I have to wonder how good these games are if I keep hearing praises about them but they're never seemingly made huge waves.
I'm a big fan, but they're definitely not for everyone. Every game is closely tied together, all taking place on the same continent with many recurring characters and related events, lore, history, etc. Because of this, it's strongly recommended to play the games in order as the sequels expect you to know the events of previous games with some games even taking place at the same time as later games in the series. And because of this, it is a very big time sink if the series does grasp your interest.
Without sperging too hard (because I could go on for a while), I'm a big fan of how the world is presented, and how nearly every aspect of it, down to the individual NPCs, change as events in the world happen. I like the stories and characters a lot, even though there are some questionable decisions in the story and some annoying characters, like with most things. I also really like how some many events have a tangible effect on the various countries and people of those countries in the games that are set in those countries and how deep some of the geopolitics between the countries are.
As for why they never made waves, I couldn't really tell you as I'm not very good at speculation on the market, especially between the JP and Western markets. I will say Falcom, the creators, is an interesting company and some of their ways are probably a big part of the reason. As
@chihirogumi stated, one of the most annoying things is how long it takes to get a Western release for their games. From what I remember, Falcom doesn't work with the localizers during the development of the game and only sends them the script after the game releases in Japan, so it usually takes at least a year for it to be released in the West. Falcom never really seemed like they wanted to try and elevate their series to the widest audience possible. They're probably one of the oldest video game companies still around, and yet they still have less than 100 employees working for them, and back when consoles were the popular thing in Japan, they were more focused on releasing games on PC for a long time. I have to kind of respect them for sticking to a smaller scale operation while putting out pretty quality games like this, but it does come with some problems.
Still, they are probably one of the most influential video game companies that many here in the West probably haven't heard of as they helped pioneer a lot that the biggest Japanese video game companies are known for today in the realm of JRPGs.
TL;DR: They are great games, but major time sinks. And while they are great games, the company that makes them, Falcom, hasn't done much to spread knowledge of the series in the West.
