Games that start slow

[SkyKnight03]

Games that have a long prologue or intro sequence before really taking off?

Persona 4 takes several hours for anything to happen. Unfortunately I put it down and gave up the first time. I tried again the next year and it became one of my favorite games ever.

Dragon Quest 7 takes a while too. They trimmed it down on the 3DS version.

 

[Seastar]

What first came to mind reading the title for me is Earthbound. I love this game, but the grinding at the beginning is really annoying before Ness learns a healing ability.
But after reading the post, I will say there's definitely interesting story happening already at the beginning.

 

[.: Meri :.]

Ohh right of the top of my head, there's Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon—I really enjoyed it and wound up playing until 100% completion (even if I don't think the game quite reached its full potential), but oh my god if I'm remembering correctly it takes like... six hours or so of solid playtime for the story to actually get going. And for those first six hours, you're pretty much stuck as an elementary school student basically LOL. I didn't think the early game was bad personally, but can I see how it lost a lot of people early on.

I feel like a lot of farming sims like the Rune Factory games and Stardew Valley can be pretty slow to start with too. Before you start unlocking features and things to do and gain more stamina/ways to refuel it, it's easy to wind up with little to nothing left you can do long before the in-game day is over. At least you can usually sleep whenever to skip straight to the next day!

 

[LambdaDelta]

the metal gear solid games are like the epitome if this lmao

 

[Sharksheep]

Stardew, Portia, Sandrock, Coral Island
Basically any game where the objective is to grow your farm or the town since it takes a while to unlock everything and to have stable income to do all the other fun stuff like fighting and hangouts.

 

[Kevinnn]

every gacha game starts off slow for me or just uninteresting

 

[IonicKarma]

Definitely all the Persona games start super slow, its a real slog at times.

Final Fantasy 14 as well, and really any MMO for that fact

 

[Midoriya]

It's gacha, but Wuthering Wave's story felt very slow at the start, and then it really picked up once I got further into it.

 

[Yanrima~]

Animal Crossing definitely had the slowest start in the game. As it relies on the player doing these things in the game daily. Doesn't help when you want to unlock some things you want on the get-go in all Animal Crossing games.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword quickly came to mind. A lot goes down in terms of story before you reach the first dungeon in each game, but as long as I'm being told and, more importantly, being shown a story and characters I care about, then I don't mind the slow start.

I'm one of the very few people who genuinely enjoys Pokémon Sun/Moon just for that reason. Also, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon takes a whiiiiiiile to get going but hey, it has cute interactions and dialogue at the beginning, so I can forgive it. Long-term is when the game starts to suffer, though. Slow but strong beginning, weakish middle part, but somewhat strong again at the end.

Stardew Valley, imo, is at its best in the beginning when everything is overwhelming, but once you complete either the Community Center or Joja story paths and you become the most OP farmer ever, max stats, max farm and whatnot..... Yeah I still continue playing and enjoying my current farm life, but I find myself just wanting to start all over again more often than anything else.

 

[-Blue-]

Dragon Quest 7 takes a while too. They trimmed it down on the 3DS version.

lol that's the first game I thought about when I read the topic title. Going through that weird underground dungeon took like 2 hours or something to start the game. So I got it for the 3ds and was prepared for it to take forever again and I was blindsided by how quick it was.

 

[Squidward]

The first planet (Taris?) in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where you're not even a jedi yet. Not sure if it counts but it felt like ages.

 

[Corrie]

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon was so slow, I just couldn't deal with it. Plus being in preschool just was not relatable in the slightest.

I know I probably missed out on a good game, considering the praises I've heard about it, but it was just too long and not worth it to me. Rather play other things with my limited amount of free time.

 

[Rainy.Nights]

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon was so slow, I just couldn't deal with it. Plus being in preschool just was not relatable in the slightest.

It has a pretty basic start and does feel handholdy for awhile but the story gets much more serious and interesting. Also there is a huge amount of content with quests and dungeons to do for a very large number of pokemon. I strongly recommend it if you do find the time, but it is a big RPG.

Another "it gets better" game I've played is The Hundred Line Last Defense Academy. It takes like 40 hours to get through a 100 ingame day prologue before the real game begins. And if you want to go for all 100 endings that could take like 200 hours. Has an interesting story overall, especially on the more serious routes, but you have to really enjoy reading.

 

[Curry]

The first planet (Taris?) in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where you're not even a jedi yet. Not sure if it counts but it felt like ages.

I second this. I still liked Taris fine, but definitely slower than the other planets and it does feel like forever. It does introduce you to characters like Mission though which is a nice thing.

 

[-Raven-]

i don't know if this counts because it still has some cool flashy sequences but the beginning of psychonauts 2 (particularly until you reach helmut and compton's brains) is absolutely not its strong suit and any time i play that game i hate how the voiceovers keep nagging you to go in the right direction for basically the first half of the game. i also hate how much other characters bully raz for that stretch of the game and how his reactions are so meek compared to the first game. i love psychonauts 2 and i still enjoyed a lot of the start of it, but i definitely compartmentalize some parts of it that do not gel for me. it's less that part of the game is bad, because frankly it's still better than a lot of games, and more that it's a dinstinctly low point of an excellent game

this is a weird answer but to be honest i don't think that spyro 2 reaches the really good levels until you get to autumn plains. not fond of a lot of the levels from the first homeworld, hate how swim is locked away for two levels despite being essential in one of the first levels and the first hub- it leaves a distinctly "correct" choice for first level (colossus), and i actually like that level- but hate idol springs, so it's part of what drags the beginning of the game down for me, dreading and knowing that i will always follow that sequence

i'm replying more with quality / low points and it feels bad. most games with a "slow" intro or stretch to me are like jrpgs, and it's a massive reason that i don't play that genre

you can also argue fighting games and mobas are like this due to skill curve yeah, but it's still instant gameplay for fighting games at least- kind of a murky example, but if you've ever gotten through a game you just need to learn to love it's like that. monster hunter falls in that category too, it's so good once it clicks but you need to tough it out

 

[toxapex]

In a literal sense, have yall played the Road Trip mode in Kirby Air Riders? It starts out sooooo sluggish until you're a world or two in and can start stacking some upgrades. Until then it feels like- actually wait a sec lemme grab the gif