That's what I gathered from chatting with some other players.
This is one of a few of the games on my "retry" list, so I'll probably skip that area or leave it for last depending on whether it's optional or not.
Viewing post in Harold In Space jam comments
Yeah the FF part of the holodeck was badass, and I'm glad I had time to at least do a partial replay.
The balance was kinda wonky and the roles shifted a bit versus expectations, as Black Mage with Healstaff became my primary healer (except when Limit was on) and my Red Mage became single target healer + Protect dispenser with tertiary melee, while White Mage was Thor Hammer spam until Miracle was needed. Fighter gonna fight though (thankfully Provoke was OK, but the bosses were a biiiiit too AoE heavy I think).
Satisfying, big budget special effects for the spells and skills was good.
Definitely one of the more memey fun moments of the jam and the battle music was epic (I noticed certain parts were ripped directly from the core FF games right down to the soundfont).
Had the same issues with trying to do the item chain as pointed out previously and eventually gave up/ran out of time.
Ending 2 was fun at least.