That would work great until you hit FF3 and half the board plays the wrong game.
Well I assume we'd do the advance remake instead, which smoothed out the leveling curve so that you don't hit a brick wall at the marsh cave.
I've played the graphically updated one that's part of Origins and the remake for the GBA and the one for the GBA is just too easy. Swapping out the Vancian spell system for MP is already enough to trivialize the entire thing but when combined with the changes (mega boosts) to leveling it's barely a game. Stick with the original NES version. In terms of actual time grinded going from acquiring the ship to the Marsh Cave isn't that big a deal. It may have seemed like a gigantic bottleneck when I was 8 but not now.
Except for the fact that you got to the marsh cave at level 4-5 and needed to be 8-9 to have a good chance of clearing it. No option other than some hardcore grinding.
Literally all you have to do to prepare is to just open all the sealed doors by killing the trap door monsters. By the time you get to the demon wall, you'll be plenty high enough to end it and the equipment you get from all the sealed rooms will put you over the top. Only time the Demon Wall is tough is if you just skip the rest of the cave and run right towards it.
I have, 100% map completion achieved right before the crystal room etc- I must have come in very under level or something. I always find it odd every playthrough and version I have problems in certain places- in the orig FF2 on SNES I always got raped by the damn cake thing at dwarf castle- on a Japanese translation SNES rom I could not get past the damn no-metal dark elf cave thing without grinding... and now in the 3DS remake it is The Wall - usually yes- if you get everything and get there at a proper level just slowing the thing usually lets you win- but I get slow out, haste everyone, throw shit at it and go balls out and it just doesn't cut it >_<
If you knew about the power peninsula, it was a pretty short grind. If you didn't (like most of us when the game came out) it was a fairly nasty grind East of Elfland or even worse, a really long time spent failing over and over trying to start the Marsh Cave underleveled and under-equipped because the concept of grind was foreign to anyone who hadn't already played Dragon Warrior.
You can go as far as Final Fantasy 12. 13/13-2 are PS3 games.
Been awhile since I replayed FF2(4) on my SNES, but I recall those same areas where I needed to grind some. The equipment in the Sealed Cave usually pushed me over the top and like Rezz said if you went through killing all of the door monsters you got major exp and a couple of extra levels this way.
