I finally made it back from the top of the mountains and I have always refused to go any further in the game until [spoiler]Cecil is back up to the level he was before he changed to a Paladin. The trick here is on the world map outside of Palom and Porom's home time, get into that fight with the strangely large bird. Cecil can't do damage seeing at he's at level 1, so you have to rely on Palom and Tellah. The trick here is to purposely kill Porom and either Tellah or Palom (I always optted for Palom ^_^) That way the extra experience goes into Cecil... which will account for MUCH more. After a few fights like that, you can also kill Tellah. You will game at least 1 every fight with that bird till close to level 20. And even after then, leveling up every other fight isn't shabby at all. But yeah, it's an awesome way to get Cecil out off his starting pansy mode.[/spoiler]

I've done the exact same thing since the SNES game. except I did it on the mountain.

I think it's much easier with the bird because there's only one target that attacks very slowly... and with one party member he drops over 5k in exp.

While the game is awesome, power-leveling is a boring turnoff in any RPG. I'm still only just having reached Troia, getting money for new stuff.

There will come a point where money isn't an issue. I haven't really grinded all that much and I would spend a crap load of money on equipment that would maybe raise by a stat or two, but wouldn't care because it wasn't like I was pressed for cash.

The only time I really sat and grinded was when Cecil first [spoiler]became a paladin[/spoiler] and before the sealed cave. So yeah, I actually grinded MUCH less in 4 as I did 3.

I'm currently [spoiler]on the moon and tried to go a few levels into Bahamut's cave. Ran into a Bahemeth in the second floor and had to cheat the fight to win it (aka, leave all characters but cecil on yellow health and let him cover/counter which forces the Bahemeth to only attack). though I did manage to run out of the cave with some Genji equipment. It'll be a while before I'll be able to actually beat that cave. Not sure if I even will.[/spoiler]

Oh Lantis a little tip for those: [spoiler]Edge's Shadowbind ability can paralyze them. Though it might miss alot.[/spoiler]

I finally got around to aquiring the 4000 Gil I wanted for new equipment. Got through the magnetic cave and the Tower of Zot. The cave wasn't that tough. Cecil sat in the back row and healed, Tellah used rods as items to cast spells, and Yang and Cid did their usual thing. [spoiler]The Dark Elf[/spoiler], while he seemed more difficult than I remember, wasn't by very much. Although he probably would've been easier had I remembered to put Cecil back into the front row before the battle started. It's "oops" mistakes like that that I sometimes have trouble with RPGs.

The Tower of Zot, on the other hand, was a real task. I had to heal after every battle. Mostly for Tellah, the wimp; having a character whose stats go down as he levels up isn't exactly the best idea, though it is admittedly interesting considering the character. Although those ice dogs really hit hard. It was during this dungeon that I remembered seeing some deal on Youtube how some enemies were affected by status effects such as Pig and Mini. Status attacks are supposed to be real useful in this game, but I tend to still avoid them since there's no easy way to test what works and what doesn't except by wasting time doing so. Except for the area's bosses...

[spoiler]The Magus Sisters had a larger boost in difficulty than the Dark Elf. It seemed that whenever I needed to heal, they'd bounce a Reflect onto a character I had already targeted a Cura on. I knew they'd be trouble, so the first thing I did was cast Bio on them. Well, I got two of them, at least. Wasn't quite able to beat the first Reflect. But hey, it sure helped with draining their health.

Babaricca, on the other hand, carried the tradition of the Elemental fiends being far more difficult to take down than their earlier counterparts. That is one deadly counter-attack, and I found myself hesitant to do much other than Kain's jump for the start of the battle, slowly getting in more attacks as I began to have Cecil and Rosa to heal. Eventually I realized it might be a good idea to cast status effects. Slow helped. Protect helped. Shell helped.[spoiler]

And that's where I am right now, and I hope I never have to worry about grinding for money ever again. They can keep that 100,000 Gil ticket to a 1-minute dance show.[/spoiler]

Note to self: stock up on phoenix downs. Going into the battle against Golbez with only one is pretty much a guarentee of loss.

I had more. But that Cacalebra thing has some hard-hitting attack power. Safe to say I'll be using Shell and Protect a lot in future boss battles from now on. Didn't use them often in the PS1 version...

Don't forget to use slow on the bosses too.

I JUST finished the game... And that last dungeon was complete bull. It's more of an accomplishment GETTING to Zeromus than it is just fighting and beating him.

Don't even THINK about touching those treasure chests in there either. The ones with Behemoths in there aren't too bad, but others that protect the Crystal equipment is just not worth it. By the time you are strong enough to beat them... you won't even NEED the equipment. And the fact that I beat the game without it is proof enough of that.

And what's worse? Once you get to Zeromus, he counters Summons (so much for all the effort getting Bahamut) and heals from Black Magic... making Rydia absoluetly useless. Her only use was using items.

Adverage level characters was early 70's....

Do yourself a favor and use whatever money you have left on Fuma Shurikens. They are expensive as hell, but for the damage they do, it's totally worth it. I was able to get 15 of them. Used 4 fighting Bahamut... and still had 2 left after fighting Zeromus. But doing max (or at least near max) damage from one character per turn is awesome.

Overall... I loved the game. The last dungeon was the only thorn here. At least they had the decentcy of giving you a save point three forths of the way through... unlike 3, which didn't have a save point at all. I will probably hit up the Game Plus Mode sometime down the road.

Hey Lantis, did you try getting the two ribbons? That was the only treasure chest I didn't get...

Actually, I did manage to get those...

It was RIGHT BY the save point, so giving it a few tries wasn't so much a pain in the ass as losing 20 or more minues for a Crystal equipment.