Some players prefer short games to play through in a weekend, and there are plenty of examples, between shooters like Titanfall 2 to platformers like Super Mario World. Others prefer games that will take them months to finish, like Baldur’s Gate 3 or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Players can typically feel the length of short and long games, but the medium ones can be tricky.
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Some games are so well-paced that a twenty-hour game may feel like it only took half that time or less because of how immersed players were in the experience. The following games can have that effect on players, thanks again to some wonderful pacing and set design.
The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)
A Small Dream
- Basic Playthrough: 14 Hours
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is a very small adventure for a Zelda game, taking place on an island with only one primary side quest involving trade. The remake does a wonderful job of recreating the game in a 1:1 standard, and like the Game Boy original, it flows smoothly due to the lack of side-tracking.
It’s surprising that a lot of people take about fourteen hours to beat it because there isn’t much to get distracted by, making it one of the better Zelda games to sit down and play without a lot of brainpower spent on devilish puzzles.
Split Fiction
Quicker With Your Partner
- Developer(s)
- Hazelight Studios
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
- Basic Playthrough: 14.5 Hours
Any game that can be played with a friend will often go by quicker, and Split Fiction, which is co-op only, is no exception. One player can play Zoe, who is an aspiring fantasy author, while the second player can control Mio, a writer obsessed with science fiction.
It’s a slightly longer game than The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, but it may still feel as short as three to four hours overall. That’s because the gameplay and settings constantly reset, and the less tedium a game has, the better the flow.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
My Date With The President’s Daughter
- ESRB
- M for Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Basic Playthrough: 16 Hours
Resident Evil 4 changed the franchise forever with a reset of the location and gameplay mechanics, but at least an old standby was recruited: Leon S. Kennedy. The game starts with Leon going to a village somewhere vaguely in Europe, wherein he finds parasitic villagers trying to kill him along with a cult controlling them, who orchestrated the kidnapping of the President’s daughter.
Each set piece is well constructed without much dawdling before moving on, making the pacing feel like a quick horror movie rather than a sixteen-hour endeavor. The original version and this remake pretty much take an equal amount of time and are on equal standing in terms of quality.
Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars
Done Before Your Know It
- Basic Playthrough: 17.5 Hours
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is the first RPG ever made for Mario, and even though it is a full-blown experience, it isn’t hassled by the genre’s main setbacks. Monsters are visible in dungeons, and with a short level cap, there’s not much need for grinding.
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Players will go to new locations, finish the task, and then move on without feeling the dreaded RPG drag. Plus, with the active turn-based battle system, players can get more engaged in combat. The Switch remake can be completed faster, but there’s more charm in the original game.
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Not An Origin Story, Thankfully
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
- Basic Playthrough: 18 Hours
Marvel’s Spider-Man was the first Spider-Man game that Insomniac Games tackled, and while it lacks the bells and whistles of the third entry, it has a better balance between act structures. Since it only focuses on one character, Peter, this also helps.
The main villain of this entry is Doc Ock, but the background villains add some extra flavor too, like Kingpin, Shocker, and Scorpion. With a lot of heart, charm, and thrilling gameplay between swinging around New York City and beating up baddies, players could easily finish the game or even 100% it without batting an eye.
Alan Wake 2
A Two-Way Split
- Developer(s)
- Remedy Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- Basic Playthrough: 19 Hours
Alan Wake 2 gets close to the twenty-hour mark, but thanks to the dual protagonists, players may not feel burned out as quickly. Alan Wake returns, trapped in another dimension, and has to find his way out while the other character, Saga Anderson, is an FBI agent looking into a murder in the same area where Alan Wake disappeared years ago.
With creepy monsters, unsettling NPCs, and mood lighting that is to die for, Alan Wake 2 does not disappoint as a long-awaited sequel.
God Of War (2018)
Lone God And Cub
- Basic Playthrough: 20.5 Hours
The 2018 God of War reboot moved the mythology from Greek to Norse, with mainstay Kratos returning now with a young child. The wintery stage of this semi-open-world is chilling and full of brutal combat that fans enjoyed. The new Leviathan Axe and its boomerang-like gimmick made for an interesting weapon in an action game.
Even though players will definitely feel like they’ve gone on a journey, it’s unlikely they’ll think it took longer than perhaps a dozen hours, even with some backtracking in the latter half of God of War.
Chrono Trigger
Time Is The Name Of The Game
- Basic Playthrough: 23 Hours
Chrono Trigger is all about time travel, so leave it to the experts at Squaresoft to craft an adventure that almost erases time from the brain while playing. Like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, there is no need to endlessly grind, combat is not active, but it is fast, and enemies can be seen in dungeons.
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Players will start in the present and then go backwards and forwards in time, trying to help benevolent forces who are trying to stop anomalies. It was, and still is, a one-of-a-kind experience, even though there have been other good time-traveling RPGs.
Kingdom Hearts
World Hopping
- Basic Playthrough: 28.5 Hours
The first Kingdom Hearts had the simplest story of three young kids, Sora, Kairi, and Riku, getting whisked away to other worlds, based on Disney properties, after an anomaly hit their island. Kairi was kidnapped by Disney villains, Riku was used by them to host a dark vessel, and Sora, joined by Donald and Goofy, was the only one left to try and save them.
While there are plenty of worlds to visit from planets based on Alice and Wonderland and Peter Pan, each campaign is relatively short, almost making the game into an episodic adventure that players will binge through easily without sweating it.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
City Limits
- ESRB
- T for Teen due to Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Basic Playthrough: 32.5 Hours
Players went in with expectations for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which turned out to only be part one of a three-part experience. It all completely took place in Midgar, which was now filled with new content, all of which felt natural, even with all of the fetch quests.
It’s incredible that Square Enix could take what amounted to maybe eight to ten hours of the original game and turn it into a thirty-plus-hour experience. With a charismatic party, kooky NPCs, and an active battle system that was hard to put down, this remake did a good job and recontextualizing an RPG classic without it feeling too much like padding.
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