One thing I like about this game is that it doesn't require the player to go out of their way for leveling, at all. The controls are tight, almost no attacks are unavoidable, most attacks can be "just guarded", and the game even rewards the player with extra experience for fighting enemies over their level.

There's also an experience bonus for defeating enemies without flinching, but this is hardly as significant as the "underleveled" bonus can be. Thus, if I am careful I never need to hunt random encounters to level. However, leveling to learn astral guard helps speed, so I can't completely avoid it.

"Level-dodging" is hampered a bit in the postgame by the gem bar, which limits you to five spells or item uses in any given battle. Player level also affects how quickly you can retreat from enemies, so it's occasionally worthwhile to murder lone enemies (eg Brute Monk, Iron Giant, Red Dragon) and maybe get a level.

All dialogue can be skipped at high speed by holding R+B. More games need to do this. The dialogue has to display completely before it can move on to the next bit, so if anyone really wanted to read it they could.. presumably by slowing or pausing the movie.

terminology:

Some shorthand, and some terms given by the game itself.

• just guard - Guarding just before an attack hits negates the damage altogether. Timing is easier the higher your active weapon's TEC, to about half a second at best. Doesn't work if struck from behind.

• no flinch - Modest experience bonus granted when you finish a battle without allowing your character to flinch or fall down. Guarding and astral guard prevent flinching, while astral guard also prevents some or all knockdowns.

• backstab - All enemies take extra damage when hit from behind. Certain bosses have no apparent back to stab, but will take backstab damage if struck in the right place.

• weapon enchant - Shorthand for the "enchant ..." line of spells, which add an element to weapon attacks while also increasing attack power.

• healing spell - Recovers a significant amount of HP.

• astral guard - Defensive spell that reduces all damage taken as well as preventing flinching and some or all knockdowns.

• weapon guard - Defensive spell that prevents damage to your weapons' DUR.

• part 1: The two choices of player character are functionally identical, so I play as the one I'm used to. Her side of the story gets the more amusing dialogue, but that's not completely relevant. Pratty is kind of a goofy name, so let's call her Jill instead.

  This game has elemental resistance, but not weakness, so I recruit Zantek (Bit). He begins with enchant spark, which no elemental bosses resist. Kutty would work as well but he's boring.

  This part is mostly story. It's funny how the two recurring villains appear right away at the opening ceremony.

  Drill is pretty much the best weapon type, so I chose the novice drill tech. I also talk to an NPC to get three mystic ores.

• part 2: First segment depending on luck, because I need 15 mystic ores at about the middle segment. I want to kill two spell swords here, and get a bottomless cup from the barrels for materials.

  The novice knife is very fragile, so I need to kill three slimes to level so it won't break on the first spell sword. After that I have enough tec to kill a second spell sword without any issue. All stat points I get are going into STR (strength), because boosting DEF is stupid and I won't need AGI for anything. (High AGI is fun to play with, though.)

  Between the iron ore and the bottomless cup, I'll have just enough for a novice drill now and a nano rotor later. Resting gets back my weapon enchant for the fight next segment.

• part 3: First tournament match - Chaves. Novice drill doesn't do a lot of HP damage, so I break his weapon. This is probably the only fight where weapon break is faster than a regular HP defeat.

  Also, I would like to mention now that NPCs are the bane of existence. Unlike walls or containers, bumping into them stops you cold.

  After the pointless errand in Vance I get the nano rotor tech. Having a drill that does actual damage helps later when I'm leveling, and for the two bosses coming up.

• part 4: Leveling time! Also more luck-dependent collecting of mystic ores. My route calls for three, but here I got really lucky and came out with five.

  There are five martial ores on the currently lowest accessible floor, which I'll need to make stuff later.

  The exp target for leveling is for Bit to be at level 8 with about 1250 exp to go so he will level up and gain astral guard after Varil.

  In retrospect, I shouldn't have assigned healing spell, since I never used it. I'm only using three spells anyway..

• part 5: Varil is a nuisance. If I wait a moment too long after guarding, he'll interrupt me with the spear's down+A. Notice the meager 8 exp I got for a "no flinch" bonus.

  After Varil is the fight with Kenon, where I first use astral guard. Astral guard is clearly the best spell in the game. Weapon enchant is a pretty close second, though.

  Once Kenon is done I make a micro turbine.

• part 6: Mystic ores again, and a boss. At this point I would aim for collecting three ores, but given the extras in part 4 I'm only looking for one or two. Got two here, so I'm still one ore ahead of plan.

  Resting after the Yasha Spider is to regain astral guard for the fight with Razzy in the next part.

• part 7: Razzy and then more story stuff. Razzy is one of the easier human bosses since she uses a short-ranged weapon - she has no "minimum range", so she'll never be inclined to jump when I stand up close.

  Story requires me to examine the locked door before I can start the curry sequence for the key, and along the way I happened to get another mystic ore - now I'm two ahead of the plan.

  During the story stuff I have to make a ladle, and along the way to getting the spices I buy an iron ring for extra attack power against the next boss - critical because this next boss is Ariel, and I'm breaking her weapon.

• part 8: Last segment for leveling, except rather than leveling I'm just building up the TEC on my micro turbine. At this point I could get the next drill tech from Bron, but it requires lightning elements to make.

  Also the last segment for collecting mystic ores. I planned for four here, but since I'm two ahead I only need two more, which I got easily.

  The other thing to collect here is lightning elements. An encounter with spirits dropped a conductor rod, so I only had to collect the core parts from the side room on b18f. This will be just enough for me to make a gladius now, and a zantetsu and Ariel's Drill later. Making the gladius is one of several pointlessly unavoidable plot triggers, by the way.

