40 Hours? 100 Hours? How A Game Developer Determines RPG Duration

Kotaku: One of the creators of White Knight Chronicles, the upcoming PlayStation 3 role-playing game, just wanted to know how long their game was. "So, that was the point of the question," Yoshiaki Kusuda said through a translator, laughing. Not really.

Level 5, the studio behind White Knight Chronicles, is an RPG juggernaut in Japan. They make the top-selling Dragon Quest games these days, are working with Studio Ghibli on a major adventure and have the Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy RPGs to their credit.

So if anyone would be able to explain the art of deciding how long an RPG is, I was sure it would be someone from Level 5.

[Ninjamonkey]

The length of a game really depends on how much they want to put into it.

A game like oblivion lasted me somewhere around the reigon of 300 hours, but thats becuase the devs put a TON of missions and side quests in the game, with optional extras like taking out oblivion gates and searching dungeons.

Plus the game word helped, it was great just to walk around trying to hit animals (or the occasional person =P ) with arrows from far away.

[dorron]

I hate it when games are too long. For me it's enough around 30 hours for an RPG or else I get bored...

Well, not always. Oblivion was great, but for me the duration of Eternal Sonata is the game length I want in an RPG.

[Sangria]

Well, honestly i found Eternal Sonata really too short, especially considering how quickly it ends (i had the feel the battle against the butler dragon was only at half the game, it was actually nearly the end).

In my opinion, a RPG isn't good following its length but its scenario. You can have a short RPG with a brilliant scenario, it would be simply awesome. And you can have very long RPGs but with a crap scenario. Unless this RPG have something unique in its gameplay, you'll soon enough forget about this game.

[Tony P]

It's complicated. I expect long hours from JRPGs but I don't hold WRPGs to the same standard. I feel like you can and should get more out of a WRPG with multiple replays due to greater flexibility in the design, narrative, and play style. The JRPG is quite linear in most regards so it's better to tell the best story you got in one shot since there are usually fewer reasons to warrant a replay.

Oblivion and the TES games are really in a class of their own.

[Rifle-Man]

I just finished Persona 4 a few nights ago: 101 hours and 6 minutes.

That's a bit too long, if you ask me. 50-60 would be better.

[Si-Pie]

But arent alot of RPGs like oblivion up to the individual on how much time they spend on it? I mean im a big RPG fan and spent almost 300 hours on Oblivion but my mate wanted to play it mainly for the achievements so he managed to get all the achievements in around 30 hours.

So at the end of the day you can stick to the main story line and finish it around 30 hours or if you like you can do all the side quests etc and spend hundreds of hours on them. But of course with Japanese RPGs it is different as well as online rpgs.

[callahan09]

From the article: "I have spent 1,500 hours online and I don't feel I have finished doing everything."

Well, I'd estimate that 1500 hours is a MINIMUM for getting the platinum trophy in this game. That's if you have some serious luck and you do everything as efficiently as possible. I can see spending 4000 hours on this game and STILL not having the platinum. It requires an incredible amount of time, devotion, focus, and luck.

Anyway, this is a fun game. I like it a lot, but I wouldn't ever attempt to get the platinum. Just not enough time for me haha.

[Si-Pie]

wow thats alot of hours. I dont know much about this game is it really good? whats the fighting scenes like?

but yep id agree 4000 hours is too much for me I think haha.