Some thoughts on all the games I have for a platform: Playstation

[Weltall]

However, while I haven't gotten far enough in the game for it yet, I have heard that at the end the game suddenly turns into a gigantic grind mountain as the difficulty level suddenly spikes through the roof, which doesn't sound like much fun and is one reason I haven't put more time into the game...

Entirely untrue. You can go through the entire main part of the game without ever having to grind once, especially if you're good at Item Creation and skill point allocation. Equipment and strategy are far more important than stats.

The extra dungeon is significantly more difficult, but the monsters give significantly more experience to compensate. You'll easily gain 50+ levels going through it without even really trying.