When the game went from 1 alien to many aliens was when it outstayed it’s welcome for me.
Most everything else was paced well enough and fun but by then it was too long and the last portion of the game after that was more about having enough flamethrower ammunition to keep the aliens at bay as your sprinted
FF12 had some bullshit chest near the beginning of the game… If you opened it you lost the ability to 100% the game and get the Zodiac spear ( reportedly some ability to get one in a very tedious grunts fashion but it’s been ages)
Basically the straw that broke the camel’s back for me with ff… The games story and combat was already a let down after they dropped the turn based combat like all of them ff1-ff10
But yeah generally I dislike many soft lock mechanics or illogical things that punish you for just playing the game… Oftentimes these were put in games just to sell strategy guides.
I still get nostalgic when I see it !