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I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm almost 75% (map completion) into it, so I think I have a fairly good handle on it. So I'm going to share some tips that will make the game easier/cooler/less frustrating. Some of these might be pretty obvious, but whatever.
Food. You'll want to eat, at least once, as many different food items as you can find or create. (And don't forget to make some for the old lady, too.) For each unique piece of food that you eat, you'll get a one-time permanent bonus, the first time you eat it. It may not seem like much, but it adds up pretty quickly. I've mostly been looking to create foods that increase luck, but I've also found some that increased stuff like magic regeneration rate (and when you go from whatever the slow-ass base rate is to an additional 6mp/sec, as I've gotten so far, that's pretty nice) and even experience gain rate. As far as growing crops for food goes, I wouldn't really bother with buying seeds, at least for corn, rice, and potatoes (and if there are other crops besides that, I haven't found them yet), because you can just go back to the initial ship level and find a blue chest (all blue chests replenish themselves when, I think, you leave an area [i.e. the actual named area, not just the particular room] and come back) that has all three in it. That said, they're only 100g each (or 90g, once you get the discount card) so it doesn't much matter either way, especially later on when you'll be regularly getting 50-100g from just about every candle you hit. Just make sure to regularly go back and collect the crops you grow (or that Harry grows, rather).
Speaking of luck, once you get the ability to store different equipment setups ("Shortcuts"), you'll probably want to at least store a "luck build." I.e. equip whatever you have that increases the luck stat the most, and then save that to one of the slots. Then, as you get better luck stuff, update that slot. It makes farming/grinding for items and shards a lot less tedious, especially if you can find locations where the enemies you're farming are near an entrance into a room. My other main "build" is for attack strength, mostly, though I'm considering switching it more to focus on increasing critical hits.
For crafting, in general, there are some materials and ingredients that are super rare, as would be expected. However, an alternative method to obtaining some of these are to get a food item or weapon that is fairly easy to get, and then dismantle that to get the rarer material/ingredient, rather than directly farming/grinding for the material/ingredient itself. (Dismantling, as far as I can tell, yields back the same amount as you put into an item, so any items you find should give back the same, as well. You just need to make sure you have enough Alkahest.)
Passive ability shards. You'll want to try to get as many of these up to Rank 9 (the one that increases through alchemy with Johannes), as quickly as possible. Why? When you do so, they get added to the Skill list (i.e. the one where you can turn them on and off, such as Double Jump, etc.) Once they're on that list, you no longer have to have that passive shard equipped to get its benefits (though, equipping it will increase the bonus even further, if you already have it on the Skill list as well). This is for stuff like Detective's Eye (lets you see breakable walls and also auto-collect items from farther away), Regeneration, Pickpocket, <Weapon> Expertise, Augment <Stat>, Resist <Element/Status> and so on.
Even the active shards you'll want to level up as best as you can (at least, the ones that you actually give a crap about using, which probably won't be the vast majority of them), both through alchemy and by getting additional shards. Heal, for example, is incredibly useless when you first get it, but by boosting both its amount of heal as well as rate of heal (combined with the above-mentioned increase in magic regeneration rate from food), it becomes actually pretty useful. And, of course, you'll probably want your summoned familiars to be stronger as well (though they even have a third Level scale, in addition to Grade and Rank, that goes up on its own via experience points gained in battle, same as for Miriam herself). That said, the NPCs keep talking about there being a risk of being corrupted if you get too many shards, and that may indeed come up again as a plot point, maybe, but so far, as far as actual gameplay goes, there has been zero negative effect.
For the familiars, more generally, I don't think I've come across a bad one yet. They all have their strengths and weaknesses (i.e. the fairy familiar, Carabosse, is and apparently always will be shit for attack [and why it even has an attack at all in the first place is beyond me], but she is good for healing as well as finding hidden walls [even with the Detective Eye ability, as she's still found ones that I would have missed]). And they gain new abilities as they level up (e.g. Dullhammer Head will eventually call in multiple instances instead of just the one you start with, Silver Knight will start using a multi-hit magic spear attack, Buer will eventually start spitting fire, etc.)
