I've just completed a story-led run that wasn't strictly a speedrun but highlighted the inevitable issues:
1 ) Make sure you set menu speeds to as fast as possible once you get the ability to.
2 ) Other than churches and shops, there is no real reason to find items to pick up. Ruin maps are also irrelevant I believe unless you want Hagane, which I'll probably still try doing in my next run. The Malorie item shop owner can give you a healing rain which may help in last battle if you can use it right. I managed to waste two in my run.
3 ) Mercenaries will probably be better than your underleveled characters, in my run I picked all the characters up, limiting me to 1 merc, I'd say dropping at least 2 characters (so you can get priest, mage and knight) will probably be best tactic, so I will probably not bother picking up Penn and Rachet who both have longer event chains to join plus tend to be quite useless.
4 ) You'll almost certainly need to do the trials before last battle to level up those left behind. Spam Skeletons until they only give 1 exp (good till level 11). Ideally everyone should be level 15 or higher.
5 ) Know your hard hitters, I personally find Dantares, Hayward and Irene to be the hardest hitters and often do specials especially with the help of friendships. These would be the people I Mythril up first.
6 ) Spark Lv 2-3 is your friend, you can devastate most chapter 5-6 battles with these spells, which means you want to level up your main character (Lv3 @ 14 and Lv4 @20) and Masqurin (Lv 13 and 19) (this means you'll want Noon too, which means doing Chap3-1 the long way).
7 ) Try and keep Eldar leveled up, it makes life a bit easier, she goes places others can't, and if you try to do the trials properly she can do the second battle quicker than everyone chasing up the stairs.
8 ) Grace really should have Aura lv1 at level 7 and ideally lv 2 at level 14 at least before the last battle, this makes life easier to heal when colossus is whacking you.
- Choose your reserve team wisely for last battle. I found Frank and Murasame to be quite useful as they move fast and can keep the pace. Horst can be useful if he actually catches up in time.
New run uploaded, I will probably do a fuller list of possible saves/tactics later but:
1 ) Chapters 1-2 is a cream, could probably get away with not losing a single character near end.
2 ) I avoided Penn, Ratchet and missed out by mistake Hagane. I survived without them. Horst is probably useless too, I'll skip him next time.
3 ) Legit tactic for Dam battle at end: Buy Fynnding a Rapier and equip. Head alone towards the Boss of his map, save before attacking and then reset til you get his level 3 special. He should kill in one shot. This makes mercs and characters not in main team pointless.
4 ) Didn't bother getting Noon Level 3 Spark, survived just fine. Will work out ideal levels for core characters later, but if main character and mage have Spark 3 in time for battles like Braff in Chapter 6, should be fine. Aura level 2 on Grace would be recommended, but actually, could possibly be avoided.
5 ) For final battle levelling, use the stages in the trials for this: 1st stage: Skeletons good till Level 11-12 2nd stage: Hell Hounds good till Level 13, Hydra will give slightly more till Level 14. 3rd stage: Lizardmen till Level 14, Cerebus may be good till Level 15. Harpy, one each in stage 2 and 3, gave 49 exp for a kill even for a Level 16. Tiamat Rod, probably not worth the time spent to kill Skull Mage, but might be fun to get some quick 49 exp kills before a retreat for the other 3 enemies on stage 4.
6 ) I found that actually, Justin was worth main team slot in final battle. Him and Hayward makes sort work of the Mages, then hit at distance for the final Boss. Danteres up front with the best lance weapon you have for him.
7 ) Mithril'd Hayward, Justin, Eldar (probably pointless), and I think I did a couple of others, will look back later. Didn't bother till end of game in Malory.
8 ) I died near the end of several battles, including Franz, Volcano, Lookover tower and took several tries for quick Braff instant savings if I can avoid that.
9 ) I still got the Wendigo Wand and the lance there, forgot to hit the barrel in Battle 1 of Chapter 6 for extra goodies, I'm so stupid. No other ruins other than the Lookover tower used at all. Avoid picking up the last map in Chapter 6 for quicker battle against the Bulzome priest.
Thats it for now.
