What is the worst padding you’ve ever seen in a game?

[Nameless]

A Realm Reborn for sure, which is a shame because there's a solid Final Fantasy game baked into 30-40 of those 120 some odd hours.

Vanilla Destiny somehow stretched a weekend's worth of content out into a booming MMO-lite. As frustrating as the lack of things to see & do was in those early days, it was the only thing I played for a month. Looking back it's sorta impressive they pulled it off.

 

[Zukuu]

It's 100% Wind Waker with he most blatant arbitrary thing at the end with. There is no denying that.

 

[Jarmel]

FFVIIR
this is how it feels to me

edit: I really like FFVII R for what it is peeps... no disrespect... It just feels like square put 160% when they could have done 115% and no one would have complained.

if we're talking about just general filler... I've felt the xenoblade games hava a lot of fluff in the sidequests... and also FFXV... I feel like it's a modern game problem

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This is 100% accurate. I can think of so many sequences in the game that are just used to pad out the run time.

 

[Rai_11]

Recently replayed Shenmue.

It is THE worst. I'll forgive them for being ahead of games at the time with so many people to talk to.

But I cannot forgive staring at my watch to make time pass faster since nothing else to do but wait for next event. Like there is no wait to fast forward at all. What's even worse, if you have to wait for an event for the next day, the game refuses to let you go to sleep until it is 8pm. Sometimes I'll be waiting there for like 20 minutes to do that.

Also, when you get to the docks and have to ride the forklift. First time was fine. Even second time was ok. But you literally do the same thing like 4 or 5 times and takes so much tedious time. Oh and the worst was the race every morning, with no option to bypass it.

 

[Deleted member 31333]

Botw, a billion korok seeds, and likeof the 120 shrines, 30 combat shrines.

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Not sure if serious but those are all pretty much optional.

 

[Black Chamber]

I tend to think folks who enjoyed the earlier games mostly outgrew Kojima a little. I think disliking the game is a valid opinion, it is certainly extensively under-baked in a variety of ways- I still thought it was fun as hell though, is all.

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The first handful of missions - like rescuing Kaz were brilliant and felt amazing to play; as were the myriad of ways you could tackle a mission or a given situation.

Hiwever, the Africa map was a tremendous disappointment. The mansion area in the only real "jungle" on the map was the only highlight for me. The boss battles were lackluster as well.

 

[MaverickHunterAsh]

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team -- a wonderful game that should've ended 20 or so hours earlier than it did. Those dream dungeons just go on... and on... and on... and on...

 

[ZeroX]

Years later and people still don't realize Bravely Default's padding/"second half" is extremely quick. Almost all of the content is optional and is unnecessary, it just exists for flavor. Just can just go straight to the crystals and you can finish it in under two hours. There's more than two hours of padding in plenty of other (hell most) JRPGs.

 

[Lightjolly]

Windwaker triforce piece search

Hollow Knight Dream essence search

 

[Tavernade]

As others have said, Mafia 3's lack of fast travel OR CHECKPOINTS adds a dozen or so hours to the game. I enjoyed it but I was eventually just desperate for it to be over. Nearly every mission drops you back off at a base a good bit away.

 

[SkywardBeam]

Everybody mentioning Skyward Sword is correct but all 3D Zelda games except BOTW suffer from padding to a ludicrous degree. The pacing is just abysmal.

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That's the first time I ever hear someone (indirectly) complain about padding in Ocarina of Time. I could probably understand this complaint concerning Majora's Mask (if one considers the core mechanic of this game "padding"), but OoT? It's basically a textbook example of how to do pacing right.

 

[Deleted member 49535]

You could literally remove half of Persona 5 and nothing of value would be lost.

Strange to see FF7F mentions when Persona 5 exists.

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Exactly. I wish Persona 5 was as dense as FFVIIR.

 

[matrix-cat]

The Polterkitty and the trip back to the basement in Luigi's Mansion 3. That game would have been a meaty, enjoyable experience if you just went from floor to floor, but it has three very blatant, tedious instances where, just when you think you're going to move on and see what the next fantastic level looks like... you're instead forced to backtrack through one, two or three levels you've already finished hunting down this purple ghost cat. Follow a trail of pawprints, find the thing, do the same fight over and over again. It couldn't be more blatant padding, and it bogs the whole game down.

 

[SirKai]

About 40% of Nioh 1 and Nioh 2, where you're traipsing through complicated maze like levels for the second half of each game, still fighting the same repeated enemy types constantly. Nioh 1 was already too long and repetitive at 35 hours long, but Nioh 2 had the gall to be almost twice as long (my playthrough took 65 hours) for reasons I will never understand. Not only that, but near the end of each game they make you do a gauntlet of refighting 4 or 5 bosses from earlier in the game, all one after another, within the same mission. Completely unnecessary and ridiculous.