And speaking of Buer, when you first get it (and, just to be clear, I mean the green "Familiar: Buer" shard, rather than the red "Summon Buer" attack shard), it might seem pretty useless (at least until later on, when it starts breathing fire, but even then, it's still pretty useless as far as attacking). However, Buer is really helpful for some traversal bits. When you jump, it jumps as well, and then you can use the downward divekick (down+jump while in midair) to bounce off of Buer to get some additional height. (It makes that "Jump kick 10 times without touching the ground" achievement pretty trivial to get, too.) As far as other non-standard traversal methods, the special kick Technique you get with the Kung Fu Shoes early on ("Flashing Air Kick") can be used in mid-air to help reach some otherwise unreachable places, as well. There are probably other weapon techniques that aid with traversal, too, but I have not yet experimented much at all with Techniques yet. (They also each have their own proficiency/mastery bars. It's kind of crazy how many different systems there are in this game, really. [EDIT Okay, so what I think happens when you master a weapon Technique is that said Technique becomes available for all weapons of that type and not just the ones listed in the journal entry that tells you how to do it. I.e. "Hatchet Heel" becomes available for Kung Fu Shoes, "Flashing Air Kick" becomes available for Lethal Boots, etc. Not sure if there are any other benefits besides that, though. I don't think I'll ever use the weapons skills beyond mastering them, unless I just happen to find one that's super good or something. /EDIT])
One specific, somewhat more spoiler-ish hint, but one that may save a lot of time and headache... to get into the train station and past the turnstile, first you will need to gain the item required that will allow you to take a photograph in Dominique's shop. After that, you will need to go visitAlucardOrlock Dracule in the library in Libre Ex Machina (oh, by the way, another tip is return to O.D. regularly, because he will increase the number of books you can check out at once), and then you will gain what you need to be able to pass through the turnstile and continue the game. That one stumped me for a bit, I have to admit.
Lastly, while the game will indeed let you go right up to the "final boss" and kick his ass fairly early in the game, it's like Symphony of the Night and some other IGAvania games where you probably won't want to do that right off (or, at least, save fairly soon before that point and do it, just to see the Non-Standard Game Over). Hint: that particular boss room is in the top-middle-ish area of the main map, in the "Hall of Termination." I don't know yet what I'll need to do in order to change the circumstances for "properly" fighting the boss, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
Hell, I might even be strong enough to make it through the 8-Bit Nightmare now, which I sure as shit wasn't when I first found it. >_>;
(EDIT) One last hint: after you beat the game and watch the credits, go back to O.D.'s library, check out the "Tome of Conquest," head back toward the final boss area again, then, after a certain... event occurs, go back to O.D.'s library. *nods sagely* (/EDIT)
Food. You'll want to eat, at least once, as many different food items as you can find or create. (And don't forget to make some for the old lady, too.) For each unique piece of food that you eat, you'll get a one-time permanent bonus, the first time you eat it. It may not seem like much, but it adds up pretty quickly. I've mostly been looking to create foods that increase luck, but I've also found some that increased stuff like magic regeneration rate (and when you go from whatever the slow-ass base rate is to an additional 6mp/sec, as I've gotten so far, that's pretty nice) and even experience gain rate. As far as growing crops for food goes, I wouldn't really bother with buying seeds, at least for corn, rice, and potatoes (and if there are other crops besides that, I haven't found them yet), because you can just go back to the initial ship level and find a blue chest (all blue chests replenish themselves when, I think, you leave an area [i.e. the actual named area, not just the particular room] and come back) that has all three in it. That said, they're only 100g each (or 90g, once you get the discount card) so it doesn't much matter either way, especially later on when you'll be regularly getting 50-100g from just about every candle you hit. Just make sure to regularly go back and collect the crops you grow (or that Harry grows, rather).
Speaking of luck, once you get the ability to store different equipment setups ("Shortcuts"), you'll probably want to at least store a "luck build." I.e. equip whatever you have that increases the luck stat the most, and then save that to one of the slots. Then, as you get better luck stuff, update that slot. It makes farming/grinding for items and shards a lot less tedious, especially if you can find locations where the enemies you're farming are near an entrance into a room. My other main "build" is for attack strength, mostly, though I'm considering switching it more to focus on increasing critical hits.
For crafting, in general, there are some materials and ingredients that are super rare, as would be expected. However, an alternative method to obtaining some of these are to get a food item or weapon that is fairly easy to get, and then dismantle that to get the rarer material/ingredient, rather than directly farming/grinding for the material/ingredient itself. (Dismantling, as far as I can tell, yields back the same amount as you put into an item, so any items you find should give back the same, as well. You just need to make sure you have enough Alkahest.)
