Ironically, Medulam made the game harder for people

[Ratsplat]

As a note, this is post bug fix. Which, honestly does nothing pre Act 3, since people still hit the 9999 cap right after acquiring it.

Just from a watching of streams, I feel this was a lot more than just a simple case of 'glass cannon = risky.' The weapon projected people forward through the game quickly, much faster than an actual glass cannon build that you'd have to build from scratch (like the literal Pictos named as such). So fast in fact that people likely forewent exploring and wanted to just focus on the story. Early on you'd easily 1 shot, or 1 turn battles, and even if you got hit, Maelle wouldn't always be the target.

But eventually you hit a brick wall. You're going so fast, skipping any mechanic that doesn't give damage, and now you can't progress. You're still dealing 9999 all the time, but then enemies actually have HP. No longer dying right away, they are now 1 shotting your entire team. And then the worst thing happens: inevitably everyone else starts hitting the cap as well, making that fancy weapon on equal grounds.

So these people effectively zoomed ahead without the need to learn anything else, ignored side areas with pictos and experience that'd increase defenses, and lastly... complain that the game is too hard and nothing makes sense. And the only reason the weapon was talked about so much, is due to everyone just looking online how to play instead of engaging with the game and learning. And the only reason complaints ever happened, is because 'hey, this weapon is strong. I can play on Expert now!!!'