My complete P4G playthrough was about the same as all my P4 playthroughs in length and I played it on the harder difficulties. Yes, there's more stuff in P4G (although some of it is optional), but you also have to remember that it speeds up annoying stuff - shorter load times, the ability to fast-forward through scenes (a godsend if you die on a boss), the ability to respawn at the beginning of a floor if you wipe out, and the ability to directly chose abilities to inherit when fusing persona (instead of endlessly cancel/selecting in hopes that you get the combo you want). Also, they generally made the game a little easier than before (although there's harder difficulties if you want a challenge). If anything P4G is the most welcoming of all the Persona games.