Difficulties:
Game has a total of 5 difficulties from easy to nightmare.
By default on NG start you can only choose easy-hard.
Very hard/Nightmare unlock upon completing either of the routes and starting NG+.

You can change Easy-Hard difficulties any time BUT if you select very hard or nightmare - you are locked into them until you complete them.

If you are choosing a hard difficulty of higher - you can raise the levels of all enemies. Do NOT do this at NG start, this is mostly for NG+.
However if you DID - simply change difficulty to easy/medium and this will disappear.
The +levels disappear forever if you change difficulty, even if you change back to hard afterwards it will be +0 levels.

What do difficulties change:
All difficulties affect the reward from the stage completion.
All difficulties seem to increase drop rate. I think it's some flat 'base' chance since it's mostly noticeable on very rare stuff which becomes much more frequent.
All difficulties make same enemy have bigger stats.
Very hard and nightmare drastically change the items you can get INSIDE stage.
Most S rank materials are exclusive to Very Hard(or nightmare) during chapter 6.
One S rank material is exclusive to Nightmare
1) Easy - Hard: only affects the general differences above.
2) Very hard - adds a 'recolor version' for majority of basic(non boss) enemies with it's own crest.
Some old enemies STILL EXIST, but they are mixed with new ones and generally less abundant. Majority of old enemies are missing entirely, so it's recommended to get them on easy-hard if you care.
Some bosses change BUT you can farm all those in postgame dungeon.
Default starting level is ~40
Very hard has some
3) Nightmare - adds even more new enemies(albeit not as many). ~60 crests are fully unique to nightmare.
Almost all(if not all) the basic monsters of very hard are still present. Nightmare exclusive monster is usually only one out of a big group of very hard ones.
This one changes a majority of bosses with crests to unique versions too.
Default starting level is ~70

For collectionist of crests you will need at least 1 playthrough of:
Easy-Hard(any, but hard is prefered for drop rate) + Very hard(has unique postgame dungeon bosses), Nightmare(has a lot of enemies not present anywhere else)

For new game:
You can totally start on hard difficulty as game start is quite easy without many options. If you ever feel it's getting too hard/annoying - just swap to easier setting whenever.

Character stats:
ATK - physical atk power

DEF - damage reduction against physical damage

TEC - mainly affects turn order, crit rate, ailment infliction rate.
Also slightly affects both physical and magical NON elemental power.

MND - affects magic power and magic damage reduction. Also affects ailment resistance.
Also slightly increases ELEMENTAL damage(regardless of physical/magical)

Skill - a value which goes up to active party members after each combat based on difficulty(+1 for each difficulty, so easy gives +1 and hard gives +3 for example)
It affects final damage dealt slightly. It caps out at 2k.

Equipment:
Equipment is arguably the most important part of your character.
Equipment consists of 2 parts - weapon and crests(think accessories)

Weapon:
Weapon is the entire skill set that character uses.

Higher rank weapon is not guaranteed to have 'better' skills and since the stat difference is pretty minimal unless gap is very large - it's usually better to keep using a lower rank weapon with skill sets you prefer.
This is especially so with end game weapons.

Maximum amount of skills on weapon is 6, aside of that you have basic attack and basic defend skill which can be different(usually outright better on higher rank weapons)
A LOT of basic attack/defend(especially defend) skills are actually noteworthy in their own way, especially on higher rank weapons, but you can't check them without owning the weapon and entering battle.

Weapon is what decides the worth of character. It's usually easy to tell at a first glance what the character is all about as it usually never changes throughout the game aside of getting better in said role with some exclusions.

Generally speaking all main game characters suck in comparison to postgame units.
The only true exception is Celes who is technically the only fully dedicated tank in the game..

And Shin, who has kinda decent end game weapons...

And maybe Enri if you want to use her as healer.. but there are other suitable characters for that as well.

Crest:
Crests are the accessories of this game, they provide a passive stat boost and passive skills.
You can possess a certain amount of each and equip up to 4 total crests per character.

You can't equip more than 1 of the same crest on the character so they need to be 4 different ones.

You gain crests from either fixed tiles in the dungeon guaranteed OR by defeating the enemies with certain chance.
Almost every enemy in the game can give a crest - exclusions are very few, for example human bosses.
There are a total of 289 different ones(albeit over half are limited to very hard+nightmare) but majority are eventually pretty useless.
Also be aware that you can't get 'corrupted' enemies by default, but you can around chapter 4 start if you make a certain choice in dialogue.

Crests also affect element resistances. More details on how resistances work below in battle details section.
'Non elemental' is also technically a resistance, but very few crests have it.

Crest passive effect stacking:
All crests passives stack(although some effects work in a way that kinda makes it pointless to stack them). Some have a limit which is written, but most are usually infinite scaling.
The stacking is ADDITIVE, not multiplicative, so it's usually better to get effects which multiply each other(for example physical/magical + main element of character if it has one) rather than stacking one effect a lot.
Exclusion is 'killer' skill which improves the more you have it.
IF what you gain is a 'buff' for fixed rounds then those buffs are applied separately, even if they are exact same effect.

VALOR+FORTUNE STACKING:
Valor is exp bonus, Fortune is drop rate

I can only 100% confirm the exp bonus, but I assume fortune works same.

