History SlowPacedBeginning / VideoGames

** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'' is the only Mario RPG that explicitly prevents you from [[ActionCommands guarding and using timed hits]] until [[YouShouldntKnowThisAlready the tutorial explains it]] at the end of the lengthy prologue. Until then, battle is purely "hit and get hit", and the player is forced to use healing blocks and items to avoid dying.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' franchise, it's annoyingly tedious to be shown how to catch Pokémon at the beginning of every game. In some games, it's possible to catch a full, six-mon party of Pokémon ''before'' you receive this tutorial. Some people say that the most boring part of every single Pokémon game is the first few towns until the first gym battle. You knew everything that happens there years before the game was made.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': Melemele Island, the first of the Alola region's four main islands, holds your hand so aggressively that many players are discouraged from restarting for a [[SelfImposedChallenge challenge run]] simply to avoid going through it a second time. At this point in the game, it's almost as if the world ''[[DoNotDoThisCoolThing doesn't want you to explore]]'', as it seems you can't go more than a few feet without another cutscene that lasts anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, or getting whisked away from wherever you were to somewhere else to watch ''another'' cutscene. Once you reach Akala Island, the game starts to back off, and the story really starts coming through by the time you hit Ula'ula Island.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' obviously have the same problems as the original version with the added misfortune of being largely the same story as before, with only the Ultra Recon Squad making frequent but minor appearances. The story doesn't really start to diverge from the originals until the first visit to Aether Paradise, which is after completing the second (of four) islands. This isn't too bad for those who didn't play the originals, but veterans will need a lot of patience while treading old ground.

*** While the player gets free rein to explore after the tutorial dungeon, you still have some tedium ahead of you if you want to use [[MakeMeWannaShout Shouts]]. You need to go from Riverwood, to Whiterun, to a dungeon near Riverwood (although you can clear the dungeon before heading to Whiterun since you can get a sidequest from the merchant in Riverwood that'll take you through it), back to Whiterun, then go kill your first dragon, then report back to the Jarl and get told to go see the Greybeards. You're looking at a good 2-3 hours to access Shouts, and that's if you don't get distracted by something more interesting along the way.

* The first few levels of ''VideoGame/JediKnightIIJediOutcast'' are painful to get through, due to a combination of limited health and ammo, a restricted weapon selection where it takes an hour to find a weapon that even ''tries'' to combine [[ATeamFiring any semblance of accuracy]] and [[EmergencyWeapon actual power behind it]], and the stormtroopers having taken about [[TookALevelInBadass sixteen levels in badass]]. However, upon obtaining a lightsaber and gaining Force powers (and escaping the alley full of snipers who can still shoot you through the lightsaber) the game becomes a primary example of how fraggin' cool it is to be a Jedi. In almost a heartbeat, you go from weeping bitter tears as you can't get through one room with ''four'' guys in it, to standing in front ofentire army, not touching a single button, and ''still winning''.

* ''VideoGame/TheDevilInMe'' moves at a ''ludicrously'' slow pace. Not counting the ColdOpen or the premonitions that tease potential events, it'll be a good three hours or so before you even encounter the BigBad, and another hour -- a solid ''four hours in all'' -- before he even kills anyone[[note]]A character can die earlier, [[spoiler:Erin]], but not by the killer's hand: [[spoiler:she dies of an asthma attack if she tries to fight him instead of taking the inhaler]][[/note]].

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** Slightly brought back in [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom]] since some of the things you had from the start in BOTW like the Paraglider and Shrine Radar now have to be earned instead.

* ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'': Following the ''very'' attention-grabbing EstablishingSeriesMoment, the first 30 minutes or so involve a lengthy key hunt through the eponymouse fog-shrouded town, looking for notes to guide you in the right direction and tracking down three keys hidden in the northeast section of the map to unlock the back door of an abandoned house. Once you make it through that door and daylight rapidly falls away into darkness, the game's signature style of visceral terror rarely lets up again until the credits roll.

** Parodied in both ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Phantom Hourglass]]'' ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tracks]]''. The games start out with a big chunk of backstory told with text and still pictures, just like the beginning of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]''. Once it ends, it's shown that Link got bored and fell asleep while Niko was telling the story. As for actual gameplay, both games do their best to speed through tutorials where you can, in theory, [[ActionPrologue die]].

* ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' starts you off with only two characters, both of the Freelancer class, meaning that all combat consists of attacking enemies. This admittedly does do a good job of introducing the player to the Brave and Default mechanics (you can "Brave" to take multiple actions in one turn at the cost of skipping some turns afterwards, or "Default" to reduce damage taken and reduce the aforementioned turn penalty), but is mindlessly boring if you already understand it. Then you beat your first bosses and get the first job Asterisks: Monk (good at attacking, the same thing you were doing before), and White Mage (can heal, also something the Freelancer could do). Contrast this to the endgame, where you have several unique jobs with varied and interesting skills.
* While the ''story'' of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireI'' certainly starts with a bang (with you literally waking up to find your village on fire and the Dark Dragon tribe attacking, forcing your older sister to sacrifice herself to save everyone else) the following couple of hours of gameplay are extremely dull, as you only control Ryu, who starts out with ''no'' abilities whatsoever. This reduces all combat to "twat enemy with sword", occasionally using a Herb when your HP gets low. You can't even use offensive items to try and liven things up a bit, because there are only two to be found anywhere up until you face the second boss (who you'll probably need to save them for). Things don't liven up until after this, when the perspective jumps to a different and less-limited character.
* ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania 64}}'' begins with the forest complete with CameraScrew nasty platforms, moves on to the Villa with the [[TheMaze hedge maze]], then puts you smack dab in [[ThatOneLevel the nitro level]]. Once you get past that the game actually gets pretty fun, but most people unfortunately don't stay that long and [[NeverLiveItDown its rather bad reputation stuck]]. [[NotHelpingYourCase It certainly doesn't help]] that the game, without any warning, pulls that stunt where it only lets you play so far on Easy mode before forcing you to start the whole game over from the beginning on Normal, and it does it ''right after the nitro level''-- of all the people willing to trudge through all of that once, ''very'' few were willing to do it twice.
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' can make a bad first impression, thrusting you into the plot InMediasRes with underwhelming weapons, JumpPhysics that even the game's fans admit are very floaty, and tiresome fetch quests. Things pick up when you get to the Sand Zone, where "fetch quest" means "go explore this big open level with varied interesting enemies at your own pace". By the time you reach the Labyrinth, you're done with the fetch quests, you have some excellent weapons, and you're finally starting to get a bearing on the plot.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' games (including [[SpiritualSuccessor member in spirit]] ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'') start off quite slow: you have only one city, it takes ages for anything to get done, and there's miles and miles of empty space between you and the next civilization/faction over (usually). However, the game gets increasingly engrossing (and time-consuming) as world civilization gets more and more complex, and your rivals develop a unique character.
* ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' suffers from this. The game opens with a roughly six-minute cutscene about the release of the Dark Genie; unfortunately, about four of those minutes are spent on long, slow shots of characters dancing. Once the Genie is released, it looks like things will pick up...but then we cut to Toan's village, and there's ''another'' six-minute cutscene detailing the festival that he's supposed to attend (which again features long, slow shots of characters dancing). Things don't even pick up after the Dark Genie's attack, as this leads to yet another cutscene, followed by further bouts of exposition from the Mayor as he gives you the key to the first dungeon. All told, it takes about thirty minutes for you to actually start fighting monsters and restoring your village. ''VideoGame/DarkCloud2'' goes even further with this, as it opens with an extended sequence of main character Max...going to a circus. The player mostly watches cutscenes--including a lengthy sequence of circus acts that has no bearing on the plot--and only gets to control Max for a few minutes as he chases around a small boy who stole his circus tickets. What makes this particularly frustrating is that there's a sequence that could have been a lot of fun to play--namely, when EvilClown Flotsam and his goons are chasing Max through the city--but this, too, is an FMV.
* Unfortunately, the first couple of hours ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'' are probably its weakest. After the opening cutscene, the player is thrown headfirst into a ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil''-inspired SurvivalHorror combat section, which features both quite clunky controls and enemy behavior, and very simple, yet tedious puzzles. Immediately after this follows a couple of [[InfoDump exposition-heavy]] cutscenes, broken up by some short gameplay sections where all the player is tasked with is walking from one place to the next. It's not until the first few objectives are done with, that the WideOpenSandbox-esque town of Greenvale opens up, marking the point where the game REALLY gets interesting.
* The first level of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' was this for many people; it essentially throws you to the wolves and is extremely difficult if you don't yet get how the overall gameplay and systems of the game work yet. On the other hand, it grows on many people in subsequent playthroughs for this reason too (as it doesn't really compromise too much on what works so well in the game). It's also thematically appropriate, as several characters note that the mission ''is'' a test of [=JC's=] capabilities, and if you complete it at all most people will be deeply impressed and say things like, "Who's awesome? You're awesome."
* ''VideoGame/TheDevilInMe'' moves at a ''ludicrously'' slow pace. Not counting the ColdOpen or the premonitions that tease potential events, it'll be a good three hours or so before you even encounter the BigBad, and another hour -- a solid ''four hours in all'' -- before he even kills anyone[[note]]A character can die earlier, [[spoiler:Erin]], but not by the killers hand: [[spoiler:she dies of an asthma attack if she tries to fight him instead of taking the inhaler]][[/note]].
* After a few steps, the first ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'' game starts by forcing you to jump around the lifeless opening foyer of a castle and find 45 Red Orbs [[CashGate to unlock a door]] before meeting and fighting the first {{mook}}. And if you die enough times on the first mission to try the game's MercyMode, you have to do the first few segments again, including the aforementioned sequence. Thankfully, most of the games that followed did not do this and opted for an ActionPrologue instead, recognizing what the majority of players bought the game for.
* ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' games often start off slow-paced and tedious at first, as the game has to provide story exposition and take you through a series of tutorial stages to explain numerous game mechanics. Once you unlock the Item World, you've probably got a basic handle on how the game works and you get to finally have a good place to grind your characters and your ''items'' to ungodly levels while having fun doing so. In other words, the game goes from "I don't get the appeal of this..." to [[JustOneMoreLevel Just One More Grinding Run]].
* ''VideoGame/DivineDivinity'' is a perfect example of this. Long, linear dungeon crawl to begin with, takes at least several hours to get through before you get to the heavily nonlinear and somewhat less combat-intensive main part of the game, which has heaps of interesting quests and whatnot. Technically it's possible to skip the dungeon but it makes it difficult somewhat because every other enemy around is well too tough at level 1.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' GameMod ''The Final Gathering'' consists of five levels, the first three of which are pretty amateurish and usually considered to be terrible. The latter two, however, are surprisingly good, to the point of earning the mod a place in Doomworld's "top 100 [=WADs=] of all time" list back in 2004.
* One of the things people hated about ''VideoGame/Doom3'' was the incredibly drawn-out opening where your marine arrives at the Mars base, signs in, meets a few people, observes some stuff, gets assigned a mission to find a missing scientist by his sergeant, gets issued with a standard-issue pistol by the quartermaster, goes looking for the scientist, and it's only when you finally find him that the hellgate blows open and demonic forces rip through the base, turning 90% of the staff (including the scientist you were looking for) into zombies, unleashing the legions of hell on the rest, and ''finally'' giving you something to shoot. Considering this was supposed to be ''DOOM'' aka. "the quintessential non-stop demon murderpalooza series", some people were left feeling a bit betrayed that the series had apparently decided to [[FollowTheLeader take cues from]] ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' instead.

** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', from a strictly storytelling standpoint, went through this. Act 1 is relatively slow, acting in a similar manner to the above-mentioned first season of ''Series/BabylonFive'': Those first fifteen hours or so do nothing but expand on [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins the first game]]'s world-building, introduce plot elements, and set up future events (mostly having to do with the Qunari and Templar/Mage conflict). The entire thing is more or less one big InnocuouslyImportantEpisode. Act 2 is where the game begins taking many of [[ChekhovsGun the plot points and items introduced in Act 1]] and starts weaving them into the overall narrative.
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' has an exciting prologue setting up the initial mystery, interesting recruitment missions as you gather your party... and then most of Act 1 is spent grinding the most generic quests in the game through the least interesting areas of the game for hours until you can unlock one of two alliance missions. Then the actual plot kicks in, and after a few linear story missions, the map opens up and the actual meat of the game starts.

** The game sets itself up nicely at the beginning for the time-travel/world-hopping main storyline, but it takes ''two freakin' hours'' before the party encounters its first monster.

** The game also starts to get real fun when you reach Dhama Temple and the JobSystem kicks in, which is about 30 hours later. Before that, the fights are still pretty boring.
* For people used to modern RolePlayingGames, the UpdatedRerelease versions of ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' games can be this. The only way to know how far your character is from the next level is to head to the local SavePoint, combat is ''brutal'' on lower levels, and depending on the game, there may be few ways to regenerate magic outside of towns. Even the newer games like ''IX'' suffer from these due to the GrandfatherClause.
* The first ''VideoGame/DragonQuestMonsters'' on the Game Boy Color, while superior to its spawn in almost every other way, suffers from a lot of dull text at the start, as you're forced to wander around a NoobCave with monsters that don't have much in the way of usable skills, then do another mediocre dungeon, before you can finally start using the customization that makes the game so awesome. The DS game suffers a little from this, but the period is much shorter.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' sort of fits this, though in an odd way. It would be more accurate to say the player gets better. Simply, Dwarf Fortress is so complex that anyone new to the game simply will be unable to enjoy it yet. But once you figure out how to dig and build, you'll start enjoying the game. Then you can begin to scale that difficulty cliff, which provides you with an ever-increasing view of awesome that by the time you reach the top you feel you deserve every bit of fun you now get... until you realize you just climbed up the side of a volcano, and so on.

** ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' starts you out with one party member, rendering any strategy beyond 'hit and get hit' nonexistent. Also, the game gives you little room for error; this isn't too much of a problem in Onett, but [[ThatOneLevel Peaceful Rest Valley]] can be a nightmare even with the help of the rolling HP meter. After Paula joins and levels up enough for her tremendous speed and magical powers to start showing, the game gets much better. And before that... well, let's just let [[WebVideo/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] explain it:

** ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' will be rather tedious at times, especially since this is the only game of the series with {{Random Encounter}}s. But as soon as you first enter Magicant, the game gets a little better.
** ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER 3}}'' does this as well. The first three chapters cover three very important days. While they may be excellent as far as the story goes, the gameplay suffers somewhat, ''especially'' during [[ForcedLevelGrinding Chapter 3]]. After the TimeSkip, however, you get control of Lucas and Boney, and the gameplay becomes much more enjoyable, especially after getting your PsychicPowers.

