These relatively small self contained episodes are kind of weird for an RPG. I didn't really understand them for FF XV, and don't understand them here...
The game's core mechanics are designed and tuned around a large meta RPG progression arc that is constantly churning in the background. Once you take that away, you're not really playing the game the core systems were designed around... and barely even playing an RPG any more. You're just playing a game with the core mechanics that were designed and balanced around a long RPG meta progression but without that progression in place. I'm not even sure what kind of game that is then... I guess it is more of an action game?