Games Take Too Long - Casp

[@realkingofantarctica]

I think the bloatedness of RPG's is a big reason for why a lot of people flal out of love with them as they get older. They just don't have time for that.

[@Caspicum]

It's true, I find it increasingly more difficult to keep on RPGs, but you make time for the things you love. Wife? Don't need her. I got all my wives in PErsona 4 tyvm

[@moimoi8219]

I too love playing with miners while navigating the shaft.

[@crowangel499]

I see you are a man of vtuber-culture as well...

[@Caspicum]

HEY WOW BUDDY SLOW DOWN THERE

[@reginlief1]

I don't remember it taking long for me to get those tutorials in BOTW. Im also always shocked when people don't just try buttons and see what they do. I've NEVER thought about how useful a "back the fuck out" button would be for NPC dialogue.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah not trying buttons was always odd to me, but it does showcase the potential drawbacks of a game that doesn't hold your hand in the beginning.

[@calebb7012]

The fact that Pokemon and Persona V sold so well is proof that they might as well be testing these games on chimps. Lowest common denominator is their target audience.

[@reginlief1]

@@calebb7012 Pokemon, I understand. But persona? I’ve only heard praise for persona. Is it basic?

[@Amish_Avenger]

Angry Australian Game Nerd

[@Caspicum]

HE"S GONNA TAKE YOU BACK TO THE *colonies*

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

@@Caspicum This game's a bunch of _dingo_ diarrhea.

[@tigerking3297]

I've 100%'d Digimon World Dusk twice, and I've probably spent more time loading enemy Digimon than I have sleeping.

[@Caspicum]

God damn. The sheer amount of grinding for 100%. You're a king, if I knew how to post the crown emoji, you'd be the recipient.

[@UltimaN3rd]

7:05 on the graph one of the axes is misspelled as “austim” when it should be “dyslexia”.

[@Caspicum]

i never thought i'd be bullied like this, and as a youtuber, this means i have to take it extremely personally

[@MegaHarv]

I love the series to death, but Breath of Fire is guilty of being one of the most unnecessary time waster series, and I'll explain why. Simply put, because Capcom had it right with the First BoF, with Marbl3 being in the game to eliminate random encounters. This was an unheard of time saver back in 1993, so much so that Capcom must have decided it was broken and unbalanced and replaced it with the shittier Smoke spell/ability and the HolySF Accessory in Breath of Fire 2. Breath of Fire 1 had a brutal encounter rate, but if you used Mrbl3 you wouldn't notice, or be bothered by it. Breath of Fire 2 it's very noticeable. This frustrates me to no end because if BoF2 kept it's random battles in check, and had a passible translation back in 1994 we might have had dynamite here, instead it's been relegated to obscurity, even with BoF1 and 2 being on Page One on the Switch SNES store. It's a god damn shame. BoF 3, 4 somewhat rectified this with no random encounters on the Overworld, but with 3 it likes to make sure you get into one battle about 2 steps into a hostile area. Which is great to know you're in a hostile area, but I'll figure that out myself if I get too far into a dungeon and get railroaded my the local fauna. IIRC 4 was also like this. Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter people need to actually play, or give a second chance. Oddly enough the game comes across like it doesn't respect your time with the timer, insinuating multiple mandatory playthroughs, but if you think before you act, you can be get through the game first time. In retrospect it should have just been "Dragon Quarter", and it likely would have been received better because Breath of Fire fans hated it for not being "Breath of Fire", and non fans didn't play it because they don't care about Breath of Fire, when it reality Dragon Quarter was an ahead of it's time Strategy RPG. Also I want to say that Xenogears was a masterpiece, but why in God's Name can you not speed through the text? The world record speedrun for Xenogears is just over 14 hours. I can't bring myself to watch it, but I imagine that easily half the time is spent mashing through the dialogue. For context the Persona 5 Speedrun is 16 hours. If Xenogears ever gets rereleased it NEEDS to have a speed up text option. I didn't intend to write a novel, but Christ I love talking Breath of Fire, but In summary I'm an old man who wasted his youth playing games with slow text, and too many random encounters.

[@Caspicum]

Straight up, Breath of Fire 3 has so many more random encounters than I remember. I don't remember 4 being that bad, but 2 definitely killed me. It's been a long time since I played 1 though, I gotta fix that. I actually made a video a few years back on Dragon Quarter, how I hated it for not being Breath of Fire 1 again, but came to love it once I realised what it set out to achieve... and *mostly* suceeded at. If Dragon Quarter caught on, we would've had the roguelike/lite trend about 10 years earlier. People weren't ready for the kinds of things it attempted on a wide scale, and it's a damn shame. I do have to get on that Xenogears train at some point. Games with long speedruns fascinate me, like Alundra's WR used to be 6-odd hours, I think it's down to 4 and a bit now, but that's crazy.

[@DanicolasolGamingTVuruguay]

Im a simple man. I see 2 man of culture having a conversation about my Favourite childhood saga and I have to like both comments. Lmao.

[@astralwyrm3787]

I enjoyed breath of fire 5 though the way dragon transformations were changed annoyed me. The major problems as I see it with the game was 1: only 3 playable characters one being a mute. 2: Too short the ending being what it was was a major let-down even if it does make sense that was how it ended. 3: Related to 2; not enough memorable locations sprawling cities etc. Which probably comes back to the time limit due to how they changed the dragon transformation into a ticking time bomb they probably felt you don't have time to explore and get a feeling for the world; which is what JRPGs are all about. (FFXIII made this mistake also.) 4: there really isn't any replayability in the sense of what the game was going for. A few extra cutscenes, a few extra chests don't justify replaying it over and over. If there were multiple story paths in the game then the replayability decision would make sense but there isn't. I'm not sure what game to cite but the game that comes into my head right now is radiant historia. Give the game two paths one where you join Nina to escape the underground and a second where you join Basch to prevent it; then a third which brings both paths together that you can only unlock at max d rank. I get that a lot of fans didn't like breath of fire dragon quarter but I think it was less the title of the game that killed it and more the timing of when it came out. There are some notable but less well known jrpgs (shadow hearts) that didn't do so well back then that would sell bucket loads on the switch. Of course that they so drastically miscalculated how messing with the dragon transformation system in the way they did would go down with the fans didn't help. Like the game I compare Dragon Quarter to is Jade Cocoon 2; Jade Cocoon 2 messed with the selling point of the game for the fans which was that merging monsters created hybrid monsters and it went for a much lighter atmosphere than the original. (I enjoy the game inspite of this) Where as Dragon Quarter was a much bleaker and barren take on breath of fire. Part of me wonders with Dragon quarter if Capcom rushed the game out to market because they didn't have faith in it to sell with a bit of extra content.

