Classic RPGs endure at times better than recent outings, but I get the sense that they require certain expectations for a full experience, potentially more than other long lasting genres.
I came into Yasumi Matsuno's games with the primary impression that "these have very high quality writing", so into them I delved expecting story-rich playthroughs. From previous Final Fantasy experiences I was aware of threads being cut due to lack of time/resources and "barren" segments from the development process requiring assets to be made before the team knows what will make it into the gold master, but the lengthy stretches of combat with little to no story progression got to me.
Final Fantasy XIV is the current torch-bearer for his style, but the player experience is a complete 180: the main scenario is designed to be a brisk solo experience with story delivered at a brisk clip, while most side content does not require much effort. I'd set out for Matsuno's stories for context in where the XIV team came from and as preparation for the Return to Ivalice series, so the desire to know the main stories ahead of patch 6.5 set a tone, which meant eventually I turned on cheats for all but Final Fantasy XII, whose remaster already has a built-in speed-up function.
Final Fantasy IX is the one mainline FF I'd beaten before any of this. On my first playthrough I lost the save file for right after reaching the Outer Continent, on the second I stopped at the point of no return for most sidequests on Disc 3 and never managed to finish it. Only with the modern rerelease, packed with all sorts of cheats to make the playthrough significantly faster, did I experience the complete story. That Tactics Ogre Reborn lacks any such quality of life improvements is a massive disservice to one of the best RPGs I've ever played.
All that said however, the entire process did leave me pondering: was the slow pace of older RPGs part of the experience? Did the "nursing" of board strategies to gradually inch towards their endings, and the simmering on the morsels of story doled throughout, lead to a more enjoyable whole, despite the holes most of these games ended up with?
I do want to revisit them someday. I don't have the eye for gameplay nuances as I do for stories, but I respect the complexity that went into Tactics Ogre, as well as the elegant simplification of its systems on Final Fantasy Tactics. Having more than an eye for the impressionist whole is something I'd like to achieve, for a better understanding of how the two I enjoyed the least still have a hold on many to this day.