Crazy is the correct word. 
 
I've not played all of these, but the Persona games alone will take you a very long time, I've just finished Persona 3 myself and it clocked in at around 90 hours.  That took me at least 4 months with some long sessions thrown in as well.
 
FF13 is fairly short, but thats only be RPG standards, I remember 12 being very lengthy.

" @Hailinel: Sure it is, just not in the traditional sense. "

Good luck, i'm sort of in the same position as you. Can't seem to stomach any Jrpgs any more but I somehow find myself trying to play them anyway.

" @Ben99 said:

" I challenge you to go the gym and study more every day and let me know how much XP you'll get from that . "

Well I gym 4 times a week already, and I graduated with a 1st from University last year. So done and done? :D

Get Chance and Luck!   

 Trying to play both Persona 3 and Persona 4 is something you do not want to do if you have any hope of finishing this challenge.  Those games are fucking time vampires and can eat up a lot of what time you have available. P4 is the shorter and the easier of the two, so I would just go with that one. Or, drop them both in favor of Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2.  And as someone suggested earlier, stay away from Star Ocean. Let me put it this way, if Final Fantasy XIII's annoying characters were regular Goku, then Star Ocean 4's would be like Super Sayian 3 Goku.

" @Nasar7 said:

" @Hailinel: Sure it is, just not in the traditional sense. "

The Yakuza titles are not RPGs in the sense of the JRPG genre. "

Between Blue Dragon, XIII, and Resonance of Fate you will probably shoot yourself. I don't think BD or RoF are horrible, but I'd be a liar if I said some parts of those games will test your sanity.

Scratch Enchanted Arms and add Nier for a medium sized, awesome storied experience.

Blue Dragon is great. Reminded me a lot of the original FF.

You're gonna hate Enchanted Arms... 
@ZeForgotten said:

" What about Nier? I've heard that it's the best game ever to ever appear in stores on this earth.  'cringe'   Anyways, good luck with your challenge! If you make it, I'll buy you 20 new (and old) rpg games to get through! :P "

Out of those, I liked Eternal Sonata.

" @Hailinel said:

" @Nasar7 said:

" @Hailinel: Sure it is, just not in the traditional sense. "

The Yakuza titles are not RPGs in the sense of the JRPG genre. "

They have dialogue choices, stats, skills,sidequests, level up systems...  They've even got fucking random battles! Its an rpg dressed up as a brawler not vice versa. "

Nier is totally an action RPG. That's probably why it's not on this list. Playing that doesn't really tell you how you feel about actual JRPGs. Alternately, you could just play Chrono Cross 12 times. That's what I would do.
 
@Hailinel: I think the whole party system and turn-based combat thing is kind of important to the genre, so I think you're on the right track in spite of those arguments.

seems good. i hope to read more on your challenge once you start playing them. persona 4 should be good. it looked good from watching a couple of episodes of the endurance run here.

Persona 3, Persona 4 and Dragon Quest VIII are all excellent, but they're all on the long side.  
 
I've also heard that Nier is fantastic at everything except for, well, gameplay, so that could be interesting.

" @Hailinel said:

" @Nasar7 said:

" @Hailinel: Sure it is, just not in the traditional sense. "

The Yakuza titles are not RPGs in the sense of the JRPG genre. "

They have dialogue choices, stats, skills,sidequests, level up systems...  They've even got fucking random battles! Its an rpg dressed up as a brawler not vice versa. "

" Between Blue Dragon, XIII, and Resonance of Fate you will probably shoot yourself. I don't think BD or RoF are horrible, but I'd be a liar if I said some parts of those games will test your sanity. "

Good luck with your challenge! It's more insane than it is crazy with Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery on your list *shudders* I couldn't stomach my way through those @.@ 

Leave Persona 3 and Persona 4 till last, they will be a nice reward for playing a lot of those pretty poor games. Especially the Final Fantasy ones!

Before I forget, if you do decide on using handhelds, and you should use them, Infinite Space is really good.

Awesome Soap. Make sure to keep us updated. Also, good choice with Rogue Galaxy. It has a really fun battle and weapon upgrade system.

I own most of these games (all minus WKC and the PS2 ones) and have enjoyed all of them. You should put Nier on here because it's awesome.
 
That said, the fact that you're playing each game through on a marathon implies that you're going to be rushing? Which means you might not enjoy any of them.  
 
OH YEAH Demon's Souls. That game is amazing too.

" @PrimeSynergy said:

" Between Blue Dragon, XIII, and Resonance of Fate you will probably shoot yourself. I don't think BD or RoF are horrible, but I'd be a liar if I said some parts of those games will test your sanity. "

Yeah towards the last half of the game for RoF, The Arena becomes the number one place to be, ridiculous XP to get there "

Play legend of dragoon. You'll get an old game on your list, which will be cool to see how much the genre has "evolved" since then. And def. Persona 4, obvs.

" @OwnlyUzinWonHan said:

" @PrimeSynergy said:

" Between Blue Dragon, XIII, and Resonance of Fate you will probably shoot yourself. I don't think BD or RoF are horrible, but I'd be a liar if I said some parts of those games will test your sanity. "

Yeah towards the last half of the game for RoF, The Arena becomes the number one place to be, ridiculous XP to get there "

yeah, but you only need to get to like level 80 to complete the main game.  Neverland, on the other hand, I think Leanne was at level 180 or something "

I have not played a many of those games except the Persona games. JRPGs terrify me as a rule :S 
 
 
Having said that I would be kinda interested in Resonance Of Fate...

