I agree with some other anons that the sailing wasn't good. Even using the map in the manual, it's easy to b-line to your destination and still end up somewhere else because of how tiny some of the islands are. I don't remember the encounters being hard though, just boring. Like they'd put your party to sleep and slow the combat and shit. I ended up sailing using the evasion spell 100% of the time. Also the final area was something else. I'd say that's when the difficulty actually spikes. Just getting to Hargon's castle was bullshit with all the insta-kills. The blizzards casting Zaraki (I played the Japanese version, I don't know the English spell names), the giants dropping someone at full health on a crit, and the silver devils putting someone to sleep and spamming begirama (when they don't just cast that spell that insta-kills the whole party). The castle wasn't much better. Pic related is a screenshot I took the first moment I got a chance to act in a random encounter there. My party's health was 190/130/74 going into it. It felt like the finale was just trying to waste your time. The cave leading up to it with all the pitfalls was especially tedious. All in all though, I'd say it's a good game, despite the bullshit. I especially liked seeing the wandering spirits in Moonbrooke Castle and finding out the dog in the town was the princess. And having people around the world congratulate you after defeating Hargon was pretty cool.