** The intros to both ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' include relatively boring [[NoobCave tutorial dungeons]] from which the player must escape before they're [[OpeningTheSandbox free to explore the sandbox]]. ''Daggerfall'' also has a lengthy sequence to generate your character and choose/create your class. Much of the latter part can be skipped, in which case the game randomizes the options. This is, however, not recommended, as [[VideoGameDelegationPenalty the randomized options can range from inconvenient to outright crippling]].
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'':
*** ''Morrowind'' likewise has a ForcedTutorial sequence during the intro, but is thankfully short compared to the other games in the series. It consists of leaving the prison ship (learning the controls), talking to a guard captain (choose your race and sex), filling out your paperwork (choose your class and birth sign), and picking up a few items (learning the menus). It can be done in about 5 minutes, but that hasn't stopped the creation of {{Game Mod}}s which allows it to be skipped.
*** On the other hand, some fans have complained that it is ''too short'', and doesn't give the player enough information to easily survive in the game world. That ''Morrowind'' is an EarlyGameHell environment to begin with lends some veracity to these arguments.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]''[='s=] tutorial level has generated a considerable amount of dislike. It consists of a (dull) cave that you must play through before you can start the game proper. Considering one of the biggest selling points for the game is the [[SceneryPorn beautiful outdoor landscapes]], it is seen as particularly stupid to set the tutorial entirely inside a stuffy dungeon. AS with ''Morrowind'', there are plentiful {{Game Mod}}s available which change the tutorial and character generation processes. Naturally, they're some of the more popular mods available.

*** ''Skyrim'' manages to briefly show off the main attractions--impressive landscapes and dragons--during the introduction. The [[PlayerCharacter Dragonborn]] gets hauled across the landscape, then sent to the executioner's block, then rescued by a dragon... and after that, the tutorial starts. Which is mostly an underground [[DungeonCrawler Dungeon Crawl]], yet again. In short, it takes a while to get to the sandbox mode. It gets tedious to go through again when one wants to [[{{Altitis}} start a new game with a different character]].
*** Also in ''Skyrim'', while the player gets free rein to explore after the tutorial dungeon, if you want to use the [[MakeMeWannaShout Shouts]] you still have some tedium ahead of you. You need to go from Riverwood, to Whiterun, to a dungeon near Riverwood (Although you can clear the dungeon before heading to Whiterun since you can get a sidequest from the merchant in Riverwood that'll take you through it), back to Whiterun, then go kill your first dragon, then report back to the Jarl and get told to go see the Greybeards. You're looking at a good 2-3 hours to access Shouts, and that's if you don't get distracted by something more interesting along the way.
* ''VideoGame/TheEvilWithin'' has a tense and frightening first chapter that immediately goes into a lull with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chapters. Chapter 5 ramps up the creepiness and terror, and Chapter 6 plunges you right into the emotionally tense and nerve-wracking atmosphere of the rest of the game headfirst. The chapters also grow to be far longer, with Chapter 3 taking about 30 minutes to complete, and Chapter 6 taking anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half.
* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' seems like a SugarBowl Mario-clone platformer at first, but after a few levels, you need to figure out how to "evert" in order to solve the puzzles. Then the game's major narrative elements start to kick in.
* ''VideoGame/{{Factorio}}'' starts you off with few resources to automate anything. The first couple hours of most playthroughs is a series of mining and crafting materials by hand as you try to get basic automation set up, running around keeping machines topped up on coal, chopping down trees to get more room to build, and trying to make enough assembling machines to make basic materials for you automatically. A number of popular mods exist to give the player more materials at the start, to skip ahead to the more interesting part.
* ''VideoGame/FairyFencerF'' starts out dreadfully dull, with a half-hour-long cutscene featuring a deliberately unlikeable protagonist and his new partner who sounds whiny by sheer dint of having to deal with TheSlacker broken up by only two heavily-scripted battle tutorials. It picks up quickly once the interminable cutscenes end and the first dungeon gives the player both some freedom and a taste of the game's humor. ''[[UpdatedRerelease Advent Dark Force]]'' does what it can to fix this, spreading a similar cutscene out across a brand-new introductory dungeon, but it still has to cover the same points and the dungeon itself is a slog thanks to the dull prison design and only having one enemy type. (Both games also suffer from a deluge of often-redundant tutorial slides, but these are delivered in-character by Eryn, who annoys the other characters doing the same thing in speech.)
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' takes at least a half-hour to get going, as you're forced through an extended character creation/exposition bit that, for all its attempted immersion, even ''one of the characters'' admits is a joke [[spoiler:right before he offers to change your stats for you]].
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', by contrast, has an extremely quick tutorial. However, the first hours of the game are defined by {{Railroading}}, mostly by throwing {{Beef Gate}}s up everywhere, funneling players who don't know how to get around them more or less down the same route. Once you actually get to New Vegas and its surrounding areas, the game massively opens up, the main quest picks up, and the entire thing generally gets a lot more enjoyable.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', you begin with little money and poor equipment, and typically fight repetitive melee battles against scorpions. The more interesting gun battles against gun-wielding soldiers and powerful mutants of the wastelands start coming in The Den and get more interesting as the game goes on. Due to ExecutiveMeddling, the very first thing you do in the game is travel through the Temple of Trials, a tutorial that makes absolutely no sense and even ''contradicts the main story'' in having this incredibly elaborate temple only used for worthiness-testing next to your dirt-poor village. Then the trial features a scrap against another member of your tribe to prove your worthiness - using your fists. Difficult if you've specced for guns during setup or worse gone for certain diplomacy traits unless you use an oddball way around it.

** The original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' suffers too. During the first battle, only Ramza is controllable, and there's 10 other AI-controlled units, so you'd have to wait and watch until your turn comes up. Plus, the first chapter of the game is pretty slow-paced. (But it's so hard that you probably won't even notice.)
** While ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' gives you the meat of the core gameplay off the bat, it'll take you anywhere between 6 to 8 hours on your first try. Then Sephiroth shows up and becomes the true BigBad by [[MakeWayForTheNewVillains killing President Shinra]], with AVALANCHE escaping from Shinra HQ and Midgar afterward, gaining access to the overworld. And to put it into perspective just how long of a game this is, the entire prologue doesn't even take up '''one third''' of the time it takes to complete the games first disc (of three)!
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': While a whole lot definitely happens, and you are thrown into battles almost immediately, the player does not reach an area with real random encounters and exploration until Kilika Woods, several hours into the game. And once you finish the woods, it's another few hours of cutscenes and linear story events until you reach the next area with random battles, the Mi'ihen Highroad.
** The first twenty levels of your first character in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' are ''painful'', as the game drops you in your hometown with absolutely no instruction about how to do anything. They're by far the hardest, most frustrating, most unintuitive, grindtastic levels you will ever play in the entire game.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is probably the most prominent example of this in the entire series, to the extent that it was one of the biggest points of criticism towards the game. It dumps you straight into [[LostInMediasRes a plot-in-progress]] with no real clue as to what's going on, who these characters are, and what they're trying to do. On the subject of characters, most of them don't make a good first impression, so you're likely to spend a while hating at least one or two of them. Gameplay-wise, the crystarium and paradigm systems are completely absent, leaving you with nothing to do but use the Auto-Battle command every turn, and maybe an item here or there to mix it up a bit. It's not until the Anima fight that the gameplay gets interesting. On the bright side, it's all uphill from there.

