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General discussionGuest Feature: RPG Site recommends games by playtime(46 posts)(46 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 22, 2017
Yeah, size matters sometimes. Whether you're looking to get the most bang for your buck, or for something you'll actually finish this time – it's good to know what you're getting into before choosing your next game. With the week's RPG sale now at full-mast, we approached the editors at RPGsite.net for their take on the highlights, and just how much time you'll need to experience what these games have to offer.
And this is it!

RPG Site's favorites, by playtime

Our friends over at GOG are having a nice sale this weekend on some pretty cool PC-based RPGs. Now, we know. 2017 has been good, and you've likely got frightful backlogs. Maybe you don't have the time to play all of these - RPGs are enormous games, and some of you are no doubt busy reaching the 100-hour mark in Persona 5 and Breath of the Wild - or maybe you're still at it in Skyrim thanks to last year's Special Edition.
But still - who doesn't like expanding their backlog some? GOG's latest sale is the ideal way to do that, and it's one tailor-made for our RPG-loving audience, especially those into Western RPGs already. For the JRPG fans, these cheap offers might be the perfect time to give some of the most traditional WRPGs a try.
We've taken out the time to pick out some of the best deals from this sale here - and we've also included an average play-time for each game so that you can know exactly what you're getting into before you take the plunge. Fire up the backlog...

Divinity: Original Sin (60% off)
Playtime: ~60 Hours
The longest title of our highlights is also one of our favorites of the bunch. Well, actually it is probably just our favorite, period. Divinity: Original Sin was our 2014 game of the year. Featuring an incredibly engaging turn based combat system, a stellar soundtrack by the late Kirill Pokrovsky, and a huge world-saving quest, we definitely suggest that anyone with the time and interest give Original Sin a spin.
Deep systems for crafting, exploration, combat, and party-building, the game is feature rich in every way. At the same time, the game differs from some of its contemporaries by injecting a bit of whimsy into the game in a way that only Larian can - early in the game you will teleport into someone's bathroom, and you'll converse with a dog to try to solve the mystery of his owner's murder. The game is even better with a friend: you can play it completely in on-line cooperative mode. We are especially excited for the sequel releasing in full later this year!

Pillars of Eternity (60% off)
Playtime: ~40 Hours</a></a>
We've talked a lot about Pillars of Eternity . We think it's pretty good, great even! There's some new zeitgeist around Obsidian's kickstarter darling again as the game is set for a console release next month with Deadfire releasing at some point early next year. With their penchant for strong writing and one-of-a-kind characterization, Pillars of Eternity is definitely a title for someone looking to get lost inside a mammoth rpg world unlike most others.
It is one of the longer games on this list, but we still suggest it for those that are looking for a little more narrative depth but with the mechanical complexity of a deep and fully featured RPG experience. Featuring up to six party members and made even more expansive by the White March add-on content, this is probably the most traditional experience here, though at a level of quality where we'd suggest checking it out any day.

Torment: Tides of Numenera (30% off)
Playtime: ~30 Hours
Potentially buried in early 2017's onslaught of game releases, we want to make sure people who have overlooked Torment: Tides of Numenera give it a try. The game launched with some significant issues: encounters weren't as fun to play as in some other titles in the genre and performance limitations hampered enjoyment for many. However, as of patch 1.10 a lot of adjustments have been made to shorten combat encounters and improve UI bugs.
Story and writing are the focus of this title, with long gameplay sections void of any sort of combat or engagements: you can even play the game as a complete pacifist. Tides of Numenera is a game that allows you to die however often you want, hold the memories of other people inside your head, and even change someone's past by altering their memory - it gets pretty weird. It's a lot of reading, but if it's also probably the most unique title of the bunch.