 

[Tigerfog]

Most Tales games by the Symphonia team (Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia) have wayyy to much padding, especially when compared to the games from team Destiny (Destiny Remake, Destiny 2, Rebirth, Hearts, Graces).

 

[AmirMoosavi]

Shenmue III felt like 99% padding with five minutes of narratively significant content awkwardly shoehorned into cutscenes in the last hour of the game.

Spoiler

The formula between the two towns, with the money gates and fighting a heavy -> getting defeated -> fighting the same heavy cycle got really tiresome. Heck, with the second heavy you get defeated by him TWICE. Why???

First money gate is to learn a move called Body Check. Second money gate is to learn a move that looks almost identical called Reverse Body Check. Can't make this shit up.

I can't bring myself to replay it, even with the newly added DLC.

Recently replayed Shenmue.

It is THE worst. I'll forgive them for being ahead of games at the time with so many people to talk to.

But I cannot forgive staring at my watch to make time pass faster since nothing else to do but wait for next event. Like there is no wait to fast forward at all. What's even worse, if you have to wait for an event for the next day, the game refuses to let you go to sleep until it is 8pm. Sometimes I'll be waiting there for like 20 minutes to do that.

Also, when you get to the docks and have to ride the forklift. First time was fine. Even second time was ok. But you literally do the same thing like 4 or 5 times and takes so much tedious time. Oh and the worst was the race every morning, with no option to bypass it.

Click to shrink...

The first Shenmue is pretty damn slow but at least you get cutscenes sprinkled throughout that reveal more of the general plot. In III you have nothing revelatory regarding the main storyline until the end, and even that is poorly handled.

Shenmue II is a fucking masterpiece and I can't think of any filler. Even the book carrying. And it has a time skip function as well.

 

[yurr]

They reworked this section in the Wii U remaster (which I'm sure will eventually come to Switch) just fyi 😊

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I know but it's wildly unnecessary. Like you can tell another dungeon was supposed to be there but I think Nintendo was rushing to repeat with OoT. I could play it but I guarantee I would stop playing right at that point.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

-Persona5R goes too long, has too much fluff stuff to do, and should be quality over quantity.
-FF7R drags out its "dungeons" way too long and doesn't do enough with their mechanics to justify how long they take. And sorry I don't care to go back through a place that already overstayed its welcome just to fight the same boss again.
-Bravely Default pads the hell out of the ending. I get what they were going for but it could have been done in a tenth of the time versus dragging it out.

Years later and people still don't realize Bravely Default's padding/"second half" is extremely quick. Almost all of the content is optional and is unnecessary, it just exists for flavor. Just can just go straight to the crystals and you can finish it in under two hours. There's more than two hours of padding in plenty of other (hell most) JRPGs.

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I thought to get the "real" ending you had to go through all of those?

 

[ZeroX]

I thought to get the "real" ending you had to go through all of those?

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No you don't have to do anything other than the crystal fights in those chapters. The asterisk holders are completely optional. It is very quick to do.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

No you don't have to do anything other than the crystal fights in those chapters. The asterisk holders are completely optional. It is very quick to do.

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My whole life is a lie. Dammit Airy.

 

[Nameless]

Oh yeah, shit, Nier Automata Route B. What the shit was that? The end portion was interesting, and Route C was insane, but honestly the game never fully recovered from that slog.

 

[Baphomet]

Botw, a billion korok seeds, and likeof the 120 shrines, 30 combat shrines.

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All that is optional though, BOTW pretty much has no padding. I'll say a weird one : SOTN, inverted castle (its not the worst but just lazy design in my opinion).

 

[Rae]

P5

The latter half of the palaces were pretty terrible ways to spend time there. In fact every time I think about P5:R I recall how much I disliked the later places. I never completed Memento so...

 

[mute]

MGSV turned me off of open world games and sidequests in general, I'd say that.

 

[zswordsman]

People complaining about FFVIIR don't know what padding means.

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Yeah I'm wondering about this too. It has some extra scenes but it's pretty much just the midgar portion with like 15 side quests and some changed story lines. I feel like it's still a tight and close experience for current gen games.

Definitely not the fluff that gets put in some RPGs these days.

P5 was a tad bit too long near the end for no reason.

 

[Rai_11]

Shenmue III felt like 99% padding with five minutes of narratively significant content awkwardly shoehorned into cutscenes in the last hour of the game.

Spoiler

The formula between the two towns, with the money gates and fighting a heavy -> getting defeated -> fighting the same heavy cycle got really tiresome. Heck, with the second heavy you get defeated by him TWICE. Why???

