As stories go I think Valkyrie Profile definitely gives individual characters a lot more depth and an arc, but as combat goes Valkyrie Profile is far simpler. You have a lot more options due to weapons and armor, but the options themselves aren't terribly meaningful aside from an attack or defense number marginally increasing (and enabling Purify Weird Soul, depending). If people are referring to options as mechanics (weapons, armor, etc.), I would say Valkyrie Profile has more, but there aren't many meaningful differences between most of the items in the game (aside from the best items in VP, which are so far and above all other items that they're absurdly broken and make combat a "Press X to win" situation).
It sounds like what people wanted was a treasure system with lots of items, but I honestly have never enjoyed min-maxing and that's really all you can typically do with those sorts of systems. Though it seems like most are equating that as a fundamental piece of RPGs (and hey, I wouldn't doubt it, but that's not really what defines RPGs for me).
And I pretty much don't believe that anyone found the good ending in Valkyrie Profile without a guide (at least on their first run through). It's extremely obtuse to get to it.
I think if people want this to just be Valkyrie Profile, they're going to be disappointed, but I also don't think that's a terribly reasonable metric to judge a game against.
I still haven't had a chance to get to the point where enemies become damage sponges (according to posters here), so I'll probably say something about that later if it becomes a big issue.
I didn't really have any expectations going into this but I've enjoyed the first two hours. The impressions in this thread make me want to check out Valkyrie Profile though. Is VP heavier on the RPG elements?
Valkyrie Profile is a very different game in most ways aside from the combat when compared to Indivisible (and even there the loop is far more focused on Purify Weird Soul - the combo finisher - than it is on characters). It's got a lot more loot and stats to mess with (a big part of the game is about special items and whether or not to send them to Valhalla - a guide makes choosing much more straightforward, which I recommend if you're only planning on playing VP once).