Shin Megami Tensei V

• The most important part of the battle system is managing elemental affinities and getting more press turns, pay attention to enemy weaknesses.

• At the beginning of the game recruiting demons is your main source of new demons, but as you go you want to focus more on demon fusion than recruiting. It's normal to keep replacing demons all throughout the game as they stop learning new skills on levelup, don't feel attached to any one of them.

• There is an alignment route lock, but it's very late in the game, impossible to miss, and you don't miss out on any story differences if you answer "incorrectly" earlier in the game, so just go with your gut on choices unless you really care about some mediocre bonus upgrades at the very end of the game.

• Items are very useful, especially Dampeners, don't hoard them.

• Don't hoard Essences either - with the exception of the Proto-fiend ones, you can fairly easily get more if you need to (and you can still get new Proto-fiend Essences, they're just rare).

• Your main character can be built kind of however you like, but there are some incredibly powerful Strength-based abilities available to him later in the game so if you want to maximize damage that's probably the stat to spend on.

• You can always go back to earlier parts of the game (with one small exception), so don't worry about missing things.