The Final Fantasy series is in general heavily about the story, which makes gating content and areas behind the MSQ make sense and fits this game. And honestly for me it's certainly more interesting/engaging then the WoW version where you either do "story" content (when the meat of the story is reserved for raids, the rest is a series of disconnected regional side quests depending on the expac), or just run dungeons to level cap and then just grind for raiding.