Good RPGs shorter than 24 hours ?

[hexer]

Not really a true RPG, just some fancy skills' builds, but if you're into eye-candy trip to Ancient Rome play Ryse: Son of Rome.
It's super cheap on sales, around €3, and you're done with it in 6 hours

 

[Martyr]

the Game of Thrones RPG is a storyfag game done right. finished the main game plus DLC "Beyond the Wall" in 22 hours. enjoyed every second of it.

 

[Exhuminator]

Lots of WRPG recommendations as expected from this abode.

To balance things out, here's some good Japanese shit from a terrible weeaboo faggot such as I:

Actraiser
Arc the Lad 1
Alcahest
Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland
Brandish: The Dark Revenant*
Brave Story: New Traveler
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia*
Demon's Crest*
Eternal Ring
Faselei!
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
King Colossus
King's Field (entire series)*
Front Mission: Gun Hazard*
Koudelka
Lost Kingdoms
Lost Kingdoms II
Mega Man Legends 1 & 2
Paper Mario
Parasite Eve 1 & 2
Phantasy Star (entire series)*
Shadow Tower & Shadow Tower Abyss
Shadow Hearts*
Shining Force
Soul Blazer
Suikoden 1
Super Mario RPG
Sword of Vermilion*
Threads of Fate
Treasure of the Rudras
Vagrant Story*
Vandal Hearts
Xanadu Next
Ys 1 & 2
Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection

All of those are beatable in less than 24 hours, even if you're playing like a normal human being.

*If nothing else play these goddammit.

 

[TheGameSquid]

Ys 1 & 2

Actually, all of these are much shorter than 24 hours. Most of them are around the 10-hour mark:
Ys
Ys II
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (Remake of Ys III)
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Ys Origin

Very fun and challenging games, but obviously more action than RPG.

Ys SEVEN and Ys: Memories of Celceta are both a little bit longer if I recall correctly, both should take you around 30 hours I think (granted, I'm not that great at action-based games, so I probably took a little longer than the average player).

All of these are available on PC btw.

Spoiler

Also, if we're talking about Japanese Shit, one of the seminal classics of the JRPG genre, Chrono Trigger, is actually around 25 hours in length if that would interest you. People usually remember it as this super long epic, but it's actually quite the opposite. It cuts away a lot of the fat that's usually associated with the genre (grinding, random encounters, fetch quests, endless backtracking, etc.) and the result is a rare JRPG that is actually a very enjoyable adventure!

 

[eXalted]

A Dance with Rogues

 

[Mustawd]

Ys 1 & 2

Don’t play these. They are not good. Merely “ok”.

 

[Terra]

Growlanser 2, loads of branching paths and NG+ for speedy replays. Longest (true) route came in at about 20 hours I think.

 

[Funposter]

You can finish pokemon in a few hours

speed-up functions on emulators are a godsend

 

[Bad Sector]

I put them through the infamously inaccurate HowLongToBeat

This is a great list, thanks, although one issue i have noticed with HowLongToBeat is that with many old games (90s and older) that are based on trying to find or figure out stuff, there is a bias towards shorter times, most likely due to the people who fill these times already having played them at least once (but most likely more than that) at the past. It is more visible when looking at the times for adventure games, but you see the pattern in other games too. Personally when i look at the times for older games i haven't played, i add a 1.3x or so multiplier (on top of my overall 1.5x to 2.0x multiplier, depending on the game genre, as i'm overall slower on finishing games :-P).

 

[hexer]

A Dance with Rogues

Blast from the past!

 

[Glop_dweller]

• Unrest

 

[Urthor]

Ys 1 & 2

Actually, all of these are much shorter than 24 hours. Most of them are around the 10-hour mark:
Ys
Ys II
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (Remake of Ys III)
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Ys Origin

And then YS 8 is probably longer than 3-5 of those put together

 

[Mustawd]

• Unrest

Wot? This is a SHIT game. We are getting some really bad recommendations ITT.

:/

 

[Lord_Potato]

A Dance with Rogues

While I love aDwR Part 1, both of those modules together are like 50-60 hours of playing to me. Maybe I am just slow or like to savour the 'atmosphere'

Ofcourse, one may just complete part 1, which is a great urban adventure and a considerable incline, but one would propably want to see what happened later (thus entering a path to dissapointment, despair, and finally, the Dark Side).

Hence it may not be such a good recomendation.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Real-time blobbers, a.k.a. Dungeon Master-likes, tend to concentrate high-quality gameplay in an amount of time under 24 hours --- assuming you beat the game in a single playthrough, rather than after multiple abortive attempts as was often the case in the early games in this subgenre.

e.g. Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back, Bloodwych, Captive, Eye of the Beholder, The Black Crypt, Hired Guns, Liberation: Captive II, Legend of Grimrock, and Legend of Grimrock II, though some of these may be longer than your threshold.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Wot? This is a SHIT game. We are getting some really bad recommendations ITT.

:/

Shit comprehension perhaps. It quite impressed me as an RPG; doing EXACTLY what an RPG should. I was rather pleasantly surprised, and had no such expectation going into it.
_________
Or perhaps it's just down to taste? I once worked with a woman who (as far as anyone could tell) would only eat at Rally's.

_[edited]_

Since it seems to fly well overhead for some, I will elaborate just a bit: When I say, "[does] exactly what an RPG should", it means that the game offers roleplayable characters with fairly unique or unusual identities, put in tenuous situations that matter to them, Their decisions influence not only their own future, but the future of the other characters in the game; some of whom the player will be roleplaying in later chapters. All of the events (including character deaths) become part of the narrative.

It's not ideal for those seeking an "I am so special"-centric plot, because the characters are regular/ conventional people within context of the presented gameworld—even though one of them is born into royalty.
______________

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I use How Long To Beat to find lengthy RPGs, just do the opposite: https://howlongtobeat.com/g

 

[DemonKing]

Real-time blobbers, a.k.a. Dungeon Master-likes, tend to concentrate high-quality gameplay in an amount of time under 24 hours --- assuming you beat the game in a single playthrough, rather than after multiple abortive attempts as was often the case in the early games in this subgenre.

e.g. Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back, Bloodwych, Captive, Eye of the Beholder, The Black Crypt, Hired Guns, Liberation: Captive II, Legend of Grimrock, and Legend of Grimrock II, though some of these may be longer than your threshold.

Add Vaporum & Operencia to that list. Vaporum was probably 15 hours or so and Operencia 20 for me.

 

[anvi]

I don't have time to play walking simulators like Morrowind or to kill copy pasted mobs in Might and Magic 6,so what are the good RPGs(other than Fallout 1)where you can complete in 24 hours or less ?

Eye of the Beholder 2! Also you all need to get a game called Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Driftmoon is the shortest RPG I can remember playing recently (finished in less than eight hours). Whether its considered "good" will no doubt be a topic for debate. I enjoyed it well enough.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

You can finish Princess Maker 2 in below 20 hours.

 

[Watser]

Drakensang: River of Time can be beaten in less than 25 hours if you increase the movement speed. If not it may take you ~35 hours instead.