9 was even worse for that, every fight drags on for ages. It’s the only one I struggle to replay.

For 8, it’s generally best to avoid combat anyway because of the way level scaling worked. Enemies get stronger much faster than you do, even with good junctions. And it seems like the devs knew this a, since Diablos is available so early and built for low-level play. It lets you reduce or eliminate random encounters (and very cheaply), lets you refine status magic that comes in handy at low levels, and its attack has great utility against hard targets.

The slower fights aren’t as big of a deal when you aren’t doing as many of them, they feel more “cinematic” instead.

The additions throw off some dyslexic readers too, I’ve always had an even harder time reading purpose-built dyslexia fonts. Comic mono is top tier for me, it still looks stupid but the readability is incredible.

They hit r/LemmyMigration and it’s creator once already, right before they announced the Spez AMA. They were quietly unbanned after a while with claims of it being a “mistake”.

I have a feeling they’ll try a much more thorough purge soon, despite all evidence showing how disastrously that would backfire.