I happen to agree with Auronotf concerning FFVIII.  I enjoyed the fact that the enemies were never overly powerful or terribly weak so that you could not abuse the system (though you could make Squall a weakling while everyone else was a juggernaut, but what fun is that?) 

In FFX, try getting all of the special items necessary for the Ultimate Weapons without cheating.  Yeah, some are a cakewalk, but the whole quest takes some time.  I love the monster capture sidequest as well.  I'm  nowhere near being done with that.  Being able to mine rare items from a monster the old guy created is fun and useful in a pinch. Especially when you don't want to traverse an entire dungeon (cough:: Omega Ruins ::cough) to fight one enemy.