Tyranny (60% off)
Playtime: ~20 Hours
Tyranny is the shortest game on this list and likely the most experimental. For those wanting to try something off of the beaten path, it's probably the title we'd suggest for you. Tyranny is a game completely about choice and consequence. Sure, that phrase is thrown around a lot across several rpgs, but Tyranny exemplifies the ideals in the strongest ways.
While a single playthrough of the title is far shorter than a game like Pillars or Original Sin, the amount of variation in the way the narrative can unfold is remarkable, which encourages multiple playthroughs to see how decisions made early in the game can change your allies, your enemies, and even your party members. However, even a single playthrough can highlight the sort of fallout that every decision can result in. Bastard's Wound releases soon as well, so we're personally excited to revisit the Tiers at some point later this year.
Post edited July 24, 2017 by Konrad
Posted July 23, 2017
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megavolt67: One is about getting JRPG fans interested in CRPGs
Just one comment on your terminology: JRPGs are a type of CRPGs. You probably mean WRPG whenever you put CRPG.

Basically, CRPG (Computer RPG) is a type that includes JRPG and WRPG; the only RPGs it does not include are those that are not computer games (for example, Dungeons & Dragons).
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megavolt67: More recently, I find it surprising that anyone actually likes something like weapon degradation.
The way I see it, weapon durability works best when it's implemented as a balancing factor to ensure that physical attacks aren't free to use. Basically, this allows the developer to move away from the "physical attacks are free, but spells aren't". This means that repairing powerful items shouldn't be too easy, as otherwise the mechanic has no reason to exist.

For best balance, I find that either:
1. There must be no escape from the durability system (no free attacks, no regenerating MP for spells), or
2. Abilities that use durability or other resources must be significantly stronger than those that don't. If a durability-using attack is only slightly stronger than a free attack, players will use the free attack. Also, abilities whose resources can't be restored must be significantly stronger than those that can (for example, non-buyable weapons need to be much stronger than buyable ones).

(Note that this also applies to spells.)

There are also some interesting things that can be done with weapon durability. For example, in SaGa 1 and 2, we see a couple interesting mechanics here:
1. Martial arts do more damage when their durability runs low. For example, a Punch with only 3 uses left is a lot stronger than one that still has 90 uses left. There is also a 3x attack or damage bonus when using the last attack of a martial art.
2. There are a couple weapons (the Glass Sword being one of them) that have only one use. Of course, they have the power to back up their single use (although the other weapon in SaGa 2 is a bit weak for a rare single use weapon). (Note that in Final Fantasy Legend (English version of SaGa 1), the translators messed up and gave the Glass Sword 50 uses instead of 1.)
Post edited July 23, 2017 by dtgreene
Posted July 23, 2017
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nightcraw1er.488: Still don't like this whole wRPG monkey that seems to have crept in over the last few months, will start calling jRPGs aRPGs, i.e. Chuck all Asian games n one moniker. Just rubbish.
Another terminology criticism is when people use the term ARPG to refer to games where the focus is on replaying the same areas over and over again to farm loot. Regardless of whether one considers what are commonly called ARPGs to be RPGs in the first place (I don't, as I see them as action games), there are some examples where this doesn't apply. Consider Final Fantasy Adventure and Etrian Odyssey, each of which is either action or loot-farming, but not both.


One more question:

Does anybody have any recommendations for turn-based games that are in the 8 hour (or less) range? Often, 20 hours is much longer than I feel like spending on a game. (SaGa 1 is an example of the game length I am looking for.)
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The_Gypsy: I don't think any reasonable person complains with better graphics so long as performance isn't worse than it should be.
Or if the better graphics either:
1. Get in the way of the game. I can mention Final Fantasy 7 and SaGa Frontier as examples where it is sometimes difficult to tell where you can and can't walk, when earlier games in those series didn't have that issue. There's also the fact that, as graphics improves, some developers have felt the need to show off the graphical capabilities, at the expense of forcing the player to wait through cutscenes and lengthy attack animations (Final Fantasy 7-9 are definitely guilty of this).
2. Cause health issues. The simplest example would be getting headaches from the 3D perspective, or from the whole VR thing.
Post edited July 23, 2017 by dtgreene
Posted July 23, 2017
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The_Gypsy: I'm having a blast playing my GOG copy of Skyri-Oh wait, I'm not ಠ_ಠ.
Skyrim is shit, as are all Bethesda RPGs (I'm not counting New Vegas here which was done by Obsidian not Bethesda). I would be more interested in statistics of good RPGs like Age of Decadence, Arcanum, Betrayal at Krondor, Fallout 1, Vampire the Masquarade Bloodlines, Darklands, etc.
Posted July 23, 2017


Yep, Beth games does that to ya! You should give the rest of the series a go! New Vegas is epic, truly, truly epic! And it's DRM-Free! Ironic that it was Bethesda's first steam game unfortunately, but I'm glad it's home!
Thank the gods it wasn't written by bethesda as it might've turned to shit.
Posted July 23, 2017
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Ganni1987: These guys must be speed runners if they finish D:OS in 60 hours, I've probably spent a little more than and was still at half way through.