[@qweeq14]

The sad thing about Chrono Cross is if you don't heal after a long session of robot fights and don't save, loosing your self in the cheery atmosphere you'll the right after coming through the portal and will be send back to the beginning. True story.

[@AT7outof10]

The way some jokes are delivered under the radar is just so good. "You get piped by a bunch of buff studs" "Let's the player mess around with minors" I almost don't catch them since they're sprinkled between the actual observations in the vid; glorious.

[@Caspicum]

I definitely don't go for a comedic punch, all the times I've done it in the past have backfired and they're really horrible to sit through. I'm glad to see that under-writing little asides is working. tyty

[@Ryan-vh4pd]

I love your channel tbh

[@Caspicum]

I love how quick you were to this. My e-peen is out of control.

[@MACZ2021]

I love FF X to death cause of the story and the customizability of the Sphere Grid (at least early on before you start getting far enough into both it and the game where you can just give every party members every ability and spell and so on), but you're right about how long the cutscenes can get, especially when I want to replay the game and have to sit through them. Also, I never realized the thing you mentioned about Chrono Trigger despite having played it plenty of times in the last 14+ years I've been playing it, that speediness just makes me further appreciate it as a whole so thanks for helping me look at it that way. Also also, you being a Pikamee fan, that fact alone goes HARD. Keep up the good work Casp!

[@sprytefox]

Over-splaining in Persona 5 was brutal even on the first playthrough. I can handle it when it's about the story, but the first 4 hours of the game is a damn tutorial. I don't remember P2, 3 or 4 being like that. Maybe they were expecting to bring in a wider fanbase or something but damn. Really makes me not look forward to replaying it knowing I will be spending an entire gaming session in an unskippable tutorial.

[@budreviewsgames]

“It treats me like I’m playing on a short bus” Considering how long it took me to get what that meant, I should probably get on the short bus too.

[@Caspicum]

Don't worry, bro, I'm riding up front with two seatbelts on.

[@thpisland2423]

Holy shit this video is sooo good. This is exactly what I’ve wanted but you’ve articulated it so well

[@Caspicum]

I appreciate that! I was worried it'd be a crap, throw-away nothing video, but I'm glad some people dug it!

[@thpisland2423]

Casp O'Saurus oh you have no idea how much I’ve been feeling this about games lately. Persona 5 was one of my favorites but I stopped playing it before I got deep into the story because I felt it kept wasting my time. Meanwhile I pick up Resident Evil and play it over and over again and it’s much more satisfying. More developers should strive for better replay value, not repetitive gameplay

[@Caspicum]

That kinda me too tbh. I've been replaying Chrono Trigger and Dark Souls yearly, probably other stuff too. Legit think I played Dark Souls 5 or 6 separate times this year. The Resi games seem real easy to get in to, and you always find new stuff on playthroughs of classics. New ways to interact, new self-imposed challenges, etc. Short games are great.

[@cuerty654]

You know it's a good day when you enter youtube and see there's a new Casp video

[@Caspicum]

The next three months will *hopefully* be full of good days!

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Original Assassin's Creed has curiously a really neat tutorial. Since the control scheme was unique at the time, there were small 2 minute segments where all control functionalities are explained and then given to you step-by-step. In-Game, this is explained as the character Desmond getting prepared to enter into his ancestors memories. After that (and bit long intro), you are in free control. This made the game much more enjoyable know what all capabilities the player character has. Almost all AC's went with on-the-fly tutorials and except for Revelations, didn't feel like they explained everything. --- Fun fact : There's other bloat in the game like races and flag collection, which were added because the CEO's kid played the game and said it had nothing to do in it (he probably wasn't doing the story missions). I won't be surprised the current bloat in ACs and AAA games is due to the majority of audience being equivalent to that CEO's kid.

[@aguncomon]

As a hard JRPG player, I can understand when the game is "linear" and just drops story cutscenes after every zone (like in FF games) but there is a point where it is just too much exposition or repeating known things for the sake of telling the MC that he is dumb even tho he should know the rules better than us. I second the opinion of emulators making old games more enjoyable since I played a lot on original hardware (SMT3, most of 2D pokemon and digimon) and replaying with speed hacks made it way better. I think nowadays the target for RPGs are the ones that just want a story/adventure game and cutscenes can make a 10 hour story feel like a 20 to 30 hours one

[@aquapendulum]

At first, I emulated games just to cheat to fuck around with a game's economy and try to break it. Over time, after encountering so many tedious games (without a fast-forward button like the PC versions of Trails games), I just emulate them to have a fast-forward button.

[@WorthlessWinner]

1:00 making explanations optional could do that. hell, you could even put them in a manual like in the good old days!

[@aquapendulum]

Modern Tales games take a hybrid approach. Every tutorial messages can be dismissed safely because they are stored in a Library section for you to review at all times. AND they only show tutorial for characters you do control. If you play the whole game without controlling character X or Y, tutorial to play X and Y will never show up!

[@_.-.]

Kirby's walk speed in "Kirby and the crystal shards" is ridiculous. Thankfully, there's a hack out there that bumps it up, making the game as enjoyable as the original in half the time.

