Yeah, the big majority of them just depend on tedious grinding. Not all of them.
But the prevalent Final Fantasy "style"... Came from the
original Wizardry. Except just the combat part. No Wizardry-esque dungeon crawl, no party creation. Apparently Dragon Quest was influenced by the same Wizardry 1 but... tbh I don't remember playing one (IIRC I only played Lufia and Breath of Fire on the SNES emu, as well as Seiken Densetsu 3 aka the really really late port of "Trials of Mana."
Wait what. Trials of Mana is on Windows? Oh fuck.
Edit: Oh fuck, it's an actual remake of graphics so it's new 3D style. Haven't played yet and I've only glimpsed a screenshot but I'm already trepidatious.
Edit 2: Steam reviews are surprisingly positive. I mean, these are mostly people who've played the SNES version that never came to the US (so fan-translated). So, a rather niche, probably hard to please, group. But those people who've played it: "This remake irons out a majority of the flaws." I mean this is grognard JRPG.
Edit 3: Oooo they provided a demo. Man. Remember those?