>>723927961
My file playtime went up by 7 hours prepping and re-prepping different party compositions for that side story(I went through 3 different party compositions), and countless more hours were spent on boss attempts(probably idk 20 attempts?). The overall game hadn't been too challenging, but then the jump was so massive that it got me extremely pumped. I also didn't want to look up strategies, but I ended up looking up a master list of stuff (every Learned Skill/Beast/Follower) for more optimization. In the end, Batman's prep time prevailed, but by god, what an exhausting journey.

>spoiler
I've done the first 2 extra battles, and I gotta say, they are pretty crazy yeah. Still fun. Also items and leaves get reset after the battle, which makes things much more manageable.