[@Caspicum]

That's fantastic. People who love games truly keep them alive and functional.

[@charlesgray6385]

About 90 hours into Afternoon of Darkness right now, and I haven't even beaten the main story. I'm grinding out item world loot, grinding out all classes to transmigrate, weapon skills, etc etc. Currently about to get the Majin class. The 1st Disgaea game is barely tutorialised, putting the weight of learning upon the player to scower the information NPCs, or go online and look at minmax forums. It can be initially a little frustrating, and it's one hell of a cocaine grind bugger me, but it's a series built around time efficient grinding. Because the game has such a high grind ceiling, you need to make sure you're maximising the grind to your best ability, and there's a satisfaction in working out a great grinding spot, or a fantastic grinding technique that speeds it all up. As you mentioned in the vid, muscle memory takes over and the build up of carpal tunnel looms ever closer. Disgaea 1 lacks the quality of life improvements from the later games that drastically cut down on the menial work, but it doesn't really waste your time either. Fast story with a grind you can take at your own pace, but one which is entirely up to you to min max.

[@Caspicum]

I didn't get an alert for this comment a year ago, but I jkust wanted to say I appreciate it, and respect you sharpening your Disgaea muscle memory, because it's a game which needs it. Especially the first one, which is still the best, despite how slow it is in comparison.

[@ParmMannREBORN]

This was a very good video that had me thinking about game design and Paper Mario TTYD. You get thrown into a fight right at the beginning that also sets up the antagonists within 10 minutes

[@Caspicum]

My god I love TTYD. All the scenes are so charming, and it doesn't waste time. The only thing I wish it did, was actually connecting the worlds like the OG game, so you could tangibly navigate them, and see how the world falls instead of the warp pipes, but a minor issue, right?

[@ForumArcade]

THANK YOU. I just finished playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time, and while I really enjoyed it, there were a lot of sections with just tedious, unfulfilling, "hit the button at exactly the right time or you won't be able to advance and if you miss it you have to spend ten minutes to get back to the button prompt" situations and it was VERY ANNOYING.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

FFVII has all those stupid, obtuse, forced minigames that stop you for enjoying the actual fun parts of the game. It's the worst kind of tutorials : both intrusive and unhelpful. I love FFVII, because the story is told so well and all the characters are so great. The Battle System is cool as well. But it really test our patience too many times.

[@Caspicum]

I love some of the FF7 mini-games, but there's a lot of whack shit in it tbh. I assume we're talking vanilla, I haven't played Remake.

[@legienterprise5307]

@@Caspicum just play the modded version for PC, all solved

[@Rihcterwilker]

I'm surprised you talked about all pokemon games in general, and did not focus on sun/moon specifically, being the game that everyone complained at the time (me included) with the longest and most linear tutorial in a pkmn game. You're stuck for at least 3 hours in a text heavy tutorial.

[@namelessanonymous2913]

Yeah, it's really baffling that there's a mandatory unskippable tutorial for literally everything, including minigames and side activities.

[@Caspicum]

I didn't want to pigeonhole my criticism, because Sun and Moon might be one of the worst offenders, up there with Sword and Shield, but if I focused too much on one, it'd be easy to hand-wave it. Going at it from a series-perspective, it was more interesting to see how it gradually became the ugly beast that stops you every 3 steps for pointless dialogue. Trust me though, it's hard not to go off on that shit, but for everyone's sanity, I tried to hide power level.

[@_.-.]

I read "pkmn" as Pikmin because I'm a fucking dumbass

[@dacobdacob7977]

@@_.-. dont wrry same here too

[@maxwellgillespie5033]

Solid opinions. Got a lot of games I played very few times because I have a hard time forcing myself through the first 3-5 hours. Whereas games with little to no tutorials I’ve played the hell out of. Good video casp looking forward to the next one.

[@Caspicum]

Cheers, babe! There's definitely a big opening hurdle to a lot of great games, but there's too many games to play to waste time on shit you're not enjoying!

[@moimoi8219]

"Soulslikes: The Video"

[@Caspicum]

It kinda do be like that tbh.

[@aquapendulum]

I'd also like to add: Quantic Dream games: The Video. Their cutscenes waste your time by not only being long and unskippable, they are unskippable because they always contain QTEs! Some of which lead you down a different path than the one you intend to explore just by missing a split-second prompt, forcing you to play a chapter all over again!

[@deejay3297]

the term soulslike is pathetic and so r u

[@Caspicum]

@@deejay3297 ok :(

[@Keikai_Akagi]

Same shit in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth/Hacker's Memory. So much fricking text to go through. Great video, I'm watching you since DW1 review :]

[@Caspicum]

Damn, it's been a good 6 years since that video. Thanks for sticking around! I'm glad my off-colour humour hasn't sent you packing yet.

[@LostCourage]

I just took a break from finishing off Pokémon Colosseum for this exact reason, it forces you to potentially redo the entire 100 fight gauntlet in Mt.Battle with extra fluff not present in the story mode such as a trainer introduction, selecting a team before every match and asking if you want to suspend your challenge after each fight. What previously was possible in under two hours has elapsed significantly.

[@Caspicum]

That's insane. Colosseum is also not a particularly *fast* game either, so tacking crap on sounds nightmarish.

[@LostCourage]

@@Caspicum I don't think the main story is too bad in terms of fluff unlike XD considering you can finish the game without snagging a single Pokémon, however the post-game required for Ho-oh is a letdown. On a unrelated note I believe Helltaker is a great example of a game that doesn't waste your time with it's reset button.

[@LostCourage]

Okay fuck my life, a black out just reduced what felt like 6 hours of my life down the toilet.

[@adambriton5394]

Ah thousand year door, I see your a gamer of culture too

[@Caspicum]

QUALITY. TASTE. GAMER!

[@GUKingOfHeart]

Title should be "I'm sick of Bloated RPG Games".. because this seems to be your focus, not other types of games.

