FH was nice and comfy as always. In what felt more like a miniboss, the remains of BGH-whatever blew up in no time flat. After some contrived&trite buildup for the romance I couldn't resist some sidequesting and exploring. Shumi village&Winhill offered a break from the story. Onto Centra, where I made the insane decision to get Odin. In hindsight, this feels like the most insane thing I could've done. Imagine me, trying my hardest to play a low-level game, and getting Odin as soon as he was available. What the hell was I thinking? I expect to lose A LOT of hours because of this guy appearing all of a sudden and killing enemies, forcing me to reload everytime it happens. Oh God.
The fight itself was still a joke with him channeling his inner Rocky and letting me whoop his ass however I wanted in hopes of tiring me out eventually. I do wish something could be done to make this fight more interesting. At least in vanilla it's a race against time because he's the first enemy you get access to that has triples so you want to draw those for everyone AND kill him within the time limit. Well, he does have double here... Maybe if Odin was the first enemy with double in this mod, that would have the same effect! I mean we already discussed the possibility of pushing doubles out of disc1 save for some single use draw points so it might be feasible to let Odin be the earliest enemy you can draw them from. I imagine you've buffed his HP a bit so that would be a fun way to make players sweat bullets if they get greedy and want to draw the tempting doubles while killing him in time. Because right now, it's even more boring than in vanilla, especially for veterans since the puzzles are the same. So in short, my suggestion: gating doubles even further back so that players who want to clear Centra right away get the earliest possible access, should they be daring enough, that is.
Tonberry King tried to put up a fight with "it's sharp!" but keeping everyone hasted and protected let me comfortably draw curagas for all, major HP upgrade for my lvl 17-23 party. Also lvl-up will be useful to get better steals and magic from enemies. As a summon, he's still useless. Intentional?
Back to main story. Fujin&Raijin in Balamb are clearly stronger than in vanilla but don't have a lot of HP. Fujin started using an annoying debuffing attack after I killed the other but a couple double bios and limits took care of her quickly.
After numerous story segments where I didn't notice much being different from vanilla, battle of gardens ensues. Protect the hotdogs, dammit! Anyways the enemies here don't offer much so I usually run from battles, except for some mandatory ones where I'm again forced to level up since there's no running or carding the soldiers. Yay.
In Galbadia there's finally some enemies worth mugging, of course after using lvl-up on them. Shenanigans ensue as I desperately try to mug and card level 100 triheads and hexadragons. Their attacks become quite troublesome at max level. Eventually I began doubling their level only once, hoping it's enough to cross the threshold to high to give better steals.
Cerberus spammed quake and tornado A LOT, so I junctioned tornadoes to ele-def along with life to get 20% absorb wind damage, so that's nice. Then you just float everyone and
voilá, he can't do much besides the acid spit thing, which is annoying because it dispels or something, but luckily he doesn't use it too often.
Seifer is probably the hardest-hitting boss on disc 2, which is pretty cool to see him finally not be a total sad joke. His limit break attack is pretty stiff actually and the first time he used it on Selphie it also critted, killing her instantly through protect AND from max HP. Damn I got hyped for this fight when I saw that, haha. Good stuff. You really want to get Cerberus off right away to buff your party fast, I can't imagine beating him without haste&protect on everyone with these levels. And that's how it should be IMO. The key to making a fool of him is reflecting him when he starts casting curaga. He dies in no time flat when denied those heals. Add insult to injury with Carbuncle so he flares himself and heals you, lol.
The final battle of disc 2 felt easier for me. Seifer didn't use his limit or flare, giving me ample time to buff myself to high heaven before Edea. Holy crap that mug from Seifer, though - I thought these had been removed from the mod. Hoping to not see many more of these. Edea didn't throw anything too surprising my way aside from the first spell which I think debuffed everyone and did major damage, however she never used it again. Intentional? Anyways just keep dispelling her reflect and she'll pretty much stop doing anything else and tries desperately to get it on herself, becoming even less of a threat. Turns out she can't handle triple cast -aga spells for too long so it'll be over quick. Also darkside from Squall holds its own in terms of damage and is worth using.
Really wanted to upgrade Squall's weapon to Punishment to see blasting zone already, been using the other 2 finishers for so long now, but apparently laser cannons were removed from high level Belhelmels. I'm not sure how to feel about this one - I killed 30-40 of them in the course of an hour and made sure to lvl-up them to at least 40 to get a high-end drop, and didn't get one. Don't know if they're refinable from cards since I've stayed away from TT mostly. It'd be nice for it to be at least possible(with effort) to get the third finisher in time for disc 2's end, though - Lion heart has been pushed so far back already since there's no way of knowing what it requires before the final weapons monthly, so you pretty much get it in time for only endgame content which is appropriate enough I guess but I at least want my Punishmeeeeent
What deserves praise is the work that's been put in balancing the different methods of dealing damage. I've found myself casting spells, summoning GF's, fishing for limit breaks, and attacking in old fashion in pretty much equal measure. Only GF's have lately fallen off since I haven't bothered with buffing their damage so can't comment on that balance/whether they are worth it compared to double/triple casting elemental spells. I suppose it's inevitable that at least the elemental ones become obsolete eventually in a world with triple -aga casting. Diablos seems to be the one who stays relevant in addition to Siren(guaranteed statuses) thanks to guaranteed 9999 on bigger enemies assuming no immunity and I've used them a bunch. Of course Cerberus will now become the new go-to summon for boss fights. But so far, nothing seems overly better than the others.