The game’s optional concluding chapter turned out to be both better and worse than I’d feared.
The first part is balanced pretty well and has you re-visiting/re-facing some of your earlier foes, with only the Pitax portion being ridiculous (save it for last). The second part unfortunately is infested with Wild Hunt enemies… even occasionally sending them at you in waves. It’s pretty straight-forward though and the scenery is interesting so it ends up a superior overall experience when compared to the earlier exploration of the House at the Edge of Time.
Then there’s the final battle, which really piles on some nastiness. Like a lot of RPGs the boss here has several forms (each with its own set of minions) that you have to work your way through with no chance to rest in-between. The second form being the most dangerous by far as a good chunk of your party will likely end up Dominated unless you happen to have some sort of defense against it. After the third form falls the true form appears and engages you in a battle of wits. That part’s pretty cool and offers a variety of checks to make the final-final battle easier. At least I think that’s what succeeding on those checks does. I passed them and my party got revived and fully-healed, which may happen even if you fail but I have no intention of fighting through the boss’s first 3 forms again anytime soon.
Expect your party to reach level 17/18 by the end of the game if you have both of the XP Sharing options enabled. In the last chapter the PC of this playthrough looked like this: Naked with +1 Weapon (the green attributes are due to Bokken’s masterwork potion, which gives a permanent +2 to all of them) and Fully Equipped.