I am playing FFXIII right now and I am 108hrs.  I am trying to complete every mission and to obtain all items and weapons.   Also in FFVII and FVIII I have spent 120 hrs on each one of them.

Lol at this comment, I spent over 200 hours on final fantasy 10 & 8 and It took me 115 hours to plat final fantasy 13.

i've never spent more than 45 hours on a FF game. but i only do the main story things rarely do sidequets.

You must have used a guide then, because I am currently on a hundred hours played and I've yet to even visit all of the cities.

Actually, sidequests like monster arena and dark aeons are exactly the same thing. Why do they take such a long time? Because you have to constantly grind. It's exactly the same thing as just playing the same card games over and over again. Your time playing a game that gets filled up by grinding and playing the same card game over and over again, is hardly worth calling content. Then you could argue that Tetris has the most content out of any game ever, since the game simply never ends.

You could also use the radiant quests in Skyrim as the same thing, they are never ending, so you could potentially fill up your timer with hundreds of hours doing those. That is exactly how I see the card games and the sidequests that take excessive grinding.

Oh, I'm not saying that Final Fantasies can take more than 100 (if you obsess over it), I've done so with IX, but to claim that Final Fantasy has generally more content than Elder Scrolls is laughable.

A guide you say? Why in the world would I ever need a guide for an Elder Scrolls game post-Daggerfall? Everything you ever need in information is given to you without effort. You want to do a quests where you have to track down someone around the map? Lo and behold, a marker mysteriously appears over the person who's supposed to be missing. If you ever get lost doing a quest is basically because you don't take the time to read. As for exploration, it doesn't get much easier than just following the compass. 

Funny though, now adding extra content that expands the game's length by forcing you to properly prepare for it is considered "hardly worth calling content". I bet that if a FF is announced with no extra content at all, people like you would be bitching at it for that fact....oh wait, that's what happened with FFXIII, which had almost no extra content. 

Radiant Quests doesn't compare, by far, to long and expansive sidequests such as Monster Arena. You don't unlock squat on the radiant quests, they're worth for nothing more than a few miserable gold pieces which are negligible at the point of the game in where they become avaliable (and some are worthless right from the start, such as the Bounty quests on inns). I'd rather take a Monster Arena quest any day over having to repeat the same "go here, kill X and collect 100 gold" RQs.

Your perception on the value of both sidequests is pretty skewed, basically because you're overvaluating the RQs much more than they're actually worth, especially since they're a poor man's implementation of the system they had on Daggerfall, which had a proper "infinite" quest system. Alas, Skyrim took a lot from Daggerfall (thankfully so), that's why I consider it the best ES game (my previous one was Daggerfall).

Now you're putting words I never said. I said some FF games could rival ES games in terms of sheer content, not topple them. And you know why? Because both games do extra content differently. While FF gives you expansive quests, which yes, you do have to grind in most of them, ES games gives you an expansive open world. But the problem with ES games is that the feeling of open world is marred (at least it was until Skyrim) with repetition between dungeons and content.

Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion all had tons of dungeons that were basically the same between them and added nothing to the game itself, and the only dungeons which were worth exploring or were noted for their actual different content could be counted by the handful. Heck, Oblivion itself, which was a "next gen" ES game, did a pretty shitty job with the Oblivion realm basically forcing you to play the same 4 only existing layout to exhaustion, even on important quests. Skyrim at least did a pretty good job in differentiating dungeons and adding "unique" content between them, giving you an actual perception of exploration that the ES series was lacking. 

Also, I see that you didn't comment on the actual time that any ES game donates to the main quest or main storyline behind them. It would be lovely to see the reaction of people if a FF game is released in the same fashion, only 5 hours of main story and the rest in "sidequests", the backlash would reach epic proportions.

My point will continue to stand. If anyone goes ahead and says "How can you play a FF game for 100 hours" then anyone has the right to say "How can you play an ES game for 100 hours" because you only do so in the obsession of "exploring the world" nothing more.

Thanks this is interesting. I did love XIII despite its flaws.

I'm super excited about having the monster choice in your party. I really liked that about Dragon Quest V (which I loved through and through). 
The time thing is interesting... and seems like it will be fun gameplay wise. Though I'm not too certain the story won't be a mess because of it. But even if that happens it's okay for me.

Are those bad songs you talking about... like that chocobo metal song one or somethin like that? I found that quite amusing, As it was bad. But, it seemed they were  over the top, and got odd results. Idk. haha.

The Elder Scrolls Verse Final Fantasy length is a bit odd.

I've never played any elder scrolls (I've played all since daggerfall) longer than 100 hours aside from morrowind, which I played longer then any final fantasy's. Yet I've played like FFVII,FFVIII,FFX,FFXII,FXIII, longer than 100 hours in one playthrough. But, I acknowledge if I explored every nook and cranny of elder scrolls game they're probably longer.

However, In games that with things unrequired to the main story grinding/exploring, how much extra you get out of the game depends on you, and what you like to do.

Excellent read, you covered all the important things in this game.
The only thing that still bothers me are the characters, but like you suffered the same thing with Serah, AND you love Vanille so now I have more faith in the characters.

Also, how long is the main story? I know there are a lot of things to do but I always do half or less of the sidequests.

Materializing? beam me up Scotty lol.

great read and you did and great job. very detailed. it's a buy for me, so thanks for sharing you experience.