[labster]

I agree on all of the above points, and your excellent choices in classic JRPGs.

Specifically on slowing things down in 3D RPGs, Final Fantasy VII was pretty fun, even if a little grindy, up until the endgame. But by this point, effective grinding consisted of summon spells, which meant watching the same 90 seconds of an unskippable cut scene over and over again. Like, I get how mind-blowing 3D was in that era, but it killed the pacing so much for me that I never bothered to finish the game. I hear some cool stuff happens with Sephiroth, or whatever.