Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne

General

• You will die a lot, save all you can.

• You can only recruit demons that are your level or below. You can't talk to some, like blobs, without special skills.

• Being prepared and having the right skills/resistances is more important than raw power, especially against bosses.

• Some demons will evolve when they have learned all their skills. Some demons can only be gained through evolution.

• Always try to fight bosses on New Kagutsuchi, they will be at their weakest.

• The hardest part of Hard difficulty are the first few non-random fights. Don't be too discouraged if you die over and over again to these. They just suck.

Character Development

• Get Analyze ASAP, but don't worry about keeping it all game, eventually you'll get items that can replicate the effect.

• The main character's best skills are physical in late game, but magic in early-mid game. Choose one or the other and stick with it.

• Once you delete a skill, you can never get it back.

• Focus is the best physical skill in the game.

• The best magatama in the game gives you +10 to all your stats, if you want to plan accordingly.

Demon/Skill Choice

• Keep the pixie you get at the very beginning of the game. You can fuse her into other stuff, so long as you keep that other stuff. Just make sure you remember what she ends up as.

• Buffs and debuffs are incredibly useful, especially Fog Breath, War Cry, and Sukukaja.

• Try to have a dedicated healer with Mana Refill or Mana Drain.

• Force is just a weird mistranslation of Wind, not some other non-elemental type.

• Instant kill spells are useless, elemental light/dark are not.

• You can change the moveset of a soon-to-be-fused monster by canceling out of the fusion screen and re-selecting its parents.

Endgame

• There are like six endings, you poor bastard.

• The Amala Network is an optional dungeon. If you finish it before going into final dungeon, it will lock you into the "true" ending.