I'm definitely very grateful for the unique story direction this game took and the way it influenced all subsequent mainline games. Especially considering how the conflicts in megami tensei II aren't morally gray (at least intentionally).
But there is no denying that you need to be a specific kind of person to enjoy this kind of game. Combat is extremely uninteresting, mostly revolving around either auto-battling or switching through slow menus, and yet the encounter rate is still rather high. I like simple dungeon exploration but I definitely think that a lot of people who would like that might get filtered by the former issues with combat.