** Many consider the entirety of the ''A Realm Reborn'', the base game of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' to be extremely slow-paced. The majority of quests are either a series of one FetchQuest too many, ChainOfDeals, or TwentyBearAsses. The story itself drags out and you have to do a ''lot'' of quests before things get interesting. On top of this, gaining EXP becomes more of a chore the higher level you are and it could get to the point where you can't progress in the story until you grind your levels high enough to continue. The post-patch content for ''A Realm Reborn'' is a little better, but the game doesn't get better about it until last handful of quests where things go to hell real fast and the lead up into the ''Heavenward'' story. The developers did finally address the issue and made the base game more bearable for new players by removing several quests and making EXP grinding ''much'' easier so the player can keep going with the flow of the story.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' seems like it will avert this, only for it to double down on this trope by having most of the first half be slow-paced. [[HowWeGotHere It starts off with a glimpse of the final battle]] before cutting back to the group bidding Noctis' dad and town goodbye before... pushing your car forward for a bit. It then proceeds to plod its way through a very uneventful first several hours where you have to fix the car, save some random guy and then make it to a seaside harbor. Aside from meeting the villain, nothing really happens and the sections is merely just a bunch of fetch quests. Chapter 2 picks up slightly by actually introducing the main threat of the game, but otherwise it isn't until around chapter ''9'' where the game finally begins to pick up steam and never stops. Various sequences during the first few chapters even take control away from you to force you to go through the main plot every so often. Exciting events like the Titan battle are few and far between and most of the time we barely get any appearances by villains other than [[BigBad Ardyn]] and are more often forced to sit through long sequences like the boat ride to Altissia.
* The game ''VideoGame/{{FlyFF}}'' is a pretty big offender, most of its early advertisements and hell even its name, Fly For Fun, advertises its flying system and doing it at will, The Catch? You have to wait until level 20 to do so. Also the Class System for your character, you can't make the first change until level 15 and before you can make the change you must also complete a quest, the same happens with the 2nd job change at level 60.

* ''VideoGame/FreedomWars'' starts out terribly, even if you excuse being penalized for basic actions as effective worldbuilding. Even compared to the heavily-scripted tutorial that is Chapter 1, Chapter 2 is just one entire slog running in circles to complete arbitrary objectives that don't help you in any gameplay sense, with only a single battle in the middle and not even any side-missions. It's unbelievably dull, with only a single plot point of moderate interest, and to add salt to the wound one of the chapter rewards is the right to fast-travel, which would have cut the busywork down by at least two thirds. Luckily it focuses more on action from Chapter 3 on and never really stops.
* ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight'' suffers from this for those not interested in backstory, historical minutiae, and/or drawn-out interview processes, especially when controlling Grace. Each of the three games takes about half the game for the action to pick up, which is good when it does, but until then it's jarring.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'' starts out feeling like a rehash of the first game, up until about a quarter of the way through, when you get the ship. Even if you know exactly where to go and what to do, many players will feel like they are trudging through nothing but mundane fetch quests and crossing one side of a continent to another for the plot while wading through RandomEncounters up the ass. It isn't until after discovering the true nature of the Lighthouses in Lumeria and then going to the far west to tackle the Jupiter Lighthouse is when the game starts to pick up.
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' threw many people off guard in 1998 when everyone expected shooters to be like ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''. Instead players have to sit through a few minutes of Gordon Freeman riding the tram, then navigating his maze-like workplace, grabbing his suit, starting the Resonance Cascade, and go through a few more hallways before Gordon even picks up a gun.
** While the prologue of ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' is well-liked, the first "real" gameplay sequence in the canals/Airboat before getting a weapon on the airboat, and then the gravity gun after that, is considered a drudge by a lot of people. Note as well that the real gameplay starts in chapter 3; the first two chapters before that, other than one chase sequence in which you have no weapons, consist entirely of unskippable dialogue and world-building. When selecting "New Game", you can choose to [[NewGamePlus begin on any chapter you've already played to]], allowing you to skip to Ravenholm, which is just after the Gravity Gun tutorial, and the point at which the game starts to get really good. That is also one of the two chapters playable in the demo.
* ''VideoGame/HamtaroHamHamHeartbreak'' starts of with Hamtaro, who has to look for Bijou (who will join him permanently) and save Oxnard and Pepper's relationship. It's somewhat uninteresting until Bijou joins you and the relationship between Oxnard and Pepper is fixed, and then you meet Spat, but it's when you meet Harmony that the game will hit its stride.
* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games, a particularly notable example being ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonANewBeginning'' where the ForcedTutorial takes a ''[[ExaggeratedTrope full in-game year]]'', and you have to do a [[EarnYourFun lot of tedious scavenging for resources in order to unlock the fun elements]] and characters of the game. Before you show up, the place is a GhostTown with only two residents. You have to unlock those people by scavenging for resources to build their homes. ''Story of Seasons'' is [[GrowingTheBeard much better about the building mechanic]].

* ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'': The intent of the opening sequence playing Ethan Mars And His Idyllic Home Life is to familiarize yourself with the {{Quick Time Event}}s and make you care about Ethan...but lots of people found it incredibly boring.
* ''VideoGame/InfiniteUndiscovery'' was (rightly) criticized for its obnoxious opening hour. It starts with the player running up a long series of cut and pasted stairs, being chased by an invincible boss, proceeds into a ridiculously long and mostly pitch-black forest full of enemies, all with only two characters and about as many health items. After the forest, the player gets a proper party... controlled by the AI, with the only player-controlled character being unable to attack, being required to carry another character to a nearby town. Fortunately, it picks up immediately afterwards.
* ''VideoGame/{{Izuna}}''. While the games are a NintendoHard [[{{Roguelike}} dungeon crawler]], the first game has a long text introduction followed by a boring dungeon where you get few items and die in a couple of hits. The 2nd game is better for this, but still has a lot of text at the start.
* The first few levels of ''VideoGame/JediKnightIIJediOutcast'' are painful to get through, due to a combination of limited health and ammo, a restricted weapon selection where it takes an hour to find a weapon that even ''tries'' to combine [[ATeamFiring any semblance of accuracy]] and [[EmergencyWeapon actual power behind it]], and the stormtroopers having taken about [[TookALevelInBadass sixteen levels in badass]]. However, upon obtaining a lightsaber and gaining Force powers (and escaping the alley full of snipers that can still shoot you through the lightsaber) the game becomes primary example of how fraggin' cool it is to be a Jedi, when in almost a heartbeat you go from weeping bitter tears as you can't get through one room with ''four'' guys in it, to being able to literally stand in front of an entire army, not touch a single button, and ''still win''.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. You go through a three-hour prologue/tutorial playing as somebody who is not even the main character and whose story only even gets cursory mention throughout the rest of the game until the very end. Even within these three hours, you get five to ten minutes of really cool stuff set between a half-hour of slow, boring, stuff.
** Final Mix of ''Kingdom Hearts II'' at least sort of fixes it by adding a number of things to make the whole Roxas story more relevant, [[spoiler:most notably a battle against him towards the end of the game.]] Also, knowing what happened in the later-released side game ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'', which features Roxas as the main protagonist and is intended to be played (or watched in the case of the I.5 [=ReMix=] collection) before ''II'' according to WordOfGod, makes it much easier to get invested in the events of the prologue.
** Even in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'', the plot doesn't kick in until you reach Traverse Town, which happens after roughly an hour--maybe two--of play. But this is much better paced than its sequel, especially since most of the gameplay on Destiny Islands before the plot kicks into high gear is optional.
** The series has improved on this matter, ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' and ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' feature short and ''skippable'' tutorial sequences. You need to have seen the tutorial at least once in ''Birth by Sleep'' to be able to skip it, but you can skip ''Dream Drop Distance'''s tutorials right away. ''3D'' even puts some of its heavier background exposition in a menu log, allowing you to view them at your leisure instead of breaking up game flow with repeated flashbacks.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', both the first game and [[Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords its sequel]], have less than stellar opening levels that take a long time to complete and have a severely limited Jedi experience. It's only when planet selection is available that the games really pick up. The sequel is definitely a worse case, with the [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom incredibly linear]] ProlongedPrologue that takes in excess of three hours to complete, before dumping you in ''another'' prolonged prologue, albeit one with more openness and actual dialogue (but you still don't get a lightsaber until much later).
* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' starts off with a [[WithThisHerring horribly weak character]] armed with a single clumsy weapon in a jungle full of [[GoddamnBats irritating enemies]] and [[GuideDangIt unclear puzzles]], all while fighting tricky JumpPhysics and trying to figure out where to go. However, this has less to do with pacing problems and more to do with the developers' stated desire to weed out anyone who doesn't have the patience to put up with the steep learning curve. It picks up after you get the grail (which makes dying very unlikely outside of boss battles) and the glyph reader (which gives you a chance to start working on most of the puzzles). By that point, you've probably got some bearing on the general logic the game runs on and have gotten the hang of the control system.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastRemnant'' has an ''extremely'' complex battle system that takes a lot of patience to understand, much less master. There's also the really long, unskippable cut scenes...but, once you understand the fights enough so that you're not just pushing buttons, it gets good. It should be noted that the PC version makes the cutscenes skippable and somewhat streamlines the battle system, though it is still quite bewildering starting out.
* ''VideoGame/LauraBow: The Dagger of Amon Ra'' doesn't actually get interesting until after you make it to the museum. Before that it's a bunch of gathering information, gathering items because you've conveniently lost all of your stuff and somehow don't have a press pass, money, or a dress to wear to this party you've been hired to go to write a story on, and you have to take the taxi from place to place, watching the same unnecessarily long, unskippable transition clip every single time you do. But then the game actually starts to get interesting.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky FC'' is a slow burn. If you're expecting world-shattering events, traveling across continents in an airship (as the title might imply) or saving the world, you'll have to look elsewhere. The game's events are very grounded, and while there's great drama and battles ahead, it takes time to build that up. As in, the prologue, which spends its events in the starting town of Rolent takes about 7 hours if you're doing all the sidequests, and if you want halfway decent Quartz it's a must. The first chapter can drag in places, but once you meet [[BreakoutCharacter Olivier]], the storytelling is starting to pick up. Chapter 2 has a lot of memorable scenes, and the 3rd chapter is where the plot starts to really get going. After finishing the game, it becomes apparent that all the WorldBuilding, CharacterDevelopment, and exposition over [[ExaggeratedTrope the last 40 hours]] was there to get you invested in the cast and their world, and that it's one extended prologue to the real story in ''SC''.
* A recurring problem with the [=3D=] installments of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'', you have to do several successive tasks to regain your original form, from Deku Scrub to Hylian. [[TimedMission And you must do it within the time limit]] or else you'll have to do everything since the beginning because you can't save your progress until you're done. Note that the part about saving no longer applies in ''[[VideoGameRemake Majora's Mask 3D]]'', as owl statues now merely need to be examined instead of slashed at. Everything else is still true, however.
** The beginning of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'' is quite different from the rest of the game: you start out on a tiny island with no weapons, hang out with a cast of pirates, are carted around on their ship, lose your equipment, have to spend about an hour doing a StealthBasedMission (the only one in the entire game), and then have to do a number of fetch quests for various townspeople. It's only about 3 hours into the game when you finally have your equipment and your own boat that the game catches its stride.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' forces you to go through a ton of tutorial-style content before you get to the actual game. From the start of the game, it is roughly two hours before players enter the first dungeon, another hour before they gain access to Hyrule Field, and far longer still before they can explore it in its entirety. Included in the tutorials is learning how to fish, usually completely optional. Then after you catch something, you need to find out how to drop it so that the cat takes off with it.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tracks]]'' parodies the trope. It starts out with a big chunk of back-story, told with text and still pictures, just like the beginning of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]''. Once it ends, it's shown that Link got bored and fell asleep while an old man was telling the story. As for actual gameplay, the game does its best to speed through tutorials where you can, in theory, [[ActionPrologue die]].
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' faces a similar problem as ''Twilight Princess'' by having a typical small-town intro filled with various tutorials and cutscenes. While this is mitigated somewhat by a few side activities that you are free to do or skip at your discretion, it takes about an hour and a half for Link to finally journey to the Surface to properly start the adventure. And even then, it takes another hour and a half for Link to go through several ''more'' tutorials and cutscenes, a FetchQuest where you must locate members of the local tribe, and ''then'' finally enter the first proper dungeon.
** Completely defied with ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', going with its goal of cutting back on story and tutorials in favor of letting the player discover everything by themselves. Instead of a long sequence of story and tutorial events, you're instead given a vertical slice of the game's WideOpenSandbox right off the bat. And while you're required to complete the first four shrines to open up the rest of the game, nothing's stopping you from exploring the still-massive Great Plateau.
* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' are rather exposition-heavy in the first two chapters, and is your only chance to learn a lot about the city and characters within, however the main story of the game is a complete mystery to both the player and April, the main character in beginning. You also have to complete the infamous [[GuideDangIt inflatable Rubber Duck]] puzzle very early. It may put off some players being stuck with lots of exposition and a hard puzzle early when you haven't really learned the plot of the game and aren't really invested in the story.
* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'': The game starts with a long cutscene, and then a bunch of tutorial battles and small minigames. Even the first "dungeon" is constantly interrupted with forced tutorials. Once you get to Mushrise Park and learn how to use your hammers, the game stops bombarding you with tutorials and you can explore more freely.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': the first game opens with a short exposition onboard the Normandy starship, followed by the "dungeon" mission on Eden Prime which serves as a combat tutorial, then more exposition, which is followed by your arrival to the game's major town, the maze-like Citadel, which is full of ''even more exposition'' and fetch quests with a few action scenes before finally opening up when they give you the Normandy to explore the galaxy. The sequel in contrast opens with an action-packed dungeon nowhere near as long as Eden Prime, followed by a short exposition, then another action-packed dungeon, and then an even shorter exposition before opening up. On the other hand, given that half the reason for playing [=BioWare=] games is to experience the worlds they've created, some players might ''enjoy'' the exposition.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' can start off slow, stiff, and exposition-heavy for some... until the scope of the plot and narrative slowly build-up, hitting a spike at the [[MindScrew Psycho Mantis battle]], culminating into an explosive, emotional climax that few games can compare to.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' starts with the derelict frigate, which is well regarded by players but then you lose everything, ''including the Charge Beam'', leaving spamming the Power Beam (read: ''constant'' ButtonMashing) your main attack until you get it back, which is a borderline GuideDangIt if you're new to the series and haven't gotten used to the exploration-based gameplay.
** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'', the start of the game is slowed down because of the extreme caution necessary during the first forays into Dark Aether. Without the Dark Suit, gameplay is reduced to darting from beacon to beacon while defeating persistent enemies, and exploration of the nonlinear worlds (the core of ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'''s gameplay) is effectively ''punished''. Dark Aether isn't meant to be safe by any definition, but it's only later with the obtainment of the Dark Suit that taking risks becomes a genuine option, but by then the game is already a third on the way to the end.
** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', the Olympus and Norion are very generic Federation areas (though the Ridley fight is good), and Bryyo is very linear and with some annoying level design and tasks. Once you beat Mogenar, you're off to Elysia, a stunning steampunk world with tramlines to grapple across, more exciting upgrades, and it gets a bit more open at this point too (a third on the way to the end).
* ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'' billed itself as a game based around mind-controlling Uruks to build your own army, and you spend the entirety of act 1 doing none of that. It's actually worked into the plot, as the heroes would really like to get a start on building their army, but Shelob has stolen their Ring.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' games start out slow, but once you get used to the controls and the craft/shop system then anyone can really pick up to fighting monsters that are challenging, colorful, and entertaining, with resulting weapons follow suit. In particular, ''Freedom Unite'' has a set of tutorial missions that can take a day or more to get through. After you actually start getting rewarded for your effort, however, it picks up nicely, even though there's no plot beyond the premise. It goes a lot faster with friends. As part of its sweeping modernizations to the series, ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'' makes an attempt to avoid this. After a two-part ActionPrologue, there's a lull as you tour your new base of operations, then just a single non-optional busywork quest before you're on to hunting the big things.
* This is one of the reasons Act I of ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' tends to get flak from some players, particularly those mainly interested in the story. You travel through two quest hubs, several scripted encounters, and lots of ultimately irrelevant sidequests before you ''finally'' get to Neverwinter--at which point you get ''even more'' irrelevant sidequests before finally getting a chance to continue with the main plot.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'' stars eight travelers, each with their own story and reason for setting out on a journey across the continent of Orsterra. Each of their first chapters (out of four) involves having to sit through several expository scenes and take part in a tutorial on their Path Action before setting out to [[NoobCave a relatively easy introductory dungeon]]. The fact that you have to do this ''eight times'' means the early game drags a bit.
* ''Oh No! More VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' begins with the Tame levels -- twenty levels of various terrain formations, with all skills available and ''no hazards'', so there is no difficulty whatever, and not much fun either.
* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' has a long, unskippable, if beautifully drawn, introduction detailing the historical battle between Nagi, Shiranui, and Orochi. If the player started the game only after letting the "attract loop" play, which illustrated the exact same story slightly differently, it seemed to go on for a very very long time. It is possible to skip the cutscene [[NewGamePlus once you've already finished the game]], while the Wii remake also allows you to skip them on your first run through. The actual game itself also suffers from this: the first several hours are very linear and restrict you to a few small locations, while [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper Issun feels an insatiable need to interrupt your gameplay every few minutes.]] It does vastly improve once you unlock your basic brush powers and get full access to the larger areas, although the hand-holding never really goes away.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a very slow beginning which is not helped by Aya's rather sluggish movement speed. You start off with Aya going to watch an opera show, which quickly goes south when the [[BigBad Eve]] shows up, but the pacing is rather slow since you only get to fight some rats at first before having another fight with Eve and then ending the chapter with a fight against a mutated SewerGator while getting no explanation on what's going on. Day 2 starts off with a rather lengthy section of basically watching everyone talk about what happened in the previous day and what to do about it before you get start the next dungeon section that is Central Park. However, Central Park is also a slog since it's ''very'' big, peppered with random encounters, and almost nothing happens in the story until you reach Eve and fight her. The story and the action start to pick up by day 3 where more of the story elements are explained and the high stakes against Eve start to manifest when she has her monsters attack the police precient where Aya works at.

** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'' is the only Mario RPG that explicitly prevents you from [[ActionCommands guarding and using timed hits]] until it is [[YouShouldntKnowThisAlready explained by the tutorial]] at the end of the lengthy prologue. Until then, battle is purely "hit and get hit", and the player is forced to use healing blocks and items to avoid dying.
** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario''. The first chapter consists of only Mario being playable, only one Pixl (which you get halfway through), and not many interesting puzzles. It picks up when you get to use Peach in chapter 2, along with more puzzle-oriented level design and slowly acquiring more Pixls. You also get Bowser in chapter 3, which shows off the gameplay variety and gives you more fun combinations of characters and Pixls to use.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'': Those who like the game generally state that it doesn't really pick up until World 3. The first two worlds are the standard grasslands and desert, both being largely plotless and lacking much variation. World 3, in spite of its [[ArcFatigue length]], has a more interesting BubblegloopSwamp environment, includes levels that deviate from the standard formula (including Rustle Burrow's BagOfSpilling mechanic and Stump Glade's game show), and it's the only world with an overarching plotline (retrieving Wiggler's parts and figuring out how to clean up the forest). Worlds 4 and 5 lose the overarching plot, but still keep adding new ideas to their themes (respectively, having an elaborate haunted house that portrays Boos as some sort of horror unleashed from a book and a minecart ride for a final dungeon; World 5 progresses from a fairly unique jungle setting with raft rides, to ruins, to a volcano).
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'' starts with the Whispering Woods, which primarily consists of walking between the start of the forest and the Spring of Restoration, briefly interrupted by relatively simple tutorial battles. There's also a small interlude at Toad Town afterwards, where you travel through the sewers and meet up with Luigi. The game begins to pick up at Picnic Road, which introduces a bunch of hidden secrets to find.

