Don't be afraid to use items either. I used to hold up on using items because I would think they would be useful for later portions of the game... and that's never the case. Usually by the end of the game you don't even need those items... so use them!

Also, exploring an area thoroughly is almost the same as grinding. You just don't do it conciously so, just take your time and explore each area (get every chest) and you will get those levels naturally.

The Jewel system which I didn't mention before really is great. I love it! The Ogre is OP too Blue but I'd suggest getting the other one to learn that skill (it's unique). 

Thanks for the tip on exploration though. World Map seems pretty small but detailed which is good. The swamp was a nice find!

You have to go to the swamp anyway as there is a party member there

My first thought on the ability system was "Wow this is really neat! I wonder how much I can break this." It's a really cool and unique system but it's just begging for some amazingly broken combinations. One of the main reasons that I've been dragging around my old gear is for the abilities or for the synth system, it nevers feels like I'm carrying around dead weight. It's a good system, I like it.

Yeah, already done that bit

Hmm. I may start play it again after reading all this. It's one of my favorite FF.

You should! We've got a loooooong way to go but it's a lot of fun at the moment. Any advice as we continue our journey?

Btw scrubs, you can speed up the ATB system in the options menu.

and lvl 9 sounds very low for that point in the game. Make sure you don't flee from normal battles and you should level just fine.

Not sure about Cone but I've set mine to fast. I think overall I've started to get used to it as I play more, I was bothered more about it around the time I started the game.

Make sure to set it to Active instead of wait if you want it to be more intense or exciting. Have to realize that most turn based games at the time were slower than FF9.