Let's see, would that be the tank guy? I originally played it on PC when it first came out, & found it more challenging near the end IIRC. But, I don't remember if the PC version has difficulty settings

Well, alot of people do say it's the hardest Ys, for some reason I never considered it all that hard(like...Exile Wicked Phenomenom or Battletoads hard!). I think there is a way to make the game easier, if you lose to the boss a certain number of times, they give you the option of lowering the difficulty I think?
And, as for the funny business when you shoot enemies, I love it. I don't mind some humor like that in my games, even in Ys. Though, come to think of it, I don't think I ever did any fireball shooting in the Eternal/Complete games(both on PC & PS2), nor in the Jp. version of 1 & 2 Chroncles....I don't think I even knew you could do that! I do know in the PC version of Oath in Felghana, there was some kind of cheat where you could go around slaughtering the villiages or something. I think you had to modify the save file, but, I think there were also reprussions for doing that, my memory's a bit foggy.