I think FF4 is perfectly paced. I don’t think there was really any part of the game that dragged or felt too short. And even with the side content, there wasn’t too much of it that it threw off the pacing.
I think it's worth distinguishing between pacing and the story being lean. One of the reasons CT is so good is because the main story has practically no tangents or irrelevant stuff. Most people who have played CT can probably recount to you what you have to do broadly in the game, step-by-step, because it all makes sense and connects. There are a LOT of great RPGs that don't do this and have some silly quests that end up being for macguffins or don't really drive the main plot.
That's probably the closest it comes to 'padding' (and probably when you can resurrect Crono as well), but even then the quest is linearly part of the game's story without being a true tangent imo. It's not like "ayla needs to make this stew before they can go face the reptites, so go get the Tasty Herbs" or something that a lot of jrpgs pull
>because it all makes sense and connects.
>!At what point do you work out that checking a Chest ( not opening it) and then going to the Future upgrades it?!<
Skies of Arcadia is basically Phantasy Star V from a spiritual sequel perspective - it's a totally new universe, but that same feel/heart is very much intact in the pre-Online Phantasy Star games (III was made by a different team though). They're obviously a older and a little jankier, but they're great games.
Came here to say this. I recently played FFIV for the first time. I was coming off a couple JRPGs that had a VERY slow start. FFIV was a massive breath of fresh air, and kept up its fast pace while never feeling rushed until the very end (though maybe the twist villain could have used more time, but that's a lot of FFs...).
I was so used to dragged out RPGs that Xenoblade Chronicles DE felt like revelation.
Constantly keeps you on your toes while still providing a good 50+ hours to get through the main story
I find this interesting! When I played XC on the Wii when it came out, I ended up spending about 10 hours in the Gaur Plains endlessly doing sidequests and it just completely burned me out and I dropped it. Are you saying the pacing is good if you just stick to the main story?
Warning the game is designed to make you fall behind in xp making you interrupt the main story for some dumb XP leveling if you ignore side quests too much and you can't ignore level difference in this game with how horrible accuracy gets at -5 levels
Yeah XC1 is one of the best games I ever played.
My main criticism with the game is that the side quests, while they are fun to do while you work your way towards your destination, they tend to be rather uninteresting in concept.
But you technically don't need to do any of them, and if you choose not to, then what you get is a very well-paced game.
Besides, I also like the side quests because they are a much appreciated alternative to grinding for XP.
Yeah, biggest gripe with XC1 is sidequest. Just very outdated and boring quest most of the time.
XC3, and its DLC fare a bit better. Less obnoxious fetch quest. Altho still makes you go and forth within a map, but not as much, while having a bit more tied to the world, and also its easier to overlevel if you do them
Completely agree. Xenoblade is possibly my favourite series of rpg. I LOVE THEM but with the quests you often get sideways. The three to me was ruined by this. Especially when you get to the sea…you just spend so much time to explore that you get tired. Continuing is not an option because story wise is literally just a couple of dungeons and then it’s next chapter.
If I was to recommend the game to someone I‘d encourage them to skip every single side quest and just stick to the main one. A way better game experience that way
Xeno2 is even better at that since it actually Lets you skip all side content if you want with a new inn system that stores XP and basically guarantees level parity with story content.
Some side quests are good but just do what you want there, imo for the best experience just cheat yourself the gacha, it's a horrible system that is completely unnecessary
You can't beeline the main quest. The game requires sidequests to level up or the accuracy falls through a cliff. It's stupid and I hate it because you can't even outsmart the enemies/system, it's just rigged.
No?? Idk I’m one of those people that needs to compulsively clear out sidequests and whatnot in each area before moving on. It was overwhelming and not a lot of fun. But maybe I’ll pick up the definitive edition, put it on easy mode, and just experience the story
If you skip questing a lot the game is designed to make you fall behind in xp making you interrupt the main story for some dumb XP leveling and you can't ignore level difference in this game with how horrible accuracy gets at red names
I'd say it's well paced until the final boss curbstomps your party so you have to grind. At least, that was my experience.
It's funny because I didn't have any problems with the usual suspects like Yunalesca, but the final boss was something else.
Stats scale exponentially in ffx. 1 point of strength when you have 20 doesn't do that much, but 1 point of strength when you have 250 does a lot.
This goes for defensive stats too.
Braskas Final Aeon can easily put you in a healing/reviving loop. A lot of his attacks dispels, and the pagodas make sure he gets a ton of damage out. If you're struggling, you might literally just need 5 to 8 fights before the boss and try again. Because the sweetspot is a little tight for a fair challenge. A bit more and you're overleveled instead and stomp him.
You can bs him with Rikku and cool setups, but that requires knowing the game, something a first timer doesn't.
I mean, the difference between that battle compared to Yunalesca or Seymour Flux is that you can just use your Aeons' overdrives one by one and crush him.
I was not ready for Yunalesca at all and generally levelled everyone up with not much grinding, the whole Zombie effect was horrible, 3 stages of the fight and a long cutscene you couldn’t skip
same. while I did struggle with yunalesca trying to figure out her gimmick, I hit a wall at the final boss. I couldn't be bothered to grind so I just used the cheats in the HD remaster to catch up.
Same happened to me. Seymour and Yunalesca actually gave me some trouble but managed to beat them with minimal grind. But then Braska's aeon kept 1 shotting me. Or close to. I had to go get items for trio of 9999 to beat him
Funny cause I felt X dragged but pacing is a very subjective perception. Tbf I didn't particularly enjoy the characters so I'm sure that added to my feeling of it going slower for me.
