Am I "under leveled" in FF2?

[SephirothVII7]

I am playing the Origins version of FF2 on PS1, and I am thinking I am under leveled. I am at the Dreadnought and All my characters have around 210-250 HP and Spells are level 1-3. I am having a hard time on this part of the game. Am I under leveled??

[Lord Golbez]

How many hours have you spent beating yourself up? If your answer is none, then you're probably underleveled. But hey, I'm sure there's a no attacking yourself FF2 challenge.

[SephirothVII7]

I'm doing a legit no beating myself up challenge. I am also not grinding at all. My equipment is minimal, I have mostly the best weapons, but mostly armor that is from the beginning of the game. I have not stopped to grind AT ALL yet. For Firion I have Cure 3, Teleport 1, Blink 3, Life 1, and Esuna 2 and I have A mythril knife and a shield with leather armor, leather cap and leather gloves. Maria has Blizzard 3, Fire 3, Thunder 1, and Blind 1 and has a mythril staff and shield with leather armor, cap and gloves. Guy has no magic, an ancient sword and gold shield, leather armor, leather cap, and mythril gloves. All their weapon and shield levels are around level 4.

[Wolf Kanno]

What are your stats like and what point of the game are you at?

[SephirothVII7]

What are your stats like and what point of the game are you at?

OH, I didn't say these things in my comments now did I? Maybe read the question

[Wolf Kanno]

My bad, though I still would like to hear where your other core stats are. I would advise doing a little leveling, and to make it easier for you without resorting to "attack my own party" strategy, I'd remove all of your party's equipment as this will make HP gains easier an improve your speed stat and hopefully evasion though that one rarely goes up. I'd probably battle around with this set-up until you double your HP and MP stats, just to give you a smoother time. You may also want to pick up the protect and shell spells in Poft as well. Since you're trying to do this without shortcuts, you'll need to focus more on support spells to keep your team alive.

Maria especially needs to wear lighter armor, FFII has a hidden mechanic with armor that dictates how well magic works. Heavier armor gives a steep penalty to intelligence, so keep her on the light side if you want better damage, also make sure she sticks to staffs (not maces) or bare-handed as weapons lower Magic Accuracy as well. I'd also drop axes from Gus and make him go bare-handed. It's really overpowered in the early game and weapons won't outshine it until the middle of the game when you'll finally get the good stuff.

If you want a good place to level, try to build your whole party's barehanded up a few good levels until you're basically one shotting everything around the Dreadnaught. Go back to Fynn and start picking fights with the Captains wandering around town. If your barehanded is high enough in level, you should be able to damage them and possibly kill one within one to two rounds, they have around 750hp. These guys are a mid-game enemy tier, so you should get some good stat boosts with any victory you're able to win for whoever survives. The best part is their enemy drops. They will drop Gold Armor, Flame Bows, or Curse and Toad spellbooks. Toad is especially a great spell because it works like an instant death spell in this game more or less and very few things actually have immunity towards it.

[SephirothVII7]

On this note, what is a good weapon setup for my party from beginning to end? And at what points should I change them if I have to?

[Wolf Kanno]

Weapons can be kind of tough to choose from and it can come down to which version you are playing. What I will say is always good practice with any weapon proficiency is to pick a weapon for a character and stick with it. There is no real advantage to teaching all of the characters multiple weapons.

Weapons I would focus on would be Bare-Handed, Swords, Axes, and Bows. Bare-handed is just OP once you get some real levels for it and it tends to bypass a lot of annoying defenses enemies have. Axes and Bows have pretty decent mid-to-end game tier stuff that will help you out later. Swords are always a good weapon and have a pretty decent scaling, but they really begin to shine by endgame as many of them come with really good stat boosts for your character. Not to mention the Blood Sword makes the final stretch of bosses in the game manageable.

If you plan on using a dedicated mage, I would stick to either bare-handed for their weapon, or use a staff if you insist on a weapon. Staff weapons are pretty terrible, but they don't drastically lower your mages magic accuracy like most weapons do. They only do a 5% penalty.

Since I imagine you're playing the original Famicom version, Shields are also a pretty decent thing to keep around if the game works like FFIII did. The extra defense always comes in handy.