Game with the longest story?

[Dularn]

Dragon Age Origins + Awakening with all DLC is pretty long.

I clocked 150 hours from one complete and one partial playthrough..

Fallout 3 / New Vegas are pretty long too if you do the side missions and explore (70+ hours each).

Skyrim is also massive, you could probably clock 80+ hours without touching the main quest and that doesn't take into account mods which lengthen it further.

 

[Filiecs]

I would suggest Heroes of Might and Magic IV. One of the campaign heroes has been written in a quality that surpasses even Alex Vance. It is literally, almost perfect from a technical standpoint. The game itself is also VERY addictive. I have clocked over a hundred hours on that game, personally. Probably two hundred by now.

Also, I know you said no MMORPG's, but I would suggest The Secret World.
Its story is simply incredible. Way better than SWTOR's was. EVERY quest in that game is part of the story in one way or another. If you take the time to analyse it's story and find all the lore I can almost guarantee you that you won't be disappointed.
Over a hundred hours in for me.

 

[BNguyen]

Both of the Tales of Symphonia games will take a while
that and the fire emblem games for gamecube and wii have pretty long stories

EDIT: Kingdom Hearts could also qualify. By the way, while I am also waiting for a Kingdom Hearts 3 (knowing that if Square just half-asses it to bring it out sooner then people will hate them so I can wait) I enjoyed the smaller games that serve to fill in the holes of the story that the two main games couldn't fit. So completing all of the kingdom hearts game in their perceived order of events will take a lot of time.

 

[already in use]

Grandia 2 takes about 25-30 hours if you do not grind for some extra levels and
has a surprisingly thick and well told story line.

 

[BNguyen]

I would suggest Heroes of Might and Magic IV. One of the campaign heroes has been written in a quality that surpasses even Alex Vance. It is literally, almost perfect from a technical standpoint. The game itself is also VERY addictive. I have clocked over a hundred hours on that game, personally. Probably two hundred by now.

Also, I know you said no MMORPG's, but I would suggest The Secret World.
Its story is simply incredible. Way better than SWTOR's was. EVERY quest in that game is part of the story in one way or another. If you take the time to analyse it's story and find all the lore I can almost guarantee you that you won't be disappointed.
Over a hundred hours in for me.

Dragon Age Origins + Awakening with all DLC is pretty long.

I clocked 150 hours from one complete and one partial playthrough..

Fallout 3 / New Vegas are pretty long too if you do the side missions and explore (70+ hours each).

Skyrim is also massive, you could probably clock 80+ hours without touching the main quest and that doesn't take into account mods which lengthen it further.

if it's just for the main storylines then Fallout and Skyrim are ultimately only going to take about three to four hours

 

[LetalisK]

Skyrim is also massive, you could probably clock 80+ hours without touching the main quest and that doesn't take into account mods which lengthen it further.

Bleeeeh. If the Skyrim story mods are anything like the Oblivion story mods, no thanks. I've been playing some of the more popular ones[footnote]ie Tears of the Fiend, Ruined-Tail's Tale[/footnote] and it is the most pretentious fanfic wankfest I've had the displeasure of playing. I had to stop them because of how bad they were.

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

Well, if you play the entire Mass Effect series then you could easily rack up to like 40 hours just playing it for the story.

Also Dragon Age: Origins.

I know this makes me look like a Bioware fanbois but they are sitting right in front of me right now and are the only games I could think of at the moment.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has a campaign total of 35-40 hours long. (The last 15-20 are done with an "epilogue")

Also, the story is fucking aamzing.

I wish the dialogue wasn't so cheesy though >.>
The gameplay is fun, and the story is actually pretty good, but the dialogue is enough to put me off those games.
IDK why they kept it so kiddish, when the game is a lot harder then most children would bother with, and the story actually is fairly dark and sad, but I can't take any of it seriously cause the dialogue is so obviously geared towards 7-8 year olds. Even though nothing else about the game is :/

OT:
Maybe metroid prime? I don't really remember how long that took, and it was probably inflated because that was one of the first 3d games I seriously played, apart from maybe doom, and I was absolutely terrible at it. 3D platforming takes a while to get used to.

 

[Guffe]

They've been named a few times but Tales of Symphonia (2 games) and Xenoblade Chronicles, all 3 for the Nintendo Wii.
Also if you like fighters then DragonBallZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is a really fun fighter, the "story mode" is basically just battles but still a fun timekiller.

 

[KINGBeerZ]

FFIX

I spent about 80 hours playing that one from start to finish, although that is fairly standard RPG length.

Disgaea

this game could take you a while as it is really huge and you need to level a lot, great story though.

 

[Spectral Dragon]

Even if it's likely you've played it already, Final Fantasy 7 is MASSIVE. Days of story. And Mass Effect series is pretty damn long and interesting.

... That's all I have. Maybe Binding of Isaac if you're unlucky?

 

[Tallim]

Planescape Torment might fit the bill. Almost everything in it is related to the story in some way or form and there is a lot going on. Plus it is one of (if not THE) best written games ever.

 

[Mirroga]

Just saying it right now. I doubt you would enjoy a story if it was long. Padded or MGS-like cutscenes never endeared me into the story. And yes, I am one of those people that survived the whole MGS saga cutscenes combined as well as Xenosaga series.

 

[OncomingTraffic]

FFIX

I spent about 80 hours playing that one from start to finish, although that is fairly standard RPG length.

I must kindly disagree, although I do love the game. Considering the Excalibur II, which requires you to get to the final dungeon in under 12 hours, the main story can be completed very quickly. However, that's completely ridiculous and impractical, so 80 hours sounds about right.

 

[Schadrach]

I hear Dragon Quest/Warrior VII is ridiculously lengthy. I see a fair few people claiming it still takes nearly 100 hours with a guide, an action replay and no sidequests. That's pretty impressive, if true.

SMT: Strange Journey can take about 80 hours, but this was with some grinding to make moar awesome monsters. But most fights can be won with good strategy, there isn't *much* need to level grind.

The overall Baldur's Gate story ends up being really long even without doing sidequests, too.

DWVII probably takes the cake. I was at 130 hours, no guide, and getting my ass kicked for the first time by the boss of the bonus dungeon, God.

They basically said "let's make a game that barely graphically ahead of an SNES game, but just keep going until we fill a couple of CDs. There is quite a lot of it.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

The Longest Journey.

 

[Owlslayer]

Well, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect come to mind. Took me somewhere near 70 hours to finish Dragon Age, and it was time well spent, really liked that game. Same goes to Mass Effect, tho i think that`s a bit shorter if you only do main quests.

 

[Alhazred]

I'd say Xenogears. It's surprising how long you can make a game when your three main elements are Gnosticism, giant robots and kung-fu.

 

[Mirroga]

I'd say Xenogears. It's surprising how long you can make a game when your three main elements are Gnosticism, giant robots and kung-fu.

I'd rather not suggest this simply because the game has lost all of its budget for FF7 and it truly shows in Disk 2. And it leaves a lot to be desired story-wise.

 

[Bostur]

I'd also say The Longest Journey. I think I completed it in about 40 hours. Keep in mind that it has very little gameplay and the adventure puzzles are very easy. Most of it is walking around experiencing the story. So it's very compressed with no padding at all.

Other candidates that I thought was long:

Grim Fandango
Psychonauts
Dragon Age: Origins
Half-Life 1&2
Most old school RPGS - BG 1&2, Torment, Ultima series, Fallout 2.