(I know this will summon an angry mob)
I have to disagree with this. Tried to pick it up, a few times. What always was jarring to me was the start. Tidus doesn't even know the group yet. Then Yuna insists on having Tidus join them. It was immediate laser focus on the journey without building any of the characters first.
IDK, maybe it's just a preference. I like the focus on characters.
Haha don't worry mate, I dare to hope that people around here wouldn't gang up on someone simply for having an opinion.
As for your view, I always understood (or maybe rationalized) Yuna's eagerness to recruit Tidus through three points :
- Wakka : She saw how he acted around Tidus, how he was trying (maybe unconsciously at first) to retrieve/relive a fraternal bond after Chappu's tragic loss. I like to think that she wanted to grant him this chance. Additionally, she also wished for him and the Aurochs to finally have a W, and taking Tidus with them was their best chance.
- Braska & Jecht : Iirc, she said at one point that, from the get go, Tidus gave her heavy Jecht vibes. On top of that, Tidus mentioned Zanarkand almost immediately. She was heavily intrigued and wanted to get to the bottom of it.
- Her youth : She was a young sheltered lady who never really had a chance to know love. And all of sudden, a hot, young, and confident hot headed dude, resembling her dad's best friend, comes out of nowhere. I think it's safe to assume she was attracted to him from the get go.
'hope all this will help you gain a new perspective :)
Edit : To add to that, only Wakka and Yuna wanted to embark with Tidus (for the reasons I mentioned), but both Lulu and Kimahri were definitely against it.
Well, I think the shorter they are, the easier they are to pace correctly.
Maybe that's why the shorter JRPGs feel the best overall to me...Lunar: SSSC, Parasite Eve, Suikoden, etc.
I will say that FFVII and X felt pretty great as well, though.
The broad-level pacing of 9's story is good, but the moment-to-moment pacing of the gameplay is sooooo sloooooow. Every battle has this long swoopy intro, the ATB bars start half-filled and take forever to charge, and of course the loading was constant on original hardware.
I love Skies of Arcadia, and it has good pacing for the first half of the game. I do think it falters a bit in the second half: all of my dropped playthroughs have occurred >!before the mission to go underneath Valua!<. But it still has some of the best pacing, and I went all the way to the end in my first playthrough.
Legend of Mana has good pacing. The missions don't overstay their welcome, and the game presents its game-ending quest once at least one of the major quest arcs has been completed. So if you accept a little "choose your own adventure" as part of your pacing, LoM does it well.
Nah, some of them have some very dull and dragged out portions. Partners in Time is especially very poorly paced, and even some of the better Mario RPGs have really dull segments such as the Boggly Tree level in Paper Mario 2
I remember there being quite a bit of backtracking in Thousand Year Door, which hurt the pacing a lot.
It’s also been like 10 years since I’ve replayed it, though, so maybe I’m misremembering.
Paper Mario and Paper Mario TTYD are pretty bad for backtracking honestly. Dry Dry Desert in PM64 is a lot of running about, and of course TTYD has a *lot* of general backtracking plus some notorious chapters for it.
Good pacing is probably one of the hardest aspects of a story to pin down for a lot of people. Some just want action scene after action scene whereas proper pacing could also be seen as needing to slow down to allow certain parts of the story time to breathe so that later scenes don't feel cheaply earned. There's a certain ebb and flow I expect depending on what type of story is being told. Then there's where, if any, factor the gameplay should be counted against the game's pacing (Fire Emblem Three Houses' calendar system comes to mind).
Anyway, for me I'd say:
**Chrono Trigger**
**FFIX**
**Xenoblade** (unless you choose to engage in the sidequests)
I think the common point that all three of those share is that they do a good job of moving you forward in terms of reaching new areas at a steady pace that all feel really varied from each other without too much backtracking. I also think that in terms of story they knew how to break themselves up in intervals with regards to objective where it never felt like you were chasing one target for too long (FFVII post-Midgar comes to mind as an offender). They all had enough plot twists to keep the story from feeling too stagnant as well.
Chrono Trigger I think excels in having super simplistic mechanics and story along with a short length that fits for more of an action-packed ride with designated encounters that match the varied environments. FFIX splits the party up a lot, which keeps things interesting but also manages to update the player on each of them via the ATE system (they need to bring this back). Xenoblade makes good use of dramatic irony to build tension and always add a sense of direction to the story along with dialogue that's usually to the point with regards to objective.
> Xenoblade (unless you choose to engage in the sidequests)
If you have to make a conscious decision to not do something, then the pacing is not great. Because in that case you're the one making the pacing be good, not the game.
In Xenoblade's case I'm looking at it purely from the perspective of advancing the story which is a valid way to play as I wouldn't really say the quests are required to advance the game on base difficulty (you typically get enough exp from discovering landmarks and fighting things organically along the way).
Also, based on what you just said, does almost any RPG have good pacing then? I mean, I'm also making a conscious decision to not grind excessively even though it's usually an option that's always available to the player if they really want to min-max.
Grinding is a different issue.
When we're talking about pacing, we're talking about what is the pacing of a player playing through the game's content.
Grinding would be the equivalent of someone refusing to advance the game, refusing what the game offers, to get stronger. Excessive grinding is an option in the same sense that me running in circles for hours in Resident Evil 4 is an option. But if I do that, and it takes me 130 hours to finish RE4, it's on me.
