Intro Cutscenes - How long?

Asqueria doesn't have one yet. You press play game, and we drop you in front of a play testing NPC who tries to explain your options. We're on version 0.0.1 for a reason! 

I've been playing a few old favorites as well as some other gamejam entries (Verloren was cool!) -- Checking out ideas for the "opening cutscene" in these retro RPGs. Where did we start and where have we gotten to?

SNES FF's tend to have 5-6min opening scenes, and drop you into gameplay with simple characters. But, they're usually cutting around to different locations and scenes, giving glimpses of characters and threats, pretty fast paced cutscenes then right into gameplay. The only mark against them is these are 1991-1994 games and the translations were often pretty rough, but that was fixed in later editions. For simple 30+ year old text-only dialogues, They hold up pretty well, tho a bit cheesy.

Then looking at some of my fellow indie rpgs out there, It's a bit different. I see many leaning towards visual novel design, with 7-15 minute heavily scripted openings.. Sometimes with a sprinkling of easy battle segments to keep the player pressing buttons, sometimes not. If the story seems cool and grips me, then this can be good, sure.  But other times it feels a bit self indulgent. After 15 minutes of scripted events I don't learn a thing about the gameplay (combat or otherwise).. and after that you drop me in a tutorial zone :( 

HOW LONG before I can actually play some RPG? If it's much longer than that, you might lose me before I get there.  But then again, I know some people would want more of that for various reasons - It's a personal taste thing. I like to get to know the world more than a script, myself. But if there's literally 0 story that's not great for me either. I guess it just depends.

For me, This doesn't need to be crazy combat or flashy graphics, just gimme something beyond pressing "A" to read the next line of text. Give some interesting choices to make in dialogue. Let me pull some tarot cards to seed some game variables, Ogre Battle style. Would that 10min opening cutscene be better if half of it was part of a playable level instead? Food for thought. 

So, dear reader, I ask you: Assuming the restrictions of being a small fry dev, What is the ideal opening for an RPG ? 

• 5min? 10min? Longer, shorter? 
• Scrolling screen text? NPC dialogues? 
• Interactive with gameplay or played straight out like a movie script?