[@Caspicum]

you got me i have a sickness for more role playing BABY

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Anecdote : When I played Pokémon Blue when I was 10, I didn't know I hard to go to the bushes. So I was wandering around for 20 minutes doing nothing. And then discovering the bushes by accident. For any person older than 18, these tutorials are a big nuisance. But I think a large majority of Mario (and all its spinoffs) and Pokémon audience still lie in 8-13 year range. I also believe such games are doubling down on long tutorials because more mechanics but also children's parents being more busy and not being able to guide them how to play, so devs have to do the heavy lifting. I also think they can still do so much better than examples you've highlighted.

[@Caspicum]

Oh definitely, I was unsure if I wanted to include the concession at the start that it's better to just go with it and be intrusive than the inverse, but it's true. I don't like it, but god damn it it's true :( I got lost in Viridian Forest too! I had to get a mate to help me out. The concept of a top-down video game with even such a simple maze was lost to my young mind. I also vaguely remember having only one Pokemon alive, and not realising B backs you out of menus. So I select "Switch" and can't leave with "A", so I turn it off and lose hours of progress. My mates yelled at me, and I've never forgotten such a harsh lesson.

[@WorthlessWinner]

but kids also have more free time to experiment and figure out how stuff works. It's fun to figure it out for yourself. If anything I think the tutorials are more for older people who are more impatient with their time

[@raysieelmo]

Reminds me of when I first played Pokemon Blue at a similar age. I got my first 3 badges without too much hassle and then I was at a complete loss of where to go next. I completely missed the part where you had to use Cut east of Cerulean City and head to Rock Tunnel. I had a Blastoise and Pidgeot both lv36 as a 10 y/o in my first ever play through of Pokemon battling Digglets over and over convinced the game wouldn't let me proceed with the story unless I had a Blastoise and Pidgeot...

[@Crispman_777]

@@WorthlessWinner It's fun to a point. Like figuring out a more effective strategy is fun but if you're just running around in circles without a clue it's really tedious. The only reason I persevered when I was younger was because I literally didn't have anything better to do. That shouldn't be conflated with having fun.

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

You know, that whole "parents don't have time to play with their children" idea is something I've never considered, but I think you're probably right. And it's _super_ depressing.

[@Amish_Avenger]

>great paper Mario game again >great paper Mario game >again

[@Caspicum]

i've seen you playing it one-handed fam

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

@@Caspicum "if youre going to be a rpg then be one." paper mario isnt a rpg though. and persona 5 and pokemon do (actually pokemon has a best tutorial), should you catch a pokemon you get 20 from leon, and hop will check to see if you get the pokemon center.

[@ThoraeJenkins]

Yooo that fucking LoD music at 8:30. God damn I miss that game.

[@ThoraeJenkins]

And Grandia 1. Fuck it I'm subscribing just for good taste.

[@Caspicum]

Good taste binds us, my brother.

[@KaiserMazoku]

Trails in the Sky handled this perfectly IMO. You can speed up text boxes at your leisure, there's a Turbo button to speed up battles and basic movement, enemies can be seen from the overworld so no random encounters (you can avoid them if you wish), and the main story is pretty straightforward and compact, though the sidequests are all so engaging and rewarding that you actively want to do them.

[@aestheticprima1160]

At this rate the next pokemon generation will have a longer tutorial than dragon quest vii. Which on average takes about two hours before fighting your first battle.

[@Caspicum]

Straight up, I was 30-40 hours into DQ7 before I unlocked classes. I never beat it, but legitimately one of my favourite DQ titles.

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

I thought you meant a tutorial that's literally longer than the _entirety_ of Dragon Quest VII. ...Which is by no means impossible at this point. This is Pokemon, after all.

[@a-dashof-pepper4710]

Me and my roommate argue over game length. I'm fine with a game that takes about 10 hours to beat. It means I can beat it. He's of the opinion that for 60 bucks, it better be at least 100 bucks. I asked him the last time he completed an open world game, and he couldn't tell me.

[@Caspicum]

based. i've legit put 50+ hours into Metal Gear Rising, which is only about 5~ hours long for a first time. my genre of choice is JRPGs too, so I'm used to a 20-40 hour long experience, but a game's length should be determined by how long it features quality content, not some weird, arbitrary check list.

[@a-dashof-pepper4710]

@@Caspicum much agreed. JRPGs are something I've fallen back into. Especially thanks to Legrand Legacy and Yakuza 7. Y7 I can forgive for its huge map and open world style thanks to the JRPG combat, and the side quests being so whacky.

[@jmanclan]

id like to see more streamlined combat menus in jrps, compare persona 5 to DQ11. I love how P5 uses basically every button on the controller to pick an action instead of having to cycle through menus like DQ11. Mario rpg did this 24 years ago, everyone should copy it

[@aquapendulum]

"I love how P5 uses basically every button on the controller to pick an action" Oh, so Valkyrie Profile?

[@jmanclan]

or mario rpg like i said at the end of the comment

[@LordMajicus]

The tutorial area of Kingdom Hearts 2 was probably the single worst experience I've ever had with tutorials. I played it for like 2 hours iirc before finally getting to the actual game, and by then I lost all interest in playing the game. To this day I haven't played it since.

[@EuroMIX2]

I love the beginning of KH2. Probably one of my favourite parts of the game.

[@davidmajoris7382]

Legend of Dragoon music! And yeah, I agree. I dropped Origami King like 6 hours in.

[@Caspicum]

Hopefully you went back to a good game, like Legend of Dragoon.

[@kap1618]

Someone finally said it, thank god. What really sends me up the wall are games (like Persona 5 for example) that give you tutorial free gameplay where you can just experiment with the tools at your disposal at the start but later decide to explain the things you just got done with playing around with. I get in medias res is meant to give people at taste of what they will eventually get but honestly it feels insulting, like the game thinks I have a short attention span. Either let me figure things out on my own with the optional and/or skippable tutorials or explain your mechanics first and then let me engage with them freely.