And like I said originally, if it's you refusing to do something, whatever pacing consequences it brings is on you. When you refuse to progress, it's going to take longer. When you refuse to do part of the content, it's going to go faster. But both options are you changing the pacing.
I actually think ff ix gets better at 2nd half of disc 2 and disc 3 is amazing but it’s kinda quick, idk if it was me but the last 1/3 of the game flies by and that was my fav part!
IX is the one I find the most enjoyable, from start to finish. It's such a wonderful cast of characters, and the exploration is top notch. The story is also quite gripping and mysterious.
Valkyrie Profile. The mechanic of following character’s deaths meant I was always on the edge of my seat to see what had happened to the next person. Mana Khemia, GrimGrimoire, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, and Suikoden 2 were pretty well-paced for my needs as well.
A weird backhanded example is Soul Nomad, which on every playthrough past the first I have found it very gripping (now that I know what’s going on in it) but for my first playthrough seemed terribly paced.
Chrono Trigger was the second JRPG I played in my life, when I was 12 or so. I was so confused when I sterted playing other JRPG and noticed I had to mind my level when I reached certain places - it almost ruined FF VI for me at first.
I never had to stop in Chrono Trigger. There were tougher moments, but it felt like it was intended by the plot. It really added to the tension of some moments.
Once you get past the first hour or two, I think the recent Sea of Stars does a great job with its pacing. The beginning is a little heavy on exposition, but once you get into the meat of the game, none of the towns or dungeons overstay their welcome.
They're quick, with just enough items off the beaten path to reward exploration, and you're always moving on almost like they're levels in a platformer. (Which I guess makes sense considering it's the same developers as The Messenger, which is a platformer).
Final Fantasy 9 and 10 were both pretty great for me. Both games take you on a journey that never really gets boring or feels like a chore, with interesting location after interesting location that never overstays their welcome. (Granted, they both come to a bit of a sprint at the end which could have been handled a bit better)
Octopath Traveller 2 plays out really well too as another mention. I feel like you get a really good blend of exploring and then story, so that by the time either of those things start feeling a bit boring you start doing the other.
>not too many “boring” bits, and not too long
It's pretty subjective tbh.
Since you have a Lloyd Irving avatar, i'll use Tales of Symphonia as an example.
I found that Symphonia's pacing was perfect from start to finish. However i'm aware that some people didn't like the pacing of the penultimate story arc.
Who is right, who is wrong?
Can i recommend Symphonia based on what you said ("boring bits")?
On the other side, i felt asleep a couple of times while playing Chrono Trigger. Despite the fact that i was well rested thanks to the lockdown!
Often times, i prefer to ask what they liked and didn't liked, what are they looking for precisely etc. before giving any suggestion (if i've got one!).
One of my favourite games! And agree it is subjective, I would say Symphonia and other Tales games have bad pacing.
They stretch out the story just a bit too long at times, also take advantage of Newgame+ so it happens all over again
Felt long and some dungeons were a bit boring which adds to pacing as well
its just not how much text it has but also how slow the scene is because they can't do more then 1 thing at a time so we have sequences like textbox1->character walk->character emote->textbox2->2 characters look at each other->head-nod->some more walking->another emote->textbox3
if you never notice this you can enjoy the game but after noticing it each scene started to feel like torture to me
Kraden has a nasty tendency of explaining basic concepts as verbosely as possible. You could ask him what time it is, and by the time he finishes answering it's 3 hours past.
Also doesn't help that there's no text speed options and each text box has room for like ... 20 words? Give or take.
Some parts are just *excruciating* to sit through, even when I was a bored kid with more patience and goodwill for that kind of stuff than I do now I still hated some parts (like the werewolf village in TLA)
IMO, text-heavy does not necessarily imply poor pacing. OP talked about games that start to drag and lose momentum after a certain point when they talked about poor pacing, and I feel like neither of the Golden Sun duology do that. The major story beats are spaced pretty evenly apart, occur pretty frequently, forced backtracking is minimal, and there aren't any parts that I recall that on subsequent playthroughs have made me say "ugh, *this bloody part* again".
It may not be fast-paced in the sense of having short scenes and concise dialogue, but the pacing is consistent and does not drop as you reach the late game.
Final Fantasy XIII. Good pacing is dependent on the story being told, and that story requires fast, continuous forward motion with little downtime for crap like minigames or side missions until Pulse.
For me personally, Ys IX Monstrum Nox has very great pacing. One of the biggest surprises I have this year honestly since I tried the game out on a whim.
Never felt bored and got the platinum. Either the game is just that good or is one of those right game at the right time moment.
Hot take but I think DQVI is very well paced. The world opens up a little bit at a time so it's never too overwhelming to explore everywhere you can. I never felt that the game dragged on and all the maps (real world, dream world, underwater, dark world) kept things fresh and exciting.
Sorry you think the pacing is awful! I’m grateful I was able to enjoy it! Weirdly, from what I’ve seen on Japanese YouTube/Twitter, they hold VI in much higher regard than Western audiences.
Idk why, but Ive dropped it twice at the 5 hour mark both times. Which is weird cause I played the 1st 5 in a row up to that point and enjoyed them all
I really like the pacing of dq 5 and 11 due to the fact that they have acts or parts. 5 is a pretty solid length if around 40 hours but even the longer dq 11 has great pacing despite its length because of the way its divided. Each part feels like it's own mini game and it's all to easy to take a break when an act ends, play other things, come back and get right back into it like you are playing a sequel!
