Dark Cloud 2 / Dark Chronicle

- You have two player characters, each with a close range and long range weapon, as well as a ridepod (robot thing) and monster transformation. You can switch between any of these at any time.

- Monster transformation is awful, don't touch it beyond the one time you need to use it.

- The ridepod is fantastic if you can research and build good parts for it. Just don't buy the voicebox for it, trust me.

- The amulet long-range weapon isn't as pathetic as you might think, you just have to charge each shot to get the full attack power. I went a full playthrough without knowing this.

- Take photographs of everything you can, and keep trying combinations to make new inventions. Ridepod parts, especially, can be invented long before you might otherwise find them, if you can find them at all.

- The best monsters (for the purposes of medal collection) are the elementals because they have a long range attack (they look like flying dragons).

- The best way to grind weapons is by combining them with other weapons. Find out what you need to level a weapon up, unequip it, and equip something you're going to build up. Build it up to +5 (the higher you go the more points are required to level it up), break it down, and add it to your choice weapon. You can build up your favorite weapons using this method with very little grinding.

- Your character's weapons will wax and wane based on enemy resistances. If you're trying to build up a weapon that's just sucking then have Character A (someone you don't want to build up) kill an enemy then switch to Character B (the person you want to gain the experience). The points will be allocated evenly across their melee and ranged weapon. This works for the ride-pod as well.

- The only way to build HP is by finding items in the future after completing objectives. They're in little boxes scattered about.

- You won't be able to get the ultimate weapons until you defeat monsters found in the final handful of levels so don't stress it.