[@Caspicum]

Persona 5 in particular is super stilted, like I've already used this system to the fullest, why am I being throttled?

[@gigawarman12]

You wanna know a game that REALLY doesn't respect your time? YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG. That game doesn't even respect anyone unfortunate enough to bother with it.

[@Caspicum]

There're some great videos on that game tbh

[@gigawarman12]

@@Caspicum have you considered doing your own video on it?

[@Mat23]

Great video man! The Breath of Fire 3 reference was great by the way.

[@Caspicum]

Thanks! Any fan of Breath of Fire is a friend of mine.

[@RiiViiMedia2424]

7:22 Next topic: Games that praise their own visuals. 8:18 And I thought those folks were just being friendly. 9:14 Casp's thoughts about talking to NPCs. 12:33 I would say that a long cutscene at the start of a story to let the player take in the world can be a good thing. Sonic Unleashed (for example) may have two fairly sizable cutscenes (one CG and one in-engine/prerendered (depending on the version)) at the start, but establishes at least two things in the story: That Dark Gaia energy can be stronger than all seven Chaos Emeralds, and that Sonic can be a nice guy in spite of appearances. Focusing Sonic's more heroic qualities was what the story set out to do, as stated in a developer interview. 3:36 Free joke.

[@SuiteLifeofDioBrando]

Most of my favorite games are longer. Longer games can flesh out characters and story more like with thd tales of and trails games.

[@Caspicum]

Oh definitely, I'm guilty of dumping stupid amounts of time into some games, like i do yearly replays of Disgaea 2. Disgusting, I know. I had this issue recently where Grandia was stupidly long, but not long enough to fully explore the depths of its progression system, which *could* be a good one if there was more game. It's a tough balancing act tbh.

[@MxGerryNava]

Finally somebody says it, I barely have any time to play games why would I want 494848585 hours of gaming

[@Caspicum]

That's right, I want to shoot some dudes for 20 minutes so I can feel like a man.

[@max547490]

Simping for Pikamee? I see you're a fellow man of culture

[@Caspicum]

who is that i only see a beautiful princess

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

Now, if we play JRPG, the story can be its own reward. That's not the main issue. I love to spend hours talk to every NPC many times in Trails of games (which are some of the most extreme JRPGs I know of) and it doesn't really feel bloated, it's part of the experience. I knew what I was getting into. The issue is when the text feels like filler, regurgitating ad aeternam the same useless information, without progressing either the plot or their characters. Pokemon took all the worst parts of modern RPG without any of the substance, losing most of its charm in the progress. I know as much about the Trails of Cold Steel students that I know of the Pokemon XY crew, despite having spend far less times with them (and it's because I chosed to talk with them, instead of having them thrown into my face every few steps)

[@RubescentDragon]

Also, I love your use of Royal Castle at the end of your video ;)

[@Caspicum]

Legend of Dragoon BOYS

[@RubescentDragon]

@@Caspicum ❤️

[@mariofan1ish]

One of my favorite things about Digimon Next Order was how the tutorials were handled. Yes, it does go through the trouble of teaching you to battle twice in short succession (but can you blame them with such an unconventional system?) and a few other silly pop ups here and there, but the grand majority of the tutorials were left to the baby Digimon in town, and the game never forced you to read them or take the tour of Floatia, so you were generally left to your own devices. Not to mention the amount of stuff that you just have to figure out on your own.

[@geebeepman]

I've always been on the side of letting players learn from their mistakes although from several years watching various let's plays here on youtube, I've realized that a ton of players really do need these hand-holdy tutorials regardless of how the feel about it since I've seen plenty complain but still fail to grasp basic mechanics. so my solution would be having something like a guide book option that's accessible in-game where players can look up basic/advanced mechanics whenever they like instead of forcing players into these long mandatory tutorial sections.

[@Caspicum]

Oh yeah, you're watching some guy miss the fundamentals of a puzzle, or misunderstand mechanics and you don't *want* to backseat, but you know it's goingt o be a shitshow if you stay silent. Been there, buddy. I'd be 100% in favour of an optional little tooltip menu that goes lightly in on certain things, with an advanced book for more technical feats. Ironically enough, a game I complained about in this video, Digimon World DS, does that. Little Agumon behind the counter explains shit, and is totally optional.

[@Big_Dai]

I've recently felt this after playing Paper Mario 64 and starting Thousand Year door.. there's something about that game that feels like an insult to my time. It's amazing how the Paper Mario Franchise reminds me of the disgrace that has been PKMN.. but at least that one kept the Battle system intact.

[@robinmattheussen2395]

I still love getting into a juicy, complex and dense video game, but what is it with this fetishization of pointless busywork, overtly expository storytelling and the desire to railroad these days? It's a very frustrating trend.

[@Caspicum]

Legit if I could frame a comment, it'd either be this one, or one of the comments on Ram Ranch. Probably this one. I'm not sure if it's a market trend that people want easier experiences, or if developers have changed how they made games and everyone just went along with it. It's probably a bit of both, tbh. I remember when Demon's Souls came out and journos were bragging about how it's "NES Hard" which is what made the series take off. How times have changed.

[@marfur9]

Oh. I love digimon world ds, but never noticed the load time. Jesus christ that is bad.

[@ZeroTaichi]

At least in all other Digimon Story correct that, i specially like the way that Lost Evolution use the attack order because they condense turns with +turns that only put a plus number into your turn, that makes battle really fast because they dont need to correct turn order so many times.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah, they 'fixed' it in Dawn, where it's one second per sprite but... I don't know, that's still a long time for a sprite loading in.

[@tetukabuto]

That's an impressive amount of games you mention there

[@Caspicum]

Impressive and sad are two words we use. one avoids hurt feelings :( I can't remember which video it was, possibly my PS Vita one, but when I do shit like this, I try to get as much as I can. I also like to capture my own footage which kills free time.

