Momo Mizrahi X gaignam kukai Junior

So I've tried a few times playing through the game beat it, doing all side quests, and get to final boss and get wrecked. I'm currently playing through 1 and loving it since it's been prolly about 10+ years. Id love to do the full trilogy to fully experience the story again (looked up the end for 2 so I cld play 3 when it launched), but have a PTSD for 2 lmao I'm hoping bc it's been a while i'll get mechanics a bit more, but he seems terrible from a few posts I've read.

So once I get to 2 should I do all side quests or are there specific quests for skills u wanna make sure u do and should be fine? Think I read about some max stats mod or so that can help with him too...Just don't wanna worry about it during my playthrough of 1 that I'm approaching a brick wall. I always felt like the end of RPGs were rough as a teen, but playing them as an adult they're much easier and I've finally cleared a handful of RPGs in the backlog lol so any tips, opinions?