Slugging through Dawn of Mana now, on the final chapter.
Dawn & Children suffer the same problem. Gorgeous, gorgeous game that is raped in the bum hard by pisspoor game design choices.
Key Example in Dawn of Mana: Chapter 7, I'm storming the BBEG's palace. There is an area locked by a gate with 4, well, locks. The enemies that hold these keys fly around above you, well above how high you can jump. They are completly immune to ranged attacks. So how do you kill them?
Find the guntowers shooting at you - no easy task given the sheer amount of monsters and shit going on, not to mention BLOOM EVERYWHERE, climb up, kill them, do a fancy double jump on TOP of the tower, then wait 10 minutes or so for one of the flying things to lazily fly in your general direction. When it gets close enough, leap off and try to whack it. Each thing needs 2 whacks to die, and there are four of them.
This is not good game design.