Also don’t find 7 all that much, liking it mostly for working well as a self-contained story (take a gander what I think about its expanded universe 😶)

But as others said, story does pick up after a while, though at least in my impression, it still grows at a slow burner speed. And regarding the battles, and if you have the option, maybe pick a save editor to pump up the stats so you can avoid them as much as possible?

I use Grayjay, so it doesn’t tend to matter much. However, I prefer to buy songs instead, so I can listen to them far past the source platform’s end of business.

If still needed, I’d suggest sticking to 8 MB ones and dumping / restoring saves through uLaunch Elf and a a USB stick. (or similar solutions for moving to / from more standard storages)