"Non-grind mode" RPGs

So, I effectively finished Drakengard this weekend--I got four of the five endings, as the last one requires scouring all of the free stages for all 65 weapons (of which I have 20) and apparently consists of an insanely-hard genre-shift simon says game and a WTF cutscene, which I watched on Youtube.

( Commentary on difficulty levels and level grinding, and the Dragon Quest series )