The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

Very interesting reflexions. JRPGs, there's just something about them.

Agreed. The sequel, Xenoblade X arguably did this even better by having everything be one continuous map which, after painstakingly exploring it by foot, you can eventually hop in a flying mech and suddenly have immensely satisfying freedom that you deeply desired before.

Xenoblade 2 went in the completely wrong direction. Lots of linear maps, completely separated worlds, some sort of weird tidal mechanic that supposedly blocked things off sometimes but was way too obscure to notice...

Sometimes I play retro games, and I feel like nostalgia makes us excuse what is plain bad design. I have that feeling every time I play an old JRPG. Many of them feel slow, clunky, with painful mechanics... as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined. The argument in favour of this is that the bad and boring parts make the good bits even better, in a sort of stoic way, they feel like a reward for the suffering. I leave as an exercise to the reader to draw their own conclusion.

What sort of conclusion is there to be drawn when you have already labeled the older games as slow, clunky with painful mechanics and newer games as refined? :-P

I've seen many people say (about games in general) that older games often have more depth in contrast of newer more "casualized" games that cater to the lowest common denominator as often as people say what you wrote. At the end is really about personal taste and if there is one objective thing that older games often do worse (apart from technical limitations, although with the popularity of retro-styled games nowadays often these limitations are seen through a stylistic prism) is their user interfaces. But even that divides people in how much they can endure it (and as Dwarf Fortress shows, a lot of people will endure the most obnoxious of UIs to get something they like).

As an example, there are many people who like grinding in JRPGs and some even consider it as a defining element of JRPGs (in that a JRPG is not real JRPG if it doesn't have grinding) whereas others are perplexed by the idea of anyone liking grinding and not seeing it as a cheap way to pad the game's length and something that developers should strive towards eliminating.

I played Lufia 2 recently and it felt really tedious at times but the characters, dialogue and ending felt realistic and wholesome that it kept me engaged and sad when it was all over. Maybe nostalgia helps us single out older games when surely there's many like it nowadays hidden among the oversaturated mess.