First money gate is to learn a move called Body Check. Second money gate is to learn a move that looks almost identical called Reverse Body Check. Can't make this shit up.

I can't bring myself to replay it, even with the newly added DLC.



The first Shenmue is pretty damn slow but at least you get cutscenes sprinkled throughout that reveal more of the general plot. In III you have nothing revelatory regarding the main storyline until the end, and even that is poorly handled.

Shenmue II is a fucking masterpiece and I can't think of any filler. Even the book carrying. And it has a time skip function as well.

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I dunno man. Play Shenmue the first one again. It's all good until you get to the part time job section. That's when the staring at the watch game begins and the repetitive fork lift. I don't know what compelled them to FORCE. The race at the beginning of the day on you EVERY DAY (well I know it was... To pad it).

 

[ObbyDent]

Nier: Automata and FFVII: Remake are imo some of the worst examples of not respecting your time this generation

 

[Firebrand]

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros was the first one that came to mind. Liked it quite a bit overall but yeah, it could have been a lot shorter.

 

[DSN2K]

Wind wakers Tri force piece hunt.....

 

[Doggg]

Recently replayed Shenmue.

It is THE worst. I'll forgive them for being ahead of games at the time with so many people to talk to.

But I cannot forgive staring at my watch to make time pass faster since nothing else to do but wait for next event. Like there is no wait to fast forward at all. What's even worse, if you have to wait for an event for the next day, the game refuses to let you go to sleep until it is 8pm. Sometimes I'll be waiting there for like 20 minutes to do that.

Also, when you get to the docks and have to ride the forklift. First time was fine. Even second time was ok. But you literally do the same thing like 4 or 5 times and takes so much tedious time. Oh and the worst was the race every morning, with no option to bypass it.

Click to shrink...

If I recall correctly, time doesn't even pass when you're playing arcade games. Like, WTF??

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Nier Automata ending B

My whole life is a lie. Dammit Airy.

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Awaken them crystals.
You can do it real quicklike.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Odin Sphere is 2 campaigns way too long.

should have kept Gwendolyn, Mercedes and Velvet

 

[Deleted member 16657]

Metal Gear Solid V, Assassin's Creed Unity and Mario Odyssey.

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MGSV is genuinely this

 

[darkslayer101]

As much as I'm enjoying FF7R, the padding is probably the worst I have experienced. The amount of forced walking sections is insane. Its not like the added content that is the issue, but just the forced cross the narrow path every 5 seconds after a combat encounter, rinse/repeat is extremely jarring

 

[AmirMoosavi]

I dunno man. Play Shenmue the first one again. It's all good until you get to the part time job section. That's when the staring at the watch game begins and the repetitive fork lift. I don't know what compelled them to FORCE. The race at the beginning of the day on you EVERY DAY (well I know it was... To pad it).

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True, but I loved all the forklift stuff in the first game :P Felt bad that Suzuki felt pressured by fans to include it in the third game though at the expense of new stuff he really wanted to include.

If I recall correctly, time doesn't even pass when you're playing arcade games. Like, WTF??

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It does pass.

 

[Cloud-Strife]

Botw, a billion korok seeds, and likeof the 120 shrines, 30 combat shrines.

Click to shrink...

This.. the game almost has no story so all you do is run and repeat shrines or find seeds for 100 hours. I don't have high hopes for BOTW 2.

 

[Doggg]

True, but I loved all the forklift stuff in the first game :P Felt bad that Suzuki felt pressured by fans to include it in the third game though at the expense of new stuff he really wanted to include.



It does pass.

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Ok. All I remember is trying to pass the time playing arcade games, and even then it felt like it was taking way too long for anything to happen.

 

[ClickyCal']

This.. the game almost has no story so all you do is run and repeat shrines or find seeds for 100 hours. I don't have high hopes for BOTW 2.

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The trailer gives me a little hope. I mean the game has to take place following botw now, so there has to be more story. I'm at least giving it a chance before just totally forgetting it.

 

[MarvelousIntent]

This.. the game almost has no story so all you do is run and repeat shrines or find seeds for 100 hours. I don't have high hopes for BOTW 2.

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But... but that isn't padding. Literally none of that prevents you from taking on Ganon. The only thing you can call padding in BOTW is the Gret Plateau.

 

[Deleted member 37739]

Arkham Knight had a lot of repeat side quests that stuck out badly because of how poorly contextualised they were. Some were so throwaway/similar too - ManBat, I'm looking at you. Worst offender that comes to mind but others have posted better.

