DISCUSSING REPLAY VALUE

Tactics Ogre is a shining example of replay value. The overall story is the same, but the path of getting there is different and it also affects your party composition. As a result, players will aspire to have a save file for each of the Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic routes. The Romancing SaGa series and SaGa Frontier 1 have a lot of replay value too, though the playthroughs tend to be very samey after the second or third run. If you want genuine replay value, story progression and gameplay customization/versatility are necessary.

Apart from that, like Hoddmimir said, time spent is a big factor. Only the most dedicated or nostalgia-induced fan will replay a 150+ hour epic, but 3-hour little Wanderers from Ys III might see action on many people's Sunday afternoons.

Another quasi-example of replay value is Chrono Trigger, but that's just because it was such an awesome game for it's time :D

Yeah, I am a big fan of New Game +

I do like games that deliberately force you to choose between A or B, where the other becomes permanently missed, as long as those kind of choices are significant, there aren't too many occurrances of them (like, say 5 tops) and (most importantly) the game is good to begin with. I am also a huge sucker for classes in RPGs.

For example, in KOTOR I & II I played those games 3-4 times each because of they are awesome games, the class choices you get at the start, the choice mid-game for what kind of jedi you want to be and the whole "good path vs. evil path". I had fun playing the games over and over with a variety of different builds.

I'm all about replayability. It's just about the thing I value most as a player, and strive for most as a developer. These are the main approaches I can think of:

1. Selection of races, classes, or builds, which affect the entire playing experience in fundamental ways.
2. Story branching based on player choices.
3. Extensive use of randomization.
4. Inclusion of an element of player-to-player interaction, including competition.
5. Unlockables, achievements, high score boards, and other incentives to get good at the game.
6. Optional quests/areas to explore.
7. Game content can be expanded.

My favorite games, whatever their genre, all do one or more of these things well.
I'm nowhere near the end of Dark Souls, but I know I'm gonna be replaying it mostly because of 1 and a little bit of 4.

I love games which I can play over and over. There are games I've played over five times, a lot of them taking over 20 hours to beat.

Some a lot of games trouts elements that are supposed to add replay value, but they don't seem to matter to me. For example, I've played Kingdom Hearts over ten times and even though you can select three different paths (which aren't that dramatic different though) I choose the Staff most of the times.

What matters to me is that the game is really fun and doesn't have any "bumps" in it. With "bumps" I mean something that feels difficult to me to get trough, something I wish I could just skip. One example is the heavy story focus at the beginning on Final Fantasy X. I can stand the relative cutscene heavy game otherwise, but at the first six hour (quite a long time IMO) there's just to much cutscene and to little action. Otherwise I would have played the game a lot more than I did.

I should say first off that I don't think community games have as great a need for replay value as professional games do. All that anyone could ask for is that people play their game once from beginning to end and that should make you happy. For the most part, we like to play a variety of games to give many designers their fair shake, and we have less time to do that if we're just playing one game over and over.

One factor that makes me want to replay games later is when I get to the end and think "now that I understand the strategies, if I replay the game again with good strategy, I think might be able to beat it in 20% of the time and have a much stronger end game." Some examples include:
-In Ogre Battle, you need to properly manage the charisma and alignment of your characters to get the second class promotions (i.e. from Fighter to Knight to Paladin). If you don't manage this carefully, you will eventually reach a point where your Knights and other characters can't promote to Paladins or any similar-tiered class because their charisma is 0. They would be 33% weaker in battle than they should / could be at that point, and therefore, you won't even be able to beat new stages anymore and you'll have to start over, especially since the opportunity for EXP grinding is pretty limited in that game.
-In FF6, if you try to make it through the game with as low a level as possible, and don't start leveling-up your characters until everyone (or anyone you care about) has joined your party in the second half of the game, then you can maximize the level-up gains that the espers give you, which results in certain stats getting ultra high and makes for Godly characters. Not that you need it, because in that game, if all of your equipment configuration is optimal, then you have a Godly endgame anyway, with or without Godly stats to go with it, and the final bosses just aren't strong enough to resist you at all.
-In FF1, initial party selection is a very crucial element in how easily you get through the game, and aside from overall strength of the party, you also should factor-in late game strength, early game strength, and the ability to abuse the experience beacon near the second town. Ultimately, there is the temptation to replay the game with different party configurations to theorize what configuration is best and then test your hypothesis.

