I've heard news that FFT is actually getting a remaster or remake. Granted, more rumors than proper news. It hasn't been officially announced or anything. Yet.
Fully agree on Tactics Advance. I liked the story, but that judge system was awful. Plus it was in that weird FF12 Ivalice, not the original FFT Ivalice. Somehow it got a sequel and a spinoff, though.
TLS is a huge inspiration for me. Sierra Lee is unironically one of the reasons I started on this game development journey. If you do end up playing Maids & Masters, you'll probably be able to pick out a number of pretty direct references (and maybe a few not-so-direct ones).
Though in the case of Dawnfall, I'm taking more from Fire Emblem, which does occasionally have something like an arena where you can kinda grind a little, but for the most part if you want to level up and over-prepare, you need to do side missions. You can't just wander the map like you can in FFT.
I don't mind grind when it's done right. The trouble is that it's hard to do right. Like, I play a fair bit of Warframe, and that's a pretty grindy game, but the more you play it, the faster missions go. I've also played and enjoyed a handful of loot-heavy games, including Borderlands. A lot of them, though (including Borderlands 3, as far as I'm concerned) kinda stop being about interesting loot. Instead there's just a large volume of it with little to none of it being interesting and nearly all of it being roughly equally useful. That leads to "RPG mechanics" in games that don't need them and giant piles of look that are nothing but tiny incremental gains, so none of it is ever interesting, even if they try to cover it in a "loot rarity" coat of paint. I swear RPGs get a bad reputation because of that kind of behavior leading to a ton of people not liking them, when what they really don't like is bad game design. And now here I am with my love of RPGs and next to no one is making the kind of games I want to play.
At least now I have the skills necessary to do it myself. Even if the production value isn't where I'd like.
Most of my games are just demos (at least for now), but Maids & Masters has around 30 hours of gameplay and is roughly halfway through the second act. The little prequel thing, Arrival, also lets you carry your save forward so you can keep the stuff you find (and if you get a 100% clear, you get a bonus).
I can't say I'm familiar with SL. Second Life?
Sounds like pretty typical TTRPG chaos (though admittedly with more bunny girl seggs and tentacles). Of all the nerdy hobbies I have, TTRPGs are probably my favorite. I just don't have the spare brain space to run them anymore with all my creative energy going into making my games now. Still a deeply rewarding and uniquely fun hobby when I get to play in games, though.