Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland

• Raising your adventurer rank takes a bit more priority over alchemy early on in the game, although you should be able to manage both just fine. Also, your goal at the end of Year 3 is a Diamond Rank. It's not hard at all to get to, but do pay attention to it.

• You might want to focus on adventurer rank more until you get to a Platinum Rank. That'll unlock an item that makes travelling around a lot less time consuming. Diamond Rank unlocks a useful item as well.

• This game (and Meruru) have multiple endings. You don't have to worry too much about time if you're not aiming for a specific ending, but going for the True Ending (or for Trophy hunters, trying to get all endings in one playthrough) might be helped with a guide to make sure you don't trigger any event flags you don't want.

• CHIM CHIM CHIM. They are very useful. Try to get them as soon as possible and try to get all of them. Make sure to pay attention to what they're doing and how many pies you have, and they can do a lot well.

• Don't forget to register useful or time-consuming alchemy items TEMPORARY-DASH-CHARACTER it'll save you a lot of time.

• In general, you don't have to worry about the time limit too much unless you're aiming for a specific ending, but I think it's a bit more fun without the guide the first time through.

• Lastly, Totori isn't very useful in battle unless you give her items, where she will become your most useful character.