LOCKEZ'S PROFILE

FF6 had an ability called Debilitator that made an enemy weak to a random element. Such a skill seems like it could work very well with this problem, if you consider it a real problem. But really, I don't.

As you said, if the final boss is weak against one element, then anyone who can't use that element becomes much less useful. So, the obvious answer is to make all your really hard bosses be element-neutral. If you have a black mage type character whose main advantage is access to many elements, you just need to give that character another skill that is primarily useful for boss fights. A buff spell is the obvious choice. In my game I gave the black mage a buff that grants MP Regen.

The exception is if your main character is unremovable from the party, and uses an element that no one else does. In this case you can make anything in the game, including the final boss, be weak or strong against this element with no problem.

I know the battles are quite hard compared to most commercial RPGs. But most commercial RPGs are very, very easy. Take Chrono Trigger, for instance. It is hard for me to imagine anyone dying in that game, except to one or two bosses, unless they literally had no idea how to play an RPG at all. If a game has no challenge, it is not much of a game. I strove to make a game where the battles could actually kill people - a novel idea in a day and age when most RPGs seem to think that the only think you should need to beat a game is time, not skill or thought.

That said, it's not really *that* hard, especially on normal mode where you can always get more items if you run out. And there's little or no "grinding" required on either difficulty. You may even find it helpful to run from battles sometimes.