I finally played it for the first time a couple of years ago when the initial covid lockdowns granted me large chunks of free time. I was playing for a while, but never found myself intentionally grinding. Unlike a lot of games of that genre/era, it varies up the environments/enemies and progresses the story enough to grant enough xp while going the things you need/want to do anyway.

For a bit of context, just before Chrono Trigger, I tried playing through Phantasy Star II, a Genesis game from a few years earlier in the same genre/era...and I got maybe 15-20% through the game before realizing it was too grindy and just uninstalling it. I'm not coming into this with infinite patience or anything.