At the end of my new game minus playthrough. You need to know how classes get changed in this mode, and you need to use the equip change trick liberally, but otherwise it's pretty much the same game. Not really much of a hard mode. I'll do one final playthrough (took me 1:10 to make it to the sandsea) for playing with some different class combos, finish up my last two achievements, and then I'll likely be done with the game. That'll be six full playthroughs of various versions of this game, all with every hunt completed, over the course of mostly the last couple years.
It's a weird game to think about critically. I hate almost every individual aspect of it.
I hate what the drastic tonal shifting and subgenre blending do to the storytelling. I hated the weak politicking when I played it 12 years ago and I still hate it now. I hate how tremendously boring the fantasy adventure is at almost every moment of the game. Each of the two tonal styles severely limit each other, with the game being neither a decent political drama, nor a decent fantasy adventure, nor even a decent blending of the two. I hate every character in the game, less due to a weakness in the characters themselves, and more due to them never getting to do anything fun or interesting. They're victims of the same tonal issues. I hate how each of the game's acts are split into three different pacing philosophies, with the first act being too linear, the second act being too open, and the third act being a pair of dungeons no one except me seems to enjoy. The second act is particularly problematic, as the plot just kind of disappears altogether. We go from setup to nothing to supernatural. The second act is typically where jrpg stories shine. I hate how the game frequently teases you with beautiful vistas (think Giruvegan) just to settle back into another nondescript sequence of hallways. I hate how barebones the main story route is in general. I especially hate how much of said barebones is taken up by minigames you only do once.
I never bothered to head into the final dungeon in either one of my IZJS playthroughs. I didn't bother watching a single cutscene (aside from the excellent opening sequence) in this version of the game. Not going to waste my time.
The gameplay, the reason why I play this game, isn't without constant annoyances. I hate how poor most of the main story dungeons are. I hate how poor most of the main story bosses are. I especially hate how good the game is at convincing new players that poor is all you get. I hate how obscure many of the spawning and/or door opening requirements are for optional bosses and hunts. I hate that I don't know whether I hate the obscure requirements or inane minigames more. I hate that the quality gap between story content and optional content is so gigantic. I hate that you have to metabalance to a significant extent to get the best combat experience, especially when you're a new player and don't understand how the good part of the game is structured yet. I hate how many bosses are inexplicably resistant and in some cases outright immune to every element in the game. I hate how libra is disabled for every relevant enemy in the game, effectively forcing me to keep a second monitor up with a wiki showing to avoid having to go through the tedium of testing elements. I hate palings wasting my time. I hate double palings wasting my time. I hate how rigid the conditions are to swap how party members, especially when palings are wasting my time and the enemy is chaincasting on my party to further waste my time. I hate regular enemies you frequently fight having status ga level spells. I hate how I don't care about most gambits but the gambit system is too limited to provide what I would actually care to use. I hate how inconsistent the tell box (X is casting Y spell get ready…) is for important spells, especially in trial mode where the game has you fighting more than the tell box can usefully display.
Don't get me started on traps in a game where you can't control full party movement.
You know what though? Once you get past the obscurity and learn the metabalancing route, the optional content in this game is great. Like, really great. Like, greatest of all time great. Everytime I get annoyed at all the nonsense this game is filled with, there's another great gameplay moment other games aren't coming anywhere close to. I used to think early necrohol was a sequence break. I've since realized how much effort was put into the specific details of the experience. From the optional boss that functions as a tutorial, to the pile of traps serving a final warning to players not knowing what they're getting into, to the enemy groupings in the dungeon itself pushing the player without going overboard even a single time, to the genius incorporation of a rare spawn that functions as an implicit timer, to the horror theme running through the whole place mirroring your dwinding resources, to the lack of a save point keeping the gameplay tense, to the lack of a boss that's possible to fight early removing a potential gotcha to players doing the whole thing for the first time, TO THE FACT THAT THERE ARE VERY SPECIFIC PIECES OF EQUIPMENT IN THE STORY ROUTE AT VERY SPECIFIC LOCATIONS THAT FUNCTION AS IMPLIED DIFFICULTY SETTINGS FOR THIS ONE DUNGEON NO THESE CAPS AREN'T A MISTAKE SERIOUSLY THIS IS INSANE…
…and that's just one example. It's the best example. But it's still just one example. The game is full of best in genre combat (top three) and possibility best in genre optional content design in general. It's a disappointment every time I play a game that doesn't feature some variation on hunts. I've certainly had to deal with an insane amount of nonsense in my time with this game, but it's never worn me down. It's been plenty worth it.