Gear is the largest factor in the game and it's on a Level based multiplier (sans Weapons for Humanoids, which uses WeaponMastery for a similar multiplier). You can beat the optional content at a far lower level (~4000-6000, if even that high) with decent equipment and use of Combos and Braveheart. I think my first optional Boss kill was in the 4000 range with mediocre-at-best equipment.
As an actual tactical game, however, it does fall a bit short ... mostly because it takes more pleasure in just, "completely overwhelm the enemy," than anything else. Your extent of "okay, tactics!" is really buffing yourself and Combos to increase your damage or to be lame and abuse Lift-Sacrificing (ie, attack boss, Lift him; turn ends, he kills the unit that Lifted him and ends his turn; rinse, repeat).
That's probably the only real problem I had with them; D1 and D2 were tactically weak and overall pretty easy games. Still, it was fun breaking things and figuring out every formula for it
. Incidentally, in regards to Reincarnating, you're "meant" to reincarnate around level ~1000, not 6000. It's WAY too time inefficient to do it anything about maybe 1700 (whatever 4 clears of BoE was) for D1 and around the same range for D2.
I have Soul Nomad sitting ... somewhere ... which is pretty much far different than D1/D2; La Pucelle was a pre-cursor to D1/D2 so the similarities are there and Phantom Brave's largest distinction was the movement and character system. I didn't play much of Makai Kingdom >>.
