The old SMT games are first person unless you're talking about something else?
But yeah Dungeon Crawlers/Dungeon RPGS don't need to be first person, Shiren the Wanderer is a dungeon-crawler as is Diablo, Dark Cloud, and Persona 3.
You're sort of mashing together different genres, there, though. If someone asks for a dRPG, they mean they want a grid based blobber. 'Dungeon crawler' casts a slightly wider net.
I do agree first person isn't a requirement, and there are some odd hybrids... Brandish, for example, plays mostly like a top down Legend of Grimrock. [grid based, enemies move on their own timer, etc] although it's not a particularly deep 'dRPG' due to simplified combat/lewt.
It's because blob-rpgs typically result in grindfests with unsatisfying puzzle elements. Anecdotally, I had to stop playing Stranger of Sword City because I had to grind endlessly just to advance minor plot points.
Compare that with other J/WRPGS, where tangible interaction is standard.
I didn't think SoSC had much grinding at all. Certainly not to 'advance minor plot points'. And 'grinding' has little to do with rpg genre, and everything to do with game balance. A standard jrpg can require 'grinding', it's not something unique to, or even particularly common in, dRPGs. I don't even know what you mean by 'tangible interaction' means in this case.
Many games have difficult bosses serving as walls. Well done, they are meant to ensure the player has mastered certain game/combat principles - for example, elemental weaknesses. However, there are always going to be some subset of players who don't get that they're supposed to be exploiting those weaknesses, and just grind 10 levels to beat the boss in a more basic manner and then complain about grinding. This is always a difficultly for game designers... a well designed boss will always have some 'grinders'. It's one of the reasons I loved Matador - if a player refused to adapt to press turn, they'd be grinding a very long time.
Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2 are some of my favorite games of all time. Funnily enough they're the only type of games like this I've been into. I really enjoyed the puzzle aspect the most. Felt kinda like Myst. The combat wasnt really great but the puzzles were very good and kept me intrigued. If anyone has suggestions to other types of more puzzle driven Dungeon crawlers I'd definitely be interested.
Most older dRPGs have a lot of puzzles. Quite a bit of that was lost to time, for several reasons. For one, supposed QoL improvements like automapping really hurt map maker ability to create spacial puzzles with teleport and spin traps. Things like 'wall riddles' aren't as common either, my guess is because nowadays most people just google them rather than solve them, making it take more time to dev right than it's worth. LoG does have some puzzles, generally the kind common to real time drpgs [pressure panels, timers]- but to find other greats you're going to need to play much older ones like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder. I think there's supposed to be another good real time dRPG that either just came out or is coming out soon, but I'm blanking on the name.
Wizardry is well known for it's difficult dungeons, although I'm thinking you want more atmospheric 'puzzles' than death traps.