Nibelheim Flashback

[Slothy]

I've never actually timed it and it's been several years since I attempted to playthrough the game last, but I'm pretty sure it was more than an hour. And even an hour is too long. And if it is actually an hour at most then that means it felt a lot longer than that to me on subsequent playthroughs and that really just makes my criticism of it more damning, not less.

Hmm, you're right. I just checked an LP on Youtube and it's about 40 minutes minimum. But I'm not sure how anyone can defend forcing a player to sit through 40 minutes of story before they get to play the game again. It's a video game, not a TV show. If they'd interspersed the sequence with some actual gameplay it wouldn't even be a problem. But they didn't. There's nothing that happens during that whole segment that you as a player need to do. It really does just decide to stop being a game for 40+ minutes. I find that unacceptable.

EDIT/PS: I also really wasn't trying to just be a dick or exaggerate about the length of this sequence to make a point. I honestly remembered it being/feeling a lot longer than 40+ minutes. I'm legitimately surprised it isn't longer, even if I do think it's still too long.