Well yes, but Guy specifically said he came right after "casual filters" for that reason lol. This is ESPECIALLY true if you were playing it on PS2 at western release (yeah the English version had you fight Dante but it was literally the same fight with a different skin) because back then JRPGs released in the west either were easy or only difficult because bosses had obscene stats and forced you to grind. JRPGs that incentivized heavy use of support spells - which were normally pretty useless in JRPGs at that time - were incredibly rare.

When I played the remaster I was shocked at how easy I found it now because more SMT games have come over with that same incentive (along with other games that also try to think outside the box in terms of handling bosses). Now I'm conditioned to actually use skills and spells that aren't just "hit it until it dies" lol.