History Main / FakeLongevity

* Some of the hardest levels in ''VideoGame/ChipsChallenge'' are also among the most prolonged, mostly due to the nearly unlimited amount of block pushing.

* The London Life bonus game in ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheLastSpecter'' boasts over 100 hours of gameplay. However, most of those hours will be spent grinding cash for the ridiculously priced Golden Gloves. They cost 99,999,999 wealth.

* The ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' [[GameMod ROM hack]] ''SMW Lost Map'' has a somewhat ridiculous example where instead of remaking just one level from the original ''Super Mario Bros'', the creator makes players [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-lfWpf-h94 beat all eight worlds of the original game in a row with no checkpoints, as if it was just one massive level.]]

** The subway tunnels are a necessity due to the game's engine. Having all of the game's overworld as a single unbroken cell would go beyond the limits of the 360's hardware (and probably a good number of users on PC). The subway tunnels allow for Washington DC to be split into multiple map cells with rubble blocking the edges, which are then connected via the subways, which are also separate cells. ''Oblivion'' didn't have this luxury, and had obnoxious portions of dynamic loading.

* To summarize the endgame of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' (both DS and NES version):
** Last Inn, Long Dungeon, Last Save Point, Long Dungeon, Long Cutscene, Difficult Boss, Long Dungeon with 4 bosses, Difficult Final Boss. Die at the final boss and you've wasted 3-4 hours! (you cannot backtrack to the savepoint any time after the first boss in the sequence). It's even worse when you actually ''get'' to the final boss and discover it has ''one'' attack: Flare Wave (Particle Beam in the remake), which does 2000+ damage to all your characters ''every round''. If you're level 50 (which [[LevelGrinding takes some time]]), that's more than ''half'' your max HP.

** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed'' was probably the strongest example, with the flag collection and Templar killing side quests/achievements. 420 small flags spread across the game, which are not always easy to see, let alone reach. They do not appear on any in-game maps, and there's no player-accessible method of keeping track of which ones have been obtained. Even using a guide, if the player has collected any flags and hasn't kept careful track of where they were, the player must revisit ''every'' location just to make sure. In addition, 60 Templar Knights are also spread out and hidden around.

** Starting with the one the internet is fixated on, there's filling out the bestiary. This can actually be fairly fun at times, if you have the fragment skills that manipulate encounter rate and chances of getting rare encounters, as you'll come across some interesting enemies you might have missed otherwise, and it gives a sense of purpose to the grinding you'd be doing to take on the {{bonus boss}}es. But then there's all the time you'll spend wiping out ludicrously out-levelled enemies waiting for a rare one to spawn. Or having to go through the already annoying final dungeon ''twice''.

* The final boss of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'' has a predictable and repetitive pattern of easy-to-avoid attacks. Unfortunately, you can only hurt him during a small time window at one point in the pattern. And he has four health bars.

** The first few games have loads and loads of grinding (1 has been mathematically shown to be unwinnable under any remotely normal conditions[[note]]"the enemy misses every attack, always uses an attack that can miss and you always hit for max damage" makes it possible much lower, but that's only even remotely viable for a ToolAssistedSpeedRun[[/note]] until level 17, as the final boss does more damage than you can heal until then). All of them feature hordes of boring random battles that are usually very easy to beat, but take a long time to actually fight (and 8 adds slow and unskippable animations into the mix), endless BigLippedAlligatorMoment style fetch quests, which involve randomly running around trying to find the person you need to talk to (often several), and then figuring out the bizarre and illogical places you need to use Quest items. Averted with many of the later ones, where a well-rounded party/skillset won't need to grind as much with good use of buffs and debuffs.

* ''VideoGame/SolCresta''[='=]s Dramatic Mode is about twice as long as Arcade Mode, in order to fit in a fully-voice-acted narrative. It accomplishes this by adding sections where there are only point rings and harmless ground targets, in an attempt to give the player something to do during dialogue-heavy sections but without leaving them with absolutely nothing to do in the meantime.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'', each character can be selected for any stage of any playthrough, and you only have to defeat the final boss with one character to see the ending. This is a marked change from (and an improvement on) the game it's adapted from, ''Doki Doki Panic'', where each character's progress is tracked separately and all four characters have to defeat the final boss for the credits to roll, meaning you have to beat the entire game ''four times''. Since it's a disk-based game, that's not taking into account the frequent disk flipping and loading times going on in-between, dragging things out even longer. Fortunately, Warp Zones are allowed.

* Time-gating: Artificially controlling the pace at which players progress by enforcing restrictions on meaningful progress to obscure the lack of game content.

* Most of Rareware's games are like this. In the ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' series, you have to find all of the Jiggies, Jinjos, etc. for 100% completion.

** The sequel game, ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', is just as bad, if not worse than the original. 400 different collectibles to be gathered with Batman alone, including physical Riddler Trophies to find, riddles/puzzles to solve, and combat challenges to complete. Without having all 400, you can't complete one of the bigger sidequests in the game. Some of these are genuinely engaging and fun to hunt down or do, but it can be argued that there's a great deal of tedious filler involved as well.
*** There are also the balloons and security cameras that can be destroyed. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that you can get Riddler information on your map by interrogating specially marked green-hued thugs for Riddle information, and TYGAR security terminals give map information on where the cameras are.

* The original ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' suffered from this: In order to enter into ranking fights with opposing assassins, you have to first perform side jobs and miscellaneous assassination requests to work up the cash needed to enter the fights. It didn't help that most of these side quests were quite tedious. Thankfully, this was improved in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'', where you didn't need to pay to partake in ranking fights.
* You had to collect a certain number of "hero points" in between chapters of the second ''[[VideoGame/{{Spider Man 2}} Spider Man: the Movie]]'' game. This translates to a ''lot'' of purse- and balloon-retrieval. In ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan2005'', as Venom, there's a kid holding a balloon in his tutorial; [[TakeThat you're supposed to absorb the kid's life]].

->''"Beat the game twice. I'll show ''you'' twice! After all that hard work, who'd want to do that shit again? It's like building a house and right after you're finished, you tear it down just to build it one more time. 'Oh yeah, we could have made twelve stages, but instead, let's just make six and make people have to play the game twice'."''

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'' have a lot of it in regards to OneHundredPercentCompletion. Even if you're only going for the Pieces of Heart to complete your life meter, you have to contend with two in each game that are {{Random Drop}}s, requiring a lot of either running around killing enemies for more chances or SaveScumming. Getting all the rings, however, is the real issue. Not only are there more {{Random Drops}}, including randomly-dropped exclusive prizes for some fairly difficult minigames, but there are also a couple of rings that are exclusive to playing the games in each order, meaning that even if you collect everything possible you still need to play through each game twice to collect everything.

