I was working on the status thread... until I came to testing this status. The behavior between the SNES and GBA versions are radically different and deserve a detail in mentioning this...
SNES version...
There are 3 officially listed states, but 1 state has 2 different visuals.. which seems to be linked to a timer of sorts.
1/3 Stone = Stiff (FF2 erroneously wrote it off as a Dummied status, which it simply is not)
The area around the character's feet are in a stone color (grey/silver).
2/3 Stone = Petrify
There are two forms of this..
If gradual petrification is unhealed by this point, the petrification reaches most of the body.. up to eye level.
This is only seen under this circumstance as another gradual pertification hit advances a bit further...
When gradual petrification is inflicted for a second time or gradual pertrification has progressed further, the character's entire body is covered in the stone color.
Stone = effectively Death status without having HP loss... it needs no real explanation as it is the final status caused by another hit of gradual petrification (while in Petrify status) or the timer for gradual petrification has completed...
The GBA version does this differently...
When gradual petrification is set, you don't get any useful info from the battle status area... you will see "grey paralysis" surrounding the character.
Further hits from the attack seems to move the timer forward, such as moving from 1/3 Stone to 2/3 Stone, but there's no clear indication of its progression.
There probably is just one timer that this status is based on (for both versions) and the starting point is different for 2/3 stone (at least in terms of this game anyways)
The gradual petrification timer seems to be dependant on the Vitality/Stamina as having more of it reduces the progression/timer (works very much like Poison status's timer).
The major difference between the SNES and GBA version is primarily on how the timer is altered... the SNES version changes the status involved and sets (resets?) the timer as appropriate. The GBA version seems to move the timer along.
Bugs (only available in the SNES version):
Gradual petrification is fucked when Stop is in use. It probably shares the same timer with Stop. When Stop status has ended, the timer either doesn't restart or isn't set anymore... which is similar to what happens with Paralysis and Sleep. The game will behave strangely and has a good chance of freezing when this is used on the enemies.
If gradual petrification was set on all characters (and unlikely situation since the Stone Gaze attack isn't multitargetable by default), the middle character (slot 1) has a good chance of evading petrification due to some coding blunder. That character's timer seems to have expired, but has failed to set the Stone status, so the character stays virtually in Petrify status for the duration of the battle. Inflicting gradual petrification on the character still inflicts Stone status.
We have EVEN MORE themes now, but some old ones are gone...