but the last 10% of every early final fantasy seems to be where its formula kind of breaks down, and i think its because the games haven't got any idea of how to scale in difficulty. 90% of the game has things balanced to where its moderately challenging at every beat, with bosses that require an attempt or two of careful planning and sometimes unique approaches, and dungeons full of gauntlet-style enemies that press against the limits of your party and ability to be efficient in winning. it's great! aside from when ff1 falls off a bit early with all the content suddenly quite easy, or a gap in ff2 depending on how you sequence its optional side dungeon, the games scale fluidly..... which means, how do you make a harder part?

and i think that's where the games don't really have an answer. final fantasy 2 in particular feels a bit egregious - most enemies, every one in a group of as many as eight, will cast confusion level 16 on your entire party, effectively a 50% chance of making them kill one of your party members instead of taking a turn. the status can't be negated. ff3 puts you through a difficult boss rush, which is difficult only because its bosses strike twice per turn and deal 90% of hp on hit, meaning if they doublestrike your healer your run's nigh guaranteed to spiral into a loss. final fantasy 1 only really has the aforementioned sudden loss of difficulty, just because levels scale higher than it's ready to account for, until its last dungeon becomes a "how many high potions will 9999 dragons burn through" test.