10 Best SHORT RPGs You Can ALMOST Finish in a Day

good rpgs are often extremely long and we don't all have the time for that hi folks it's falcon and today on game ranks the 10 best short rpgs you can't miss starting off with number 10 it's the outer worlds if you like the gameplay of the bethesda fallout games but want something shorter this is the best alternative it was kind of advertised as fallout in space and that's pretty much what it is it's a first person rpg where you explore open environments fight enemies and talk to a lot of people there's skill checks there's loot to collect and basically if you know anything about the recent fallout games is like that but instead of being set in a huge open world like fallout 3 and 4 each planet is its own zone that is relatively small at least compared to that concept the focus here is more on conversations and completing the quest and not as much on side content because of the overall quality though it is absolutely in terms of that kind of game about as good as it gets it is a much more focused experience and how long to beat lists it is taking about 12 hours to finish i think that's fairly accurate if you go into this one expecting a sprawling world like a fallout game you might be disappointed but if you're looking for something that will give you the feeling of those games and a great story and lore and characters and all that this is a really good pick at number 9 is mass effect now the original mass effect is super interesting it is a game that can take dozens of hours to finish if you want to pour a lot of time in it but it can also easily be completed in under five hours now created by bioware the original mass effect is this janky awkward and sometimes frustrating game but it's also a really good rpg and in some ways a better rpg than its more polished sequels it is an rpg at heart you've got a party with a lot of special abilities you've got conversation trees you have a story with a lot of branching paths being bioware's first attempt at a shooting game the combat mechanics can feel a little rough but once you start combining powers and making use of your teammates the whole thing gets actually very satisfying the story is fairly simple but the world building in this game is just fantastic that's essentially what made this a thing it certainly wasn't the rudimentary mechanics that did get better over the course of the series it was really the story the world and all the cool aliens as well as all of the history that you see though mass effect 2 is usually considered the best game of the series the original is still really good and worth playing especially with the legendary edition which definitely smooths out some of those rough corners like we said a minute ago the actual length of the game can vary pretty widely but if you simply play through the main story in the relevant quest it's not hard to finish this game another 10 hours and on replays you'll find yourself being able to finish it in like four or five hours and number eight is south park the stick of truth remember when south park made an rpg and it was actually really good this game could be finished in around 10 hours but don't let that make you think that you'll be shortchanged it's a lot of fun to play and if you're even a mild fan of the south park series you will enjoy it it was developed by obsidian entertainment you know the fallout new vegas slash outer worlds guys but this game has you entering the world of south park where you play a new kid in school who gets involved in this giant larp where all the south park kids are playing wizards and warriors it's basically an excuse to make jokes about role-playing games but unlike a lot of other terrible parody games this one's actually fun it's got a really good old-school jrpg style system with a few twists but you can wander around south park talk to various characters and collect a lot of useless junk as loot the short length makes it so the humor doesn't overstay its welcome too and it remains pretty consistently hilarious to the whole thing the sequel the fractured but whole you gotta be careful the way you say it parody's superheroes rather than high fantasy but the gameplay remains mostly the same even though the sequel's not made by obsidian it's still worth checking out though it's a little bit longer and for all intents and purposes the stick of truth is also a little bit better you entered douchebag is that correct are you sure you want to keep the name douchebag very well douchebag at number seven is fable or fable anniversary the original fable is the shortest in the series clocking in at only around 12 hours and it's still probably the best of the three even though it didn't live up to the ridiculous hype of the time remember the whole planetary and watch it grow in real time thing yeah that doesn't mean it isn't a great game story is about as basic as it gets you play a dude whose village was destroyed an abandoned attack you joined the heroes guild and you'd get you got tasks basically do hero stuff what makes the game unique was how what you did would affect your character's appearance like if you were good you would look more angelic if you were evil you'd grow devil horns stuff like that depending on how you look people would react differently to you and you get new options as to how to interact in the world there aren't a lot of side quests and the world's relatively small but it's really dense and it's just fun to screw around with like you can literally go around town and fart on people and there's other ways to generally cause trouble but that that is just primo the game plays fairly basic but it's fun enough and it looks pretty great if you have the anniversary edition remake that came out back in 2014. at number six is shadow run returns the first of three new shadow run games released by harebrained schemes it's definitely the shortest it comes in at about 12 hours and the two games after it are definitely the better all-around games but it's still worth playing if you're not familiar with shadowrun it's basically cyberpunk combined with fantasy and it's really fun you basically get all the cyberpunk staples like a dystopian future tough guys with katanas cyborgs hackers all that stuff but it's also got trolls and elves and dragons and oh yeah you can be a shaman it might sound silly but before cyberpunk 2077 shadowrun is basically the premier cyberpunk setting and this game is a great introduction to it it's set in seattle but the main plot has you hunting down the emerald city ripper a serial killer that unsurprisingly isn't just some random killer and there's a lot more going on behind the scenes the story is actually not bad i just think it's funny to talk like that gameplay mostly involves taking missions and getting into tactical combat encounters that play out a lot like the fire axis xcom games gameplay is much more straightforward in this one than the sequels those are closer to what you'd expect from a top-down rpg well this one doesn't give you quite as many choices as their options honestly all three of the shadow run games are really worth playing the sequels clock in around 20 hours each so they aren't that long but this one's definitely the shortest and of course it being the first in the trilogy it's a good starting point if you're interested at number five is undertale we can't mention short rpgs