I'm gonna keep this short and sweet but what are ya'lls favorite jrpgs to speedrun that are 4 hours and under?

Well, the Any% category isn't exactly 4 hours or under, but I like to run Digimon World 2 for the Capture MetalGreymon category. It clocks at around an hour of play on average (WR is 51:15 as of the writing of this post) and even though it's a miscellaneous category, it's been receiving quite a bit of attention lately (and actually has more runs uploaded than Any% at the moment).

While I won't deny it's a bit reliant on RNG at certain places, it also includes quite a bit of decision making and thinking on your toes as well, so I just find it very interesting.

I like a lot of RPGs, but, for speedrunning purposes, my only current RPG is Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. If you play tge any% category for each character, it takes only around an hour on PSP and 40 to 50 minutes on PS4.

It's a very entertaining game to run, very action oriented, with epic boss fights and RNG plays a big role in the runs.

JRPGs are by far my favorite category of games to play casually, but the length has always been daunting to me as well. It depends a bit what you'd look for, a traditional turn-based one or a more action oriented variant (which seemed to start popping up late PS2/Xbox area). A JRPG I did enjoy (but was mediocre received by the public back in the days, the cutscenes are rather janky but the gameplay is pretty enjoyable) was Infinite Undiscovery, an early action based JRPG on the Xbox 360. The speedrun however, clocks in at a 2:45-3:00 mark (my first completed run was 3h28m).

The game is backwards compatible on Xbox, so it can be played on the Xbox One and Series S/X as well, making it an accessible JRPG from back in those days. There's a few risky sections that may lose you some time, but in my experience it's a pretty easy to learn run, with optimisations along the way. I've been itching to get back into it myself, because I'm not happy with my 3h06m time just yet :D

Hi, yeah I really like turn based games although I do enjoy some action rpgs my top three all time would have to be in no order FF XII, SMT Nocturne and Persona 3 although I have enjoyed Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories Sadly only one of my top 3 had a short runs, so yeah, I'd agree with you Grumpmeister jrpgs have some insane times when it comes to speedruns which can make it hard to get into to them and even some of the shorter and older ones can be daunting due to language barrier but I'll definitely give Infinite Undiscovery a look even if I end up not wanting to run a game I do enjoy just spectating.

Edit: Also good run at agdq Grumpmeister really enjoyed all the weird cutscenes

While I don't run JRPGs (yet?) I like watching the Golden Sun games a lot. The mechanics around the djinni summons & character classes make it intriguing. The retreat glitches are pretty flashy, e.g. when you swim up an incline you're not supposed to reach. Pretty interesting stuff happening during a run. For now only any%, the more popular any% no s&q and all djinni in the first game are under 4 hours though. The 2nd and 3rd game in the series are longer runs. (if that is really a dealbreaker for you)

Don't know if this counts as a JRPG, but the one I enjoy the most personally is Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. The current world record is 4:04:40 (by me! lol) and can go down to 3:56 with a perfect run with current glitches (my sum of best is 3:56:22, can probably go down to 3:55:xx). There are a lot of glitches past the one hour mark (none before it), some of which you can softlock (and I have softlocked quite a few times... Including PB-pace runs at the end).

Unfortunately, as fun as this game is to run for me, I would also not recommend it (even though I would LOVE if people beat my time and got sub 4 hours). It's a lot of mashing and the RNG makes it stupid to run. The glitches can be hard but it's not too bad, I enjoy doing the glitches. The problem with RNG is that due to how underlevelled in the game (After 1:15 into the run, you only have two bosses that give EXP) you are, even with Easy Mode, the final boss can absolutely wreck you. It has happened that the game took away a PB of mine simply because the final boss didn't want to cooperate. No PB is definitive until you get past the final boss -- before there was a better, more reliable route for the final boss, it has happened before that I was an hour ahead and I lost all time, causing me to lose PB. It's what set me off to find a more consistent route to defeat him quickly, actually, lol.

But regardless, I still love to run this game. I enjoy it a lot, lol.