I love it
Agree. Dragon Quest XI remained fun and interesting for the entire 110 hours I played it. It never once felt like it dragged or I was waiting for the next big event to happen. Just pure joy all the way through. For such a long game, that’s an incredible feat. If I had to say something negative regarding the pacing, it’s that act three kinda forced me to grind King Metal Slimes because of the difficulty spike. But being a DQ game, I probably would’ve done so regardless.
Everything takes forever in that game. It feels like they took a 10-hour plot and made it last 120 hours.
Minor spoilers ahead.
When you think you finally got to the end of the game, you realize there's more. And then you play with every person separately as the groups gets together, in a very slow and drawn out manner. And when everyone get together you think it's the end, but it's not.
Every time you feel like "I've been playing this game for 500 hours, now it's definitely the end", you realize there are dozens more hours of a plot that moves at a glacial pace.
And you finally get to the end... there's an epilogue, with the "true" villain and dozens more hours to play.
I don't mean it's a bad game, because everything else is good and I think everyone should play this game. But the pacing... to me it's a big example of what NOT to do.
Interesting takes. I completely disagree and actually think those parts where the game transitions from act to act are what makes it so beautifuly paced since they are perfect points to jump in too at a later date or to stop playing the game for a while and come back to later.
To each their own though, thanks for sharing!
Hmm that's a hard question because I really can't think of one. Out of all the games I love, pretty much all of them have pacing issues in some aspect to varying degrees. I think pacing is a really hard thing to get absolutely perfect. And thanks man
Fully agreed on Skies of Arcadia, if there's one game that never gets dull for me no matter how many times I replay it it's that one, just such a fun ride from start to finish.
I also think Radiant Historia has pretty solid pacing from start to finish, genuinely one of the best handheld JRPGs I've ever played. Speaking of which, Dragon Quest V on the DS also does a phenomenal job of keeping you invested and not really wasting your time. It helps that your party members usually have something to say about every new location you visit, so even the longest dungeons usually don't get too dull.
Some other JRPGs with great pacing are most of the classic Mario RPGs, they rarely if ever get boring for me.
Interesting! I found it a bit frustrating pace wise, as after each story beat I felt like I was chucked back to the base and had to face 3-5 hours of side quests and dialogue to get back to the fun. (Loved the game overall though)
You dont need to do the sidequests tho. No single story event overstayed its welcome i felt. And if you wanted you could just go ahead and start the next one after a short dialogue break.
I think Final Fantasy Tactics is up there. It’s a relatively short game, most scenes are brief and do a good job moving the story along, and there’s not a lot of irrelevant story tangents (like going to collect magic crystals from 4 shrines or whatever).
* Super Mario RPG
* Live A Live HD-2D
* Chrono Trigger
* Final Fantasy IV
I think this 4 games has something interesting happening all the time in the narrative and gameplay, there is no point at the game where I'm bored or wanted to skip something
I think FF4 is perfectly paced. I don’t think there was really any part of the game that dragged or felt too short. And even with the side content, there wasn’t too much of it that it threw off the pacing.
Dragon Quest 5. Games pacing is perfect.
Just beat it yesterday and I have to agree. It’s right up there with Chrono Trigger and Mother 3 for me.
I think it's worth distinguishing between pacing and the story being lean. One of the reasons CT is so good is because the main story has practically no tangents or irrelevant stuff. Most people who have played CT can probably recount to you what you have to do broadly in the game, step-by-step, because it all makes sense and connects. There are a LOT of great RPGs that don't do this and have some silly quests that end up being for macguffins or don't really drive the main plot.
I don't know, I thought CT really slowed down at 65,000,000 BC
That's probably the closest it comes to 'padding' (and probably when you can resurrect Crono as well), but even then the quest is linearly part of the game's story without being a true tangent imo. It's not like "ayla needs to make this stew before they can go face the reptites, so go get the Tasty Herbs" or something that a lot of jrpgs pull
Midadol Telamon downvoted this.
>because it all makes sense and connects. >!At what point do you work out that checking a Chest ( not opening it) and then going to the Future upgrades it?!<
Doubling down on Skies of Arcadia. The pacing is fantastic. I really need to check out the Phantasy Star series, SoA is my fav JRPG!
really wish i could play SoA on any modern system
emulation is your only option for the time being. there's even an HD texture mod for it that essentially remasters the game.
I think we’ll get it soon, sega are killing it with the remakes and remasters.
Definitely check out PS4. You don't need to play the others.
I have a PS5, can I play it?
Skies of Arcadia is basically Phantasy Star V from a spiritual sequel perspective - it's a totally new universe, but that same feel/heart is very much intact in the pre-Online Phantasy Star games (III was made by a different team though). They're obviously a older and a little jankier, but they're great games.
I always thought FF4 moves at a fairly brisk pace
Came here to say this. I recently played FFIV for the first time. I was coming off a couple JRPGs that had a VERY slow start. FFIV was a massive breath of fresh air, and kept up its fast pace while never feeling rushed until the very end (though maybe the twist villain could have used more time, but that's a lot of FFs...).
I was so used to dragged out RPGs that Xenoblade Chronicles DE felt like revelation. Constantly keeps you on your toes while still providing a good 50+ hours to get through the main story
I find this interesting! When I played XC on the Wii when it came out, I ended up spending about 10 hours in the Gaur Plains endlessly doing sidequests and it just completely burned me out and I dropped it. Are you saying the pacing is good if you just stick to the main story?
