See, those first two things are central points that make the games so good to me, so if you're seeing them as negatives it would make perfect sense that you wouldn't like them. Particularly the world-building through sheer volume of dialogue, relevant to the story and otherwise, is generally regarded as the series' biggest selling point. As for the combat, the changes and additions to the system over the first five games are hit and miss; some make it better and some are more or less neutral, but overall the combat is fun and challenging especially on harder difficulty.
The main issue with the "old" Trails games (i.e. Liberl and Crossbell arcs) is that the first game in each series is like 40 hours of setup for the second game in the series, which requires either a ton of patience or being able to just nostalgically enjoy playing an old-school RPG that's kind of simple story-wise.
I don't get the presentation gripe though, they look like retro RPGs... You have an entire signature bar full of retro Nintendo characters. Have you played Undertale? If a dated look makes you not pick up a game you're missing out on some great stuff.
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