Games

The Last of Us II. I went in expecting the same act structure as the first and was surprised. If you've played it then you know what I'm talking about. Despite mainly taking place over just a few days it really feels so drawn out and a relentless struggle, which felt so perfect for the world of the game.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night... At least when you defeat Shaft properly

An ENTIRE NEW CASTLE!?

I got surprised by DeathStranding.

Did not expect that a game that’s basically about going from A to B through walking could be that lengthy, having great scenery and a weird, vague but good story.

I’m really excited for its sequel, just hoping it will also be available for PC on release.

Dragon Age: Origins. The base game was easily 80+ hours of interesting story and game play. Each DLC added 20-40 hrs a piece. I used to play it a ton.

I don't recommend giving money to EA, though. They have properly shit all over the sequels.

Elden Ring. Even after finishing the final boss there was so many areas I’ve not been to. And all those areas are unique - some with unique enemy types. It’s the game that dares to hide a secret area behind a secret area.

It Takes Two. I thought the game would be over about four times, but then it kept adding even more mechanics and got HARD. I thought it would be super casual, did not expect that much length and depth to it (ignoring the cheesy story 😅)

Hollow Knight.

Surely this is the end of the map..... Ok but now Suuuuuurely this is the end of the map.... OK NOW SUUUURELY.....

That Pathfinder Kingmaker was long as hell. Not sure i want to start the sequel until I'm good and ready for another pleasant slog.

The Talos Principle. After a short bit in the game, you go to a hub area that goes to other areas like the one you just came from. Eventually, you find out that there is another hub area above this which leads to other hub areas. I didn't remember if there is another layer on top of that, but either way, once I hit that second hub layer, I remember realizing that the entire game was multiple times larger than I had thought, and I had no way to know if it would expand again when I made it to the next area.

Hollow Knight. Every time you think you're nearing the end, there's still a lot more. The true ending and optional DLCs add so much.

Nier Automata actually kinda pissed me off the first time I played it. Thought I was finished with the game and was confused by the ending, turns out that was just ending A. Gotta play again for B, and then C, and can't forget D and E for the full picture.

Had to take a break from the game but I went back for the rest of the endings and they're worth it. Also they cut out a lot of the side quests and grinding after ending A. Getting that first ending is actually like 50% or 60% finished. But yeah, at first I was getting flashbacks to the PS2 games that tell you the true ending can only be seen by playing again on the newly unlocked 'Very Hard' difficulty

Yakuza games a completionists dream/nightmare

Okami. Every time I finished an area, I thought I was nearing the end of the game. And every time, I was presented with a new, even larger area.

Pokemon Silver. Beat the Elite 4 and surprise now you get to go back to Kanto.

I’m not usually surprised by the length but by the girth.

GTA IV actually, not even counting the two huge DLCs, just the base game alone.

Portal

I 100% Tunic in 15 hours. I expected it to be longer and harder, considering it's not even in a real language and you have to translate it to solve most of the puzzles.

Untitled Goose Game, but the other way. Got to the end of what I assumed was the first world, but it turned out that was the entire game.

Still a good game, but if I'd known I would have waited for a sale or something.

As an older gamer I want the opposite: shorter games. I don't have the time to sink.

Fallout 4. The amount of world exploration and itty bitty stuffs almost makes me lost myself in exploration, even though the story can be really short depending how you progress the content. On my first playthrough, I clocked at ~90hrs of play time and only just passed the 1/4 of story progression just because I sucked in sidequest and exploration.

Never thought I enjoyed the base building and assisting settlements aspects, Bethesda did great job on Visual storytelling speaking as Interplay/Obsidian Fallout fan.

Another case is STALKER Anomaly mod which can gives you theoritical endless playtime as long as you creative to build your own CYOA Stalker story. Though I don't recommend Anomaly if you're looking for the STALKER lore (as they're fan project) and should be treated as post-vanilla playthrough.

Going back a ways here with Castlevania: Symphony of The Night. It seems like a fairly fleshed out game as it is when you get to the “final” boss but then you read a guide and find out “ending A” is only half of the game

Nethack.

The first few dozen times I played it, it felt like it took forever to get anywhere. The most recent time I played, it felt quick and easy to get to the bottom. (I got stuck on something, though, and haven't been able to continue past the valley of the dead.)

I remember grinding my way through Pokemon Conquest, having a decent time but also kinda wanting it to reach its conclusion. I get to the end of the main campaign, scroll the credits, and then it tells me on next boot that there's now some more content to play.

"Oh cool, a postgame," I thought.

No. There was not a postgame. There were something like eighteen new campaigns to play.

To a certain kind of person this must've felt like Christmas morning. I put the game in a drawer and didn't turn it on again out of sheer intimidation.

Maybe not the length of the main campaign, but good luck 100%ing Cartherine, holy shit. Nevermind Full Body. There's like 8 endings combined + insane challenges and 64-stage game within the game. +100 hours easy, if not more.

Final Fantasy 12

I had just come off of FFX while running through all the FF games that I could. With FF12, I got to a point where I had a solid amount of freedom and did a bunch of side quests and stuff. Then the next portion of the story takes you to this mountain, and I thought, ah cool, this looks like "new base" material. They lay out new information about the plot and then the next stop is to assault an air ship.

Kick ass, I think. This is probably roughly the story equivalent of the assault on Bevelle from FFX, you go in, fight your way through, a cinematic happens and the thrust of the story changes, new info drops, motivations change and are renewed just like in FFX.

Nope. You get to the boss on that ship, it's some dude you have little to no investment in fighting. You kick his ass, he transforms, easy fight, and the game just ends.

I sat in actual open mouthed disbelief. There was no way the game ended there, at what I felt was dramatically and game time wise to be the obvious mid point. And yet, there the credits rolled.

I was so disappointed.

Celeste. I was not expecting the core and farewell

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

I knew it was a jrpg from the beginning, but the way the stories unfolded and piled up had me confused. There was a new question every chapter and it just bwcqme bigge and bigger. Awesome game

No matter how much I've played it, I don't think I've ever got past half of the campaign of Sacred.

Now playing Elden Ring and even if I'm just starting out I'm constantly surprised by the amount of stuff in the world, most of which I only discovered the second or third time I visited the area it's in.

Universal Paperclip, was expexting day, weeks or more of gameplay and there were 4-5 hours of good gameplay. It was perfect.

Miitopia. I wasn't expecting more worlds from such a simple game. I really enjoyed it though.

Considering how simple its premise is, Another Crab’s Treasure seems pretty basic, like its story doesn’t have much left, at several points. People online gave some takes that four boss fights from the end, they thought each one would be the final boss.

Far Cry 3 also did this well. You finish the skill tree, do the last few missions where the increased power slides the difficulty down…and then it turns out you unlock a whole other island to make use of your full ability tree in every encounter.

Dragon's Dogma 2. IYKYK

Astlibra: Revision

I'd put a conservative minimum first playtime at 60 hours... For slower, completionist, players? 80-100 hours.

If that first playthrough is on the impossible setting?... I don't wanna think about it. Lmao