** The 2012 ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted'' takes this a step further with the ''cars'' strewn about the city as well, with events that are associated to the cars themselves. Unfortunately there aren't enough events for a truly diverse pool of events, so completionists will replay the same collection of events up to six times or more on their way to 100%. Despite introducing brand new events, DLC events fall suspect to this as well with the cars they are introduced with.

* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonTheTaleOfTwoTowns'' annoyed long-time players of the ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' series by limiting farm upgrades to once a month, then making it so that storyline requests (like clearing the tunnel between the titular towns) take priority. Ditto for tools. It can take more than three in-game years to upgrade your tools and farm. Did we mention there are two farms - each of which has equipment the other doesn't? And you can only work on one of those farms at a time? OneHundredPercentCompletion can upwards of eight in-game years (In most other HM games, this would take five at the most).

* ''VideoGame/TheTwentyFifthWard'' has multiple instances of this, fitting Creator/{{Suda51}}'s love of [[TrollingCreator screwing with the player]]. It ultimately comes to a head in [[spoiler: "#07: black out", the games final chapter. It has a LastSecondEndingChoice between ''100 different endings'', with the final, true ending locked behind viewing every single one. Since saving and loading is disabled in this chapter, you need to go through "#07: black out" in its entirety at least a hundred times for that last ending, which will take at least '''''twelve hours''''' to go through.]]

** In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', your party will automatically win and gain EXP and money from enemies that they can realistically defeat just by breathing on them. Such monsters will also run away from the party, and sneaking up on them from behind when they do this makes it ''even easier'' to get an auto-win. However, by exploiting this fact and grinding in areas where the enemies run from you, it breaks the game wide open. That's why...

* ''[[VideoGame/FiftyKRacewalker 50K Racewalker]]'' takes this UpToEleven. Due to the slow pace of the player character, it can take at least twenty hours to finish one game.

** Blade [[Main/SkillTree affinity charts]] have many nodes of the TwentyBearAsses or MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest variety. However, most of those [[AvertedTrope can be essentially skipped over]] by sending characters off on merc missions, meaning most end up being unnecessary, even for 100% completion.

* The original ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' suffered from this: In order to enter into ranking fights with opposing assassins, you have to first perform side jobs and miscellaneous assassination requests to work up the cash needed to enter the fights. It didn't help that most of these side quests were quite tedious. Thankfully, this was improved in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'', where you didn't need to pay to partake in ranking fights.

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVI'' has a very mild form of this. At the beginning of the game, you can spend a coin at the Pawn Shoppe on one of four items, and you can always trade in the item you've chosen for one of the other three items. Naturally, throughout the game you'll have to use all four of them, necessitating some walking back and forth to the Pawn Shoppe.

* Want the full gamerscore from the 2011 reboot of ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 Mortal Kombat]]''? Among other things, you need to have played each character -- of which there are 27 without DLC -- for 24 hours in total. Two of them can only be unlocked by playing through the campaign, which takes another couple of hours.
* ''[[VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters The King of Fighters XIII]]'' gives you two options to unlock all the available colors for customization: use each playable character 40 times -- and there are over 30 characters -- or pay for a unlock key. Other feats, as unlocking the gallery and two additional playable characters, also have requirements as obnoxious as that one, and of course can be unlocked by purchasing a DLC unlock key.
** ''KOF: Maximum Impact 2'' is another offender. Each character has two costumes with eight color palettes for each of them, but only the first four are unlocked for each costume. Unlocking the other four on each costume (eight in total) requires you to beat any of the 1P modes with every character. While there are plenty of modes to go around (most of them packed inside Challenge Mode), there are also plenty of characters to do this with: you start with 24 and unlock 14 more along the way, for a total of 38. And the requirements are the same for the secret characters too. You only unlock one color at a time, and only for the costume you choose each time, and by the way, grinding them in Mission Mode is useless: you won't unlock anything by completing a mission you already completed with another character.
* Getting everything in the story mode of the first [[VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy Dissidia: Final Fantasy]] ultimately grinds down to having to do every scenario (of which there are nineteen of them) about three times each for a majority of them. You have to clear it in the first place to unlock the bonuses, interact with every single thing on each map (fight the battle pieces and take the potions, chests, and ethers), and collect all the prizes on the reel in order to reach 100%. Especially for a player who has already played the game, it turns into a whole lot of busywork, and at times basically mandates overleveling in order to be able to wreck everything the way the game expects you to.
* ''VideoGame/DragonballXenoverse'' 's MMO based structure brings an unfortunate level of RandomNumberGod into the Parallel Quest design. Sometimes you can't trigger an Ultimate Finish even if you fulfill all the requirements for it. Even when you do, it's not a guarantee you'll get that Ultimate Skill or Super Attack you were farming for. Even worse for clothes and Z-Souls, which may also come with certain conditions before you get lucky enough to acquire them. This makes getting HundredPercentCompletion much longer than it needs to be.

* The remake of ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTriad'' not only relies on a checkpoint system, it uses very long platforming segments devoid of combat to pad out the game's short length.
* All games in the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' series feature a search for {{Plot Coupon}}s that open the way for TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, which are accused of only existing to make the game longer. Only the third game made an attempt to shorten the task by putting the coupons along your path as you travel the game normally and not requiring every single one to pass to the final area.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** ''{{VideoGame/Halo 2}}'' implemented a new mechanic for its "Legendary" difficulty setting. While the foes in Legendary are nowhere near invincible (they're just a bit more challenging), {{Creator/Bungie}} decided to give co-op mode a 'status link' between the two players; basically, if one of you dies, the game resets you back to your last continue point. In the past the remaining player could retreat and allow his comrade to respawn back in (if they could make it a fair distance from local enemies without being killed themselves), but this is no longer a viable option. Naturally, this means that any blunders can cause you to replay the same room over and over and over again, made much worse by the new health system.
** After considerable backlash from fans, Bungie restored the old mechanic for ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'''s Legendary difficulty setting. It (and subsequent games) also have fake longevity via FakeDifficulty.
* In ''VideoGame/FarCry2'' , nearly every single mission in the game is set faaaaar from where you actually receive the missions from, amounting to seemingly endless driving (occasionally spiced with gunfights every time you cross through a guard post) in the process. And while there is Instant Travel possible in the form of Bus Stops, these are so few of those in between they don't do much to cut out the filler.

* ''VideoGame/BioShock2'' infamously extended the time it took players to harvest ADAM by asking them to perform a prolonged EscortMission for every single little sister they find in the game. Rescuing/harvesting little sisters (whether you perform to escort mission or not) is literally the only way to upgrade the player's character. And to make matters worse, you are forced to fight a {{Goddamned Boss}} after rescuing the last little sister in every level, in addition to the ones ''guarding'' every little sister.

