Alright, so let me just start out by saying that this is my first guide and I'm glad it's for my absolute favorite game. I've been alive for twenty-one years as I write this and have already played through it twenty-two times (given I only got my hands on this at the age of like seven).

Now, it's not quite a GUIDE so much as as small FAQ detailing whatever knowledge I may have that could help you as a newer player (or even older players who just never found these things out- there's no shame in that and I love you all equally). As such, I will be covering what Character Stats do (in and out of combat), the combat system itself and its various uniquities, and again- just anything I can spew out of my brain. If you feel you can add anything, let me know and I will add it to the guide. If it's significant, I will list you as a contributor. NOW. Shall we begin?

Now, to start off with, you need to understand that there are two types of stats. Permanent stats that the character has/builds up over the course of the game via levelling, equipment, and seeds (yes, seeds will actually make you beef my dude).

PERMANENT STATS

STR (STRENGTH): Your character's physical attack. Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.
VIT (VITALITY): Your character's physical defense. Higher is better. Don't want Melfice to slice your dedicated healer in half.
MAG (MAGIC): Determines damage with offensive spells.
MEN (MENTALITY): Your character's magical defense (aka does that ZAP 1hko or not) and how much health your healing spells recover.
SPD (SPEED): Determines how far/fast your character runs during combat. Also determines your chance to Sway (evade attacks). Important: You CAN be the flash.
AGI (AGILITY): Arguably the most important stat. It determines how often your character gets to have a turn.

COMBAT STATS

These are essentially all variables on the above stats that can be altered with spells and items for better/worse. As far as I'm aware, they seem to function exponentially, but I do not know the numbies (if any of you do, please let me know). Now, unlike perma-stats, combat stats (referred to from hereon out as PS and CS respectively) can be altered in combat and can drastically change the outcome of a battle. 0 is the neutral level that you start out with.

(bad, do not go here) -5,-4,-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3,+4,+5 (good, absolutely go here)

ATK (ATTACK): Functions as an offshoot of your STR.
DEF (DEFENSE): Functions as an offshoot to your VIT.
MOV (MOVEMENT): Take a guess (note, the correct answer is SPD).
ACT (Probably just ACT, lol): Functions as an offshoot of AGI.

BASICS

The combat system is turn based. SORTA.
















The way it functions is. There is a bar at the bottom of the screen which shows character/monster icons. Your character gets to decide what to do with their turn when the icon gets to the COM (COMMAND) line (the battle pauses at this point, so take your time to decide your move). They get to initiate their actions when they get to that point.

Initiative is something semi-important here, as your starting point is determined by whether or not your party was surprised by an enemy mob or you surprised them (done in the overworld by approaching from the rear). You can also gain initiative in battle using certain items (IP feathers will move the character they're used on closer to the COMMAND step when used based on the strength of the item). This can be useful if your healer/damage dealer has their ACT reduced to an absolute sh*tshow- but most times is not really because at that point, you're usually going to die.

So once you start the battle your speed on the bar is based on your AGI and your ACT. The faster you move on the bar, the faster your character's turns come about (which is why it can be argued that this is the most important stat). If you are properly optimized/buffed, you can have your characters taking 2-3 turns before your enemies take one. ESPECIALLY if you manage to debuff your enemies (usually you save debuffs for bosses).

SPELLS/SPECIAL MOVES

Spells are handled by Mana Eggs (more on that later). Upgrading your Eggs' spells is important to combat as it affects how fast your spells come out and how powerful they are- faster spells carry less risk of being cancelled. Naturally this carries over to Special Moves. Both have added effects. Sometimes cancellation effects (Tenseiken Slash, Impact Bomb, etc. Always the first Special move a character has available.). Sometimes Sleep effects (Elena's Nightmare Ball). ETC my dude.

BATTLE REWARDS
After every battle you will get a bunch of different stuff. And those things are.
ITEMS. Enemies drop certain useful items like seeds and equipment.
GOLD. Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymone- I'll stop. Just quit giving me that look.
EXP. Experience. Self explanatory. You level up with it. Ayyyyyyyy~
SPECIAL COINS (SC): Used for upgrading your Special Attacks and buying skills from skill books that are NOT magically oriented.
MAGIC COINS (MC): Used for upgrading your Mana Eggs and buying spells and skills from skill books that have to do with magic.

EQUIPMENT
Almost all equipment does something neat and unique in this game and each character can wield certain weapons and armor but not others (sorry guys, you CAN'T put the giant lion-man into a dress). Mana Eggs also count as equipment and contain your spells. Each one is unique and has access to an array of different spells (though they will oft times share some overlap). Any Mana Egg can be equipped by anyone, so go nuts.

So. Here are a couple tips I can give to you in order to make your choices easier and make your gameplay more fun.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TRY NEW THINGS
That's right! Simple as that. If you think something could possibly work- go for it. Doesn't matter if it's something no other guide has said to do. You wanna try a new strategy in battle that you think could be fun? More power to you for thinking outside of the box, you beautiful bastard.

STAT SEED USAGE
If you didn't know, you can get seeds in the game that increase character stats when used- permanently. These seeds are invaluable and can be used to round out character stats and make the character more balanced- or you could use them to min/max like the try-hards a great deal of us are. That being said, do not use them unless you KNOW what you want to do with your characters. Have an idea in mind and more or less stick with it. This actually leads into my next tip.

GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS ROLES
One of the most important things to know is that any of your characters can play any role in the party (healer/dedicated-melee/mage/item-user/SP-Monkey/etc) to slightly varying degrees of success because they all have fairly balanced stats. That being said, certain characters do have a slight edge over others in certain stats (Elena has the highest natural MEN if I recall correctly which makes her inherintly a slightly more capable healer than everyone else whereas Millenia has the highest MAG- again if I'm recalling correctly- which makes her suited to be a spell-slave) so for optimization purposes, find out what those are and abuse them should you like. But you don't have to. Anyway. Once you've decided on a role for a character you can give them the seeds that apply to them (STR for dedicated melee for example) and make them even better at that job.

ABUSE YOUR BOOK SKILLS
Over the course of the game you will find various books that you can spend SC and MC on to get skills that will drastically improve your characters. These skills vary from adding up to +50VIT (great for making your healer/item-monkey into a tank that can survive long enough to revive their squishy meatsack companions), to giving your character the ability to counter-attack after Swaying (evading attacks)/giving bonus chance TO Sway in the first place, to buffing spells of a certain element to the point of making your enemies weep in fear. Point being, take your character's role in the party. Make them ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ridiculous with book skills.

ABUSE THE SPACE BETWEEN COMMAND/ACT

Some things will come out instantly when the icon gets to ACT, like spells or special moves (if maxed out); while some things will only begin at that point. For example if you select a melee attack, you will start running at the enemy for the attack at this point, but it will take time to get there/hit the enemy- so be careful because the enemy CAN cancel your actions- but this also goes for them, so abuse the hell out of this (a decent Grandia player can oft times go through battles without ever being hit simply due to the systematic abuse of this tip).

ABUSE ELEMENTAL/MONSTER TYPE ADVANTAGE

Elements only come in play with spells for the most part, but also affect certain weapons you can get. Certain spells will deal less damage to enemies with resistances to it (naturally). Likewise, they will be weak to other kinds of elemental damage. Just experiment when you first encounter a certain type of mob. Bosses will also have elemental resistances/weaknesses.

DO NOT BUY NEW EQUIPMENT FROM EVERY TOWN
Save your gold. Only buy new equipment when you feel you might be really falling behind or when the equipment just has a real good buff. You usually find fantastic gear by exploring the overworld anyway. Use that saved gold to buy health/mana/sp potions instead. Or Yomi's Elixers. Those are. KIND of important sometimes.

EXPLORE THE GODS DAMNED OVERWORLD
YOU FIND SO MUCH GOOD ♥♥♥♥ HOLY CHRIST JUST DO IT K

GET THE DOUBLING ITEMS
Astral Miracle: Doubles all SC earned in combat. Found in Raul Hills Special Stage.
Ethereal Miracle: Doubles all MC earned in combat. Found in the Birthplace of the Gods.
Miracle Scales: Doubles all gold earned. Found in the Hut of Trials in Mareg's Village.
Soul of a Hero: Doubles all EXP earned. Found in the Raul Hills Special Stage.
Pretty sure I don't gotta tell you why doubled anything in an RPG is literally the best thing ever, so get that ♥♥♥♥. SERIOUSLY. I mean, most of these come fairly late in the game, but it's still VITAL to get them.

CAREFULLY MANAGE YOUR SC AND MC

A) CANCEL MOVES
Pro-tip right here. Generally the first thing you want to do with your SC is immediately upgrade your character's first Special Attack as it always gives a cancellation effect and when you upgrade it, it not only boosts the power but the time it takes to come out. A maxed Special comes out instantly and can be used to cancel bosses' party-wiping spells or just save a teammate from having their action cancelled. Point being. Buys time and is SUPER useful. The boss will just be there like. "W-whatever. I didn't wanna hit you anyway baka..."

B) BOOK SKILLS
Don't purchase book skills that won't give you immediate effect at first until you just have a bunch of spare SC and MC that you COULD use to upgrade other stuff but do not immediately need. Purchase at first for your early/mid game advantage. For example. That GLACIER CHANT skill doesn't do anything for you if your character's mana egg doesn't have Healing/Ice spells. So instead, consider purchasing the +50MAG/MEN skill. It comes down to personal preference, since you CAN get pretty much everything by the endgame but your endgame build is not going to help against the Eye of Valmar, okay? Okay.

C) SPELLS
Skip spells like Poizn or Gravity at first. Max your healing spells and one or two offensive spells of differentiating type. Specifically, max the AOE (area of effect spells, the ones that list the target as SOME) spells as you get the most bang for your buck and typically you can hit most enemies of a mob with them. Single target spells ultimately become fairly useless except to conserve mana, and you won't need to worry about that if you have a dedicated item user and plenty of mana pots, so. And when you finally get the Mage's Skill Book, combo the spells you purchased with the proper Chant skill.

SEED USE
Already mentioned this in the tips and tricks section, but KEEP YOUR SEEDS UNTIL YOU DECIDE ON A BUILD. They can be used to min/max and just end up really putting the piss into your enemies' Corn Flakes. Always give your dedicated offensive mage the seeds that give them additional MAG, etc. Self explanatory. VIT seeds can go wherever you want to help round out your characters defensively.

EQUIPMENT
Certain equipment will give certain passive buffs. Use this to your advantage. For example. There are shoes for example that (while not giving any buff to MOV or DEF) allow your character to teleport when making a melee attack. I cannot stress enough how important it would be to put those shoes onto your dedicated melee attacker. But more late game, you get items that cut your SP and MP consumption. These are INFINITELY useful on your Special Attack Slave/Mage and are all but essential to them so they can spam their most powerful Specials/Spells (Ryudo late game gets an AOE Special Attack that hits EVERY enemy and deals massive damage but also costs quite a bit of SP. If you optimize properly, he can deal 5k+ of damage to EVERY enemy every round for about 8 rounds straight. Don't need to explain how crazy good that is. Say goodbye to having to deal with mobs.).