I've never really felt this phenomenon with any RPG i've played, but I've also played RPGs since SNES. I may just enjoy a slower pacing for everything overall.
I never understood that argument for FFXIII. I found that game enjoyable and different, and ultimately played through it three times. I even want to give it another go in the future.
I have vague memories of being bored with Shenmue, but I also never enjoyed it's gameplay.
If i think hard about it, maybe an rpg that came close would be Dragon Quest 7, but you get classes JUST as you're starting to get tired of the non-customizability, at least for me. And every area has a nice interesting story, so it never quite feels like it plods on. Definitely edges on it, though.
DQ7 fit the bill for me. Back on PSX I got to Temple of Dharma. I was around 25 hours in. For some reason I stopped cause I couldn't take it any longer and didn't know that was when the game opened up so to speak. I'm playing the 3DS version now and intro seems to be slightly faster paced or could just be I don't remember how long it took just to get to my first battle. I'm at least an hour and a half in and I haven't had my first battle yet.
I belong into that weird camp where I love RPGs for play mechanics but not necessarily for the story beats yet I don't particularly enjoy action rpgs as much as I do turn based ones. I grew up playing the first three Ultima games on C64 and then cut my teeth on FF1, DQ1-3 and NES and the Saga (FFL) games on Gameboy. My first "story driven" RPG likely would have been Final Fantasy 4 when it came out for the US. When I first played it I thought it was neat that "me" the player wasn't really driving things. I was used to naming a character, being plopped in a world and then go figure things out. It was the first time I was exposed to extensive cut-scenes. Honestly I didn't mind because the gameplay was fresh and fun, ATB was new and I thought it was a pretty cool addition. It was still turn based like I was used to, but it added a sense of urgency.
Then I played 5 at a friends house, having him translate what was going on, I really loved the job system and especially the music, the cut scenes were cute but the gameplay looked awesome fun. Then he got 6 when it came out in japan and he tape recorded the intro to the game and brought it into our A/V class. He was really psyched for the mode seven intro with the walkers. What I couldn't help but notice was that the intro took a lot longer until you got to control what was going on. I didn't pay too much attention when I got the American version to how long the dialog story sections were getting because the gameplay was a blast.
Then 7 came out. I'll be honest, I was blown away at the idea of a 3 disc spanning epic final fantasy game. I thought the 3d graphics were pretty cool. I didn't have a psx at the time so I just mostly saw bits here and there from friends until I was about to borrow one from a friend and he had FF7. So I sat down to play it, the first few hours were okayish, but I kept noticing that I felt super restricted, granted that was the point of Midgar, and things did open up a bit after you left it. What really struck me however was that there was a shift between story vs gameplay.
I understand things have to change, I mean its the seventh game in the series. There is going to be an evolution on the RPG and you are either born into the new style, adapt to it, or you get left behind. Honestly in the PSX era which had a ton of RPGs I really only loved Suikoden 1 and 2, Persona and Star Ocean 2. It got worse in the PS2 era where the only RPGs I fell in love with were Shadow Hearts 2 and Metal Saga. I would have loved Suikoden 5 but the loading times were so bad, I thought it had a decent blend of story with gameplay. Last gen I tried to get into
But then there were Tactical RPGs. FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre I really enjoyed, until it got talky. Maybe I have a short attention span but when the game takes quite a while to actually go from start to me actually doing something is a big factor. Which is probably why after trying so many Tactical RPGs on psx I didn't really get settled onto one until PS2 with the Disgaea series, which I adore.
I guess I'm just not into JRPGs anymore. I've tried so much with DS, 360, PS3 and 3DS and rarely I'll get into one for more than a few hours before I figure I just don't have time for this. Bravely Default was the exception. I go back and play a lot of the older Snes RPGs and I'm still loving them. You like what you grew up with
With that said I've been happy with Roguelikes. I play Nethack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup all the time. It's all gameplay, no storyline that hits you over the head and you can make it up as you go along, which is pretty much how I was exposed to RPGs with Ultima 1 back in the day. I guess I'm in an extreme camp, but I don't fault people who enjoy story more than gameplay, but I can also empathize with people who feel like modern rpgs take "20 hours to get good".