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Typical Monday.

I tackled the Soul Shrine in Final Fantasy VI Advance. I had used a walkthrough to get through the Dragon's Den area, but both ones I looked at were totally overdoing it, maxing to level 99 on all their guys, fighting the final battle over and over and using Steal to double and triple up on what are usually unique weapons, and maxing out of HP and MP. That kind of defeats the point of going through the cave and getting the final magicite, which provides a big HP bonus on level up. One of their suggested parties had two characters, both equipped with an Ultima Weapon in each hand. That requires fighting the final battle three times. Plus, Dragons Den has the best weapons for all your characters, finally having character-specific weapons for everyone, instead of just a random assemblage of "legendary" swords that 4 different characters can use and the Relm-Strago-Gogo fight for the Gladius.

Quick Glossary
Ultima: The most powerful magic, deals massive damage to all enemies. Costs a lot of MP, though.
Quick: After casting Quick, you get two actions in a row. This also costs a lot of MP
Soul of Thamasa: you can cast two spells instead of one.
Celestriad: All your spells cost 1 MP (so broken). They're hard to get, but you can do some Coliseum grinding to trigger specific enemies, who you can steal them from (12.5% chance).

The game doesn't let you cast Quick on your Quick turns, but with Soul of Thamasa, you can cast Ultima-Quick, then Ultima-Ultima, Ultima-Ultima on your Quick turns. That alone isn't enough for any encounter in Dragon's Den, but your other characters can usually finish things up.

I had farmed a lot of Celestriads, so I was just thinking, "Can't I just spam Ultima and win every battle?" The answer turns out to be "Pretty much." That specific strategy won't work on three of the dragons, but the ability to cast spells like that pretty much guarantees victory. Sure, the dragons are hard, and the random encounters are no picnic either, but it wasn't THAT bad with my mid-50s level characters.

After you beat Dragon's Den, the game invites you to the Soul Shrine. The Soul Shrine is essentially a continuous series of about 60 battles, with a break to pause and re-equip every dozen battles or so, but not save or change characters (I was using emulation, so I saved, but I only had to use a restore once). Battles are essentially chronological, starting with Narshe guards and getting progressively more difficult (again, looking at a walkthrough, this guy seemed to think you needed level-99 characters, and mine were ~60). You fight most of the bosses. You also fight the Monster-in-a-box battles, which drop their items again (a second Master Scroll, Gladius, etc). You do all eight legendary dragons again (getting all their items again), and it caps with the Dragon's Den versions of the dragons (and their items) plus the end boss of that area, Kaiser Dragon. It was difficult (fighting all the dragons while having to keep the same equipment is not ideal), but not impossible, and I probably didn't have the optimal party, but I was having a good time with Setzer's Fixed Dice and Master Scroll.

I might go finish the game again for good measure, but I consider this game completed. The two things I didn't complete was collecting all of Gau's rages (although I went a lot further in this game than I have before) and collecting all of Strago's Lores (I got several, and made sure to get the good ones: White Wind, Mighty Guard, Grand Delta). Enemy Skill is the one Materia I never went all the way on in Final Fantasy VII either. The Steam and iOS versions have achievement awards for these things, but it's liberating to have no incentive, no matter how trivial, or else I would be compelled to fulfill it.