Been thinking about starting PST these days, it's the only D&D game I spent the longest time on.
The same applies to others from the list, like Pillars or Tyranny. It took me about 35-40 hours to complete just one playthrough in Tyranny.
Post edited July 23, 2017 by blotunga
Posted July 23, 2017
Another tie-in .
Post edited July 23, 2017 by Painted_Doll
Posted July 23, 2017
By playtime?

Well for me it would be something like Wurm Unlimited, the actual role-playing game (not premade story reading game).

Playtime: unlimited.
Posted July 23, 2017
40 hours for Pillars? O.o
Even for just the base game that's really short. Pillars + White March can easily take 80+ hours.
Posted July 23, 2017
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nightcraw1er.488: Still don't like this whole wRPG monkey that seems to have crept in over the last few months, will start calling jRPGs aRPGs, i.e. Chuck all Asian games n one moniker. Just rubbish.
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dtgreene: Another terminology criticism is when people use the term ARPG to refer to games where the focus is on replaying the same areas over and over again to farm loot. Regardless of whether one considers what are commonly called ARPGs to be RPGs in the first place (I don't, as I see them as action games), there are some examples where this doesn't apply. Consider Final Fantasy Adventure and Etrian Odyssey, each of which is either action or loot-farming, but not both.

One more question:

Does anybody have any recommendations for turn-based games that are in the 8 hour (or less) range? Often, 20 hours is much longer than I feel like spending on a game. (SaGa 1 is an example of the game length I am looking for.)
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The_Gypsy: I don't think any reasonable person complains with better graphics so long as performance isn't worse than it should be.
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dtgreene: Or if the better graphics either:
1. Get in the way of the game. I can mention Final Fantasy 7 and SaGa Frontier as examples where it is sometimes difficult to tell where you can and can't walk, when earlier games in those series didn't have that issue. There's also the fact that, as graphics improves, some developers have felt the need to show off the graphical capabilities, at the expense of forcing the player to wait through cutscenes and lengthy attack animations (Final Fantasy 7-9 are definitely guilty of this).
2. Cause health issues. The simplest example would be getting headaches from the 3D perspective, or from the whole VR thing.
I agree, cant really stand an of these buzzword classifications that the gaming industry or gamers come out with. I thought aRPG was where there was more focus on action rather than character building/storyline.

On your second point, yes, the jump from 2d to 3D for games was quite a pain. Liked guilds isometric or even top down fixed camera, and the they all went 3D and you had to keep spinning cameras around and couldn't see what was going on, sacred 2 most recent to me.
Posted July 23, 2017
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goral: Skyrim is shit, as are all Bethesda RPGs

Yep, Beth games does that to ya! You should give the rest of the series a go! New Vegas is epic, truly, truly epic!
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jurjeskovici: Thank the gods it wasn't written by bethesda as it might've turned to shit.
Go to any RPG forum out there, mention Bethesda and you will find this kinda posts flooding in. It saddens me to no end - I grew up with old school RPGs, consider Darklands and Goldbox series the best ever - but somehow was lucky not to get stuck with this narrow minded, blinkered attitude.

Slagging off Bethesda's games is a modern sport and a favourite narrative for many people - who funnily enough also consider themselves RPG connoisseurs. But what they are in reality is people who can not accept nor understand a completely different style of doing things and invent a litany of either fake or overblown faults then applied to Beth's games.