[@tetukabuto]

@@Caspicum Don't feel sad I'm proud of you

[@humanitynetwork]

13:13 Yes, simp the kettle. The only unavoidable dialogue I need is Ffffamily friendly content.

[@Caspicum]

Mario 64 was a gift I didn't know I needed

[@Sheevlord]

Unskippable cutscenes are a deadly sin of game design. Especially in games that have a NG+ mode. Unskippable tutorials can also be annoying. Especially if the game is a sequel. Especially if I started the game by importing my savefile from the previous game in the series. Like, I've beaten Trails of Cold Steel, so isn't it safe to assume that I don't need to be told what an orbment is, what's the difference between arts, crafts and normal attacks, or how the turn order works. Let me play already.

[@thisguyyoudontknow4653]

In fairness to cold steel. You might not have played the game in a year if you played them on their respective release dates. Also the tutorials come usually in one screen and can be dismissed quickly. Sometimes how a similar element worked in one game might work slightly differently in the 2nd. They kinda need to cover there bases.

[@hallowed4570]

A company should make games where beginning areas also contain side areas with insanely strong monsters that can be beaten with some veteran ingame skills, granting the player fast levels. And couple that with a system that has NPCs notice the players level and cut heavy-text short, or make unskipable text turn optional.

[@Caspicum]

I don't mind intended paths through a game, but that could be a neat idea as well.

[@MrSTVR]

I can never go back to not using 3x speed for the PS1 Final Fantasy games. FF9 is amazing, but the biggest problem was it was so slow to play, especially when combat insisted on spending 10 seconds spinning around the arena and loading in your party. And adding the ability to skip cutscenes in Kingdom Hearts made it into a game I love to try speedrunning every few months. I'd much rather have a faster rate of fun than a game that takes 50 hours to finish what amounts to 20 hours of content.

[@Caspicum]

Yeah, FF9 is a gem, but hot damn it's a slow gem. The PC version added options for in-game speed up, as well as battle intro skips which is beautiful. Makes the bastard playable.

[@chee_b]

Based pikadad.

[@Seloliva1015]

Some games are a book, others a movie, and I don't think that is wrong, cause I love a lot of those. I also love game games, and sometimes I just want to olay an old rpg with barely any dialog, but I also enjoy reading every npc dialog in P5 becouse someone had to write that and it world building, and I like those details.

[@Caspicum]

If people want a book or movie, I don't know why they don't just do it honestly. Plenty of game narratives would adapt really well to other mediums, and arguably be better in that form. I'm down for dialogue in games, I talk to most NPCs in JRPGs, it was necessary once upon a time to figure out where to go, and I love the weird stuff they say. It's when they guide you or over-explain, or even repeatedly-explain very simple concepts over and over, or ignore how humans naturally act. That part about how the Mario game tells you to look at stuff, when the visuals are designed to lead the eye anyway, or how the Persona 5 combat system insists you be told what "Attack" does would make a bad book. One of the best parts of games is that they're kinesthetic, you learn by physically moving buttons and sticks, and things happen on-screen. The handholding disallows mistakes, when mistakes are one of the best ways to fundamentally acquire knowledge.

[@b3b3j4y]

My favorite game is Dark Souls (all of them), and going from those to the new pokemon games was very frustrating. Pokemon games literally taught me how to read when i was 5, so it's not like a lengthy dialogue on how to press the start button would have even helped me. lengthy tutorials are pointless since kids learn through button mashing and not reading directions.

[@Caspicum]

Kids are definitely smarter than people give them credit for, and they're also far better at interacting with new mediums, they pick up on it so quick it's insane. They also don't have real-world responsibilities so they *can* be far more motivated and determined to blow a bunch of time figuring out obtuse progression, not that there's much of that anymore. Also the internet has killed attention spans, so maybe they do need them. can i do the thinking emoji here. :thinking: nope? shit.

[@mage4516]

I know this is a good video but its like 5am

[@Caspicum]

You deserve sleep tbh. What you doing up at 5am though you gotta take better care of yourself, gamer.

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

The sun never sets on Oz.

[@deadliestvice5356]

Man, if you're coming off P3 or P4, P5 feels like watching two layers of paint dry. P5R made the problem even worse, because New Character™ is introduced halfway through the opening sequence.

[@Zenforso]

Oh no Casp said something bad about Persona 5. Mad man actually did it. I hope rabbid fans will never find who else going to produce eventual Digimon Survive review?

[@Caspicum]

I hope Survive is okay. I'm still really looking forward to it, hope they give us something concrete that isn't delays.

[@Zenforso]

@@Caspicum oh yeah. My optimistic side wants to think that higher ups at Namco noticed potential and decided to pour money into it and redo a lot of seemingly cheap stuff to present it in more appealing light. My realistic side tells that it just production hell, nothing ready and corona killed almost whole development process.

[@abbymems]

I agree with so much of this video, even as an avid fan of some of these bloated games. I love Pokemon, even recent ones despite their flaws, but the way they handled tutorials and general bloat is so strange. If I were to toss my hat into the ring, I'd probably compare FE: Three Houses to Persona 5 in terms of fair time management. FE has speed ups to gameplay and entirely skippable cutscenes, and many of the more monotonous systems can be done automatically or skipped outright. Persona in general, and P5 especially, does not allow for very much speed up at all. Hell, you can't skip cutscenes, only speed along their animations to an extent. And there are sections of the game where they give you a save because they know cutscenes will play out for an hour or so. It's kinda nuts. In a JRPG, this can be a bit more forgiven because of the expectancy, but that doesn't mean it can't be better. I do find it way worse in non-rpgs though. Can't stand those Arkham hallways.

[@noone-ze9gg]

lol at Mario's hitler stache

[@michaeljijus980]

On point!!! Society is forced to dumb down

[@Peasham]

If there's anything Covid taught me, it's that society was always dumb.

[@Caspicum]

Hot damn what a comment.

