That's pretty fair. I enjoy the stylus controls myself but they're not for everyone and I'm not sure how well the other schemes work in practice. If you do give up on playing it, I definitely recommend checking out a video playthrough of it just so you can see the rest of the writing (and music), which only gets better once the other major characters are introduced midgame. You can also drop the intensity to 0 at which point the game all but beats itself if you'd prefer.
FF6 Eviltype - At this point I have Gau, Relm, Strago, and Gogo in addition to the initial four PCs, so I can actually take a run at the Phoenix Cave and get my hands on what is probably the best Esper in the game. But I figure I need more good equipment before I do this (unless I feel like constantly shuffling equipment between teams. I don't.), so... Mt. Zozo it is! Not much to say about the randoms, they're balanced for being done as the first thing post-Falcon probably and I have no major difficulties. I grab the three shiny shields, the Red Cap, and the Force Arm- ohshit
Storm Dragon (1 reset) - The big problem here is Rage, which is gross MT non-elemental ITE damage, OHKOing my lower-MDef PCs. Shell to the rescue! Slowing him and getting the entire team in Shell helps a lot. He can OHKO people with Wing Saber, but I get very lucky in dodging it. Cyclonic mostly proves that I need Cure 3, since it takes three castings of Cure 2 to fully heal it (Rage hits that hard, I care about getting back to full). Not too bad past that, although he has a lot of HP to cut through.
Phoenix Cave - I actually don't have any resets in the randoms here, but they're nasty and I have to run away several times. Trixters are particular pests in their reflective, status-resistant ways, Necromancers are extremely dangerous but can be revived, Chaos Dragons use an evil Disaster but can be controlled by Stop. The common enemies of the lower floors aren't as bad but they do hit hard so take nothing for granted. Relm uses Control, otherwise I mainly fish for status holes where possible, gravity/damage where not of course. Still, whatever things I could say about the randoms, they're nothing compared to...
Red Dragon (4 resets) - Celes/Strago/Gau/Gogo is my party here. Possibly the hardest boss in this playthrough so far, there is so much that can go wrong with this fight even IF you block fire on most people. The first big problem is Meteo, which easily OHKOs anyone it hits. Its accuracy is mediocre, but it still usually kills 1 or 2 people, and that's with me prioritising MBlock a fair bit on my setup. The second problem is that some of his other magic damage is also brutal, with Flare in particular OHKOing who it hits and Southern Cross being brutal to anyone who doesn't null fire. These can be solved by maintaining a Runic shield, so I do so. That leaves Level 3 Flare, which sadly does down one of my PCs, and Eraser, his ITE physical which OHKOs the people with lower defence (MBlock twinking ensures they exist) and makes me heal (after a revival from Meteor) the others. But after a couple resets, I'm able to manage all this.
Unfortunately, below half HP, things get serious, and he summons four Vectaurs. They have 10k HP and are status immune, I can't blitz them quickly and they have solidly 2HKOing physicals which they spam until I die (as well as some low-level fire magic which isn't too scary but absorbs Runic so that I get hit with Flare, Red Dragon's favourite spell). I die once to this, horribly. The second time I summon Fenrir to absorb their initial barrage, and also come up with a way to blitz them quickly: a Tritoch summon followed by a Mimic, which does insane weakness-hitting damage to the Vectaurs letting me kill them off in two actions. Which, I then learn, causes him to instantly summon more. I die horribly. Finally, I settle for one Fenrir, one twinked Tritoch, one MT Ice 2, and a barrage of ST Ice 2's/Bum Rush/similar damage to KO three of the Vectaurs before they can overwhelm my image status. I rasp the survivor (they don't have much MP) then continue the fight as before, just with added damage from the Vectaur, although slowing him helps. At one point Red Dragon buffs himself like crazy but fortunately I do have Dispel learned, and I learn Big Guard from this! Anyway, past that and needing to revive periodically from Meteo/L3 Flare/Eraser, juggling actions as always... not too bad.
Cave to the Ancient Castle - I learn CleanSweep from Enuos and Magnitude8 from Goblins. Randoms are annoying with all their anti-magic tricks but by and large gravity still works, so that + pick them off.
Master Pug (1 reset) - Step Mine counters OHKO, but he doesn't have much MP so I rasp that away but before I do Quake KOs my entire team. TRY AGAIN WITH FLOAT. Same strategy, I'm a bit worried because of course Step Mine removes Float as it kills me, but once his MP is gone he's a chump.
KatanaSoul (1 reset) - What a difference elemental resistance makes! First time I get three people OHKOed by his opening Air Blade. Next time... Minerva, Thunder Shield, and two Force Shields put me in a much better position to recover. Then I learn he is vulnerable to Dischord. WELL THEN. (This is especially good because his GP Rain does about 900 MT damage, not far from unblockable OHKO, although I think I could have won without Dischord? Still, it helped a lot.)
Blue Dragon - After how badly Red Dragon slapped me around this guy is pretty simple. I mean, insanely so, he's vulnerable to Level 5 Death. Still, he doesn't seem too bad anyway, so I dick around and steal from him, then he casts Quick and the resulting action puts me in a bad position I have to scramble to recover from. I do so, get everyone revived, and kill him off.
I decide to keep Odin over Raiden. Meteor!
At this point, with the Offering, I take a run at getting Snow Mufflers. One more Veldt trip gives me two more Behemoth Suits (and a few more shiny rages, such as Goblin and Tyranosaur). I recruit Shadow, then promptly hand him the Assassin+Striker 8-hit combo and try to instant death Outsiders for my Snow Mufflers. RNG is with me two times out of three. I also get a couple Pearl Lances since I don't intend to use Cyan, Mog's 255 defence setup means poor Aquila has no chance.
I also get Terra at this point. My average level hit 24 so I figure now's as good a time as any, I won't hit average level 25 until I do the final dungeon most likely. That just leaves Umaro...
Dirt Dragon - Time for some revenge! And revenge I get. Offering Fixed Dice let me carve into him pretty quickly, so I focus on other PCs healing/buffing while Setzer does the damage. Then Dirt Dragon knocks him into critical with Quartr right before he attacks and... he uses Red Card, charming him. HAHAHA. Actually this isn't -that- big a deal because the thing I am actually worried about is his death counter, which I still see. But I'm ready for it this time. With Gau raging Rhinox for Life 3, and summons of Fenrir+Starlet right before I kill him, I'm able to easily tank the death counter... in fact I get lucky and everyone lives! Also, him hitting himself with Honed Tusk for 9999 is hilarious.
At this point I remember that with Locke I can get Ragnarok, so I do. I opt for the sword just to not have to work on another 1x learn rate with my encounter limitations, and head to the colloseum to turn it into Illumina. With fire immunity and reflect there's not much Didalos can do to Gogo, who I just have set up with Blitz to Bum Rush as quickly as possible, hopefully.
Next up is recruiting Umaro and getting Terrato.
