so after my thirty second playthrough
I have always believed that a games popularity should be measured by either great replay value or a great story. This game has both, after ten or so playthroughs I decided to actually not skip the scenes of the characters talking to each other and in doing so I realized how great the story is. The replay value is something to rival that of any handheld game, that includes games nowadays. Trying to go through the game with every character you can get and have all of them alive at the end is something that will add a few hours to your game, depending on the difficulty.
The link arena is a great way of testing which one of your characters is truly the strongest. The last thing I have to say about this game is that for every increase in difficulty the feeling as though your commanding a real army is increased. On easy you can send one person in to wipe the field, on normal you can pretty much do the same thing, but on hard you think about every move your making to make sure that you don't lose somebody.
3 thousand hours of gameplay, that would be after adding the 30 or so games I have had. Every playthrough will feel brand new, I just have to say that if your looking for a great rpg this is one of the best ones you can get and for cheap too.