[@Peasham]

@@Caspicum I hope the agreement's from people being dumb for not wearing masks, and not from people being dumb for wearing masks, cuz thinking the latter shit unironically, that's pretty dumb.

[@anonvideo738]

When i was a kid my first pokemon experience was on an emulator in which i could speed up the game holding down spacebar. Getting the next pokemon on my GBA was just hell, i couldnt stand how grinding through a fight required so many stupid animations, text and effects

[@allmight9840]

Emu pokemon is the best. I remember playing red at my minimum hour wage job and just grinding to a charizard at the first area in like 2 hours lol.

[@Caspicum]

Legit love Pokemon when it's sped-up. Building my team of 6 Poliwags is fun every single time, when it only takes 1/10th of the time of non-emulated.

[@DocDoesGamingTV]

Gonna print out this script and send it to Game Freak

[@eniltonrogerio3169]

Gamefreak: yeah we already know....

[@Caspicum]

Maybe cut out the swears, and call them based a few times for good measure.

[@KoreeluStromboli]

1:20 I appreciate the inclusion of Bio Public Corporation from Breath of Fire 5, my favourite track from that game. 2:07 That's gruesome. To avoid talking to an NPC again by accident, press the B Button or the equivalent of that button to advance through their text.

[@Caspicum]

Oh damn, you've got a keen ear, and even better taste.

[@Sawngawkuh]

Yakuza 5. Bloated ass cutscenes. Filler story sections. Low damage output. Side Stories thrown in on top of the regular sub-quests that have far too many missions than necessary for each character. It's like it was in Y5's mission to make every facet of the experience a slog, whereas most other entries don't feel nearly as slow.

[@Caspicum]

The frame rate iddn't help. I loved hunting bears, but 15 FPS was a killer tbh.

[@Sawngawkuh]

@@Caspicum The real demon of the mountain.

[@dragonpencil4131]

You haven't played the atelier game series. It's a very dialogue heavy game where you spend 50% of the game in dialogue and the rest in adventure and fighting monster. It's a JRPJ. The tutorial of the games is something that goes quickly in the PS3 era for me and is often needed as each games has some small or big changes in the gameplay. (Changing the support system, the alchemy function in the same trilogy, etc.) The reason it has a lot of dialogue is that it is a slice-of-life type of rpg. Even if the end of the world, the game remained focus on the everyday life of the people. Most of them is the life of your main characters as you practice alchemy to create items, basic for weapons, weapons, bombs healing items, etc. If you play this games, it's for the interaction between the characters. You can skip it the dialogues if you want, but I'm not sure if each of those games allowed you to do that.

[@Caspicum]

I loved Rorona, but I don't think I ever played any others. I should though, Rorona was a legit time.

[@ThousandairesClub]

*my dream game would have no story and 1000 hours of side content* 😂👌

[@Caspicum]

honestly, kinda with you ngl

[@PerilsofPokey]

You had me at prolapse.

[@Caspicum]

I knew we were meant 2B

[@Caspicum]

that was gay im sorry

[@valletas]

Thats why i like classic doom so much No story no tutorials and you have a lot of slots to quicksave to make death less punishing Few games these days try to be a game first

[@TitaniumBuckets]

In Breath of Fire 3 I didn't know that you had to move the directional buttons when Ryu was stuck in the cage early on. I thought it was a cutscene so I waited for a long, long time for Ryu to just stay stuck there

[@Caspicum]

I know I missed this comment 2 months ago, but the same shit happened to me multiple times. Every time I replayed it until recently that part would 100% get me.

[@TitaniumBuckets]

@@Caspicum It was quite the moment to know you could move!

[@ejc5105]

Crono's name was Big Boy in the Gato tutorial

[@Caspicum]

ベイスドとレッドピル

[@jeremyhall2727]

Some games are like that. I'll just play a little (2 hrs) everyday if I'm super busy with stuff. Heck if you have time to watch a movie; you have time to play.

[@Caspicum]

That's true, 2 hours is a pretty good amount of time. Sometimes I'll have a spare 20 or so and it's like "the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" It's like the Sims where you gotta take an hour-long shower before work right?

[@jeremyhall2727]

@@Caspicum oh yeah I feel you. That 20 mins will go by so fast. I'm not going to lie 😅 if I really like a game; I have to set my alarm clock because that 2 hours will turn into 4-5 hours. And it wouldn't even feel like it.

[@theelike4302]

7:37 and 9:10 excellent music from an even more excellent game. The Dark Cloud series needs the remake treatment.

[@Caspicum]

Quality taste. 11/10 comment

[@Crispman_777]

I physically cannot agree more. It's my biggest JRPG turn off and I _like_ JRPGs.

[@Caspicum]

JRPGs are my main genre, but I also hate them. It's a horrible existence

[@Jellzorro]

And here I thought we'd get more Harry Potter videos

[@Caspicum]

I don't know if I have anything left to say about Harry Potter, tbh. I'd love to go over some other games, like the PS1... ones, but I think they've been done to death.

[@thisguyyoudontknow4653]

No wonder you don't like Trails games. They have more words then most novels, but it's a fantastic world with wonderful details. To each their own lol.

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

I don't recall you mentioning this. One of the worst time wasting offenders to me is Paper Mario: TTYD side quests, especially towards the end of the game. Why can I only take one quest at a time? It's one thing I'll never do again in any future replays of the game.

[@Caspicum]

I kinda agree. I think the idea behind side quests is to make them engaging, so you take one at a time because you *should* be engaged enough to follow the thread, and for that to tick the justification boxes. Like a shorter version of the core narrative, not just a throw-away means to a reward, you know? Depends how you approach side-quests, but it would be nice if you could accept them from more places than just the hub.

[@sheepnoisebah]

i find it weird that BoF3 is used as a positive example... i always thought BoF games were bloated with 90% sidequests and 10% main story

[@eniltonrogerio3169]

I love breath of fire 3.

