You guys spoke a little about JRPG length and I thought I'd just through my thoughts into the ring. I love huge, sprawling JRPGs with giant worlds and complex stories. The times that becomes a problem is when that becomes a grind or you take meaningless side tours in the stories. That's actually one of my major problems with Xenoblade. Out of all the 10s of hours of side content available, only maybe 10% is worth doing. The rest is just random MMO kill and fetch quests that do nothing for me.

Comparing that to Tales of Graces, the game I'm playing right now, where I'm 60 hours in and have yet to feel like I'm ever grinding. In Graces, most of the side content is worth doing or you'll just encounter it on the main route. Yes, I'm still spending tons of time in the game but it never feels like a chore. I also never had the dreadful experience of getting to a boss, only to find I need to spend 2 more hours grinding the dungeon to beat him.