I think the problem is the perception of a JRPG must flow like how traditional JRPGs progress. In typical JRPG fashion, at first you'll be given a mission, or an objective. Then you do this and that, but along the way some things happen in between that will mix up with what your original objectives are, and that's where the meat of the story and progression goes. It's like everything goes into detour. It's just how we are used to.
This game however, plays differently. You go on a mission, finish that mission, then go on and accept another mission, and as you continue to accomplish the main quests, the story progresses. Think like Mega Man Zero in terms of being mission-based in story progression. This style of story-telling is not really typical, but obviously fits with what this game is all about, with the players playing the role of soldiers in a military organization. This is a breath of fresh air with how JRPGs usually go.
It is their first time making an RPG in this way as well, though, so some feedback should be appreciated by them to perfect this design if this will continue being the way they make RPGs. I've mentioned how it seems like a WRPG and JRPG blended together, with more W than last time
Instead of putting their work in one box or another, it'd probably be best to think of it as its own RPG proposition. Then if one is like the player whose impressions linked in the OP say they had great fun even 120 hours in, they can say it was a good proposition that Monolithsoft made to them ^_^
So, in other words, it feels like an MMO.
Anyway, that doesn't bother me too much tbh, as long as the fast travel makes it so that I barely have to backtrack, it's fine =X
But I must say that just straight up putting a "requirement for story progression" is a little weird. I wonder if they thought people liked all the MMO stuff from the first game and then doubled down on all that stuff...
To my huge surprise, I found that MMO kind of stuff in the first game to be addictive. In fact, my first impression on the first game was probably harsher than those here with a more negative outlook on this game, I played it for 30 minutes, saw blue orbs and some exclamation points, confusing icons during battle, saw an "anime-looking-female" carrying some soup to her brother, and thought I may have wasted my money. So I put it away for 6 months until October that year. Then I gave it another chance, and was eventually hooked. There's players who sounded hooked to this game too, and that makes sense to me, because its gameplay inherits from the first game, including those addictive elements. The rest, the linear vs. open-world, opinions on the story and characters, whether exploration itself is reason enough to be enamored by the game's world, sound like subjective values that need to be answered by each player.