I'm not here to "dispute" these claims, it has been done over and over again and is an exercise in futility - if I tell you for example that every big complex game out there launches with a set of technical problems (that includes all of your beloved Witchers, never mind Arcanum, Gothics or Bloodlines - which were so broken as to require community patches to make them playable) or that coding a true open world with advanced physics, reactive NPCs, emergent gaemeplay etc is a completely different task than building a narrative-driven game with a set of simple design principles - PoE for example, your answer inevitably will be "but bethsofts games are console dumbass SHIT", no matter how logical or true to real life an argument is. So let's not do this ;)

Side effect is that nobody really tries anything inventive these days and all these games such as PoE, Wasteland, Shadowrun and so on are mainly nostalgia driven but design wise awfully stuck in the past. The devs play it safe because they know they can make an easy buck this way with minimal effort. Hell, Darklands was written over 2 decades ago and is much more advanced than these titles. The only ones that are at least trying are Larian - they reinvented turn-based combat without any cheap gimmicks and although I do not dig their humour I consider D:OS a true modern masterpiece.

I tried all these other games and while they're okay-ish in general, they simply bore me with their simplicity - I'd much rather play FO4 -a game as close to a "living, breathing world" trope as was ever made, or some deep roguelike, than click on a few dialogue options, pretend this is "choice & consequence" and then have a bout of poorly made, never-really-in-control combat. So I do consider them sort of inferior - but not at all "shit" - they're just different style that does not necessarily suit me these days, and mostly decent games in general. See the difference between that and your "hate bethsofts" attitude?
Posted July 23, 2017
And I recommend drinking straight up instead of watering it down.
Posted July 23, 2017
If you want something enjoyable that's not too long or overwhelming, get Sudeki (when it goes on sale). I just grabbed Avernum though, that's probably in the 80 hour-area :P
Posted July 23, 2017
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jurjeskovici: Thank the gods it wasn't written by bethesda as it might've turned to shit.
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dexterward: Go to any RPG forum out there, mention Bethesda and you will find this kinda posts flooding in. It saddens me to no end - I grew up with old school RPGs, consider Darklands and Goldbox series the best ever - but somehow was lucky not to get stuck with this narrow minded, blinkered attitude.
Go to Bethesda forum and you won't find it, go to reddit fallout/elder of scrolls subreddits adn you won't find them either because people who post them have their posts deleted and are banned. That's how Bethesda and their fans operate.

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dexterward: Slagging off Bethesda's games is a modern sport and a favourite narrative for many people - who funnily enough also consider themselves RPG connoisseurs. But what they are in reality is people who can not accept nor understand a completely different style of doing things and invent a litany of either fake or overblown faults then applied to Beth's games.
I don't consider myself an RPG connoisseur, I've played too few classic RPGs to say that but it's not that hard to notice that Bethesda games are walking simulators with copy/pasted locations, no choices and consequences and no thinking required. Hence they're so popular, because even monkey can finish them while games like Darklands or Wasteland are hard (and from newer titles <span class="bold">Age of Decadence</span>, Underrail or Neo Scavenger). Not to mention that they're always full of stupidity of such magnitude that you could write an elaborate about it.

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dexterward: I'm not here to "dispute" these claims, it has been done over and over again and is an exercise in futility - if I tell you for example that every big complex game out there launches with a set of technical problems (that includes all of your beloved Witchers, never mind Arcanum, Gothics or Bloodlines - which were so broken as to require community patches to make them playable) or that coding a true open world with advanced physics, reactive NPCs, emergent gaemeplay etc is a completely different task than building a narrative-driven game with a set of simple design principles - PoE for example, your answer inevitably will be "but bethsofts games are console dumbass SHIT", no matter how logical or true to real life an argument is. So let's not do this ;)
Funny you mention that because Bethesda games are ALWAYS [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMYEs7LT3_o]as fuck but they never get the treatment that other games do (like Mass Effect Andromeda, or mentioned Bloodlines, or Arcanum or even New Vegas which wasn't more bugged than Fallout 3 but somehow reviewers downvoted it for it and Obisidan didn't get the bonus).

