OP is onto something.
For FF haters, this is not about games that are better than this FF or that FF. Of course there have been excellent RPGs since forever (Persona, Xenoblade, whatever you have in mind). We're not talking quality of games, but their budget and production values.
For example, Xenoblade was incredible in its vastness and its seamless open-world design was groundbreaking for JRPGs but the graphics were PS2 level. Persona 5 looks great but it doesn't have cutting-edge graphics.
The only JRPG that comes to mind as genuinely AAA is, as other have pointed out, Dragon Quest XI, and it happens to be a SquareEnix game.