What is the longest JRPG?

[Brutus]

I'm pretty sure Final Fantasy 6 is near the top, if you complete all of the subquests, which aren't really part of the main plot or necessary to complete it. I'm pretty sure the later FF's aren't longer, though i might be wrong.

For that matter, i don't know if there's any disc-era games that are longer, i get the impression most of them are shorter and easier (though certianly have more visuals and scenes crammed into it) but i might be wrong for some cases.

If we count LINEAR plot only, Tales of Phantasia has to be the longest i've played and finished personally, though maybe i just got the impression it was long because it got so damn boring

[inferiare]

When I finally beat Persona 3 FES, my total time was like 130 hours. Between the extra stuff you can do between classes and then Tartarus exploration, you can clock in 90+ hours easily. The last boss was hard as balls, and apparently will ALWAYS be hard as balls unless you have some of the right SUPER PERSONA or something. I didn't.

[EverPhoenix]

If you count ALL sidequests, I'd guess that a lot of Final Fantasy games between 6 to 9 would be up there. The PSX ones have at least 30 hours of main gameplay, and plenty of random sidequests.

Star Ocean games are also very sidequest-rich, and I found our after I finished SO1 that I hadn't even found a quarter of the characters (I did only spend 20ish hours on it though), let alone found quests associated with characters and combinations of characters.

Depending on how loose your definition of "sidequest" is, I'd even put Pokemon up there. Finishing all the random things to do, fighting all trainers, completing the national dex? I tried that on Pokemon Diamond, and after 160 hours I was still down at least 50 of the bastards. Plus the Battle Frontier challenges are almost unending too, and require a good amount of preparation to succeed.

[tay120n64]

Two of my friends just put over 800 hours in White Knight Chronicles. Granted, it was mostly the online mode, but it did take them that long to get all the items and trophies the game has to offer.

I also seem to remember Star Ocean 3 being the longest JRPG ever when it released.