Short Games

[hwdoble]

What are some great games which can be completed in less than five hours?

My favourites are Portal and Ikachan.

 

[Eclipse14]

Some of the early Kirby games come to mind. The first Dream Land on Game Boy and Adventure on NES stand out in particular.

Assuming you know what you're doing, a good chunk of the Mega Man series is the same way.

 

[hwdoble]

I might add there are lots of games you could theoretically do a playthrough of in less than five hours but once you add up all the trial and error and dying it'd be far more than that. Beat 'em ups, platformers, shmups etc.

 

[Hourai]

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk is about ten minutes long. Completely worth it, too.
You can unlock expert in about two and a half hours in Star Fox 64, since you only need three runs to play every level.
OutRun is a short arcade game. 2006: Coast 2 Coast is longer, but still short even if you do manage to do it.
Ace Combat 3 about five hours for a route? Less on other ones, because you swap to a new save slot after branching points.

 

[Evil Pope]

Sega Rally on Saturn is perfect

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

A Boy and His Blob on NES (assuming you know where to go and what to do).

Stunts (PC).

 

[Sinmenon]

If you know what you are doing, you can beat Full Throttle in a little over 4 hours, but the thing is the "know what you are doing", as it can take like... twice as much. A lot of it goes to other adventure games, like Loom can be around 3 hours. What Remains of Edith Finch? 2 hours and a half.
Detention, a wonderful horror game, is 3h40-ish.

Actually to start working through my backlog, I made a list using the howlongtobeat and placed some games that I can beat under 8 hours. So far, it has been helpful.

 

[nyka]

I think of an old rpgmaker game named PenPalz. You can walk to the game's ending in less than a couple of minutes but you'd be entirely missing out on a very cool mood-piece of a little game. Still overall probably doesn't take more than an hour to finish though!

*edit*

2nd runner up has to be Kirby's Dreamland 1!

 

[Stingy Perry]

Streets of Rage 2 especially when you’re using the level select cheat.

 

[NotReallyHere]

D, on the Sega Saturn / PS1. The entire game has an internal (and invisible) time limit of two hours. Take any longer than that, and you're warped out of the castle and given the bad ending.

Mansion of Hidden Souls, on Saturn and Sega CD, is a similar game of a similar length. The two are actually different games with the same title (??) but both can be completed in just about an hour or two.

As you can probably tell, I really like point-and-click / first-person adventure games with a spooky theme

 

[NekketsuFighter]

Undertale. It's less than 5 hours long per ending, it's great, and can run in ANY computer.

 

[Rayonese]

Near orbit vanguard alliance (NOVA), the game can be completed in five hours or less, but knowing what to do is the key here

 

[Kremiso]

some doable Snes/Megadrive games after a bit of training like Super Turrican 1/2 - Mega Turrican
or Jim Power

X-Out resurfaced on PC is also doable in 30-45 mins;
Black Paradox is another shump i liked a lot, just the final boss is imo a lot hard to beat

 

[ciro64]

Trip World for the Game Boy

This one is really short, but it compensates by making locations really pretty and unique and having a great enemy variety (many of them appearing on just a single instance). The soundtrack has the same level of quality too.

The shortness is also compensated by being a 1cc game. It's gonna take a few tries to beat.

Another games: Castlevania 64, Magical Pop'n, Chamelleon Twist, Super Mario Land

 

[Bonkers225]

All of the platforming games from the 8 to 16 bit era can be completed in a few hours or way less like 30 minutes or so.

 

[NeonKnights]

Silent Hill (1999)

 

[UnDubious]

D, on the Sega Saturn / PS1. The entire game has an internal (and invisible) time limit of two hours. Take any longer than that, and you're warped out of the castle and given the bad ending.

Mansion of Hidden Souls, on Saturn and Sega CD, is a similar game of a similar length. The two are actually different games with the same title (??) but both can be completed in just about an hour or two.

The Sega CD game is just "Mansion" while the Saturn sequel is "The Mansion". Makes no sense, I know. The Japanese titles were different, no idea why they did that with the Western versions.

D started on the 3DO, if anyone cares. It was quickly ported to other consoles though. I like the Dreamcast D2 but it'd be cool if the original D2 for the M2 actually came out too.

 

[nobitakun]

Any Biohazard game.
Parasite Eve.

 

[solidbatman]

Vanquish (really fun Platinum Games third person cover shooter) can be beaten in like 4 hours and goes on sale for dirt cheap on steam frequently. For story driven stuff, the To the Moon series is really solid. Each of the main games is like 4 hours long or so.

 

[Dakarus]

Your icon says it all, Cave Story

 

[silverfoenix]

What are some great games which can be completed in less than five hours?

My favourites are Portal and Ikachan.

Since you seem to enjoy Cave Story, may I recommend
Valdis Story: Abyssal City


Quick ones
Pepsi man
Metal Slug (Any one but 3 was peak)

 

[nintara]

pretty much any twisted metal game to my knowledge.

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

The Umihara Kawase series, a first run trough will take between two to three hours, skilled players finish the snes one in less than five minutes.

 

[Lokgamer]

Remothered Tormented Fathers
Little Nigthmares 1 and 2
Most of Silent Hill games