If your game starts off with "go save the princess" and every fucking hour your reminded "go save the princess!" even though you have some task in front of you, it can feel to long. space shit out, if your objective is to save the princess don't tell us that before hand, give us time to see the world and understand, explore a bit. Use the time to explain game mechanics. Then have some shit happen, guy sends us to find a mcguffin, we find a mcguffin, and from there the task of getting to / rescuing the princess becomes important.