Yeah, sorry I haven't updated in a bit. I've been actually productive lately which leaves little time to play games, not to mention all I've really been doing is grinding weapon/magic levels.

I taught everyone Healing and Strength Water for the final boss, and some Mirage magic for Doppelganger, but I doubt I'll be able to really utilize that anyway. I gave Hawke the Garal Sword to give him some better Weapon Skills and gave Guella Ha a Garal Flail since Rez09 mentioned it has some debuffing skills I can use and the Garal Spear skills are terrible. I'm currently heading back into the dungeon, and fighting everything I can to level up the skills, but I may leave once again to buy a few more Magical Shelters (their like tents in FF) cause I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to have to fight Saruin's minions again, cause I think that fight resets every time you leave the dungeon.

Hawke has nearly maxed out his health, and most of the team is close to breaking into the 900hp range. Sadly, I don't gain too many stats boosts anymore from battles, but that's kind of expected this late into the game.

My first strategy attempt is simply to use the first round to have everyone cast Strength Water to greatly boost their damage, and then just unload the fourth lv. weapon arts into him, with self healing anytime he hits the team with one of his group attacks, and have Albert (who has the highest Water magic levels) to use his turns to heal anyone who takes a brick ton of damage from Saruin's melee attacks. That should hopefully seal this deal as I'm pretty sure I've come close to beating him in the past with the old set-up if the background changes are anything to go by. I kind of want to get this over with cause I'm itching to start my FFV LP.

As for the topic of Minstrel Song, I can't say for sure since I've only played the original at this point. I know from the Wiki it adds a ton of features from the later installments like Life Points and weapon crafting, as well as utilizing the later installment's versions of weapon arts (which is a boon in the game's favor I might add) as well as actually finishing the game. The characters also got redesigns for better or for worse depending on your taste. Still it's been an enjoyable ride, so I feel the more the merrier in recommending the title.