By the chest hair of Thor this is frustrating.

I had to do the same bit three times over because of glitches. The first time my party was messed up so the first battle crashed after Minwu left. The second was due to a mess up when I tried to reload the ROM after I realised I wasn't able to backtrack in time and my ROM save overwrote itself with an earlier version, and the third for the same reason as the first.

OK two things; firstly I will be using frameskipping to maintain my sanity. Unlike a standard game of FF2 I'm going to be doing a LOT of grinding out of necessity, and the standard speed of the game means it can take me an age to get it done. So to make sure I finish by the end of the month I'm going to be using frameskip primarily to zoom past long-winded fights. Secondly in regards to the equipment challenge again; can party members that join you use the equipment they have when they join or do they have to de-equip them and use the starter town stuff?