I played BoF 1 fan translation on GBA emulator not so long ago. It's a decent final fantasy clone with furry/dragon focus I guess, setting is cute, there are plenty of places to visit, don't really remember the story. The problem is, there are too many characters which I didn't bother to level up, game overall is too easy (the only challenge was that butterfly boss, because of FX it uses I thought my emulator crashed and had to replay big section lol), and you can't get best ending without a guide. As for grinding, it has cheap items which just prevent random encounters from appearing for some time.

The point would be, not to review something 20 years later. It kind of defeats the purpose to review something that wasnt designed for this age.

I dont know what is so wrong with people looking fondly at something with nostalgia that another one feels the need to shoot it down. Their nostalgia is correct because it was born when the game was released and not 20 years later.

I imagine something like The last of us will be terrible in 20 years. Whats the point? That new things are more modern than old things?! Well... doh. :P

Secret of Mana is my favorite snes RPG. I love how it has up to 3 player co-op, had a complete playthrough with 2 friends once which was awesome.

Illusion of Time/Gaia, Super Mario RPG, Terranigma, Earthbound, Lufia II... so many awesome RPG's on snes

Please what? Classical games like Day of the Tentacle, Baldur's Gate or Ocarina of Time are still beating most todays games. What you say is like saying a book from the 80s cannot compete with a book from today. That does not work that way.

Games a re a piece. Sure, technology gives you more options with implementing it. But that is true for other art-forms too. In the 18th century was no possibility to create electronical music. Does that mean that the music of Mozart is bad by todays standards? Most people would disagree.

So is it wrong to judge old games by todays standards? No, because the standards stay the same: does the game creates enjoyment for me as the player.

There were games back then that didn't require an excessive amount of grinding though.  Just because a lot of developers in the future have been able to better balance their games so that grinding didn't exist as much as they have in the past, doesn't mean that there weren't developers in the past that games that weren't well balanced. 

Doesn't matter whether it's Dragon Warrior 1, Breath of Fire, or the very beginning of SMT4 before you reach Tokyo.  The grinding in these games drag the games down making them much less enjoyable than they would have been if they were well balanced the entire way through.  Think about Squaresoft and how much you have to grind in any of their games released on the NES and SNES.  Except for Final Fantasy 3 on the Famicom, or a bit on the original Final Fantasy, very little if any at all.

Grinding being required is just lazy development, doesn't matter what genre it is.  You've still got lazy developers with games full of grinding even today. *edited*

Neither of those games are turn based RPGs.  But I didn't specify that.