Grinding was always a necessity in the older ones before the big boss battles. Appears that's almost completely unnecessary in XV.

But yea, more people than you realize fail to fully complete most FF games. A lot make it to some point in the end and never beat the final bosses or whatever. Congrats.

Yeah, I heard about that, but I don't think I'll want to replay it. Too many others games to play. Might come back for the story DLCs though

Grinding is still a necessity in FFXV. Not in the main story boss battles but for the optional boss battles and in some mob hunts. 

"Grinding" is rarely a pain in FF games, I feel, because the flow of shiny new abilities is pretty constant. In 5, 6, 7, 9 & 10 you're building up AP for spells & abilities...8 requires more abstract ways of powering up (stocking up on magic via card playing & refining).

The only Final Fantasy game I've beaten is Final Fantasy Tactics.... for the GBA ;_;

For me, at least, if I'm not making story progress because I have to grind for a while, then it's a pain, whether I get new abilities or not. And especially late game, you're going to get very few new abilities while you grind to beat the final area/boss.

Congratulations.

So far I only was only able to beat VIII which is my favorite game in the series. And in VII, I reached the final boss but would need 10 hours of grinding to be able to beat him. I stopped playing V, VI, IX, X and XII at the halfway mark because I got bored and played I, III, IV, X-2, and XIII for a few hours only.

I wonder if I should buy a PS4 Pro for XV because I hate action games and do not like large but empty and lifeless open words like found in Xenoblade X.

But Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favorite JRPGs, along with Chrono Cross, Xenoblade Chronicles and Dragon Quest V PS2 and the atmosphere in early Versus XIII trailers was very similar.