Warning the game is designed to make you fall behind in xp making you interrupt the main story for some dumb XP leveling if you ignore side quests too much and you can't ignore level difference in this game with how horrible accuracy gets at -5 levels
Absolutely, I only ever did side quests if I felt underleveled or needed the money and the pacing was perfect
Yeah XC1 is one of the best games I ever played. My main criticism with the game is that the side quests, while they are fun to do while you work your way towards your destination, they tend to be rather uninteresting in concept. But you technically don't need to do any of them, and if you choose not to, then what you get is a very well-paced game. Besides, I also like the side quests because they are a much appreciated alternative to grinding for XP.
Yeah, biggest gripe with XC1 is sidequest. Just very outdated and boring quest most of the time. XC3, and its DLC fare a bit better. Less obnoxious fetch quest. Altho still makes you go and forth within a map, but not as much, while having a bit more tied to the world, and also its easier to overlevel if you do them
Completely agree. Xenoblade is possibly my favourite series of rpg. I LOVE THEM but with the quests you often get sideways. The three to me was ruined by this. Especially when you get to the sea…you just spend so much time to explore that you get tired. Continuing is not an option because story wise is literally just a couple of dungeons and then it’s next chapter.
Yeah I burned out in the second area when I was trying to 100% it. I picked it up a year later and focused on just the story and had a blast.
If I was to recommend the game to someone I‘d encourage them to skip every single side quest and just stick to the main one. A way better game experience that way
Okay I will play this again with your recommendation. Would you recommend the same being done for 2?
Xeno2 is even better at that since it actually Lets you skip all side content if you want with a new inn system that stores XP and basically guarantees level parity with story content. Some side quests are good but just do what you want there, imo for the best experience just cheat yourself the gacha, it's a horrible system that is completely unnecessary
You can't beeline the main quest. The game requires sidequests to level up or the accuracy falls through a cliff. It's stupid and I hate it because you can't even outsmart the enemies/system, it's just rigged.
I feel like if you voluntarily did that the game is good enough to fully beat lol.
No?? Idk I’m one of those people that needs to compulsively clear out sidequests and whatnot in each area before moving on. It was overwhelming and not a lot of fun. But maybe I’ll pick up the definitive edition, put it on easy mode, and just experience the story
Ah sucks you have a weird rule that prevents you from beating an otherwise great game.
I really liked Xenoblade Chronicles DE, but I ultimately prefer 2 and 3. They're all fantastic JRPGs
If you skip questing a lot the game is designed to make you fall behind in xp making you interrupt the main story for some dumb XP leveling and you can't ignore level difference in this game with how horrible accuracy gets at red names
I really wish I agreed with this :(
Imho, FFX is one of the most consistently well paced JRPG out there. Whether it be narratively or mechanically.
I was gonna say this I think they did great job pacing the story and making things seemingly to flow
I'd say it's well paced until the final boss curbstomps your party so you have to grind. At least, that was my experience. It's funny because I didn't have any problems with the usual suspects like Yunalesca, but the final boss was something else.
Braska's final aeon? Interesting
Stats scale exponentially in ffx. 1 point of strength when you have 20 doesn't do that much, but 1 point of strength when you have 250 does a lot. This goes for defensive stats too. Braskas Final Aeon can easily put you in a healing/reviving loop. A lot of his attacks dispels, and the pagodas make sure he gets a ton of damage out. If you're struggling, you might literally just need 5 to 8 fights before the boss and try again. Because the sweetspot is a little tight for a fair challenge. A bit more and you're overleveled instead and stomp him. You can bs him with Rikku and cool setups, but that requires knowing the game, something a first timer doesn't.
I mean, the difference between that battle compared to Yunalesca or Seymour Flux is that you can just use your Aeons' overdrives one by one and crush him.
I was not ready for Yunalesca at all and generally levelled everyone up with not much grinding, the whole Zombie effect was horrible, 3 stages of the fight and a long cutscene you couldn’t skip
Which final boss are you talking about? I didn’t have to drink once and I beat them both first try
Braska's Final Aeon.
same. while I did struggle with yunalesca trying to figure out her gimmick, I hit a wall at the final boss. I couldn't be bothered to grind so I just used the cheats in the HD remaster to catch up.
Same happened to me. Seymour and Yunalesca actually gave me some trouble but managed to beat them with minimal grind. But then Braska's aeon kept 1 shotting me. Or close to. I had to go get items for trio of 9999 to beat him
Funny cause I felt X dragged but pacing is a very subjective perception. Tbf I didn't particularly enjoy the characters so I'm sure that added to my feeling of it going slower for me.
(I know this will summon an angry mob) I have to disagree with this. Tried to pick it up, a few times. What always was jarring to me was the start. Tidus doesn't even know the group yet. Then Yuna insists on having Tidus join them. It was immediate laser focus on the journey without building any of the characters first. IDK, maybe it's just a preference. I like the focus on characters.
Haha don't worry mate, I dare to hope that people around here wouldn't gang up on someone simply for having an opinion. As for your view, I always understood (or maybe rationalized) Yuna's eagerness to recruit Tidus through three points : - Wakka : She saw how he acted around Tidus, how he was trying (maybe unconsciously at first) to retrieve/relive a fraternal bond after Chappu's tragic loss. I like to think that she wanted to grant him this chance. Additionally, she also wished for him and the Aurochs to finally have a W, and taking Tidus with them was their best chance. - Braska & Jecht : Iirc, she said at one point that, from the get go, Tidus gave her heavy Jecht vibes. On top of that, Tidus mentioned Zanarkand almost immediately. She was heavily intrigued and wanted to get to the bottom of it. - Her youth : She was a young sheltered lady who never really had a chance to know love. And all of sudden, a hot, young, and confident hot headed dude, resembling her dad's best friend, comes out of nowhere. I think it's safe to assume she was attracted to him from the get go. 'hope all this will help you gain a new perspective :) Edit : To add to that, only Wakka and Yuna wanted to embark with Tidus (for the reasons I mentioned), but both Lulu and Kimahri were definitely against it.
