Inspired by the release of Kingsvein and noting that patches may be winding down on Horizon's Gate, I replayed Alvora Tactics on RUIN difficulty. It actually wasn't that hard, but that may be because I'm already familiar with the systems. I died a few times here and there, but the only encounter that actually forced me, after several failed attempts, to go home, gear up, and significantly change my build was the tentacles fight.
I can't find it, but I remember someone posting, maybe on IRC, something like, "I'm autistic and so when I replay games I do so with the exact same build and make all the same choices." I'm not autistic, but that otherwise pretty much describes me. Intentionally making suboptimal build choices causes me psychic pain. Story-wise, I'll make different choices if there is an alternate route or significant branching, but as far as sidequests and the like go, well, there's a reason I made the choice I did the first time.
So, knowing myself to be this way, I spent nearly an hour at character creation agonizing over which races to pick for my starting party, hoping maybe to find some factor I had overlooked that might lead me to do something different. I compared them all thoroughly, loaded an old save file to see what stats looked like at different points in the game, and did math to find the relative value of various racial bonuses. In the end I made a party of all Scurios... just as I did my previous run... just as I did in my RUIN run of Voidspire Tactics. I didn't check but I'm pretty sure even my class composition ended up similar, complete with a useless mage recruit who spent the entire final boss fight doing nothing or dead. Damage mages just don't seem to scale as well as physical attackers and the advantage of AoE rarely seems to make up for it.
Anyway, that was fun, but short. I blasted through it in a few hours spread over a couple days. Now I'm preparing to start Horizon's Gate after installing a bunch of mods
@Tweed recommended me. Thus I will maintain my perpetual status quo of being one game behind the latest entry.