Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
The game is pretty straightforward, but I meant following a guide more so for making a beeline for everything, so you don't waste time exploring the world map, traverse through dungeons in the most efficient way possible, etc. The kind of stuff that people naturally do when replaying a game they're already familiar with that a first-time player wouldn't do without guidance.

Like I said, I take my time and do optional things too, so people can definitely beat games quicker than my times. But even HowLongToBeat.com, which I find averages on the shorter side, such that I always expect to take longer, puts Final Fantasy IV as a 20+ hour game for the main story alone:

https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=3499
https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=3501
https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=3500

And while 20-30 hours may be short compared to modern RPGs, it's pretty typical for 16-bit RPGs, so I wouldn't say RPGs that long really belong in a topic asking for the shortest turn-based RPGs, especially when Nz17 was asking for fewer than 10 hours.
The problem with how long to beat, is that the people that post there have times that are way above even the first time I play the games even fully completing the title. I'll give a recent example. I played The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel as what you'd call full game plus extras. Now, I didn't get all of the hidden side quests but I did get a lot. I got every single non hidden side quest however, and I'd also have talked to every person in every town atleast once, however after the next event occured, even though dialogue changes, I didn't talk to them again beyond the first four chapters.

Now, I started the game on the hard difficulty, not normal or easy, and despite the game being on hard mode. Going into new game + on Nightmare and saving at the very first opportunity, I'm at 80 hours and less than 10 minutes. So the time frame that I finished the game on the initial hardest difficulty while spending a considerable amount of time doing fluff stuff while completing everything the game gave you except all the hidden side quests. The thing is, The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel is very very very story driven, so much of that time is very unavoidable.

Now, another example is speedruns. I don't speedrun, but on how long to beat, it shows Suikoden's speedrun time at 12 hours. Now, I've actually did a playthrough of Suikoden from memory, getting all 108 stars, and I beat it in 9 hours and 30 minutes. Now, the kicker here is that 20 minutes of that time is being stuck on Juppo's trick room which is completely RNG. So one section is just me getting on that board, it failing to send me a cross FOR OVER 20 MINUTES, yet I still did a faster time than how long to beat. Which is why I don't put anything at all into the times of that website. All the times on that website are excessive.

The first video shows my not being able to get across for 20 minutes straight, the second video is saving at the last save point with over an hour since my most recent save, so it's not like there's any save scumming going on. It's just a cut the videos in smaller videos.
https://youtu.be/8TYttgTanKk?list=PL...kevwWfLr&t=717
https://youtu.be/BGLO3e2cGWY?list=PL...kevwWfLr&t=590