Some games I make use of a lot of items, like FF10 I had huge fun using Rikku's limit break (muahahahaha!). In general though, I tend not to use them a lot. Though my real bad thing is having a thing about not using summons in games rather than items, my first console RPG was FF8 and I really overused my GF summons, so by the end, my party was utterly rubbish and useless without their GF, so every time I've completed the game since, it's been with zero summons. Of course, Chrono Trigger has no summons, so that doesn't matter, but in Chrono Cross my aversion to using them was a waste of a good resource! I just completed Kingdom Hearts 2 without ever utilising the summons (yeah, I'm in Japan, so I've played it, it's really good) because I simply forget to use them.
In CT, I used a fair number of things like ethers and revives and stuff, but I never use things like barriers, and the FF series made me scared to use elixers, I tend to horde them, they're too precious to USE! I think if CT was a harder game, I'd resort to using items, but I think CT has just the right level of difficulty.
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