Craig Stern
Sinister Design
rushed battle-to-battle sequence
Yeah, I would have liked some of the wandering around town between battles stuff that Shining Force had. That kind of downtime makes the pacing a lot better.
It's true. I would've liked to add in more free exploration areas, but time and resource constraints were such that I couldn't manage it while also making sure the battles were as polished and deep as they are. On the plus side, though, there's mod support and a map editor, so there's really nothing stopping intrepid modders from going and adding all that stuff in.