Worth doing the side quest and 2nd or 3rd play threw

[Lamori]

I decided to replay this game and I come from the old school snes game and was use to that version. So the addition of the augemwnts and some of the little extra stuff threw me off a little but thanks to a nice guide and memory form the old version I been plugging away. Basicly I am at the point where you either go beat Zemos or do some of the extra side quests and get some of the rare items which looks like a lot of farming/grinding to do. So first question would it be worth to go ahead and spend the time now on my 1st play threw and get these or just beat zemos and call it a day? 2nd quesion. Like i said I cime from old school snes days when you beat zemos the game was over there was no 2nd and or 3rd play threw are these options even worth it or should I just beat the game and move on to a diff final fantasy threw stream?

[Brother MEX]

How about doing BOTH ?

As you have 3 slots for SAVED GAMES, you reserve one slot for just before advancing to beat Zemos ... AFTER defeating Zemos SAVE IN A DIFFERENT SLOT and reserve this slot for starting the 2nd play through !

THEN you can load your saved game from the one slot just before advanciong to beat Zemos and continue to farm extra stuff, taking care that you dont save accidentally in the slot for the 2nd run.
WHENEVER you get something important which will be transfered to the 2nd run, like onion or adamantium gear, summon creature items, ..., GO BACK to defeat Zemos and overwrite the reseved slot for starting the 2nd run.

When you are bored of grinding/farming in the 1st run, you only have 1 saved game slot available for the 2nd run ... and I strongly recomend to keep the 2 reserved saved game slots until you reach Zemos in the 2nd run.
For the 3rd run then reserve the slot which had been reserved for starting the 2nd run for starting the 3rd run and still keep the one slot from your 1st run before advancing to Zemus the first time.
This again only leaves you a single saved game slot in the 3rd run, while giving you the option to backtrack into the 1st or 2nd run if you missed something there.

With at least one saved game slot reserved for each run, you can advance to a different Final Fantasy AND come back maybe years later on a different PC to again play the STEAM version of FFIV without needing to search for old saved game data to avoid having to start all over again.
As you only have 3 saved game slots, I recommend using a different STEAM ACCOUNT on the same computer and allow this account to play your FFIV if you want to start all over again with a fresh 1st run.
That way you have 3 fresh saved game slots and avoid loosing your valuable old saved game data.