* ''Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'':
** The game shipped with at least a couple of notorious bits of Fake Longevity. The first is the infamous Tatooine Jawa balloon, which requires at least 30 minutes riding a balloon to get to a couple of stat-increasing items. This 30 minutes does not include the wait time for the balloon to show up at the one location you can board it. The second problem is the orbital station found at many planets. Instead of being able to land directly on the planet, you're forced to stop at the orbital station and run to a shuttle that will actually take you to the surface. This doubles the number of loading screens you have to sit through to reach your destination. Fan outcry has been sufficient enough to get Bioware patch the game so that players can return to their ships directly from the planet surfaces as well as speeder travel on the orbital stations.
** They also had a special spin on the random loot system with assigned drops in the Normal Mode operation (raid) difficulty. The boss would drop a set amount of loot (2 pieces in 8-man) that on top of being randomly decided, also was pre-assigned to a person who could use it. This was supposedly to prevent loot drama in pick-up groups, but the normal setting was a natural part of the learning and gearing process for organized groups too. This meant guilds could have their tank inquisitor get his third loot token for pants in three consecutive weeks that they had nothing to do with but sell to a vendor, while the healing inquisitor was unable to loot it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}:'' Farming bosses in the hope of getting blueprints to craft new Warframes or weapons is a tedious thing not helped by the recalcitrance of the RandomNumberGod. Or you can go BribingYourWayToVictory... and ''that'' doesn't work if you want a [[BraggingRightsReward Primed variant]], which requires taking on special missions in the Void that can only be accessed by either buying keys with real money, or grinding for them.
** Before update 15.13, getting Hydroid's parts involved hunting for special units that would only spawn in one place, then hoping they dropped the resources you needed, then finally fighting Councilor Vay Hek. Thankfully, update 15.13 removed that entirely and now Vay Hek can be accessed any time provided your Mastery Rank is 5 or higher.
** Mesa's parts drop from Mutalist Alad V. In order to kill him, you need to first complete the "Patient Zero" quest (which awards you the blueprint required to build the key), then wait for an Invasion that offers Mutalist Alad V Nav Coordinates to show up. Thrice. Then you can finally fight Alad V, but since every Warframe has three components (Helmet, Chassis and Systems) you need to go through the whole ordeal at least two more times.
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'':
** The un-remastered Cardassian story arc. Untouched since game launch, almost every mission in it is a MarathonLevel with LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading between space and ground maps multiple times per mission, and usually involves a MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest full of GoddamnBats. And then there are missions with the simple goal to interact with a few objects, except there are usually hordes of RespawningEnemies you have to chew through, and you are forced into BackTracking through them most times. All the loot including the mission rewards are little better than ShopFodder. Word has it though that the Cardassian missions will be overhauled with the release of Season 11 in late October 2015.
** Most of the original storyline missions were like this, but have since been remastered and streamlines to be quicker, more interesting and fun to play.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' during 1.0 was notorious for having areas that were copy and pasted everywhere, limiting the player to how much experience points a day they could earn, needing to be certain classes in order to do certain tasks, and other problems. When the game was rebooted for 2.0, the majority of the problems were axed, but the relic quest lines were purposely designed to take as long as possible so that players could get their relics at their own pace without worrying about needing to clear difficult end game content. However, 99% of the relic quests involve having the player playing in old content numerous times to grind for specific items.

* ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' is one of the biggest offenders, if not ''the'' biggest. The game is insanely hard, with a lot of elements that make the game absurdly frustrating and prolonged, but the worst is this: the first time you beat it, you get a fake ending, and you're sent back to level one on a higher difficulty. You're actually forced to beat the game two times ''in one sitting'' to see the real ending, which at that point [[{{AWinnerIsYou}} is likely to feel even less rewarding than the fake one]]. As if that's not enough, pretty much ''the entire series'' has this!

* The earlier ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'' games had ''ridiculous'' amounts of [[LevelGrinding grinding]] for weapon XP or cash to pay for weapon upgrades. This became even more obvious by the addition of game-show "arenas" (sometimes more than one per game!) consisting of destroying wave after wave after wave of the same handful of enemies.
* Most of Rareware's games are like this. In the ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' series, you have to find all of the Jiggies, Jinjos, etc. for 100% completion.
* ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'':
** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'': To greatly stretch out the gameplay time, there is ''loads'' of backtracking necessary to get HundredPercentCompletion. Particularly since many of the collectibles [[CharacterSelectForcing can only be taken by a certain Kong]] and you can only switch Kongs at designated Tag Barrels, so you'll be running back and forth between these barrels ''a lot''.
** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze'': The extra mode (or "Hard" mode) must be completed just to get the remaining concept art.

* ''VideoGame/KemonoHeroes'' takes a cue from ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' by making you complete the game twice in order to reach the FinalBoss. However, some things do change during the second playthrough, such as enemies getting tougher and some stages getting additional hazards, and some boss battles are either different or aren't refought at all.
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime'' had a ''nasty'' case of this for players wanting to go for 100% (or 106%). Each stage has six gems, three for getting wumpa fruit (40%, 60%, and 80%), one for getting all the boxes, one for dying less than three times, and a hidden one. Part-way through the game you unlock the N'Verted stages which are the previous stages but with some gimmick. They also have six gems each. Some levels have you play as another character and has it bleed into a previous level that you also have to complete. The [[TimeTrial Relics]] are back as well, but where ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'' only required the Gold for completion, this game requires Platinum, and you don't get the Crash Dash to help. On top of that there's the Flashback Levels. To access them you need to find a video tape in a level which can only be found if you don't die a single time. Then you gotta do the level itself. And then there's the N'Sanely Perfect Relics, which are gained by beating a level without dying and collecting every box (thankfully it only applies to the normal stages). Fans did not enjoy the insane amount of work and time it took to get everything (when previous games made a lot easier).

* ''VideoGame/{{Gyromancer}}'' has the character return to the mission select screen when he completes an objective for a given stage... after clearing the path that contains more of the map. In this game, 100% completion requires obtaining a sufficiently high score, and your progress is reset back to 0 if you left the stage - requiring you to rebattle monsters that you defeated.
* The browser-based ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' clone ''[[http://www.blockboxgame.com/Blockbox Blockbox]]'' requires you to complete 15 levels of Classic Mode before you can play any of the ''Tetris: The Grand Master''-like modes. But a player who is good enough to survive for long in the TGM modes will have this licked well within a half hour.

* The London Life bonus game in ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheLastSpecter'' boasts over 100 hours of gameplay. However, most of those hours will be spent grinding cash for the ridiculously priced Golden Gloves. They cost 99,999,999 wealth.
* Some of the hardest levels in ''VideoGame/ChipsChallenge'' are also among the most prolonged, mostly due to the nearly unlimited amount of block pushing.

