I have been blessed with gamer knowledge

Thank you, and don't worry, I've been doing that already ;P

I'm just curious of the rules, like,

1. does the world map count toward load times?
2. do cutscenes count towards load times?

And some tips I would like to know are

1. what are some easy ways to beat apollyon?
2. what are some tips on the samurai story? it seems the hardest out of the 3

Thank you for your time