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is an odd case in that it just can't help but justify the AnthropicPrinciple. You know as soon as you discover the TV world that you're going to wind up going to it and fighting monsters, but the characters react realistically rather than [[JumpedAtTheCall simply rushing in]], with the result that gameplay doesn't fully open up until about three hours in.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', much like its predecessors, suffers from a slow beginning. Although it has an ActionPrologue in order to set up the FramingDevice, the player then has to sit through 9 in-game days of set-up, during which there are very few meaningful choices to make. This can take about 5 hours of play-time, after which more ways to spend time start to be unlocked.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' franchise, it's annoyingly tedious to be shown how to catch Pokémon at the beginning of every game. Especially bad in a few of the games, where it's possible to catch a full, six-mon party of Pokémon ''before'' you receive this tutorial. Some people say that the most boring part of every single Pokémon game is the first few towns until the first gym battle. You knew everything that happens there years before the game was even made.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' are even worse about this than normal. Melemele Island, the first of the region's four main islands, is so aggressive with hand-holding that many players are discouraged from restarting for a [[SelfImposedChallenge challenge run]] simply to avoid going through it a second time. At this point in the game, it's almost as if the world ''[[DoNotDoThisCoolThing doesn't want you to explore]]'', given how it seems you can't go more than a few feet without another cutscene that lasts anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, or get whisked away from wherever you were to somewhere else to watch ''another'' cutscene. Once you reach Akala Island, the game starts to back off, and the story really starts to come through by the time you hit Ula'ula Island.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' not only has the same issues as ''Sun and Moon'' mentioned above but also has the misfortune of being largely the same story as before, with only the Ultra Recon Squad making frequent but minor appearances. The story doesn't really start to diverge from the originals until the first visit to Aether Paradise, which is after completing the second (out of four) islands. This isn't so bad for those who didn't play the originals, but veterans will need a lot of patience while treading old ground.
** ''VideoGame/HeyYouPikachu'' gets off to a weak start, mainly because you can't look away from your Pika-pal until he comes to live with you. Once you get full camera controls, the game opens up nicely.
* There isn't any interactivity at ''all'' for the first hour or so of ''VisualNovel/PrincessWaltz''. The first time you do anything other than click through dialogue is the battle at the end of Chapter Two... which promptly introduces you to the simple yet intricate card-battle system, at which point your interest gets reignited.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' starts off pretty slow where you just wander from room to room looking for keys to progress. You only fight some zombies and a few zombie dogs, but the battle with the giant snake is when things start to pick up a bit and the backstory via files start to reveal a lot more on what happened at the mansion grounds.
* ''VideoGame/RetroGameChallenge'' opens up with the earliest, simplest game in the collection: ''Cosmic Gate''. If you happen to not be a fan of ''Galaga'' then you're in for a bit of a bad time.
* ''VideoGame/{{Rune}}'': After the perfectly serviceable tutorial, you and your allies are killed at sea. Your body then sinks so far DownTheDrain that you end up in a network of boring underwater caves and ruins under the underworld before ol' Odin decides to revive you, which are filled with boring enemies like crabs, anemones and jellyfish (with occasional goblins, but they're very rare.) On your way to the surface, you then have to pass through Helheim, which is full of almost nothing but boring zombies. ''Finally'', you get to the "land of the living", and the game gets vastly better from there on in. The intro is bad enough that it was probably partially responsible for the game's obscurity.
* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam3BFE'' starts out rather slowly with most of the enemies coming one by one. A pistol and a single shotgun are your only ranged weapons near the beginning. Taking cover is also necessary despite what the game's slogan is due to a lot of enemies having hitscan weapons. Near the end of the third level, first big battles start to happen and the pace of the game picks up a lot, and from there builds up to series standard in pretty short order. The lack of ranged weapons can be averted by finding secrets. Find the right ones and by the time you reach those first big battles you already have both shotguns, an assault rifle, and the laser gun; this still leaves you with little ammo for them until the point you normally acquire them, though.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' gets off to something of a slow start. You name your characters, get sent on a few tangential bits of exploration in the Shinjuku Medical Center, find out about the end of the world, and get thrown back into the hospital, now able to save after the first 45 minutes. It's only after you do some battling, get a humble Pixie, and start getting used to recruiting demons that you begin to get to grips with the game. Even then, it's a few hours of linear dungeons and low-level demons before you get the Compendium and your Fusion options open up. Then you slog through the Underpass of Ginza and are confronted with Matador, the first boss that tests your knowledge of the game's mechanics and the fun challenge begins in earnest. From this point on, you get access to [[BrutalBonusLevel the AMala Labyrinth]], fight your way through the trial in Ikebukuro, and can tackle the optional Fiend bosses and dungeons while you chart a path to the many MultipleEndings.
* A number of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' players tend to give up before they enter Tokyo, as that's where the game's EarlyGameHell and lack of varied environments ends and the player can start picking up attacks and weapons best-suited to eliminating entire enemy parties at once, which are vital especially given the game's [[RocketTagGameplay lack of a defense stat]] that leads to either the player's party emerging victorious or getting destroyed in about one or two turns.
* Following the ''very'' attention-grabbing EstablishingSeriesMoment in ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', the first 30 minutes or so involves a lengthy key hunt through the titular fog-shrouded town, looking for notes to guide you in the right direction and tracking down three keys hidden in the northeast section of the map to unlock the back door of an abandoned house. Once you make it through that door and the daylight rapidly falls away into darkness, the game's signature style of visceral terror rarely lets up again until the credits roll.

** Starting off small can be rather boring for some, but this is also where you can make a lot of mistakes by expanding a city ''too quickly'' and going bankrupt or get into bad development habits. Particularly after the first, when you have to lay out a lot more to expand at all. Luckily, you can dive into working with an existing metropolis in all of the games, though you might have to turn disasters off in some scenarios.
** ''Sim City 4'' takes this to the extreme in the sense that they offer the regions of San Fransisco, New York City, and a generic "Fairview" as being ''completely empty'', as in not one town to get you started, let alone your own custom regions start off blank. It can be frustrating to get the first few towns to grow, but after you get the regional population over 150,000, getting other cities to grow actually becomes incredibly easier and more strategically challenging as opposed to being pure frustration.

** The Westopolis stage is one of the worst opening stages in the entire Sonic franchise and probably helped lower the already rock-bottom public opinion of ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog''. It exposes many of the game's flaws; the game starts becoming considerably more fun around the halfway point when better weapons deal with the targeting system's flaws when in close range. And in order to get the final ending of the game and face the TrueFinalBoss, you have to get the game's ten normal endings. That means you have to play through Westopolis ''ten times''.
** ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheSecretRings'' forces you to unlock many of the interesting abilities, going as far as to make you actually have to [[FakeDifficulty unlock better controls.]]
** ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheBlackKnight'' isn't much better, although it's more tolerable at first, and gets ''much'' better by the end. It has less to do with gaining abilities and more to do with the player learning what to do combined with bad level design for the first couple stages. Right around Molten Mine, the game picks up significantly.
* The early parts of ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' (presumably intentionally) seem like a generic, somewhat unpolished, modern military shooter. As it progresses, the story begins to play with and subvert the expected tropes, creating a more engaging experience. [[FromBadToWorse "Better" probably isn't the right word to describe the direction the plot takes, though.]]

* The first hour or so of ''VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'' consists almost entirely of "run to this place, talk to this person, repeat." There's only two battles during the entire opening, and one is a tutorial.

** ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' starts you out with one party member, rendering any strategy beyond 'hit and get hit' nonexistent. Also, the game gives you little room for error; this isn't too much of a problem in Onett, but [[ThatOneLevel Peaceful Rest Valley]] can be a nightmare even with the help of the rolling HP meter. After Paula joins and levels up enough for her tremendous speed and magical powers to start showing, the game gets much better. And before that... well, let's just let [[WebVideo/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] explain it:

* ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2''. You start the game the moment you enroll with [[MegaCorp TriOptimum]]. You go through the basic training (three simple and very quick tutorials) and then through three years of training... which amount to picking one of three doors, three times. Most fans agree this is an aversion, since it is very quick, especially if you want it to be quick. It works well as part of the intro - establishing your character, while the FMV-intro establishes the setting of the game. Nonetheless, the game also has a severe case of EarlyGameHell, and key plot developments are not revealed until you're almost done with a third of the main campaign.

** The first ten hours of ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' can be a real drag since the main character Luke is an unlikable JerkAss, the characters constantly throw around terms like "Score", "the Seventh Fonon" and "Hyperresonance" which either aren't explained until later or require immidiate heavy-handed exposition, and the plot is fairly typical. Even worse is how expensive weapon and armor is, so every time you get a new character you have to waste a lot of time running around fighting monsters because you will not have enough money. But eventually you get all your characters geared up, Luke has a HeelRealization moment, and the first traditional ''Tales'' plot twist happens, making the story actually interesting.

