This game is hard as crap.

Am I the only one who has to fight each battle like 7 times in a row to win?

Yes :p

Or if you're having problems on the first few battles, maybe you're trying to fight it with only the 1 or 2 characters instead of actually adding more team members, as I didn't realise you could do that the first time I played it? :p

It is hard to begin with, that is true. I would suggest leveling up a bit before moving on to other story battles, and experiment with game play a bit. A cool trick is that you can save up JP to buy Holy or Flare or something, and wipe out whomever you want in the beginning game. (If you have the MP...)

Well, right now I'm stuck on a battle at Castle Lionel, where Ramza is to fight Gafgarion 1 on 1, while my other 4 team members get slaughtered by summoners, archers, and knights. Seems impossible. Maybe I will just level up for a couple of hours to get some uber abilities. =\

Yeah, that battle is difficult. Helpful hints, you can raise the giant door by moving Ramza to the spot in front of the lever. Also, Gafgarion immediately turns into a crystal, no waiting for three turns or anything, so you can heal Ramza right after killing Gafgarion. If you can't seem to get to the lever safely, breed a Black Chocobo, and use one of your other characters (or just the Chocobo) to fly over the wall to help Ramza attack Gafgarion. I can't remember if you can use a Red Chocobo to hop over the edges or not, but I think you can, and Red ones are stronger, so that would be best. As for the four getting mutilated, try casting Golem A.S.A.P., it really helps a lot (sometimes); protect helps a little too, but often misses (for me anyway).

Walk back and forth with Chakra and Move Hp Up until you finish the outside group (if you can) then open the gate and slaughter him. Worked when I was a newbie.

I usually give ramza the mp switch (I think thats it) so the first hit or two wont hurt him, it will just whipe out his MP which he wont need anyway. Move mp up also helps with this cause then you get maybe 3 mp which is enought to convert the hp damage to mp damage. If not move mp up then ignore heights and run down and beat him up. if you can get two swords thats always good.
another option is to train ramza as a summoner and give him Equip Armor. Hit his with a high level summon spell and watch him fry. There are a few ways of going about it.
Your other group, Agrias and Mustadio help ALOT. Snipe - Arm aim is a great help. Make thier summoner or knights not be able to atack. Agreas with Statis Sword is great. I usually get STOP to work on at least one knight and can take out the summoner with just one hit. Also the Archers get messed up bad by that move. Other than that, I use a monk with chakra and I had a wizard with teleport. I cast fire 3 on the knights and moved up top. Then I hit gafarion with whatever I had MP for. That with ramza hitting with 2 swords took out gafarion quick and easy. opened the gate and went out to help the others.

The party outside isn't too hard if you have a summoner with high faith. Crack off a Titan or two and you'll pound the crap out of them with little trouble. I usually have Agrias use Holy Explosion or Lightning Stab, as they are stronger.

Ligthning stab is by far the prefered move for Agrias but I dont think I had the JP for it last time I played that fight. So I stuck with other moves.

Yeah, I'd say the key is getting to the lever as soon as possible to open the gate and join up with the rest of your party, strength in numbers and all that... Using 'teleport' for your movement skill will get you in front of that lever in one or two moves. Using 'mp switch' is a great idea, so you don't take any damage from Gaffy's first attacks. And I think being able to use the monk ability, 'chakra', will quickly restore any hp or mp you might have lost. Good luck... :cool:

Oh and I forgot...steal Gaffy's sword, and he'll be a pathetic, powerless loser! Shweeet! :tongue:

EDIT: Please use edit/delete instead of double posting. -Murder

Argh, curse you double-posters! There IS an edit button!

Anyways, that being said, while it is true Gafgarion is worthless without his sword, it'll be difficult to steal, so I usually don't go for that option (especially since it means I have to spend time with the thief job which I HATE). The first time I fought him I think I was a samurai with Double-Sword equipped, and monk skills on secondary. I went down, healing myself as he hit me so that I remained at normal life, then butchered him with two katanas.

Personally I think the battle at the execution site is way much harder than the one at the gate because I always have Teleport on Ramza. It's really great that you accumulates JPs from the jobs that the commoners have.

But I think it's really important to have either very strong jobs like knight or jobs that affect many in one strike, like wizard or summoners, in the battle at the gate. Last time I played it I had Agrias, a priest, a thief and a chemist down there and it didn't go that well :D They all got nuked so hard, hehe.

In one game I used ramza as an archer with weapon break. In all the others I just used him as lancer and did good.

2 words...auto-potion

probably the best skill in the game to save your ass when the chemist or priest cant.

just use ramza as a squire(his best class) and accumulate till your hearts content...charge or jump and wow hes dead...as for your teammates...take out the summoner lol the battle falls apart after that...i only had auto pot on ramza so mustadio as chemist withs nipe is good...agrias as holy knight...duh lol, lancers and knights work well combined...this fight is quite easy...use that tactic and theres no need to open the gate because the other enenmies outside will attack ramza and heal gafgarion