without mentioning undertale the indie sensation that took your standard rpg tropes and turn them all on their head a single playthrough can be finished in about four hours i mean you're probably gonna take a little bit longer maybe six and a half but if you know what you're doing for and it's also relatively cheap at about 10 bucks on most platforms the story's super basic you play as a kid who's fallen into the underground world full of monsters and you need to find a way out the actual story is super linear but it's filled with charming and goofy characters and the developers constantly added new twists to battles to keep things entertaining but it's it's that specifically that makes the game unique it might look like standard rpg battles at first but it's really more of an action game where you have to physically dodge enemy attacks it's very weird and that explanation does not do it justice it's much more intuitive and really it is very fun there's also a lot of replayability because there's a ton of different endings most of which come down to if you choose to kill or spare enemies there is a reason this one got so popular and it's not just the memes it's just a really cool short game that people get through and love and number four is parasite eve now when you think of the ps1 you probably think of all of its rpgs like final fantasy vii xeno gears legend of dragoon and those are all massive rpgs but this one called parasite eve can be finished in about seven hours it was made by square before they became square enix and it was probably during their most productive period like this is a super unusual game it's kind of a combination of rpg and survival horror if you remember when this game came out and i do i am that old it seemed like it was a resident evil competitor but then when you played it it was like an rpg it's really an interesting combo that is a lot of fun to play as long as you don't mind the blocky ps1 graphics the story follows an nypd officer named aya bray who's trying to stop the monster eve a creature that can make people spontaneously combust as well as transform them into some pretty gnarly monsters like i said you really wouldn't think it was an rpg just looking at it but it's got this real time paused battle system with special abilities and items there's also a weapon upgrading system that's pretty in-depth and all in all it's a really surprisingly fun game to come back to now it's super short for an rpg maybe it was kind of a proof of concept that got fleshed out into a full thing and it is also very linear due to that but it's a well-made game that is super worth checking out it's a game i would love to see a remake to to be completely honest and not like a remake that totally changes everything about it but a remake that just gives it better graphics and maybe voice acting oh yeah and even though it's a survival horror game on the ps1 it does not have tank control so that's beyond nice and number three is child of light now this is a very unusual side scrolling rpg with a fairy tale aesthetic created by ubisoft montreal it's relatively short about 11 hours they managed to squeeze a ton into it but it's got this really good kind of grandia-esque battle system with multiple party members it's got a full story it's got rhyming dialogue which is kind of weird but it's got a storybook aesthetic so it kind of works it didn't bother me but i did always go like it's rhyming all right we get it what really stands out though is the presentation it looks like a watercolor painting come to life and even seven years after its release it is a uniquely beautiful game like to get the most out of the combat though i'm gonna go ahead and say play it on a harder difficulty because it's a really well designed battle system and it adds some hours to your game time at the end of the day it's about 11 hours give or take but it wastes actually none of that time and it's just this really great fusion of art and gameplay and number two is alpha protocol which is a role playing spy game that was really looked over like just what a role-playing spy game also the name is kind of meh honestly it sounds a little cheap but it is actually a unique and really fun game that does tons with its premise you play as michael thornton a new recruit to a secret black ops agency called alpha protocol as an agent you can sneak you can shoot you can walk you can talk there's tons of different scenarios but what makes the game interesting is how your actions affect the story a whole lot can change depending on what order you take your missions in and what choices you make in them even though you play as a set character basically like shepard from mass effect you can edit their features and play them very differently depending on how you allocate your points and how you choose to react to certain situations the actual gameplay itself can be a little stiff and awkward it's definitely more of an rpg than an action game and that might take a little bit of getting used to but once you get there it is at least playable i know that's not like high praise or anything but just dump all your points into pistols your first run and thank us later the game only takes about 13 hours to finish and depending on your play style it can even be a lot less still it doesn't feel incredibly short it is a very fast paced game and finally very last it's chrono trigger now this one's a little longer than most of the games on this list clocking in at about 15 to 17 hours for a casual playthrough but we have to mention it it's probably the most famous short rpg of all time for good reasons there's not a lot that hasn't already been said about this game it's a 1995 snes rpg created by square it's probably one of the most popular and highly reviewed rpgs of all time and on top of that it's fairly short for many that is why it's so good instead of being this massive sprawling game with a lot of repetition like many rpgs from its day this game was fast paced and constantly mixing things up you're never in one place for too long like this time spanning adventure is always carting you off to some new time and place before things get stale it's the game's pacing that makes it so unique especially for when it came out it's also got amazing music simple fun gameplay it's not exactly modern but in my opinion and a lot of others opinions it still holds up and it's not too hard to find just do not play the playstation 1 version the load times absolutely just end it it is not fun anymore what's your favorite short rpg is it on this list is it another one leave us a comment let us know what you think if you like this video click like if you're not subscribed now's a great time to do so we upload brand new videos every day of this week and any other week so click subscribe and don't forget to enable notifications as always we thank you very much for watching this video i'm falcon you can follow me on twitter falcon hero we'll see you next time right here on game ranks

Channel: gameranx

Views: 239,631

Rating: 4.9281316 out of 5

Keywords: short rpgs, short role playing games, 10 hour role playing games, short story rpgs, short ps4 rpgs, short ps5 rpgs, short pc rpgs, short xbox one rpgs, short nintendo switch rpgs, short xbox series x rpgs, short open world rpgs, short classic rpgs, gameranx, falcon

Id: 9tqTmoEmodg

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021