I figured out what it is that I like so much about Wild Arms 3.
There is no romance subplot. Despite the fact that the main character is a woman with three male travel companions.
The main character is not sexualized, despite being a woman (modest dress, no innuendoes, etc). This is particularly rare in video games--even Samus has been rather sexualized in recent installments.
And then on top of that the story is fantastic and the character development outstanding.
@lizardsquid Get it! The wild arms series is great in general but 3 really blows the first two out of the water
It's relatively unknown so it's still easy to find online, you can even get new still in the box copies cheaply (it's on ps2, but it also got a digital release on ps4)