Also you're wrong that Gothic, Arcanum or Bloodlines needed community patches to be playable, official patches (which in the case of Bloodlines Troika has made for free even though they knew it's the end) fixed most of the bugs and you could easily finish them from start to finish (and I did) and occasional bugs weren't game breaking. Unfortunately they didn't have a bottomless budget like Bethesda and were often forced to release a product before the proper testing could be done so that wasn't their fault. On the other hand Bethesda has the money but they still release a super buggy product in the end but Bethestards will still slurp it in without any critique...

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dexterward: Side effect is that nobody really tries anything inventive these days and all these games such as PoE, Wasteland, Shadowrun and so on are mainly nostalgia driven but design wise awfully stuck in the past. The devs play it safe because they know they can make an easy buck this way with minimal effort. Hell, Darklands was written over 2 decades ago and is much more advanced than these titles. The only ones that are at least trying are Larian - they reinvented turn-based combat without any cheap gimmicks and although I do not dig their humour I consider D:OS a true modern masterpiece.
lol
Saying that inXile plays it safe is just beyond stupid, especially considering that you're comparing them to Bethesda which plays it safe like no other company and produce FPS with RPG elements (and in case of Fallout 4 it's hard to say it has many of these, especially when looking at dialogue wheels or character development). Besides Larian they're the only middle-sized company that chooses TB instead of RTwP or RT and are actually trying to bring some freshness to the genre (with not the best results but they get an A for effort from me). It's different with Obsidian who made a Baldur's Gate clone with as little risk as possible.

Anyway, if you want freshness then Bethesda games are the worst possible choice and you thinking otherwise tells a lot. If you want to see interesting new ideas you should play indie games like Age of Decadence, Underrail, Serpent in the Staglands, Legends of Eisenwald, Lords of Xulima, etc. etc.

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dexterward: I tried all these other games and while they're okay-ish in general, they simply bore me with their simplicity - I'd much rather play FO4 -a game as close to a "living, breathing world" trope as was ever made, or some deep roguelike, than click on a few dialogue options, pretend this is "choice & consequence" and then have a bout of poorly made, never-really-in-control combat. So I do consider them sort of inferior - but not at all "shit" - they're just different style that does not necessarily suit me these days, and mostly decent games in general. See the difference between that and your "hate bethsofts" attitude?
Wow, just wow. Considering Bethesda games "as as close to living breathing world as possible" is just beyond stupid. I can see you're a lost cause. It's way worse than Wasteland 2 or Underrail for example (not to mention Age of Decadence) in that and many other regards. But if you want to play a game with real breathing world then Arcanum is the game you're looking for.

Arcanum is a game with a most real virtual world out of all RPGs I've played. Here even newspapers will write about current events (and by extension often us), journal is just superb, in the night it's suddenly more dangerous on the streets and we're more likely to be attacked by robbers, injuries and curses feel like injuries and curses (they are dangerous), topography matters (e.g. it's not that easy to cross a river or mountains which is great for various of reasons), we can dig through trash cans for parts, etc. etc.

And let me elaborate about the journal because it really is the best journal in any RPG I know. Not only because you get different writings if you go a different route (or if you're dumb as a door nail, I recommend checking it out) but also because it has different sections like gossip or local news that contain not so obvious hints to the quests we have or to possible quests or are just interesting.

In general Arcanum is an underappreciated gem, a game ahead of its time, e.g. in here companions have a mind of their own and do not follow our orders blindly but have their own agenda and might even go against us at some point. Iron Tower's Colony Ship Game (The New World) should have this in too so that's a big plus already.

Other such game is Age of Decadence where NPCs seem to be made from flesh and blood and not pixels and behave very convincingly and the amount of choices we have at our disposal is astounding.
Post edited July 23, 2017 by goral
Posted July 23, 2017
(Reposting this question because it's important enough to have it's own post.)

Any good turn-based RPGs that take 8 hours or less on a casual playthrough? The shortest game recommended in the initial post is listed as about 20 hours, which is sometimes longer than I am willing to spend on a game. (No roguelikes, please.)
Posted July 23, 2017
Is this image from the news post associated with any game? Or is it just an interesting picture?
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Community
General discussionGuest Feature: RPG Site recommends games by playtime(46 posts)(46 posts)
(46 posts)