>>13767807
This is true, and I want to clarify that I don't think PSII is anywhere near perfect, or even an RPG I have played more than once through. I just don't think crying about grinding or large dungeons is a valid complaint about an RPG. Ridiculous encounter rates? Sure, they are part of the challenge, but also an nuisance in older JRPGs. An ideal encounter rate to me would be roughly between 8-16 steps. They also should never be just based on a base percentage chance, but instead a modifier should be added based on how hurt the party is, whether they ran from the last encounter on the same map, whether they have had so many encounters on the same map, and whether they are significantly higher level than the enemies of that map. Straight unmodified RNG can mean walking in circles for a long time looking for a fight, or running into a fight every 5 steps.
Needing to grind your characters up is not a valid complaint though unless achieving a level doesn't actually mean much character progress (or worse, losing stats in some games due to a bad level up roll.) Otherwise grinding is as big a part of the experience as anything else, and if you actually get good at various ways to deal with particular enemies you can forgo grinding a lot more.
Contrary to complaining about grinding, complaining about the game being easily beatable from just fighting encounters you have along the way is valid. Since that means the need to work to make your characters stronger is a mere illusion. I find more classic JRPGs that get complaints about grinding actually fall into this other flaw instead.