Games

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

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

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

I've avoided this thread for a bit because I assumed there'd be a bunch of dick jokes. I was pleasantly surprised with a bunch of thoughtful and awesome comments. Fucking love the nerdiness of this community.

To answer the question - there's a number of them, but i think the first one for me was Fable: The Lost Chapters. It added a ton of new content on top of the base game, plus there were a good amount of extra side quests, challenges, puzzles, collectibles, etc, that I got so much beautiful and memorable gameplay from it.

It does feel like games nowadays are made to appeal to the masses and/or pump out a lot of games as quickly as possible in order to generate as much money as possible. Fortunately indie game studios and devs still exist for people that are looking for a little more substance. Shout out to the Indie Stone for Project Zomboid and their continued efforts to add more awesome features to their 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 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.

Celeste. I was not expecting the core and farewell

Biggest surprise for length was Dragon Quest VII, the PSX version. Started playing it close to release, dropped it several times and finally finished it years later.

I'd played multiple games in the series before and I think the longest one topped out at 40 hours, so I really was not expecting a 100+ hour marathon like that was (although the very, very long prologue should probably have served as a warning).

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.

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.

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.

XCom2 the content just DOES NOT END.

And MGS Peacewalker. How they cramed so much stuff unto the tiny PSP disk is beyond me. The list of unlockables is insane.

I remember being surprised by Lufia 2 rise of the sinistrals. It was my first RPG other than a Zelda type game as a kid.

Duck Detective. Charming game, but quite short.

Deus Ex. I always forget how much stuff happens in the plot... in part because there is always some secret bullshit you never saw on any previous playthrough.

There's a secret base under Hell's Kitchen. No, not that one. There's another one.