the first Final Fantasy game (FF, or FF1) had pretty much none of the things you described (plot, character and feelings, whatever the latter means), and yet it's one of the most FF-ish titles in the series. It has a medieval fantasy world, characters with classes (Fighter with a sword, White Mage, Black Mage etc), Bahamut, elves, dwarves and other species, and themes by Nobuo Uematsu. I do agree with the FFs not being the same without Uematsu, but admittedly, his role has been from small to none in every FF after IX (except Advent Children and FFXIV). At least FFXII brought back Prelude, Final Fantasy Main Theme (aka Prologue), Victory Fanfare, Chocobo Theme and (SPOILER) Out of these, only the Chocobo Theme is featured in FFs X, X-2 and XIII, and Prelude in FFX and FFXI.
By that logic, someone might say FFXII isn't an FF because it lack of random encounters and world map, don't you think ?