* ''VideoGame/ForzaMotorsport'' pads out 100% completion with its [[AndYourRewardIsClothes Driver Titles and Badges]], which are snippets of text and avatars displayed next to the user's name in game lobbies. Some are easy, such as [[Film/BackToTheFuture reaching 88 miles per hour in a Delorean]], while others are obnoxiously long, such as driving [[GreenAesop 1000 miles in a Toyota Prius]].

* Two of Criterion's racing games are offenders:
** In ''VideoGame/BurnoutParadise'', there is an event located at every traffic light intersection, and completing a certain amount will upgrade your license. However, the upgrade will also reset the events you completed to get there and allow you to play them again to contribute to the next license upgrade. This is great if you find a few events you're really good at and/or enjoy, but the final two licenses have such a high count to acquire that you'll almost certainly replay many events multiple times over the course of the game (getting the final license requires you to complete ''every single event'' once again).
** The 2012 ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted'' takes this a step further with the ''cars'' strewn about the city as well, with events that are associated to the cars themselves. Unfortunately there aren't enough events for a truly diverse pool of events, so completionists will replay the same collection of events up to six times or more on their way to 100%. Despite introducing brand new events, DLC events fall suspect to this as well with the cars they are introduced with.
* ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CrashNitroKart'' took this trope and ran with it. Every track has three modes: Normal Race; CTR/NK Tokens, which require you to collect three tokens on the track while racing other opponents; and Relic Races, which place you alone on the track with a timer counting up and boxes that stop the timer for a certain amount of seconds. However, you only need to win the normal races and race all four bosses to race the final boss... But if you beat him, he then tells you that it didn't count and you now have to go and collect ALL of the Time Relics so you can race him again and actually beat the game. And considering the Time Relic Races can be downright NintendoHard at times, it'll be a while before you manage to beat the game.
** And that's only half of the story! [[DoubleUnlock In order to unlock the final racetrack for Relic Races]] (The Turbo Track in CTR and Hyper Spaceway for CNK) you need to collect all five Gems. How is it that you get the gems, you may ask? Remember those token races? You have to go through what's otherwise a typical race while also collecting obtusely placed letters on the track and then finish in first place. This is oftentimes JUST AS NintendoHard as the Relic Races, as you almost always have to go out of your way to get some letters and then claw your way back up to first in time to finish the race and that's only with FOUR sets of tokens. The fifth, purple set requires you to do a teeth gnashingly frustrating Crystal Challenge where you have to collect 25 crystals sprawled out across one of the four battle tracks and protected by literal mazes of nitro crates and the like. Finally, after collecting ALL of a set of tokens, you unlock it's respective Gem Cup, a series of four races against [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard plainly unfair computer opponents.]] Once you've done all of THAT, you can FINALLY unlock that final track, get that final relic, race the final boss again and win the game for real-real. Thankfully for those playing ''Nitro Kart'' (unless it's the GBA version), [[GoodBadBugs a glitch in the unlock system means]] [[DungeonBypass the game only checks if you have the BLUE gem before granting access to the Hyper Spaceway.]] You'll miss out on the bonus characters unlocked through the gem cups, but when you just want to wrap things up(Especially if you've already beaten the game once with one team and are on your second playthrough with the opposite team to unlock True Velo), that glitch can save you HOURS of replaying races to get those stupid tokens. Those playing CTR have access to cheat codes on the title screen to immediately unlock all of the game's content.

* Quite a few of the Achievements for ''VideoGame/SinsOfASolarEmpire'' require you to deliberately stretch a match out in order to attain them. Particularly bad offenders are the destroy 1000 Pirates in a single game, destroy 2500 strikecraft in a single game, finding all the artefacts in a single game, or researching all of a tech tree in a single game.