* The first episode of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead: Season Two'' isn't all that interesting, with Clementine mostly on her own, while one of Telltale's greatest strengths is creating memorable characters and giving the player meaningful interactions with them. The overall direction of the story is also very vague. Once Clementine finally begins to be trusted by the new group of survivors near the end of episode one and the focus of the story is introduced early on in episode two, the game becomes the Walking Dead experience players know and love, and stays that way.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'':
** The first game starts with the derelict frigate, which is well regarded by players but then you lose everything, ''including the Charge Beam'', leaving spamming the Power Beam (read: ''constant'' ButtonMashing) your main attack until you get it back, which is a borderline GuideDangIt if you're new to the series and haven't gotten used to the exploration-based gameplay.
** In ''Echoes'', the start of the game is slowed down because of the extreme caution necessary during the first forays into Dark Aether. Without the Dark Suit, gameplay is reduced to darting from beacon to beacon while defeating persistent enemies, and exploration of the nonlinear worlds (the core of ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'''s gameplay) is effectively ''punished''. Dark Aether isn't meant to be safe by any definition, but it's only later with the obtainment of the Dark Suit that taking risks becomes a genuine option, but by then the game is already a third on the way to the end.
** In ''Corruption'', the Olympus and Norion are very generic Federation areas (though the Ridley fight is good), and Bryyo is very linear and with some annoying level design and tasks. Once you beat Mogenar, you're off to Elysia, a stunning steampunk world with tramlines to grapple across, more exciting upgrades, and it gets a bit more open at this point too (a third on the way to the end).

* Following the ''very'' attention-grabbing EstablishingSeriesMoment in ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', the first 30 minutes or so involves a lengthy key hunt through the titular fog-shrouded town, looking for notes to guide you in the right direction and tracking down three keys hidden in the northeast section of the map to unlock the back door of an abandoned house. Once you make it through that door and the daylight rapidly falls away into darkness, the game's signature style of visceral terror rarely lets up again until the credit roll.

* Following to ''very'' attention-grabbing EstablishingSeriesMoment in ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', the first 30 minutes or so involves a lengthy key hunt through the titular fog-shrouded town, looking for notes to guide you in the right direction and tracking down three keys hidden in the northeast section of the map to unlock the back door of an abandoned house. Once you make it through that door and the daylight rapidly falls away into darkness, the game's signature style of visceral terror rarely lets up again until the credit roll.

* ''VideoGame/SeriousSamIIIBFE'' starts out rather slowly with most of the enemies coming one by one. A pistol and a single shotgun are your only ranged weapons near the beginning. Taking cover is also necessary despite what the game's slogan is due to a lot of enemies having hitscan weapons. Near the end of the third level, first big battles start to happen and the pace of the game picks up a lot, and from there builds up to series standard in pretty short order. The lack of ranged weapons can be averted by finding secrets. Find the right ones and by the time you reach those first big battles you already have both shotguns, an assault rifle, and the laser gun; this still leaves you with little ammo for them until the point you normally acquire them, though.

** There's a small bit of explanation of the world in the opening cutscene, then straight into a mysterious mission for mysterious, untrustworthy people that doesn't explain anything. The inciting incident of Rex's death and resurrection followed by deciding to go to Elysium takes things in a good direction at the end of chapter 1. However, the story takes every opportunity to ''not'' go towards Elysium[[labelnote:How much so?]]After the party hits a proverbial wall at the end of chapter two, finding a solution and actually using it takes until chapter ''seven out of ten''[[/labelnote]], and it's a while until the other plotlines pick up enough momentum to make up for the lack of progression on the obvious main story.

** VideoGame/TheWitcher2 had a similar problem due to its inverse difficulty curve and barely-present tutorial. Some players RageQuit the game after failing to beat the first encounter with enemy mooks. However, once you get a hang of the way the combat works and get some levels to unlock more abilities, it turns into a very rewarding experience.

* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games, a particularly notable example being ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonANewBeginning'' where the ForcedTutorial takes a ''[[ExaggeratedTrope full in-game year]]'', and you have to do a [[EarnYourFun lot of tedious scavenging for resources in order to unlock the fun elements]] and characters of the game. Before you show up, the place is a GhostTown with only two residents. You have to unlock those people by scavenging for resources to build their homes. {{Story of Seasons}} is [[GrowingTheBeard much better about the building mechanic]].

* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games, a particularly notable example being ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonANewBeginning'' where the ForcedTutorial takes a ''[[UpToEleven full in-game year]]'', and you have to do a [[EarnYourFun lot of tedious scavenging for resources in order to unlock the fun elements]] and characters of the game. Before you show up, the place is a GhostTown with only two residents. You have to unlock those people by scavenging for resources to build their homes. {{Story of Seasons}} is [[GrowingTheBeard much better about the building mechanic]].

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky FC'' is a slow burn. If you're expecting world-shattering events, traveling across continents in an airship (as the title might imply) or saving the world, you'll have to look elsewhere. The game's events are very grounded, and while there's great drama and battles ahead, it takes time to build that up. As in, the prologue, which spends its events in the starting town of Rolent takes about 7 hours if you're doing all the sidequests, and if you want halfway decent Quartz it's a must. The first chapter can drag in places, but once you meet [[BreakoutCharacter Olivier]], the storytelling is starting to pick up. Chapter 2 has a lot of memorable scenes, and the 3rd chapter is where the plot starts to really get going. After finishing the game, it becomes apparent that all the WorldBuilding, CharacterDevelopment, and exposition over [[UpToEleven the last 40 hours]] was there to get you invested in the cast and their world, and that it's one extended prologue to the real story in ''SC''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2''[='=]s multiplayer: You start with one available weapon, one game mode, and one set of gear and must earn everything else by leveling up. The early battles are still fun, but it isn't until you've gained a few levels that other weapon types become available and the real variety of gameplay styles become apparent. When you hit level 10 and gain access to ranked battles, the game ''really'' opens up.

** The [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit 8-bit version of]] ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' is very different from the Megadrive/Genesis Sonic 2. Notably some genius decided to put perhaps the hardest boss (FAR harder than ANYTHING in a Genesis Sonic game) in any Sonic game ever as [[WakeUpCallBoss THE FIRST BOSS]].

** There's a small bit of explanation of the world in the opening cutscene, then straight into a mysterious mission for mysterious, untrustworthy people that doesn't explain anything. The inciting incident of Rex's death and resurrection followed by deciding to go to Elysium takes things in a good direction at the end of chapter 1. However, the story takes every opportunity to ''not'' go towards Elysium, and it's a while until the other plotlines pick up enough momentum to make up for the lack of progression on the obvious main story.

** Many consider the entirety of the ''A Realm Reborn'', the base game of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' to be extremely slow-paced. The majority of quests are either a series of one FetchQuest too many, ChainOfDeals, or TwentyBearAsses. The story itself drags out and you have to do a ''lot'' of quests before things get interesting. The post-patch content for ''A Realm Reborn'' is a little better, but the game doesn't get better about it until last handful of quests where things go to hell real fast and the lead up into the ''Heavenward'' story. The developers did finally address the issue and made the base game more bearable for new players by removing several quests.