claiming the game is good because it's for kids is absolutely ridiculous.
Which is why i haven't said that it is. I said, the Story was made for children and young teenagers, therefore the focus is on this group e.g. It is not a worse story just because it's lighthearted. All of the characters reason to begin there journey is based on them "growing up", 3 of them deal with family issues. Another one is the "i Am weak and have to grow" stereotype and the last two have at least a real invasion going for them needing them to seek help. That exactly fits the bill of it being for young people.
Now, i fail to see where the rest of the story is illogical, it is a pretty classic story about becoming heroes in the face of evil. In fact i would argue that compared to what else existed the story is way more advanced. There are three Factions trying to reach the
Plot device item with their own, opposing agendas. Compare that to it's predecessor or games like Estpolis denki which have a way more classical story. The games story also changes depending on your heroes selection, while the biggest changes happen towards the end the whole story references your choice.
Bland scenarios, i do not understand unless you give me an example. Neither how NPCs are copy paste unless you talk about their visuals and one-liners, as these have been extremely faithfully recreated and while, looking at it from a modern perspective is quite bad it is faithful to the original. And literally none of the games of that era were much better in that regard.
If you are talking about the NPCs from the enemy factions though i fail to see how this is the case, they are quite clearly all different and have different reasons for doing what they do. That they aren't great examples of moral ambiguity may be true but that is par for the course for a "good vs. evil".
EDIT: Also While the item progression is not great as they are indeed just straight upgrades, this has always been managed by the abilities and classes. Which have been greatly expanded upon (with the ability/chain ability) in the remake.