I have a checklist, I think most people do. BUT at the end of the day, it's the experience that matters. FFIX is my favourite game EVER, but objectively, other games "check off" more stuff on my list. One thing I love love love is having characters interact outside of the main hero/heroine. I don't like when the whole cast revolves around two people and no one else interacts. FFIX is bad about this in a lot of cases. There's nowhere near as much in the way of relationships between the cast as I would like. On top of that, the battle system is atrocious and one of my least favourites in the series. But the experience trumps all of that and I absolutely love the game. That's not to say it doesn't check-off any of my boxes, it very much does, but the absence of certain check marks doesn't negate the experience.

I think the checklist is best for when you're deciding to invest in a game. Video games are expensive and not everyone can just buy everything that comes out to see if they'll like it. So you have a checklist. "Do the characters look interesting?" "What's the story?" "Do I enjoy the style of gameplay?" etc. Everyone's checklist will be different, but if it looks like it ticks enough boxes, it'll be easier to justify spending that hard earned money. That doesn't mean that a game has to check all of the boxes, or that a game might not end up better or worse than expected based on which boxes it checks, but just that it's a good starting point to see if the game is worth investing time and money in to.

Das what I think anyway.

As far as examples like the FFXII one, I like character interactions a lot. However, like I said, the experience is what matters. FFIX is lower on this than I would like, but I still love the game. While I also like FFXII, it just doesn't make the cast work as much for me. While I don't feel much is missing from FFIX unless I stop and think about it, in FFXII it's apparent to me every time I play the game, like a glaring fault I can't ignore. So to me, they didn't make it work as well. That's obviously subjective though and I'm not trying to negate or argue your opinion, just chiming in with my own views~