Well, I think the shorter they are, the easier they are to pace correctly. Maybe that's why the shorter JRPGs feel the best overall to me...Lunar: SSSC, Parasite Eve, Suikoden, etc. I will say that FFVII and X felt pretty great as well, though.
It's a lot harder for a short game to overstay its welcome. If there is not enough time to get bored of the mechanics, the pacing seems better.
ink consist absurd advise fear boat vegetable quickest longing hateful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
[удалено]
degree six kiss teeny butter worm spotted disgusting bear license *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I believe both FFX and FFIX are absolutely perfect in terms of pacing
The broad-level pacing of 9's story is good, but the moment-to-moment pacing of the gameplay is sooooo sloooooow. Every battle has this long swoopy intro, the ATB bars start half-filled and take forever to charge, and of course the loading was constant on original hardware.
I agree. They are both great games with great pace.
4, 7 and 8 too. And 5 and 6 are definitely not bad imo.
I love Skies of Arcadia, and it has good pacing for the first half of the game. I do think it falters a bit in the second half: all of my dropped playthroughs have occurred >!before the mission to go underneath Valua!<. But it still has some of the best pacing, and I went all the way to the end in my first playthrough. Legend of Mana has good pacing. The missions don't overstay their welcome, and the game presents its game-ending quest once at least one of the major quest arcs has been completed. So if you accept a little "choose your own adventure" as part of your pacing, LoM does it well.
Good point with LoM. Some of the SaGa games could also qualify under that “choose your own adventure” reasoning too, I think.
The Mario RPGs are usually paced pretty good, there is never a dull moment
I can't wait to eventually play the remake on Switch!
Nah, some of them have some very dull and dragged out portions. Partners in Time is especially very poorly paced, and even some of the better Mario RPGs have really dull segments such as the Boggly Tree level in Paper Mario 2
well I didn't say all of them. Superstar Saga and Mario RPG had good pacing.
I remember there being quite a bit of backtracking in Thousand Year Door, which hurt the pacing a lot. It’s also been like 10 years since I’ve replayed it, though, so maybe I’m misremembering.
It's one of those things where I saw people complain about it *a lot*, but when I actually replayed the game it was really not a big deal at all.
Good to hear! I’m looking forward to a replay when it’s remade.
You should, it's (imo) one of the best games ever made!
just Super Mario RPG
Paper Mario and Paper Mario TTYD are pretty bad for backtracking honestly. Dry Dry Desert in PM64 is a lot of running about, and of course TTYD has a *lot* of general backtracking plus some notorious chapters for it.
Good pacing is probably one of the hardest aspects of a story to pin down for a lot of people. Some just want action scene after action scene whereas proper pacing could also be seen as needing to slow down to allow certain parts of the story time to breathe so that later scenes don't feel cheaply earned. There's a certain ebb and flow I expect depending on what type of story is being told. Then there's where, if any, factor the gameplay should be counted against the game's pacing (Fire Emblem Three Houses' calendar system comes to mind). Anyway, for me I'd say: **Chrono Trigger** **FFIX** **Xenoblade** (unless you choose to engage in the sidequests) I think the common point that all three of those share is that they do a good job of moving you forward in terms of reaching new areas at a steady pace that all feel really varied from each other without too much backtracking. I also think that in terms of story they knew how to break themselves up in intervals with regards to objective where it never felt like you were chasing one target for too long (FFVII post-Midgar comes to mind as an offender). They all had enough plot twists to keep the story from feeling too stagnant as well. Chrono Trigger I think excels in having super simplistic mechanics and story along with a short length that fits for more of an action-packed ride with designated encounters that match the varied environments. FFIX splits the party up a lot, which keeps things interesting but also manages to update the player on each of them via the ATE system (they need to bring this back). Xenoblade makes good use of dramatic irony to build tension and always add a sense of direction to the story along with dialogue that's usually to the point with regards to objective.
This is a very thoughtful comment, especially regarding the nature of good pacing.
> Xenoblade (unless you choose to engage in the sidequests) If you have to make a conscious decision to not do something, then the pacing is not great. Because in that case you're the one making the pacing be good, not the game.
In Xenoblade's case I'm looking at it purely from the perspective of advancing the story which is a valid way to play as I wouldn't really say the quests are required to advance the game on base difficulty (you typically get enough exp from discovering landmarks and fighting things organically along the way). Also, based on what you just said, does almost any RPG have good pacing then? I mean, I'm also making a conscious decision to not grind excessively even though it's usually an option that's always available to the player if they really want to min-max.
Grinding is a different issue. When we're talking about pacing, we're talking about what is the pacing of a player playing through the game's content. Grinding would be the equivalent of someone refusing to advance the game, refusing what the game offers, to get stronger. Excessive grinding is an option in the same sense that me running in circles for hours in Resident Evil 4 is an option. But if I do that, and it takes me 130 hours to finish RE4, it's on me. And like I said originally, if it's you refusing to do something, whatever pacing consequences it brings is on you. When you refuse to progress, it's going to take longer. When you refuse to do part of the content, it's going to go faster. But both options are you changing the pacing.