[@Caspicum]

Breath of Fire 3 definitely has some bloated parts, like god damn there's some severe bloating, especially in the back-half, but I think the introduction is an amazing example of how to teach a player the fundamentals.

[@williemasterofdestruction5339]

SO OFFENSIVE! I LIKEY! Subbed 😀👌

[@Caspicum]

based

[@RKIC]

Why would a game respect your time when you already gave up your money. There's a translation available for Shiren the Wanderer 2 on N64.

[@turanx0]

To make sure that the consumer loves your game and returns for a sequel or new game from that developer.

[@RKIC]

@@turanx0 Todays modern gamer has probably pre ordered that before they completed the tutorial. Todays modern gamer will probably never complete the tutorial but go on reddit to talk about how they are the games biggest fan anyway.

[@deejay3297]

genshin impact is free and clearly doesnt respec ur time so chekm8 athysts

[@turanx0]

@@RKIC I think you’re half right. A game that’s bloated (or just subjectively boring) will turn you off from finishing it or finish it begrudgingly, only to give it a low score (on a video or in your mind) and then be cautious of the next one. You’re right however when it comes to people pre-ordering and buying games that were criticized for things like bloat, repetitiveness, bugs, poor gameplay and story etc. only to criticize it afterwards. I’m always baffled by the people complaining about games like Anthem and Fallout 76. The reviewers summed up all the problems, people still bought it and then were mad about those exact same problems. I can’t take any other conclusion than to say they are unintelligent. But yeah, in the end, not my problem. We need to do better research prior to buying a game, which I’ve been doing since the DS and PS3.

[@GreyCartridge]

I was just thinking yesterday that there hasn’t been a new video in a while. This was nice to wake up to. I’m also not clever enough to come up with an interesting way to shoehorn it into this comment so: Boktai 2 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

[@Caspicum]

I appreciate the consistency if nothing else.

[@jackbarnes4048]

No mention of the slow walk seen in the Batman game? Where your forced into a cutsecene but you can" control it."

[@Caspicum]

3:55!

[@jackbarnes4048]

@@Caspicum Surprised you didn't talk about it. Maybe your like me and don't touch the triple a games, so you miss most of them. It's the worst "innovation."'

[@BinaryDood]

FF4 fir the DS has some of the most sluggish battles I've seen

[@Caspicum]

Sucks too, FF4 is a fantastic game.

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

I wish I had enough Casp content to be annoyed at the filler... P.S. The Gato tutorial fight from Chrono Trigger is great, so much so that I've written a little tribute to his pre-battle spiel based on this video: *I'm Casposaurus* / *I have valid points* / *Mock me in the comments* / *And I will break your joints*

[@Caspicum]

That's kinda fuckin based dude

[@ImZyker]

stopped playing rpgs when i turned 16, except for the mass effect trilogy... just cannot be arsed to spend that time

[@Caspicum]

I'm like 40 hours into one now, wishing I made the same calls tbh.

[@DonutSwordsman]

I agree on most points, especially a speed up or skipping etc, but I feel ff10 is a bad example because as a game and piece of art, I feel the cutscenes were obviously meant to be cinematic and have a movie esque presentation, it was intentional and doesn't take anything away except lack of skipping.

[@Caspicum]

FFX is definitely victim to the anime bloat. Like, if I could punch Tidus in the head I'd probably do it tbh. He needs to talk less.

[@dongodongo12]

If i can skip anything, or everything is fast then im happy

[@thekiss2083]

SNES games aren't a good example of breezy tutorials because at that time, lengthy instruction manuals were the norm. Any game aimed at adults could count on the player getting basic control info by reading. Also careful how you use "retarded". It's a nasty slur in America

[@Caspicum]

That's not a tutorial though, that's just information. You can figure out games simply by playing them, with no need for the 2 pages of controller layouts in the 45-page manual tbh. I can't think of an SNES game complex enough to require a manual, *maybe* Ogre Battle. Maybe. Difference between then and now, is that they're mandatory, so I would say they're *generally* better in older titles.

[@MapleMilk]

I've watched 3 seconds and I realized Video Games should be paced like albums The better the pacing, the better the game If a game feels well paced, it might be a classic

[@Caspicum]

I want an early misfits album in game form. 23 minutes, 19 songs. hop to it.

[@ThrivingReality]

You should try Trails of Cold Steel if you haven't, it's a JRPG, but it has a 6x speed-up button for battles and overworld. I cut my playtime in like 1/3 and felt motivated to 100% all the games since the game tried its best to respect my time.

[@Amish_Avenger]

I hear you but Have you ever considered that bing bing wahoo is designed for children and manchildren?

[@Caspicum]

n-no >: v |

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

Can you imagine how much of pop culture would implode on itself if the people who consumed it had to admit how shallow and childish it all is? Slumming it intellectually while pretending you're not slumming it is just what people do now.

[@ElectricBarrier]

As much as I like P5 I really gotta agree with you on the tutorial shit. What's the point of the flash forward where you HAVE to perform some kind of attack and jump over shit if you're just gonna tell me how again like an hour or two later? Do you think I forgot? I had to do it to get this far. The game is already long enough, Royal took me 135 hours.

[@Caspicum]

Hot damn, 135. I think my base P5 was about 80, maybe a bit higher. It's a longie tbh.

[@ElectricBarrier]

@@Caspicum Well, base took me about 115 if I recall. I also did whatever side quests I could, and I probably read pretty slowly, spent a lot of time grinding etc.

[@Alianger]

Preach momma

[@Caspicum]

MMMMMMHMMMMMMMM

[@Pridetoons]

This is only one of the reasons I gave up on Modern Gaming.

[@calebb7012]

This is what every Nintendo game is lately, like the god awful pokemon games.

[@Caspicum]

Pretty much. At least modern Fire Emblems still have cutscene skips though!

[@calebb7012]

@@Caspicum True! One of the few switch games I actually still go back to.