I have a theory that Monolith actually shrunk the characters to make the world seem larger.
Have you seen the disproportionate size of the trees and almost everything in the game??
I love the fact that monsters/beasts seem to be part of the world; the first time I went into Bionis leg and the cutscene (real time) showed the Ponios running in the field, I said holy shit!.
Every monster is connected somehow to the world, there are monsters that like being on the river banks, other are in the marshes, horses prefer fields; there are parts with only one type of monster (like a lair of birds or wolves), but have them in big numbers.
There's even interactivity (only a little though) in the more intelligent monster; some monsters put a sentry on the entrance to their lair, and when they see you, they run and bring all of the warrior monsters to fight you; there are some that are trying to ambush you and are hidden below the ground or waiting for you to be in a cliff (fucking cliff giant bird almost killed me of a heart attack).
I also like the fact that monsters are more like wild beasts than bad guys, monsters and the bad dudes have nothing in common; so you can skip most of the fights (I only fight if I need to).
Also monsters have different reactions, some (most) are not seeking to fight, some will join a fight if there is another monster fighting nearby, some only react to sound and are blind (I don't know why spiders are blind in this game, but whatever), some will attack if they see you, and others if they feel the use of magic (ether).
I really hope Nintendo makes an HD remake or sequel to this game on the WiiU, there are only a few faults with this game (needs bestiary, collect more completionist data (map percentage, etc), sort the info better (location of characters on affinity map), etc), but it has them, and probably the reason why NOA didn't bring it is because if they did, they would have to fix many (NOA almost always makes some kickass tutorials in their localized games, for example, which are not found in the original, and this game's tutorial would need a lot of work).
Also, the WiiU tablet would be perfect for this game, I could use a real time map while continue to run in game (it's slow to switch to the map) and I would definitely love playing the game while my wife watches TV. Also, they should allow to switch Artes with the shoulder buttons.