* To unlock a song's [[HarderThanHard Extra]] chart in ''VideoGame/GrooveCoaster'', you have to not only get an S rank on Hard, but also Simple and Normal difficulty as well, despite having demonstrated that you're good enough for the Extra chart and should not have to play charts that are far too easy for your level of skill. This might not be a problem for those who started with the easiest charts in the game, but it can be aggravating for players who jump straight to Hard due to prior rhythm game experience.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' battles, especially in the later generations, are so ''flippin' slow'' it boggles the mind. It's not even that they take that long -- once you get further along in the game, most of your {{Mons}} can destroy any basic enemy in one or two hits. And it still takes a frustratingly long time to beat any battle.
** The FightWoosh is particularly obnoxious, since it can't be disabled and easily accounts for half of the time you spend in caves or tall grass.
** ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Diamond and Pearl]]'' were the biggest offenders, to the point that one of the main features of ''Platinum'' is that the game ''is notably faster''. The battles were insanely slow, even when disabling the animations, and you couldn't skip anything with the buttons. In fact, if you wanted to use the buttons instead of the stylus, you had to press them ''twice''. If that's not enough for you, remember that Surfing was as slow as regular walking. In a water route with loads of trainers with several Pokémon each, you could easily get your whole team knocked out in desperation. Thank goodness for Repel...
** The fourth-generation games were also somewhat infamous for overusing the HM mechanic, especially with relation to Rock Smash, the move that lets you break small rocks that block your path. Some areas have multiple tiny rocks in a row, which means walking up to each one, selecting Rock Smash, and then watching a short animation play. Having one rock would be exactly as difficult and serve the exact same purpose, but it wouldn't waste as much time.
** And ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]]'' FINALLY address this by having HP drain being near instant, so battles are now so fast it's been compared to taking a battle in ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' and putting it on fast forward several times over. And without animations, battles are practically just as fast as you can read and push buttons.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'' eases the pain by having unlockables that can double and quadruple your game speed when you play in the Game Boy Tower.
** In Generation I, you had to spend a few minutes watching the credits roll through (after beating the Elite Four) before the game was saved. Changed in later games so the game would save before the credits, but every time you would [[LevelGrinding level grind]] a little against the E4, you would still ''have'' to listen to their speeches, which is mindnumbingly ''boring'' after, well, once.
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonFireRedAndLeafGreen'', in order to get the National Dex to reach islands 4 through 7, rebattle the Elite Four, and trade with Hoenn you need to obtain 60 of the 151 Pokémon found in Kanto. Nowhere in the game is the number 60 implied[[note]]except here, obviously[[/note]] and without trading with another remake, or catching as many as you can as you go, it will still take a good hour or two to get 60 darn species.
*** Of course, 60 is relatively easy if you've been catching things the entire game. You'd have to be trying, or doing a [[SelfImposedChallenge challenge run]], to not have 60 or close to that by the end.
** In ''[=DPPt=]'' you need to see every Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex to activate Pal Park, which lets you retrieve your old Pokémon from the GBA games. This task basically amounts to "realize which Trainer battles you skipped and [[GuideDangIt spend hours trying to find them]].
*** One of the Pokémon, Drifloon, can only be seen twice in the game: Once in an optional trainer battle that is lost forever by the time you get to the end of the game, and a wild one that only appears on Friday. In other words, if you don't want to cheat, you could end up waiting six days to open up Pal Park.
*** Combee was almost as bad as Drifloon; found on only one optional trainer outside Veilstone City, or you have to take the time to do the ScrappyMechanic of slathering Honey on Honey Trees in the hopes that Combee appears after waiting up to six for the tree to start shaking.
** There is also Repel so you can avoid most wild battles. However, Repel works based on the level of your Pokémon on top of your party list VS the general level of the wild Pokémon in the area. If you really want to get someplace without any encounters, put your highest level Pokémon in the top slot. The way Repel works does have an advantage that ends up saving time, however -- starting with ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', some legendary Pokémon would roam the overworld among randomly encountered Pokémon and using a Repel would make it easier to encounter them if they end up in an area with lower-level Pokémon if the top party member was at a level higher than regular random encounters but lower than the roaming Pokémon. Until ''Diamond and Pearl'' added the ability to see where they were before running into them (originally they could only be tracked if they're seen once, they run away, and their location is checked in the Pokédex), this made finding them easier.
* To summarize the endgame of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' (both DS and NES version):
** Last Inn, Long Dungeon, Last Save Point, Long Dungeon, Long Cutscene, Difficult Boss, Long Dungeon with 4 bosses, Difficult Final Boss. Die at the final boss and you've wasted 3-4 hours! (you cannot backtrack to the savepoint any time after the first boss in the sequence). It's even worse when you actually ''get'' to the final boss and discover it has ''one'' attack: Flare Wave (Particle Beam in the remake), which does 2000+ damage to all your characters ''every round''. If you're level 50 (which [[LevelGrinding takes some time]]), that's more than ''half'' your max HP.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' gives you a lot of access to endgame spells at, well, the end of the game, along with one of them that's not accessible until midway through the final level. Many players are tempted to spend time grinding them out to learn on multiple characters, and due to the low learn rate of these spells, this can add hours and hours of additional playtime. Not to mention making a variety of chains of bets in the coloseum, learning Strago's blue magic spells (most of which are in the final dungeon as well), learning Gau's various rages which are heavily influenced by the RandomNumberGod, and you can easily spend 40-50 hours to beat the game when it's reasonably doable in less than 30 as the final boss is rather [[AntiClimaxBoss easy]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''
** The [[LimitBreak Quickenings]], while not all that long if only one is launched, really start to become tedious when launching a giant chain of them.
** Mark hunting, though (almost) entirely optional, can be prone to this. Some of the Marks you search for require extensive DungeonCrawling (or re-crawling), LevelGrinding, and searching for hidden items and pathways. Even ''finding'' some of the marks can be a hassle (Montblanc's wonderfully vague information on the whereabouts of "Belito" come to mind).
** Barheim passage, for the 'wandering through pointless side passages' to find the gate switches.
** The Great Crystal at Giruvegan is all too easy to get lost in and wander for hours, especially if you're going for the sidequests and Espers, thanks to its very unconventional map layout and bizarre non-indicative ([[GeniusBonus at least at first]]) room names. [[https://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Crystal_(Final_Fantasy_XII)#Navigation The wiki has an entire subsection dedicated to how to orient yourself in there]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' manages to combine this with ForcedLevelGrinding by having achievements for maxing out each individual class. It can take months to achieve level 75 with one class, there are 20 of these achievements. There's also a 30G achievement for completing a relic weapon, which takes ''years'' to do, requiring millions upon millions of in-game currency (or real money, if you're that desperate). All of the achievements, when the game was released, required at least one 75 job to achieve (things like gaining maximum rank for all three nations, completing expansion story lines, clearing several endgame areas), and it can easily take a year for a new player to reach the maximum level, let alone clear all the missions.\\
The problem was slightly alleviated when the ''Wings of the Goddess'' expansion brought with it 250 more points, most of which for things that were actually attainable in a reasonable amount of time for the average player (acquiring a subjob or getting a chocobo license - levels 18 and 20, respectively). Even still, it takes insane amounts of dedication if you ''really'' want that 1250/1250 score for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. Probably the worst part is that ''every'' achievement is secret, meaning that nobody who hasn't already done the things you've done will even know that you did them, [[BraggingRightsReward removing the entire point of the achievements completely]]. Game Informer found a guy who had 1250 gamerpoints in the game and interviewed him. He said "It wasn't worth it."\\
Most of these time sinks were eliminated almost ten years after the game's release with the release of the ''Abyssea'' mini expansions which for the first time in the game's history increased the level cap from 75 to 99. A job can now be grinded from level 30 to 99 in as little as 10-12 hours by leeching exp off max level players (if you don't mind being very gimp when you hit 99). Level capped mission fights which used to take tedious amounts of time and effort to get past have had their caps removed making it very easy to solo old storylines. The aforementioned Relics can now be completed in as little as a month if you religiously spend 2 hours every day farming, or just a couple days if you have money to blow. Even travel, which used to be a nightmare, has been trivialized with the introduction of a warp shortcut to almost any zone in the game, several taking you to locations which used to be very difficult to reach. The only real forced time sink left is Mythic weapons which take at least 6 months to complete thanks to requiring repeatedly completing content which requires a key item to enter, you only get 1 key item per day.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}: Tale of the Forsaken Land'' gets it due to slow combats you can only skip by physically avoiding the enemy, which isn't always possible. Even running will waste about 15 seconds or so each time. Combat rounds often take a minute or more start to finish.

* In the original set of ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGUGames .hack//]]'' games, Virus Core hunting. You want to crack on with the story? Sorry, you need to go and Data Drain a bunch of trivial enemies in the hopes that they randomly drop the Virus Cores needed to get into the area.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'', later Bosses often take utterly ludicrous amounts of damage to bring down. In a game where 10000 HP is extremely good for a playable character, bosses can easily have ''hundreds and hundreds of thousands of HP''. And more often than not, they have various energy fields that significantly reduce the amount of damage they take per attack.
** Not to mention the often overly long attack animations. This was especially bad in early installments when they couldn't be skipped.
** The series is kind compared to many games in that each section of text appears all at once rather than slowly scrolling in. However, while you can button-mash through cut scenes, you can't skip them altogether, except in the latest games, and even then it's only the intermissions. You can fast-forward them at least.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' advertises "80 hours of gameplay!" on the box. This is because the actual storyline of the game takes about forty hours to beat on a normal playthrough, and then there's a NewGamePlus. The unskippable text during skits doesn't help.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has an early plot point that involves racking up a 20 million gald debt. Most of the game is spent [[MoneyGrinding working this debt off]], and once you do, you get hit with ''[[SerialEscalation an even larger debt]]!'' And it's not like you can ignore it, either; you have to pay off a certain amount of debt every so often to continue on with the main plotline.