 

[cairngorm]

FFVIIR
this is how it feels to me

edit: I really like FFVII R for what it is peeps... no disrespect... It just feels like square put 160% when they could have done 115% and no one would have complained.

if we're talking about just general filler... I've felt the xenoblade games hava a lot of fluff in the sidequests... and also FFXV... I feel like it's a modern game problem

Click to shrink...

Gotta agree with this as good as the game is in other areas

 

[Cloud-Strife]

The trailer gives me a little hope. I mean the game has to take place following botw now, so there has to be more story. I'm at least giving it a chance before just totally forgetting it.

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My biggest fear is that they could use the same map we had on BOTW and just expand it a little.

 

[meataem]

Having to chase the dumb cat not once, but twice for no other reason than to artificially extend the game time was the lowest point in Luigi's Mansion 3. Being forced to go back down to the crappy basement for a fetch then escort quest (from the same game no less) is a close second.

 

[Hogendaz85]

I haven't beaten FF VIIR but in it's defense it's like a ~3 hour section in the original(Midgar)...them getting it to ~30 was going to be padded to the max.

Bravely Default was FUCKING RIDICULOUS!!! repeating the same shit 3 times in a row was nuts!!! Bravely 2nd did this too but not to that much of an extent...Still exited for Bravely Default 2 lol.

Persona 5; loved the game but the last palace and what followed was dragged on for too long,

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Midgar was around 10-12 hours of stuff back when I first played it. Now it'd be about 4-6? I dunno but I do kind of wish they didn't put side quests or extra stuff in it and just follow the story maybe they could have gotten this release to the end of disc 1

 

[Viale]

Arkham Knight Riddler boss fight. You solve all the side mission challenges then the boss fight starts. He takes like one hit and leaves and goes "haha! I won't ACTUALLY fight you until you find all my trophies!" Go fuck yourself, Riddler. Fight me.


I wouldn't call FF7 filler heavy. The same sections are there, they're just much longer than they were originally (like the junkyard and the 2nd reactor being a couple of screens as opposed to half hour to an hour long actual levels). There are side missions sure but you could skip most of those if you really needed to. If the game was the exact same length there would be so many more complaints.

Besides, the added content does add important stuff so it's not like it's not enjoyable. What can anyone tell me about Biggs from the original FF7?

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Spoiler: Ff7 whole

There are certainly aspects that were added that I don't consider filler, but train graveyard and hojo new dungeon certainly felt like padding while going through them. Going back to the sewers did as well, but I could see that plot point being more relevant in later entries with corneo.

Like, certainly not all of the new stuff is filler, but there is also certainly a bit more padding than I think this remake should have, and I assume it's there just to ensure that an "hour quota" is reached to make it "full game length". If the filler focused on really just expanding the characters, I'd have been perfectly fine with it as I loved the additions with Biggs, wedge, and Jessie

Midgar was around 10-12 hours of stuff back when I first played it. Now it'd be about 4-6? I dunno but I do kind of wish they didn't put side quests or extra stuff in it and just follow the story maybe they could have gotten this release to the end of disc 1

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I'm impressed you got 10-12 out of it. I did about everything I could there(I think?) and still got to only 6-7.

 

[Deleted member 59109]

That's the first time I ever hear someone (indirectly) complain about padding in Ocarina of Time. I could probably understand this complaint concerning Majora's Mask (if one considers the core mechanic of this game "padding"), but OoT? It's basically a textbook example of how to do pacing right.

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Yeah, OoT has pretty good pacing imo. There isn't really any "padding" I can think of, it throws you right into things with the first dungeon in the first like 20 minutes of the game after getting a sword/shield. Compare it to TP where it literally took me over two hours to reach the first dungeon, all of that time doing extremely boring stuff, in addition to multiple bland/tedious twilight sections, or SS where the intro drags for a while and you have to deal with three Imprisoned fights and revisiting locations.

 

[ApeEscaper]

Uncharted 4 when walking with Sam talking walking climbing oh man what a slog bored me to death and it kept going on and on! Doesn't end. Mainly talking about midway through the game when they're adults

 

[Deleted member 59109]

But... but that isn't padding. Literally none of that prevents you from taking on Ganon. The only thing you can call padding in BOTW is the Gret Plateau.

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BotW doesn't have padding but it has other issues which are just as bad in their own ways

 

[Chopchop]

Jet Force Gemini telling you to replay the entire game and collect all tribals, which originally looked like a totally optional thing, to access the last area of the game.

Zelda SS and its endless instances of "wait, before you do this, I have this task for you..." It's a fantastic 30 hour game that got padded to like 60 hours.

 

[RROCKMAN]

Anything that has a hard lock based on experience or levels

Xenoblade 2 was annoying as hell for its blade checks and I refuse to touch Ass Creed after seeing they lock you off from the main story of your level isn't up to what the dev wants in in the newer entries.