Passive ability shards. You'll want to try to get as many of these up to Rank 9 (the one that increases through alchemy with Johannes), as quickly as possible. Why? When you do so, they get added to the Skill list (i.e. the one where you can turn them on and off, such as Double Jump, etc.) Once they're on that list, you no longer have to have that passive shard equipped to get its benefits (though, equipping it will increase the bonus even further, if you already have it on the Skill list as well). This is for stuff like Detective's Eye (lets you see breakable walls and also auto-collect items from farther away), Regeneration, Pickpocket, <Weapon> Expertise, Augment <Stat>, Resist <Element/Status> and so on.
Even the active shards you'll want to level up as best as you can (at least, the ones that you actually give a crap about using, which probably won't be the vast majority of them), both through alchemy and by getting additional shards. Heal, for example, is incredibly useless when you first get it, but by boosting both its amount of heal as well as rate of heal (combined with the above-mentioned increase in magic regeneration rate from food), it becomes actually pretty useful. And, of course, you'll probably want your summoned familiars to be stronger as well (though they even have a third Level scale, in addition to Grade and Rank, that goes up on its own via experience points gained in battle, same as for Miriam herself). That said, the NPCs keep talking about there being a risk of being corrupted if you get too many shards, and that may indeed come up again as a plot point, maybe, but so far, as far as actual gameplay goes, there has been zero negative effect.
For the familiars, more generally, I don't think I've come across a bad one yet. They all have their strengths and weaknesses (i.e. the fairy familiar, Carabosse, is and apparently always will be shit for attack [and why it even has an attack at all in the first place is beyond me], but she is good for healing as well as finding hidden walls [even with the Detective Eye ability, as she's still found ones that I would have missed]). And they gain new abilities as they level up (e.g. Dullhammer Head will eventually call in multiple instances instead of just the one you start with, Silver Knight will start using a multi-hit magic spear attack, Buer will eventually start spitting fire, etc.)
And speaking of Buer, when you first get it (and, just to be clear, I mean the green "Familiar: Buer" shard, rather than the red "Summon Buer" attack shard), it might seem pretty useless (at least until later on, when it starts breathing fire, but even then, it's still pretty useless as far as attacking). However, Buer is really helpful for some traversal bits. When you jump, it jumps as well, and then you can use the downward divekick (down+jump while in midair) to bounce off of Buer to get some additional height. (It makes that "Jump kick 10 times without touching the ground" achievement pretty trivial to get, too.) As far as other non-standard traversal methods, the special kick Technique you get with the Kung Fu Shoes early on ("Flashing Air Kick") can be used in mid-air to help reach some otherwise unreachable places, as well. There are probably other weapon techniques that aid with traversal, too, but I have not yet experimented much at all with Techniques yet. (They also each have their own proficiency/mastery bars. It's kind of crazy how many different systems there are in this game, really. [EDIT Okay, so what I think happens when you master a weapon Technique is that said Technique becomes available for all weapons of that type and not just the ones listed in the journal entry that tells you how to do it. I.e. "Hatchet Heel" becomes available for Kung Fu Shoes, "Flashing Air Kick" becomes available for Lethal Boots, etc. Not sure if there are any other benefits besides that, though. I don't think I'll ever use the weapons skills beyond mastering them, unless I just happen to find one that's super good or something. /EDIT])
One specific, somewhat more spoiler-ish hint, but one that may save a lot of time and headache... to get into the train station and past the turnstile, first you will need to gain the item required that will allow you to take a photograph in Dominique's shop. After that, you will need to go visit
Lastly, while the game will indeed let you go right up to the "final boss" and kick his ass fairly early in the game, it's like Symphony of the Night and some other IGAvania games where you probably won't want to do that right off (or, at least, save fairly soon before that point and do it, just to see the Non-Standard Game Over). Hint: that particular boss room is in the top-middle-ish area of the main map, in the "Hall of Termination." I don't know yet what I'll need to do in order to change the circumstances for "properly" fighting the boss, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.
Hell, I might even be strong enough to make it through the 8-Bit Nightmare now, which I sure as shit wasn't when I first found it. >_>;
(EDIT) One last hint: after you beat the game and watch the credits, go back to O.D.'s library, check out the "Tome of Conquest," head back toward the final boss area again, then, after a certain... event occurs, go back to O.D.'s library. *nods sagely* (/EDIT)