* ''VideoGame/LunarDragonSong'' attempted to extend gameplay in addition to "add realism" by adding an option to gain either experience points or items from battle, adding side quests related to Jian and Lucia's job as Gad's Express delivery men and causing minimal but continuous damage when running. The result of this caused many players to groan because all this achieved was making the game more of a chore by having to fight twice as many battles than necessary to gain both items needed for [[TwentyBearAsses fetch quests]] and the experience to level up so you won't die trying (with the reminder of many other {{Role Playing Game}}s who were perfectly fine length and gameplay-wise with awarding players both items and experience per battle). It's possible to beat the game while skipping the deliveries, [[ButThouMust bar your first one]], but besides selling items they're the only source of money, which may be necessary to grind for in the all too likely event of good items getting stolen or destroyed by DemonicSpiders. At least the battles themselves can be sped up, or even [[GameplayAutomation automated]].
* Every story enemy in ''[[VideoGame/TouhouPocketWarsEvolution Touhou Pocket Wars]]'' has an insane quantity of hit points, and many of them have spammable, repeatable, uncapped "Defense Up" or "Full Heal" abilities. One battle can take an hour, and the AIRoulette is the only thing that makes some of them beatable ''at all'' without LevelGrinding until you achieve a OneHitKill.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'', in regards to the processes of upgrading troops and researching new weapons.
** Troops start out in a base class. They can upgrade to one of two classes, one of which is a better version of the base, the other a specialization, such as a Scout going to either a Scout Veteran (more HP/movement/evasion) or a Sniper (weaker stats but get a sniper rifle). These two each have their own further upgrades, for a total of 4 level 3 specializations. To convert to a new class, the character has to have acquired a number of credits from being used in various missions, and each of the 4 types of credits (Arms, Attack, Support, March) has 4 different levels (e.g. Arms, Arms X, Arms II, Arms II X). These are randomly distributed at the end of each battle, and while the top 2 performers get more credits than everyone else, they may not get the ones they need, e.g. a troop only needing one more Arms II X instead getting 3 sets of 2 Arms X. While each conversion only takes at most 3 different types of credit (e.g. 3 Arms, 1 Support II, 1 March II X), plus a Certificate or Diploma (distributed like the other credits, but fairly rare for a good portion of the game), it can take a long time to get the right distribution for a good portion of your squad.
** Each class usually has several different types of weapons, with many specializations having weapons that only they can use. For example, Scouts, Scout Veterans, and Scout Elites use regular rifles, Heavy Scouts use advanced rifles, Snipers use regular sniper rifles, Sniper Elites use advanced sniper rifles, and Anti-Tank Snipers use anti-tank siper rifles. Each type of weapon has a base model that goes from level 1 to level 10 and costs just money to upgrade. There's usually at least 2 other versions of this weapon that have special benefits, such as a rifle that fires 7 shots compared to the standard 5, or a rifle that has lower attack power but can confer negative status effects on enemies. There's 10 levels of each of these, as well. To build one of the non-standard ones, you need a part that's unique to that weapon type; a regular rifle needs some type of Rifle Part, while advanced rifles need some sort of Rifle+ Part, a sniper rifle needs a Sniper Scope, etc. You get one, and only one, of these from beating a battle, which can take anywhere from a few to 15 minutes depending on which one it is. Each battle drops a specific part. There are usually 4 different grades of parts (A-D), with higher grades being used on the higher levels of weapon. You also need materials, which have 5 different levels with 4 different grades (harder battles drop higher grades) and which are also somewhat randomly dropped; while each map type generally gives a specific type of material, you could need 5 more Steel 4 Type B and wind up getting a whole lot of Steel 4 Types A, B, and D. While it's not necessary to upgrade all the weapons (most of them aren't very useful, and weapons dropped by special enemies tend to be better), even getting the ones you want can take much longer than it should because of all the randomness.
** There are also some points in the game where you are forced to play the "optional" Free Missions in order to progress the main storyline.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has many, many locations only be accessible by going through a subway tunnel. In a couple instances, you must go through at least three tunnels to reach the destination. The subway tunnels are cut and pasted from the same handful of sections with very minimal changes between them. They are also filled with always hostile [=NPCs=]. They serve no real purpose, but exist to make quests seem longer. Without the tunnel sections, a lot of quests are about 2 minutes long once you actually reach your destination.
** The subway tunnels are a necessity due to the game's engine. Having all of the game's overworld as a single unbroken cell would go beyond the limits of the 360's hardware (and probably a good number of users on PC). The subway tunnels allow for Washington DC to be split into multiple map cells with rubble blocking the edges, which are then connected via the subways, which are also separate cells. ''Oblivion'' didn't have this luxury, and had obnoxious portions of dynamic loading.
* ''Videogame/FalloutNewVegas'' was designed with similar tricks, as no-clipping above the map will reveal. Here, the main overworld itself is divided into cells by insurmountable hills or cliffs and connected by limited pathways to allow for dynamic loading. {{Beef gate}}s are added to many of these passes to discourage {{sequence breaking}}. The titular city has gateways connecting its cells, which beats going through subway tunnels. PC Mods also exist that combine area of Freeside and The Strip into single giant cells.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''
*** ''Morrowind'' lacks the series' standard map based fast travel, so you need to rely on either fixed-location transportation (boats, silt striders) or one-way teleportation (spells and scrolls). The northeastern side of the map has very few fast travel points so you will end up doing a lot of walking towards your objectives in that area. There are no quest markers so you have to rely on notes and NPC directions [[TheComputerIsALyingBastard (which are not always accurate).]] This makes it easy to get lost finding your objective.
*** Your movement speed is dependent on your athletics skill which slowly increases the more you run in the game. Unfortunately this can make your character move at a snail's pace if they have low athletics which can be worsened if they are wearing heavy armor. This makes moving around the map very tedious at early levels especially if you don't have any teleportation spells or scrolls.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' both averts the trope and plays it straight in different instances. On the one hand, the sandbox world allows an awesome degree of exploration and many side-quests to find. On the other hand, the main quest/plotline is about four hours long if you focus on it and rush through. And to make things even more confusing, partaking in the length-enhancing activities is optional and does not contribute anything to your ability to complete the main quest. In fact, due to a lopsided case of RubberBandAI and EmptyLevels, it is easier to finish the game if you do so as early as possible and without distractions than it is after some secondary adventuring. The end result is that there is a lot of longevity present, but it is only "fake" when taken in the context of the main plot. And you need to clear ''multiple'' Oblivion Gates to beat the main quest, of which there are only seven maps. On top of it, they are 99% empty of rewards with a lone RandomDrop sigil stone at the end.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'':
*** Almost every quest requires you to run a tremendous distance which in turn has a probability to meet randomly spawning dragons, or clear a cave, keep or tomb full of random enemies that mostly aren't even related to this quest's story. There's a chance to kill an enemy with a finishing move forcing you to wait for the animation to end. It also requires you to grind lots and lots of ingredients to level alchemy, which is done by combining those ingredients correctly, thus meeting the criteria for Item Crafting, Grinding and Combinatorial Explosion. Since you've discovered all of Skyrim in a short period of time, running through it again may be considered Back Tracking. Most enemies have a Fake Difficulty, killing the player with two hits unless he's got lots of health potions. While its dungeons are more variable than Oblivion's, they still often look and feel the same, especially if it comes to claw riddles. It's overall promise of 500 hours of game time are only to be achieved by this trope. Thank [[OhMyGods Arkay]] for fast travel. It's most noticable in any quest where a fellow faction member offers to show you to your "quarters", which is usually down a long hallway that they've decided to slowly walk to. Or if a scripted scene has all the essential characters talking and marked "busy". "Waiting" usually doesn't help since these are scripted events.
*** It's especially bad in the ''Dawnguard'' expansion, where your faction's base is always situated in one of the corners of the map, requires you to travel to the opposite corner -- literally the longest Euclidean distance in the game -- at least ''twice'', ''and'' requires visiting specific quest locations on the far west, far north, and far east sides of the map as well. With "needs" mods installed it can become extremely tedious to spend several in-game days' worth of travel time just running back and forth. The storyline is actually pretty decent, particularly for anyone who loves the Elder Scrolls lore, although it is probably lost as meaningless on anyone who just wants to have a fun time.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter'' would not show all the various plot-expounding cutscenes on the first playthrough. Or the second. No, if you wanted to actually see all of the plot, you were expected to play through the game three full times. This wasn't that the game forced you to pick between seeing two different things to create a sort of branching story, or requiring certain in-game conditions to have been met so that a skilled player could see it all in one go. It would instead just count the number of times you'd played through and would only show you the plot details if you had the required number of completions when you reached the part of the game that would trigger it.

* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'': Collecting a Mini Paint Star will kick you back to the world map to show you a new path being unlocked. Usually, this isn't bad, but there are two instances of Mini Paint Stars being placed very close to each other.
** Mossrock Theater has three Mini Paint Stars, two right next to each other in a room near the end. Thus, you'll have to go through a majority of the level three times to get them all. However, these two are thankfully optional, unlocking shortcuts to previous levels you've beaten (and, if you've collected Roshambo Tokens #7 and #8, the paths enable you to reach the seventh and eighth Roshambo Temples).
** Kiwano Temple, already being a very hard level, is one you have to go through twice with no changes. Unlike Mossrock Theater, it's mandatory to get all the Mini Paint Stars here.
* In the fourth game of the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series, you need to play through the story a minimum of three times to get everything, with potentially no limit on how many additional playthroughs are required depending on which opponents the game decides to match you up with in the TournamentArc segments. This is made worse by the fact that the different scenarios you get based on your opponents all require multiple [[FetchQuest fetch quests]] and tons of backtracking, and you'll most likely have to repeat at least one of them on every playthrough.
** The first ''Battle Network'', likewise, requires you to constantly run back and forth in similar locations, particularly the Waterworks.
* You really have to wonder about the Dracoid Cemetery and Dracoid Ruins in ''VideoGame/LandsOfLore 2''. In the cemetery, you'll find glass orbs lying around. You need to charge these at three different machines, which turn them white, blue or yellow, to open the crypts in the cemetery, which will only accept specific colors of orbs. Inside the crypts you'll find new orbs to charge. Two of the machines are underneath the cemetery, another is in the ruins, which is a ''huge'' level. When you've opened all the crypts, you'll have to fulfill quests for two dracoid ghosts which once again involve traversing those enormous ruins, which mostly consist of empty space. It's a very drawn-out and tedious sequence in an otherwise fun and immersive game.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has fragment collecting. Some of them come from fun bosses or interesting side quests. Others don't:
** Starting with the one the internet is fixated on, there's filling out the bestiary. This can actually be fairly fun at times, if you have the fragment skills that manipulate encounter rate and chances of getting rare encounters, as you'll come across some interesting enemies you might have missed otherwise, and it gives a sense of purpose to the grinding you'd be doing to take on the {{bonus boss}}es. But then there's all the time you'll spend wiping out ludicrously out-levelled enemies waiting for a rare one to spawn. Or having to go through the already annoying final dungeon ''twice''.
** One fragment requires winning 7777 coins through the slots. This can take hours and is barely interactive.
** Captain Cryptic requires you to track him down at random location in a large and twisty map repeatedly. Even if you know all the possible locations (and let's face it, anyone that's going for OneHundredPercentCompletion in this game is using a guide) it still takes far too long.
** A number of important items are hidden in extremely out-of-the-way treasure spheres that can only be reached by a perfectly aimed moogle throw. Beyond just the trial and error required here, Mog takes forever to return after each try. Some of the trickier ones can take minutes to get.
* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' has Hard Mode + unskippable cut scenes. Unlike Normal Mode, if you mess up and die, you get sent back to the title screen and have to go through the whole sequence before the fight without any way to skip it.
* ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' gets pretty ridiculous with this, because part of the plot involves [[spoiler:the characters getting caught in a loop and returning to the beginning of the game, necessitating revisiting all of the main dungeons and fighting the bosses again. In order to get the GoldenEnding you need to go through this process FOUR TIMES.]] One of the features touted for the UpdatedRerelease was the cutting of around 40 hours of gameplay, not by removing content, but by streamlining the endgame and adding the ability to speed up and skip battles.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' is infamous for unskippable text (inexcusable given that even 8-bit titles such as ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'' had adjustable text speed), which makes the game go on longer than it should have.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'':
** The series is infamous for its needlessly long and wordy {{Unskippable Cutscene}}s. Especially annoying for the final boss of the first installment, which had two forms and was preceded by an incredibly long dialogue scene. At least it allows saving anywhere, and with the E-shop rerelease, you don't need to worry about your GBA's batteries running out during your battle anymore...
** During a battle, characters lose their turns if their target gets defeated before they can attack. It's played for 'strategy' but in reality, random battles take longer than they have any right to if you just want to mash the attack button (no 'auto' option). Thankfully, the sequels switch to the attack moving to another target.
* ''VideoGame/{{Anachronox}}'' uses many dirty tricks to pad out your playtime; dramatic camera sweeps during which you can't move or [[CombatantCooldownSystem fill up your party's action meters]], very large expanses between points A and B, anemic combat animations (even your basic attacks take several seconds, even if you miss) and unskippable cutscenes all add up more minutes to your clock than they should.