Another element that gives a game replay value is when you have to make choices that will show you something, but then you don't get to see something else. It could be that you have a choice, and choice A leads to you seeing cutscene A and choice B leads you to seeing cutscene B. Other consequences of choices could involve the death of NPC's, whether you character A or character B joins your party, which town gets burnt down, which faction becomes the prevailing authority (i.e. late game towns could be occupied by mobsters one way, or nazi types the other way), different end game bosses, and so on. If you make it obvious to the player that they're making a choice, then they'll want to replay the game and see what the other choice would lead to. If these deviations in paths are calculated secretly, and the player doesn't realize that it might be different if replayed, then the curiosity won't be there.

In that sense, the replay value of a game just because it's good, I replayed ABL with immense pleasure (more than the first time in fact), and I think I would still enjoy it a third time. this said, it's the only amateur rpg I can think of replaying.

There are games I've replayed just to re-experience the totally linear story, or just to re-experience the totally linear gamplay. There are also movies I've re-watched despite having totally linear stories and no gameplay.

But I think that in general I do that because there are parts I no longer remember clearly. I remember that it's good, and I remember some of the best parts, but I have forgotten what the whole experience feels like and I know that if I start over it'll almost all seem fresh. I'm not going to do it right after playing the game or watching the movie the first time. I'm going to do it a couple years later.

This type of "replay value" is universal to any type of creative media and is based purely on quality. It boils down to "we should make better games" which is not really useful or actionable information. I mean, duh. Of course it's good to make better games, no one is going to disagree with that. The type of replay value that gamers typically think of when you say the term, which is when games have missable events, is much more useful to discuss.

Personally I still dislike the idea of replay value in RPGs, and think it usually makes them worse games, not better games. I'll list two main reasons:

1) I don't want to abandon all the effort I've put into a game. Those are my dudes, I put a lot of work into building their strength up because being stronger is cool. RPG style progression is all about building up power over an extended period of time. That power becomes important to me as a player, something I earned through sweat and blood. I don't want to lose it.

2) I dislike replaying a game for the same reason I dislike grinding and fighting the same group of enemies over and over. Battles are puzzles, and solving a puzzle is only fun the first time. Once I've proven to the game that I figured out how to overcome a challenge, I shouldn't have to redo it.

New Game+ once again goes a long way towards solving both of these problems. But it doesn't really solve the second problem completely, unless the enemies all scale up in power for each successive playthrough to match you or something weird like that.

I didn't read all the posts, but in case no one said it:

Replay value is important when you're deciding whether you'll buy a game or not. You don't want to spend $$$$ on a game you will play for 6 hours and discard it.

I don't think it's as important for indie games though.

Maybe when people are talking about "replay value" in reviews and whatnot, what they really mean is "significant and meaningful choices, that can only be made one time in a given playthrough"?

Also

This type of "replay value" is universal to any type of creative media and is based purely on quality. It boils down to "we should make better games" which is not really useful or actionable information. I mean, duh. Of course it's good to make better games, no one is going to disagree with that. The type of replay value that gamers typically think of when you say the term, which is when games have missable events, is much more useful to discuss.

Maybe this would be better labeled as "play value"? As in "this game plays good, Imma gonna play it again"

idk just philosophizing

EDIT:

2) I dislike replaying a game for the same reason I dislike grinding and fighting the same group of enemies over and over. Battles are puzzles, and solving a puzzle is only fun the first time. Once I've proven to the game that I figured out how to overcome a challenge, I shouldn't have to redo it.

but what about the grander scheme of things? A series or sequence of "puzzles" that test not only your puzzle solving battle skills, but also your overall preparation and endurance strategies? The Puzzle around the puzzle? PUZZLECEPTION