• part 9: Ariel is easy to bait into jump ins, but she also tends to let her guard down in the middle of my 2A. If I do regular HP damage too often with 2A, my micro turbine won't last long enough to break Ariel's drill. (In a couple of test runs I had to put astral guard on and wait for Ariel to break her drill over my head. Funny, but not very fast.)

  Ariel's drill is pretty much the best weapon in the main game - it's powerful to begin with, but on top of that the TEC caps at 200, high even for a boss weapon.

  Had to make a zantetsu to get Bron to show up to move the story along.

• part 10: Unfortunately, the game prevents me from going past the Heavy Metal to activate a teleporter, probably to force me into passing through Kouren's room to pick up one of Shintetsu's swords. Also, why does this game keep Kouren's name secret for such a long time when Jill has no idea who she is anyway? Heavy Metal itself is a joke. (It's a crab joke. Okay, okay..) Then Rondeau gets mobbed by soldiers so I have to fight... one. These guys aren't quite as predictable as other human bosses, but they're also bad at guarding.

• part 11: Giant Serpent's windmill swing is slow enough that I can jump attack repeatedly and interrupt it every time.

  The Marine Dungeon is the only one that can be entirely skipped. The box you see off to the left before the fight with King Crabber has black boots in it, which make retreating faster, but to get them I'd have to do the dungeon normally and that means an extra boss, more dialogue, running from a bunch of encounters, etc.

  King Crabber can't be attacked from behind, but it takes backstab damage if struck in its right eye. It becomes invulnerable when using the waterspout, so I avoid provoking this attack by staying outside the middle. Defeating it gets me the spiral ring, which is a nice improvement over the iron ring.

• part 12: Our hero encounters a cameo from another Summon Night game, and then Chaves gets what's coming to him again.

  Kagro Volcano is pretty short for a dungeon, but it's full of those damned dragon puppies. They aren't as obnoxious as mud boxers, though.

• part 13: Lombert...! I mean... Lubert! Cameo Natsumi summons a giant hippo with poison breath, and then I get to fight Ureksa. Standing a certain distance from him makes him want to stab. He can heal himself, but he's not smart enough to back off from a stab and never gets the chance.

  Kirin's attacks all do huge damage, but are easily avoided, or guarded, in the case of the stone rain thing. Striking the neck deals backstab damage, so I attack there. Strangely, I have to be facing his head to just guard the stone rain.

  Kirin drops the magatama necklet, but it has the same attack as the spiral ring so it doesn't really help me any.

  After that is more story stuff and a hike up the Cape Lighthouse to meet...
  Lombert!

• part 14: Oh look, it's Ureksa again. Didn't I just beat the tar out of him? Let's do it again just to be sure.

  After defeating him I take a brief side trip to get the ancient ring and its +40 attack (compare to spiral ring's +17). Until the postgame, this is the single best attack bonus available on an accessory.

  Last part of the segment is again a long hike, to the top of Fort Mirana.

• part 15: Lombert tries to delay the game by throwing more soldiers at us, who still haven't learned how to guard. I guess Varil defeats the other two? Then at the bottom I get to fight Lombert. He's short range, and thus easy to pin down. Then a box falls on him.

  The fragment of Parista is fairly powerful, but this means nothing before the combo of Ariel's Drill, weapon enchant, and astral guard.

  Next up is more story stuff, including an amusingly awkward scene with Razzy. Apparently, even she is confused about her own gender.

  The "Shintetsu's hammer" thing is unavoidable, even though I am already fully prepared to ruin Sanary's day. Weapon guard comes in later.

• part 16: Using my old micro turbine to fight Sanary has nothing to do with something that might happen in the near future, nope. /obvious lies Sanary likes to jump in and then run away, so the only thing to do is chase her into the corner (and also to hope she doesn't get enchant flare off, because that makes for a lot of pain).

  Afterwards, there's a ton more story stuff to do before things get interesting again. Since I'll be running away from battles for about ten minutes straight, so I equip the ladle as well as Ariel's drill. The drill has negative AGI, but the ladle's AGI is 0, so I can hit the side of the screen to escape sooner.

• part 17: Run run, run run. Run, Jill, run! If only I could just bore through the floor and skip all of these encounters. I've been using a drill this whole time, haven't I?

  In testing, I discovered that amulets do not actually reduce the encounter rate - they only repel monsters that are lower level than you (!), so being fairly low level myself I would just run into all of the bigger enemies and waste more time running away.

  Iron giants are like giant pinatas. Check out the 2250 base exp and the 17k bonus. At my current exp, Jill gains a level from the first and third giants I would encounter, so fighting two would waste time. In this case I only found one, so it's okay.

• part 18: Ureksa's opening line before the battle is hilarious. Anyway, time for a final boss. Watch me beat Parista with my ladle. Wait, that battle is unwinnable..

  Some dialogue and a pseudo-sacrifice later, I've got a +5 greatsword of plot power and now I can do damage. Parista (in both forms) takes backstab damage if I stand really close, so that's the plan.

  Then he turns into a giant face, which gives him a bunch of attacks that are actually dangerous. The hands interfere with attacking so I jump over, and the Sanary-beam can be just guarded, so I guard it to avoid taking too much damage.

  Final Form Parista drops before he can fire his screen-covering laser. Roll credits, followed by a teaser for the bonus content before I can do a postgame save. What a thing to stick in the ending.

Anyway, enjoy-