The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
y'know I wondered why Rean looked so unhappy in the promotional material for CS3, but it certainly makes a ton of sense now.
Also I wasn't prepared for that final boss, phase 1 had me using party members that were 20 levels under and two that were at a decent level, unfortunately said properly leveled character had such poor defenses that they died just as quickly as the other two. Machias was a god though, somehow he managed to survive everything and dodge so many attacks that would've killed him. He also had adamantine shield to attempt to keep the others alive.
Phase 2 was hard, lots of health and constantly inflicting burn meant I actually had to do some dedicated healing, I ended up using an overdrive just to try and fix the poor situation I found myself in. I ended it with an overdrive as well, used up the best healing item in the game to do it but I was desperate to end it at that point and I usually never carry over items into second playthroughs.
but really what a fucking ending that was.