frenemy Delita Heiral start out as close comrades, learn the harsh truths of the tumultuous fantasy-medieval world they’ve been thrust into, and ultimately go their separate ways.
From the second chapter onward, Ramza is given the lion’s share of the story’s direct focus. The tragic conclusion to chapter one crucially shapes his worldview and general philosophy for the rising tempo of the remainder of the game. Delita’s own experience with that tragedy, in turn, dictates the drastic measures he decides must be taken for the good of the realm.
The first entry in BioWare’s classical space opera epic,Mass Effect, thrusts players into a quick-escalation opening mission before dropping them in the galactic capital of politics and commerce. Your time with the Citadel is lengthy, to put it lightly; things move fairly slowly as Commander Shepard and their mentor work to secure the Council’s trust through a string of charged conversations.
In the meanwhile, you may spend a fair number of hours roaming the vast space station, taking on short side quests between your efforts to recruit a larger and more eclectic crew for your eventual goal. I’ve seen folks drop the game at this early point, and others have ditched it when the tremendous number of optional missions on tediously similar planets get the better of them.
By its third act, however, Mass Effect is firing on every cylinder, and it all feels so much better because you’ve gotten yourself keenly familiar with the trilogy’s intriguing setting. The struggle to stop Saren and his Reaper overlord from committing genocide upon the sentient races of the galaxy combines with some great late-game sci-fi twists; the result is a game that more than earns its multitude of quieter hours.
Dragon Quest 7is an interesting case study. It’s not that the endgame stretch is “masterpiece territory”. It’s not bad in the slightest, but it’s hardly the most spellbinding thing I’ve experienced from an RPG. When I think about Dragon Quest 7, my first memory is the realization that this is a game that prides itself on its length, because it gives its more patient players one of the most diverse quests in the medium. Because - and this is absolutelycritical- it is so, so, so… long.
If you don’t engage in Dragon Quest 7’s side quests, you’re still likely to hit around 100 hours just clearing the main story. One. Hundred. Hours. The slow pace reared its head for me in the early going, because at that point, I was mystified by Enix’s vision. It took over an hour before I ran into my first battle. I’m speaking to you as a person who doesn’t mind slow RPGs in the slightest, and even I was scratching my head.
Think of Dragon Quest 7 less as a single adventure, and more as a sweeping string of adventures, knit together not unlike a long-running anime. DQ7 sends you places, and gives you more than mere slices of each destination; it gives you plots all their own. These are arcs to such an extent that even a game like Persona 5 Royal doesn’t do the word justice by comparison.
If you’d prefer a version of Dragon Quest 7 that doesn’t take an eternity to get going even by its own standards, the 3DS remake, Fragments of the Forgotten Past, cuts to the chase somewhat by eliminating an hour or so’s worth of its beginning bits. I actually prefer the PS1 version for keeping it in, but I can see the appeal.
Xenoblade Chronicles is Tetsuya Takahashi’s most successful Xeno sub-franchise, but from a pure storytelling perspective, the original title remains unrivaled. Xenogears issprawlingwith plot beats. The amount of things that occur to the excellent cast of characters in this game would require a whole separate list to chart. Suffice it to say, Fei Fong Wong, Elhaym van Houten, and their allies all go through the ringer.
After an opening anime cutscene in which a massive starship crashes on to a planet’s surface, Xenogears skips ahead a whopping 10,000 years, zooming in on a young painter in what is surely the sleepiest town in the world. Within an hour, that town is burnt to a crisp - pretty standard JRPG stuff, although I assure you, it’s done quite interestingly this time around - but there’s a great deal of relatively glacial pacing from there.
Bear with it. Xenogears thrives on its worldbuilding. Nearly everything you’ll learn in this game’s first 10 to 20 hours will factor in the multiple dramatic climaxes later on. Xenogears excels at the fine art of gradually widening the player’s scope, delicately unwrapping mystery after mystery, like a visual novel steeped in turn-based combat and globetrotting escapades.
I love this game, but you’re going to need to be patient with it.
