A couple of notes about my style of play are probably in order. I don't use magic a lot in VRPGS to begin with, mostly because I end up hoarding the magic points (MPs) to use for healing later. It just seems kinda wasteful to use magic for attacks when you can use weaponry. This style is not for everyone, but it works for me. This is also relevant in a game like LoL, where there aren't any stores selling barrels of Ether so you can replenish your MPs easily.
Second, this article doesn't give a walkthrough or list the Arts or tell where you can find Ra-Seru eggs. There's several other places on the web that already do that, so there's no need for me to repeat that information here. This is information I haven't seen elsewhere. Enjoy!
This enemy attack (used by Nightmares and Shades, among others) is the old "wheel of fortune" routine: a series of rapidly spinning cards around the target, who must press the X button to stop the wheel. The card on top is the one that will affect the target. Effects include 1/2 HP, 1/2 MP, Stone, Death, etc., but often they will include at least one card that looks like a very stylized infant (?) exhaling in relief. This is the "None" card, which means nothing bad happens to the target.
In order to get the "None" card (as I doubt you'll want any of the bad-effect cards) the trick is to press the X button when the "None" card is directly at the top. Whatever card at the top when you press X will go around the circle once more and end up back at the top.
To win the contest with heaps of points, you need to increase the levels of difficulty as fast as possible in the contest. (Talk with the Dance King beforehand to practice increasing difficulty. This also can net you the Speed Chain, since you need to get a high score on practice before the Dance King will give it to you.) When you start the contest, press the Triangle button with the first move to advance difficulty, then do it immediately again with the next move to get to Level 3. Save your last Triangle for the last move you do. The last move will occur while the MC counts down the last few seconds out loud. Don't worry, you can still finish this move even though he's counting down. Use the Triangle with the last move.
Remember everyone complaining in the Final Fantasy series how you'd end up with enough money to fund whole nations? Well, looks like at least some game designers took this to heart. You will never have enough money in this game. Rare it was when I could afford all the new armor and weapons in one visit, even getting to the end of the game. I wasn't trying to avoid combats either - no using the Good Luck Bell to avoid random encounters. In Sol Tower I spent a good amount of time bughunting to build up the Spoon seru (and who thought up that name?) and for once actually managed to completely equip a party. Since you never run out of room in the portable hole to carry things, I was reluctant to sell some of the accessories (even though I think I used only about half of them throughout the game), but at least I didn't buy any of them, either. The Golden Book really helps, once you acquire it in Sol.
Note: I have heard the same thing happens in Xenogears.
By the way, Mei asks you later in the game what happened to the Hunter Clothes she made for you, so you might want to keep them around. I felt bad about selling them, but I needed the cash at the time (I answered "Well, you see, um…" ). I don't know what effect this has on the end of the game, but you may want to consider not selling the Hunter Clothes. I also didn't sell the "name" weapons.
What is it with having a main character who never says a word during the course of the game? I don't count these occasional "choices" of dialog. Vahn's as interesting as a beige room. Often during the events of the game the dialog is completely between Noa and Gala, and Vahn might as well not exist. (There's a couple of humorous moments when he just keeps staring off into space even after the other two begin holding important discussions.)
So what gives? I've seen this happening a lot in RPGs, and the only excuse I can think of for this is that it allows you to "be the character" without having him (usually the chara is male) say any dialog that might not be "yours". But it doesn't work that way. "Your" character ends up being a boring wallflower who has very little to say. (The other popular format is for the chara to talk in ellipses, such as: "…" It's the same thing.) Persona, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana (for SNES, but everyone seems to love these, which is why they're included here), Phantasy Star series -- and I'm sure you can think of others. It doesn't have to be this way; look at the Final Fantasy series or Secret of Evermore for examples of how a main character, either solo or part of a group, can still have the gift of gab.
This is a nasty battle series in that each character must fight one of the Delilas Family by him or her self. If you've been pumping up every character equally throughout the course of the game (giving Magic Water to whoever has the lowest MP rating, and so on) this will be a lot easier than if you used every item to improve only one chara.
Each one of the Family follows a pattern in combat, however. On every third turn they will do their special attack. If you Spirit during this round, you'll only take half damage (which is still a heck of a lot!) and that gives you two rounds to do something. However, they will still attack during these rounds! I recommend some combination of the following: Spirit during the special attack, Attack the next round, and Heal the third (using Spoon if you've got enough MP); then start the cycle over again. This may vary but if you forget which round you're on, you can't go wrong with Spiriting just to be safe. In fact, you may have to, if you don't have enough AP-friendly accessories like Zalan's Crown or any of the Mettle items to give one to everybody.
Five rounds only! Couple of things to remember here. First is, don't bother healing anyone if you can possibly avoid it, because if you survive the battle you can heal up afterwards. Next, try to do a few thousand points of damage each round. I had AP-friendly items on Noa and Gala and none on Vahn, and you can't afford to let everyone spend a round Spiriting; it don't work. Vahn did have the Kemaro seru by that time, so he used that every round (did approx. 2000 points of damage each time, even on level 1) while Noa and Gala mostly did Arts that didn't require a lot of points, although I think they may each have Spirited once, maybe twice for Gala (Noa had all the good AP items). It still came down to the last round, though. I don't think I healed once during the combat, though I sure needed it later…
If there's one thing I would remove from all video games, it's teleport mazes. Hate 'em. That having been said, this one isn't too evil, except that you end up going in circles a lot. At least on the second level there was a way to recharge health/MPs. The boss battles were kinda easy, no doubt because of the bughunting I'd been forced to do to afford new weapons and armor back in Conkram. A word about the teleport maze, at least on the second level: While it seems like you'll go constantly in circles, it does appear that when the place "phases" every thirty seconds or so, any teleport square returns you to the starting point. I found that the best way to get around was to wait for the building to "phase" and then run like the wind for the next teleport symbol (usually not too far away). This seemed to work.
These handy items, which bring you back to full HP after you die, are one-shot items. I don't know if they work multiple times in one battle, but after the battle they're definitely gone. (I used mine during the Cort battle, and boy did I need 'em, but only died once, so I don't know if they're good for only one death, or only one battle.)
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