I can't explain it, but generations after mine just don't get along with ff style games. I grew up on grinding, hard work games where you do tons of things completely irrelevant to the main story. But people these days want simplicity and linear game play it seems, unless it's guns involved with fallout.
I have to disagree I also grew up on games where you do things irrelevant to the main story. I also enjoy the Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, Fallout and other open world-y and open-ended-y stuff like that. Most other gamers of my generation enjoy stuff like this, too. Games don't have to have guns to be appealing to many of us. I just don't like Japanese RPGs, games with a new release pretty much every year that have like, 20 games in the series, and I don't find grinding in games to be much fun. I like killing stuff, exploring caves and dungeons, building stupid stuff, and making my character completely overpowered and eventually restarting to have a challenge again (for example, today I noticed that with my main save in Skyrim, I'm killing most things in one hit :/)
Modern ff don't really have much grinding. And ff isn't one long story. You can skip games. Only those of same number relate to each other
If you like ff type games, try the Shin Megami Tensei Franchise... here's a list of all game series under the franchise... https://waa.ai/vP0y (I would recommend trying out the Persona games, the easiest, first)