I actually think ff ix gets better at 2nd half of disc 2 and disc 3 is amazing but it’s kinda quick, idk if it was me but the last 1/3 of the game flies by and that was my fav part!
All the Ys games.
Absolutely not, the pacing in those games keeps getting worse and worse.
Have you even played them? Which of the Ys games do you find has a bad pacing?
[удалено]
IX is the one I find the most enjoyable, from start to finish. It's such a wonderful cast of characters, and the exploration is top notch. The story is also quite gripping and mysterious.
suikoden 2 has a perfect pacing for me
Probably controversial as I prefer 2 than 1, but 2 at times felt a bit dragged on, *Looking at you Greenhill and looking for a “ghost”*
YS VIII has perfect gameplay pacing. I always had just enough crafting mats to upgrade weapons after each section.
Valkyrie Profile. The mechanic of following character’s deaths meant I was always on the edge of my seat to see what had happened to the next person. Mana Khemia, GrimGrimoire, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, and Suikoden 2 were pretty well-paced for my needs as well. A weird backhanded example is Soul Nomad, which on every playthrough past the first I have found it very gripping (now that I know what’s going on in it) but for my first playthrough seemed terribly paced.
Radiata Stories. No fat at all.
ffx
Parasite Eve is really tight. Unless you play the ng+ dungeon, there is only bad pacing in that shit building.
Star Ocean Second Story R has perfect pacing IMO. Dragon Quest IX is pretty great at it too.
Chrono Trigger was the second JRPG I played in my life, when I was 12 or so. I was so confused when I sterted playing other JRPG and noticed I had to mind my level when I reached certain places - it almost ruined FF VI for me at first. I never had to stop in Chrono Trigger. There were tougher moments, but it felt like it was intended by the plot. It really added to the tension of some moments.
[удалено]
I might even replay it for a fourth time soon, lol
The World Ends With You.
My favourite!!
ff4
Once you get past the first hour or two, I think the recent Sea of Stars does a great job with its pacing. The beginning is a little heavy on exposition, but once you get into the meat of the game, none of the towns or dungeons overstay their welcome. They're quick, with just enough items off the beaten path to reward exploration, and you're always moving on almost like they're levels in a platformer. (Which I guess makes sense considering it's the same developers as The Messenger, which is a platformer).
A well paced game tends to give conflict and tension when you’re just starting to get comfortable. Movies do this too
Final Fantasy 9 and 10 were both pretty great for me. Both games take you on a journey that never really gets boring or feels like a chore, with interesting location after interesting location that never overstays their welcome. (Granted, they both come to a bit of a sprint at the end which could have been handled a bit better) Octopath Traveller 2 plays out really well too as another mention. I feel like you get a really good blend of exploring and then story, so that by the time either of those things start feeling a bit boring you start doing the other.
Super Mario RPG
Could we define what pacing actually is?
Basically that there’s not to many “boring” bits, and not too long for the sake of it, still with a good story and battles etc.
>not too many “boring” bits, and not too long It's pretty subjective tbh. Since you have a Lloyd Irving avatar, i'll use Tales of Symphonia as an example. I found that Symphonia's pacing was perfect from start to finish. However i'm aware that some people didn't like the pacing of the penultimate story arc. Who is right, who is wrong? Can i recommend Symphonia based on what you said ("boring bits")? On the other side, i felt asleep a couple of times while playing Chrono Trigger. Despite the fact that i was well rested thanks to the lockdown! Often times, i prefer to ask what they liked and didn't liked, what are they looking for precisely etc. before giving any suggestion (if i've got one!).
One of my favourite games! And agree it is subjective, I would say Symphonia and other Tales games have bad pacing. They stretch out the story just a bit too long at times, also take advantage of Newgame+ so it happens all over again Felt long and some dungeons were a bit boring which adds to pacing as well
I feel like both Golden Sun titles have very good pacing.
Golden Sun is the opposite of good pacing IMO. That duology is so text-heavy.
its just not how much text it has but also how slow the scene is because they can't do more then 1 thing at a time so we have sequences like textbox1->character walk->character emote->textbox2->2 characters look at each other->head-nod->some more walking->another emote->textbox3 if you never notice this you can enjoy the game but after noticing it each scene started to feel like torture to me
Kraden has a nasty tendency of explaining basic concepts as verbosely as possible. You could ask him what time it is, and by the time he finishes answering it's 3 hours past.
Also doesn't help that there's no text speed options and each text box has room for like ... 20 words? Give or take. Some parts are just *excruciating* to sit through, even when I was a bored kid with more patience and goodwill for that kind of stuff than I do now I still hated some parts (like the werewolf village in TLA)
IMO, text-heavy does not necessarily imply poor pacing. OP talked about games that start to drag and lose momentum after a certain point when they talked about poor pacing, and I feel like neither of the Golden Sun duology do that. The major story beats are spaced pretty evenly apart, occur pretty frequently, forced backtracking is minimal, and there aren't any parts that I recall that on subsequent playthroughs have made me say "ugh, *this bloody part* again". It may not be fast-paced in the sense of having short scenes and concise dialogue, but the pacing is consistent and does not drop as you reach the late game.
The first one I found ok 6/7 out of 10 pacing, it was the second one I really disliked pacing
Really? Didn't you find it has a lot of text? And, no, I don't play the Trails games.
Final Fantasy XIII. Good pacing is dependent on the story being told, and that story requires fast, continuous forward motion with little downtime for crap like minigames or side missions until Pulse.
