I heard you ended up getting level 70 by the time you got to Chaos, when you weren't even trying to level at all. I recall being level 50~ish when I got there, even though I zipped through the game as fast as possible, and Chaos ended up being way too easy because of it. I remember the NES version of the game wasn't so easy, because I played that the same way and yet I believe I was early 30's when I got to Chaos. Also, it might be my imagination, but some of the monsters in the GBA version of this game seemed easier than their NES counterparts.