@Ayoyo:
The battles on the way to the Light Pillar inside Deep Sea Research Center can all be avoided by approaching it carefully while it doesn't emit any light. I would be all in for adding a save possibility somewhere there - if not in between the two mandatory battles against Ruby Dragon/Behemoth and Bahamut, then maybe at least right before triggering the pillar dialogue. I'll check that and see how it goes.
Never knew that. Guess I shouldn't be so stubbornly old-school and just look stuff up occasionally, would probably save me a lot of trouble. One additional point that calls for a save/menu possibility is that after you trigger the pillar dialogue(it's not our will to fight one), there's no chance to menu anymore and you just gotta fight Bahamut with what you have. Now this would be fine and makes players think ahead because they have 3 encounters to deal with, but it might be more fair and convenient to at least offer a save and menu option before the Ruby/Behemoth/Bahamut gauntlet to prevent cheap deaths to Bahamut only because you were junctioned for easier random encounters.
Well, this is it then - the final stretch and my last report for this playthrough.
Raijin&Fujin - I expected to walk over these guys after dominating Ultima Weapon, but they do actually pose a threat even for a geared party if you let them buff themselves. Once again the player is encouraged to use their head and dispel the Auras and the like away, because if you don't, they'll whoop yo ass. I like the scripted meteor, it's kind of like a wake-up call that you've entered endgame.
Mobile type8 - Goddamn, this thing just wouldn't yield the damn steals. Not gonna lie, I died twice to this boss trying to stubbornly mug everything even though it has been clearly designed to specifically make this kind of thing difficult with hard counters to every physical hit. In that respect, this boss is super unique and I quite enjoyed the challenge and being made to hesitate constantly hitting it.
Adel - Another unique boss experience. For one, a big chunk of your arsenal, mainly all AoE, is unusable in this fight and I think the Rinoa being drained away- mechanic has been made more relevant(less hp on her/Adel drains more?) so that you really have to support her almost constantly. Casting shell®en on her right away gave me a lot of leeway in that regard though. I wonder if you can cast zombie on her? Wouldn't she be constantly healed then? Anyways, Adel uses pretty potent spells here and you better keep those shells active. Liked it overall even though it was nothing super challenging.
Ultimecia castle - Always a fun stretch of the game. I saw myself using regular attacks against Sphinx(duh), then triple casting magic took down Tripoint&Gargantua, then Irvine's AP ammo owned Red giant and so on - the whole spectrum of tools came in handy here. Especially liked how many of these bosses had such high defense, you truly can't just spam A to win no matter how overleveled you are. Trauma gave me trouble because I'm stupid and couldn't figure out that I'm already putting his HP to zero as he drained the little things; I thought I just need to grind him down and heal the little ones so as to prevent them from triggering mega super blast cannon or whatever. Doing a low level run, nobody in my party was able to survive that thing. Well, after spending about 10 minutes triple flare-ing him I finally scanned him and realized what was up. Triple Ultima to blow the whole bunch to smithereens.
Taking on the final bosses was exactly what I had hoped it would be; they're fat enough to let you throw your best stuff at them and not immediately keel over, and on the other hand hit hard enough to make you feel under threat of dying. It's a tricky tightrope for sure, balancing a long gauntlet like this, and well... I think it succeeds despite how I was able to beat the whole thing with a party of 2 (Squall, lvl26&Quistis, lvl19) because of bad luck in the beginning where my third party member with junctions died and immediately got sucked into time but I didn't want to give up, thinking this would be a great challenge to see if I can still beat it on the first try and 1 character short. So from that you can deduce that it certainly can't be too difficult or unfair at least, but still it should be threatening enough to keep players on their toes. I did have to delve into my supply of aura stones and elixirs to come out on top with my 2 guy party.
Honestly I can't say how the gauntlet could be made even better, or indeed even how I personally would improve it - there's only so much damage you can pump out at the player especially towards the end before it goes overboard and players are forced to plow through the very slow-moving first parts of the fight all over again before they get back to the hard part. However I must say that I found the experience enjoyable in the circumstances I experienced it(
severely handicapped in multiple respects) and thus it would very likely fall flat on its face were I to play with normal expected levels and a full party.
Overall quite satisfied with disc 4, moreso than 3. Don't know how skewed my impression is due to low levels and other self-imposed handicaps.