The sentiment that Level 5 and Square Enix's Dragon Quest IX for DS can be played for hundreds of hours is a popular one, so during my playthrough I paid close attention to how I used my time. As I expected there was no single activity that dominated my experience, but rather a combination of interlocking gameplay elements.
Since DQ IX offers such a plethora of content, I have not seen all of its facets despite finishing the main quest. With that caveat in mind -- which makes some of the below points conjecture -- here are my notes on why it takes so long to play the game, and why people might actually want to spend so much time playing it:
Levels
--- Although Dragon Quest IX has a bit of "grinding," i.e., fighting monsters in order to gain experience and grow stronger, it's not a must for forward progression. Players are initially rewarded with fast level-ups, but that slows down pretty quickly. In fact, in my playthrough it wasn't uncommon to fight two bosses in a row (and the enemies leading up to them), without gaining a level.
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