The game is only 20 hours long according to Famitsu

[toughnails]

And even shorter if you don't do sidequests.

Playtime is roughly 20 hours long when completing the main story and sidequests. Alternatively, if one solely guns for the main story, playtime is expected to be around 18 hours.

https://noisypixel.net/valkyrie-elysium-multiple-endings-playtime-20-hours/

[TotemMX]

If people could just stop judging games for the length that could be great.

[Atom]

Sounds fine. Recently played Judgement doing the main story and some side content and that came out to 20 hours or so and felt plenty long. VP1 with all the side content still only took me 32 hours or so and really dragged in the middle. The steam launch update will add another chunk of hours as well for people that want that, with two new difficulties, post game challenge battles, and another playable character story mode.

But honestly, after recent Assassin's Creed games I'm so over measuring games by hours lol. Plenty of games don't know when they've worn out their premise (Tales of Arise), others are just packed with filler (Soul Hackers). 20 hour tight campaign sounds like a breath of fresh air. Maybe I'll feel differently actually playing it but it's not like a massive apriori warning sign or anything.

That's also honestly on the longer end for a Character action game -- much longer than Bayonetta/DMC which are usually around 10 hours, and closer to the character action/rpg hybrid stuff like Scarlet Nexus (around 25 hours for my playthrough), Nier Replicant (20-30 hours depending on how many endings you go for, and those endings are literally replaying the same content and farming stuff) etc.

[toughnails]

Originally posted by Atom:

That's also honestly on the longer end for a Character action game -- much longer than Bayonetta/DMC which are usually around 10 hours, and closer to the character action/rpg hybrid stuff like Scarlet Nexus (around 25 hours for my playthrough), Nier Replicant (20-30 hours depending on how many endings you go for, and those endings are literally replaying the same content and farming stuff) etc.

Nier Replicant is 30+, and that's if you don't do any sidequests at all. Scarlet Nexus took me 40+ for just one side (with all bonding episodes). Code Vein (probably the one most similar to this game) is 25-35 for one run (according to HowLongToBeat), which is probably the most reasonable ballpark.

15-20 hours is simply way too short for an Action JRPG. And especially at $60.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by TotemMX:

If people could just stop judging games for the length that could be great.

Game length is not the sole factor of game quality, but its certainly one of them.

The ''it doesnt matter if its a 20 hour game!!!'' only applies to games where the quality per hour is extremely high so the game still offers a great experience even despite being short.
Most games dont provide that, tho.

Even in cases like Fallen Order while the game is good its simply too short.

But maybe these (SE recent games) are just aimed even more at the crowd that have short attention spans, or who dont invest many hours. 20 hours can be very appealing to that audience, whereas 50-100 hours might be too much.

[TotemMX]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Game length is not the sole factor of game quality, but its certainly one of them.

The problem with measuring game time is when developers, in order to avoid people who bash short games, includes "features" to artificially increase the number of game hours to look like it has more content. This include: boring / repetitive / useless sidequest that add zero value to story / character development. Tons of collectibles and a large etc.

For that reason, I don't see any positive in measuring games hours.

[Tiasmoon]

Filler content can still be enjoyable content. It can also be used to provide better pacing and tie story events together. I've played almost no game that doesnt have any filler at all. Hell even in quantum break you can argue that the gameplay is filler. I even think that game would have benefited from a bit more of it.

Games that use an excessive amount of filler to bloat gameplay time arent really all that many. Most opt to make stuff like that optional content, and this is also why people tend to say ''how long to complete/finish story'' and ''how long to max complete''

Originally posted by TotemMX:

For that reason, I don't see any positive in measuring games hours.

Its a poor reason.
Like I said, even if its not the only thing to consider.. its still something that matters. Even if you dont care.

Originally posted by TotemMX:

in order to avoid people who bash short games

Short games offer less of an experience. Its called time, and its part of physics. Dont blame people who ''bash'' a game because its short. Blame your deity of choice for making the universe time-based.

[TotemMX]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Short games offer less of an experience. Its called time, and its part of physics. Dont blame people who ''bash'' a game because its short. Blame your deity of choice for making the universe time-based.

Is not about time, is about quality and replayability (if applies). Short doesn't mean necessarily it lacks content. You can say Resident Evil 2 is short, but has tons of replayability. Its a 9/10 game.

Measuring games money/hrs is a trend that doesn't send the right message to developers. Its about respect player's time, with quality over quanty.

[radkid10]

Valkyrie Profile was longer than 20 hours it took about two days to complete and even for the time it was only $30 by the way that included a player's guide

[BurningTofu]

If you're looking for value in similar genre then I would suggest FFXIV online. Arguably it is declared to have best JRPG story in recent history. The game lets you play thru the first expansion for free which already has hundreds of hours of story content which can be enjoyed like a single player RPG.

[Dalr0n]

I would avoid this game too many red flags another wait for sale kind of games, square clearly doesnt care aaabout this game that release date lol, the whole reason they delayed forspoken was the date was too close to GoW this game is probably a stinker sadly

[Gabi]

Only 20 hours.... And this is why we get so much filler in games now.

[TheCombatButler]

just replay the game, that is 40 hours then!

[Chocos Ramabotti]

Originally posted by BurningTofu:

If you're looking for value in similar genre then I would suggest FFXIV online. Arguably it is declared to have best JRPG story in recent history. The game lets you play thru the first expansion for free which already has hundreds of hours of story content which can be enjoyed like a single player RPG.

Over thousand hours of playtime and 99% of them are filled with unengaging, trivial gameplay, no thanks MMO's became an utter trash genre that needs to die.

[Julius Skeezer]

"Only" 20 hours. Would probably be closer to 8 or 10 without the inevitable fluff that every modern game has now because of autistic rantings about time/cost ratios.

Any game that's longer than that really starts overstaying its welcome, unless it's something very, VERY special and rare (which these days basically just means Falcom games exclusively to me).

In the end, I'll still have more playtime over the long run out of a half hour game like Contra, because I don't have to commit a chunk of a month to replaying it when I want to.

[ENDOT UTV]

20 hours is perfectly fine, is has multiple endings too