" Leave Persona 3 and Persona 4 till last, they will be a nice reward for playing a lot of those pretty poor games. Especially the Final Fantasy ones! "

   Having said that I would be kinda interested in Resonance Of Fate... "

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone for all the replies, I seriously wasn't expecting 80 odd replies to my stupid little challenge lol 
 
So here it is, 1st of February 2011 and here is the final list! 
 

JRPG CHALLENGE!

	1. Final Fantasy XIII February - This game goes first as the shortest month, arguably needs the shortest game.
	2. Rogue Galaxy March - This is a game that I've wanted to play for a while, so this goes next, hopefully it will be different enough from XIII to be ok.
	3. Blue Dragon April - I consider this one to be a huge slog, but by playing here hopefully this will be when not much else is coming out that interests me and I can focus on it entirely.
	4. Nier May - Haven't really looked into this one very much, might as well keep it that way and jump in blind, can't be a bad idea... right?
	5. The World Ends With You June - A portable RPG, means I might actually get to spend some time outside during the summer, which would always be a plus. This one could be subject to move around though as if I end up going on holiday or something in May or July I will swap it out so I can play it on holiday.
	6. Final Fantasy XII July - Hopefully enough of a gap between Final Fantasy's for me not to go insane. About 3 years ago I put about 40 hours into this and apparently was still not even half way through. I will obviously be starting again from scratch bit this one might be a bit of a challenge.
	7. Tales of Vesperia August - To break up the dullness of combat I'm going to be playing Tales of Vesperia in August, if this game is anything like Tales Of Symphonia then I won't be disappointed. Hopefully this will also give me long enough to get my hands on a copy.
	8. White Knight Chronicles: International Edition September - From what I hear this game is a bit hit and miss, and one of the first JRPG's with online co-op. I'm assuming the community will be long dead by the time I get around to playing it in September, but who knows, stranger things have happened.
	9. Infinite Undiscovery October - I'm really not looking forward to this one, I played a few hours when it first came out and put it straight down as it was very boring. :/ May get changed out if I can't bare it.
	10. Star Ocean: The Last Hope November - I really liked the last Star Ocean game, until near the end however when the difficulty sky rocketed up to a place that made it a total grindfest.
	11. Eternal Sonata December - End the year with something not to stressful. I managed to get about 60% through this game on my old 360 before it lovingly decided to red ring on me years ago. Might play it on the PS3 though if I can find a copy... Bonus Content! (Why would I want that?!)
	12. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES January - After 11 months of semi fun/ torture I'd like to end my year on a high. I love the Persona series, and managed to play a brief chunk of this game when it was first released. Now however it will be good to get back to it and finish this one off for good. If I have gone entirely insane by then however, I may even play the main campaign and the bonus add on stuff.
	13. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness Extra Credit - Seeing as I got such a huge response to this thread I thought I should probably up the stakes a bit. And so here it is. For the length of the year I'm going to be dipping in and out of Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP, This game is seriously hardcore, 9999 possible levels, endless character rebirths, crazy extra dungeons and a limitless item world that will let you spend 20 hours or so grinding through a world made from your sword only to make it slightly stronger. What am I getting myself into!?
	14. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn Back Up 1 - In case something goes wrong down the line, I have a series of back up games. Who knows, maybe I wont be able to find a copy of Eternal Sonata any more or Blue Dragon e.t.c
	15. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King Back Up 2 -
	16. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Back Up 3 -
	17. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Back Up 4 -
	18. Resonance of Fate Back Up 5 -
	19. Enchanted Arms Back Up 6 -
	20. The Last Remnant Back Up 7 -
	21. Steambot Chronicles Back Up 8 -

Looks like a pretty good list.  The games are evenly spaced between good ones and the more troubling entries in the genre.  If one is crappy, you'll have a better one up to bat soon enough.  I'm currently enthralled with Dragon Quest IX on the DS and DQ VI drops stateside in 2 weeks.   This after making my way through DQ IV & V.  I didn't like DQ VIII as much as either IV, V or IX so far.  I find that in the DS versions, the characters have a lot more to say than the group did in the PS2 game.    
 
Anyway, if you get discouraged by the console JRPGs you encounter, you should try some of the ones available on the DS.  

I would ditch eternal sonada and put in resonance of fate; that game is seriously amazing and something you should play. 
 
or star ocean! that game has some of the worst cutscenes known to man. trust me
 
also Vesperia's not that hard to find, it's 30 on amazon for instance

Wait, Final Fantasy XIII is a a short game? I spent around 50 hours with it.

Never played a JRPG never will...God bless America XD

Good luck, don't go crazy.

" Wait, Final Fantasy XIII is a a short game? I spent around 50 hours with it. "

" Wait, Final Fantasy XIII is a a short game? I spent around 50 hours with it. "

if you wanna play the shortest one first, Nier is about like 30 hours even if you get all the endings.

Vesperia is absolutely amazing!