First playthru, got Cid, got dancer, bard, and math, game is now broken? + rant
To preface this: I know there are self imposed challenges and that this game is famously broken in a thousand ways and that's part of the fun. I know whatever increased difficulty were all surmountable in many ways. Question at the end.
Rant start:
I held off on using the other unique characters. I finally got Cid now, looked over his kit and just thought why? It was the same feeling I had when I started using dancer, bard and math.
Dancer can slow everyone for a meager jp of 100!? Stall the battle a few rounds and the enemies might as well all be dead. Bard is arguably not as broken but teamwide, whole map buffs feels incredibly broken.
I only got ct and multiples of 4 for math. When the targets align, it feels so broken. Why did anything think it was a good idea to allow the mass casting of 70+ mana spells instantly, multiple times on the map? Did the original game highlight all the targets before you confirmed the spell? Or did have manually go thru each target and calculate if it would hit? If so the QoL 100% broke this class. Just like how the turn order listing took all the guesswork out of the planning.
I imagined the whole game felt a bit like the dragoon before. Now, there is perfect info on the turn orders for everyone except the dragoon.
The summoning and archer buffs also kind of ruined the game. In battles with multiple archers on high ground, they would snipe your squishies in one or two turns. I guess this technically counters the broken classes above. But what's the point if you restart and just give them other classes? Does this break the game? No, but it certainly steers you down a path to avoid using squishes and rush down the archers. On another note, Belias was chucking out Cyclops and 2 was enough to wipe my team. Turned out the higher level spells were also buffed to be quicker. No wonder his demons were obliterating my team with their spells. Of course, there are ways to play around it but it similarily narrows gameplay.
In summary:
Early game, many battles I would go in ill equipped and I would tactically make it work out with some luck. Now, there are a few battles where I just had to reset and choose different classes so I won't get sniped in the first couple of turns. I assume I'll have to do the same with immunities when I encounter them.
Some of my frustration is that this is considered to be a remaster when they have fudged with so much more than graphics and audio. I guess they included an amalgam of the original version. It would've been nice if there was a choice to play a remastered version with no change in script, and gameplay rules.
Side note: I feel like the dancer, bard, and math ruins the game and am considering not using their skills. Am I overreacting? As in, does the game get harder so that these "OP" classes become required? I am enjoying the "remaster". But I certainly notice the dissonance of what I assume were changes.