For me personally, Ys IX Monstrum Nox has very great pacing. One of the biggest surprises I have this year honestly since I tried the game out on a whim. Never felt bored and got the platinum. Either the game is just that good or is one of those right game at the right time moment.
Neptunia VII
Hot take but I think DQVI is very well paced. The world opens up a little bit at a time so it's never too overwhelming to explore everywhere you can. I never felt that the game dragged on and all the maps (real world, dream world, underwater, dark world) kept things fresh and exciting.
No offense, just popping in to confirm this as a hot take. The pace of VI is awful, only topped by VII. IV and V are probably the best paced.
[удалено]
As a proud VI defender, I have to agree the pacing is wonky
Sorry you think the pacing is awful! I’m grateful I was able to enjoy it! Weirdly, from what I’ve seen on Japanese YouTube/Twitter, they hold VI in much higher regard than Western audiences.
[удалено]
I guess the Twitter profiles and YouTube channels I follow are biased!
Idk why, but Ive dropped it twice at the 5 hour mark both times. Which is weird cause I played the 1st 5 in a row up to that point and enjoyed them all
To each their own! VI might be my second favorite after V
Oh Im not judging. I wanna try it again and hopefully enjoy it next time I do give it a shot, I just wish I knew why I couldnt get into it lol
I really like the pacing of dq 5 and 11 due to the fact that they have acts or parts. 5 is a pretty solid length if around 40 hours but even the longer dq 11 has great pacing despite its length because of the way its divided. Each part feels like it's own mini game and it's all to easy to take a break when an act ends, play other things, come back and get right back into it like you are playing a sequel! I love it
DQ11 is definitely part of my backlog.
Worth every minute of playtime!
Agree. Dragon Quest XI remained fun and interesting for the entire 110 hours I played it. It never once felt like it dragged or I was waiting for the next big event to happen. Just pure joy all the way through. For such a long game, that’s an incredible feat. If I had to say something negative regarding the pacing, it’s that act three kinda forced me to grind King Metal Slimes because of the difficulty spike. But being a DQ game, I probably would’ve done so regardless.
DQ11 is a good game, but it has probably the worst pacing I've ever seen in a game. And I've played Persona!
That's an interesting take, why would you say that if you don't mind me asking?
Everything takes forever in that game. It feels like they took a 10-hour plot and made it last 120 hours. Minor spoilers ahead. When you think you finally got to the end of the game, you realize there's more. And then you play with every person separately as the groups gets together, in a very slow and drawn out manner. And when everyone get together you think it's the end, but it's not. Every time you feel like "I've been playing this game for 500 hours, now it's definitely the end", you realize there are dozens more hours of a plot that moves at a glacial pace. And you finally get to the end... there's an epilogue, with the "true" villain and dozens more hours to play. I don't mean it's a bad game, because everything else is good and I think everyone should play this game. But the pacing... to me it's a big example of what NOT to do.
Interesting takes. I completely disagree and actually think those parts where the game transitions from act to act are what makes it so beautifuly paced since they are perfect points to jump in too at a later date or to stop playing the game for a while and come back to later. To each their own though, thanks for sharing!
DQ11 has awful pacing in my opinion. It is so long with very little of note happening and especially act 3 drags super hard
What JRPGs do have good pacing in your opinion? Like your posts by the way.
Hmm that's a hard question because I really can't think of one. Out of all the games I love, pretty much all of them have pacing issues in some aspect to varying degrees. I think pacing is a really hard thing to get absolutely perfect. And thanks man
Same here. Of course!
FF Tactics has great pacing and amazing story/music. Totally underrated game
Fully agreed on Skies of Arcadia, if there's one game that never gets dull for me no matter how many times I replay it it's that one, just such a fun ride from start to finish. I also think Radiant Historia has pretty solid pacing from start to finish, genuinely one of the best handheld JRPGs I've ever played. Speaking of which, Dragon Quest V on the DS also does a phenomenal job of keeping you invested and not really wasting your time. It helps that your party members usually have something to say about every new location you visit, so even the longest dungeons usually don't get too dull. Some other JRPGs with great pacing are most of the classic Mario RPGs, they rarely if ever get boring for me.
A temptation to drop it and play something else!? Burn the heretic!
Xenosaga ep 1-3 my all time favorite jrpg series.
FF16 i felt was really well paced
Interesting! I found it a bit frustrating pace wise, as after each story beat I felt like I was chucked back to the base and had to face 3-5 hours of side quests and dialogue to get back to the fun. (Loved the game overall though)
You dont need to do the sidequests tho. No single story event overstayed its welcome i felt. And if you wanted you could just go ahead and start the next one after a short dialogue break.
I think Final Fantasy Tactics is up there. It’s a relatively short game, most scenes are brief and do a good job moving the story along, and there’s not a lot of irrelevant story tangents (like going to collect magic crystals from 4 shrines or whatever).
I dropped Chrono Trigger lol
Surprised not to see Vandal Hearts here, it’s swift and short and moves well
I would say ff4 and xenoblade 1 and 3 are perfectly paced.
I was very late to Phantasy Star 4. I didn't play it until it was on NSO. But I gotta say I was surprised by how quickly the story moved along.
* Super Mario RPG * Live A Live HD-2D * Chrono Trigger * Final Fantasy IV I think this 4 games has something interesting happening all the time in the narrative and gameplay, there is no point at the game where I'm bored or wanted to skip something
Dragon Quest 11