* The most common accusation leveled against ''VideoGame/TheSims 2: University'' is that getting a Sim through college is a needlessly long and tedious project. Really, the same thing could have been achieved with two semesters instead of eight.

* ''[[VideoGame/AirForceDelta Air Force Delta Strike]]'' plays this straight with the Stand-By missions. Fortunately, they're skippable.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRevelations2'' is not a long game, but if you want to get all of the achievements, then you will have to finish the main campaign More Than Once. Vanilla mode, Countdown mode, "Invisible Enemy", different difficulties, weapon restrictions … the list goes on.
* ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark'': The 2008 game will not let you proceed to new areas until you've destroyed a set number of evil trees that are spread out all over Central Park.
* In the Japanese version of ''VideoGame/ClockTowerIITheStruggleWithin'', There's a special Gag mode you can unlock called Buyo Buyo Mode, in which all the characters ceaselessly bounce up and down at all times. The requirement for this? ''Obtain every single ending in the game.'' This requires several playthroughs of a game that's already infamous for [[GuideDangIt requiring you to do a bunch of random things just to prevent your character from dying at times.]]

* The ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' games are ''absolutely insane'' about this. To get HundredPercentCompletion for the [[BraggingRightsReward achievements]] requires: hosting (not just playing) one hundred matches, getting one hundred kills with each weapon, and getting a total online body count of ten thousand (Gears 1); racking up one hundred thousand kills across all modes and reaching level 100 (Gears 2); and earning every onyx medal, which requires (among others) six thousand kills with various weapons in versus modes and six thousand matches in each versus game type (Gears 3).

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'':
** The first two games are big offenders. While they are WideOpenSandbox games, they also ''require'' you to do side-missions or other activities to earn "Respect", which is spent in order to play the main story missions, essentially making the game seem longer than it really is. This was done away with in ''Saints Row: The Third'', as respect is used instead to unlock upgrades for your character and you can do story missions any time you want.
** Many missions in the first two games require you to go to a specific location to start the mission, only to have the action take place across town. Failing the mission early enough meant you got to repeat the (often completely unremarkable) drive between the arbitrary mission start and the actual action. The third game does away with this by having the NPC giving the quest call you instead of demanding to meet in person.

* ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'' also fits into this with 800 orbs and mini challenges like races to tour the 3 districts.
* ''VideoGame/JustCause'' and its sequel are major offenders. The first game had over 40 sectors, each with about 7 bases on average that Rico had to conquer to claim the sector for the resistance and allied gang. THEN there were the loyalty missions and collection sidequests which were essential in ranking up two different faction alliances that gave you better request drops. Each faction mission gave 30 faction points, and the maximum rank required at least 7000. The game itself had less than 30 main missions. The sequel is even worse. Over 300 Bases, hundreds of upgrade collectibles, 300 collectible tokens (underwater supplies, tribal skulls, and drug cases), and at least 50 faction missions and 50 racing challenges. The number of main missions in ''Just Cause 2''? SEVEN.
* ''VideoGame/MafiaTheCityOfLostHeaven'' has very few actual driving missions, but before almost every mission you have to drive from your don's bar to the target, in a city with very few points of interest, in a slow vehicle that has a hard time turning, and with a speed limit that forces you to drive even slower (40 mph for the first half of the game, 60mph in the second) if you don't want the police on your tail. Because your vehicle is not really made for outrunning police cars and losing the police is almost impossible, most times it's just better to restart the mission if you get the police's attention.

* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter'', while having a rather egregious example of Fake Longevity (see above), also allows you to [[PreExistingEncounters skillfully avoid encounters]], and getting the drop on enemies significantly weaker than you instantly awards XP without a battle.
* The first 2 ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games have badges that let you defeat enemies who would give you one or zero Star Points ([[http://www.mariowiki.com/First_Attack First Attack]] lets you defeat them with a first strike, while [[http://www.mariowiki.com/Bump_Attack Bump Attack]] lets you walk into them to defeat them). Of course, they still require Badge Points to wear them (First Attack takes 1, Bump Attack takes 5). You can also just avoid battles, since they're all PreExistingEncounters.

* ''VideoGame/ManaKhemiaAlchemistsOfAlRevis'' and [[VideoGame/ManaKhemia2FallOfAlchemy its sequel]] allow you to defeat weak enemies instantly by slashing at them with your sword. You don't get EXP but you do get items so it's worth it.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' Has a near subversion, one of the side quests is the Man Festival in what appears to be a 100 level dungeon of nothing but fights. After the 26th battle you skip to the 89th. A title card explains how the party fought through the previous 63 levels.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', there are a few seciton(s) where you have to basically go across the world. However, this couples with AntiFrustrationFeatures - as the game asks "Would you like to immediately travel to ____?"

** In ''Super Smash Bros. for 3DS'', you have to beat several modes with every single character to beat all the challenges like above. This means beating Classic Mode, All-Star Mode, 10-Man Smash, 100-Man Smash, participating in Target Blast, and placing first in Smash Run with all '''''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 48]]''''' characters. Fortunately, the Mii Fighters and DLC characters don't count, but that's still a tall order.

* A good number of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games are guilty of this trope:

** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' contains [[LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading thirty-second loading screens before and after cutscenes or new areas]], the first of which may take less than four seconds; backtracking through almost every level with every team; spacious hub areas; FakeDifficulty puzzles (billiards, anyone?) and generally schizophrenic controls which add much onto the twenty hours of gameplay.

[[/folder]]

* You had to collect a certain number of "hero points" in between chapters of the second ''[[VideoGame/{{Spider Man 2}} Spider Man: the Movie]]'' game. This translates to a ''lot'' of purse- and balloon-retrieval. In ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan'', as Venom, there's a kid holding a balloon in his tutorial; [[TakeThat you're supposed to absorb the kid's life]].

* ''Franchise/MetalGear'':

*** There's also a section near the end of the game where you're required to input three cards to deactivate a weapon. The only way to get the two cards you don't enter with is to travel, manually, back to previous sections of the game and wait there until the card changes into the required one. Again, a quicker option was included in the [=GameCube=] version that involves shooting at steam and coolant pipes to quickly cool down or heat up the card.
*** While it may be an [[SideQuest optional]] thing, collecting all the Dog Tags for [[HundredPercentCompletion a perfect game]] on the Gamecube version, much like the sequel, requires you to play through all five difficulties. If you miss one, play it again. Thankfully they're only for bragging rights.