Valor stacks ADDITIVELY across all ACTIVE(main) party members.
It gives GLOBAL exp boost, not just individual.
Inactive allies do NOT contribute toward exp gain BUT they get the exact same exp as other ones.

Best Valor sources:
Furfur - 15(very hard+)
Doll/Gunner Doll/Assault Doll/Ceyneia - 10
There are also a lot which are 8, not much worse if you lack 10.

Best fortune sources:
Platinum Box - 25(very hard+ replaces mimic)
Gold Rabbit - 16(nightmare, easily farmable in free dungeon 1)
Mimic - 15(the only good 1st playthrough fortune source)
Gold Fairy - 14(nightmare only)
I THINK fortune is an additive multiplier.. so let's say you have x5 Mimic, that would mean 75 fortune would be 75% drop rate MULTIPLIER.. so let's say drop chance was 10% - it would become 17.5%. This is my deduction by APPROXIMATE tests... Don't quote me on that however.
What I am certain about is that it's not a flat bonus, since the super rare crests like dolls still remain super rare. While other stuff becomes nearly guaranteed.

What crests to use for progression?
For 1st playthrough you have to use what you get basically, not many choices. I mention most noteworthy stuff in the walkthrough.

Starting with 2nd playthrough - if you remotely care about crests you need to have at least 1 best 'fortune' on every party member(mimic for example)...
I prefer using 2 best when hunting for crests specifically. So Platinum box + Mimic or Gold Rabbits.

Once you get furfur(15 valor) - I would use 1 on everyone as well each playthrough.
If you don't use this - enemy levels will scale much faster than you.

That's at least 2 crests I was always wearing on everyone during majority of my playtime.

What about remaining slots?
Tank: Counterattack + various defensive bonuses, most important of which is 'protection'.
Damagers: Preemptive strike early on. Killer/damage type/element(if mono element ally) stacking later on.
Another endgame option is x3 mana for x2 skill use.
This works on ANY skill, INCLUDING mystic art. Yep, Shin doing 2x200 light/dark AoE is real.
Meh damage Support: more grind stuff - valor or fortune.

Alchemy
Alchemy is how you craft stuff in this game, there are 4 sections for it:
1) Equipment - the most important tab since you don't get equipment passively as you play, you need to craft it.
To unlock new weapons for craft you need to craft previous weapons first even if you don't want to use them.
2) Consumables - most can be purchased for gold in liquidation tab.
Those can be used both in and out of combat.
3) Materials - stuff you need for weapon crafts mostly.
4) Key items - those either provide permanent passive buffs to your entire party or are required for some quest progression.

There are 2 tabs for each:
Crafting tab and liquidation tab.

In crafting tab you simply use resources+ether to craft the items.

In liquidation tab you can 'sell' items for gold and buy low rank(B and lower) items for gold without the resource consumption.

To get A rank+ items you need to combine lower rank items. A and S rank can only be crafted AFTER you get the item once.

Battle details:
Resistances: 0 resistance means target takes ~twice the damage from said element(or non element), 200 elemental resistance means it takes none.

You can check enemy resistances by clicking bottom left of the screen.

Status Effects/Buffs/Debuffs:
All effects can be hovered over to see what exactly they do when you inflict them, so I won't bother explaining in too much detail.

Instead I will summarize it by saying that buffs/debuffs are key to combat on high difficulties.
A lot of different skills cause the same buff/debuff effects which do NOT stack.
Most stat buffs/debuffs also have a cap.

Secret attack/Assault chain:
Secret attack is always the final skill of the weapon(albeit a few weapons have non mystic art as final skill), it can only be used once you fill up SP bar and get 'stars' in the top right.

Once you use a secret skill - assault chain activates for that turn. Assault chain means every skill will deal 50% more damage, simple as that.
Generally it's a good idea to prepare in advance for such turn to get the maximum out of it.

SP/stars stay across the fights so you can save them for boss fights if you want to.

Party Setup/Characters
There are a total of 18 characters(17 in the english version as it misses Revia) in the game - you can only use 5 at the same time in a party however.
1 of those 18(Albert) is not really a 'full' party member, as in he is both temporary and he lacks the full weapon variety and fully endgame tier skills.
But NG+ allows you to use even temporary allies permanently without ever losing them.

So for overall gameplay purposes it might as well be 16 characters remotely worth looking at.

While it sounds like a lot - for majority of first playthrough you will only have 5-6 at same time, so hardly any real choice.

Dead party members get nothing for battle, the main group members who are alive and win the battle are given proficiency increase based on difficulty.

The party members who are not in active party but are alive still get the FULL exp, even if it's modified by exp gain of main party.

Generally your setup for harder boss battles should consist of:
1 tank - pretty much mandatory on higher difficulties.
1 healer/reviver and/or barrier user - yet again pretty much a must. Can technically be a damage hybrid in some scenarios. Useful to have multiple if you are using hybrid types.
1 buffer - there is one character who is by far best in this role and is kinda a must for any high difficulty/prolonged fight.
2 remaining slots are debuffer/damage dealers.

You can obviously mix in hybrids of the roles however you wish, but this is what your party wants to have generally.

One more important factor to consider is for damagers - damagers can be either melee or ranged. This is usually not big deal, but IF you are facing flying enemies - they usually have dodge values against melee.

I will list all 17 characters, putting each in one of the sections so you can judge what you want to take, I will base it on final 3 weapons(S,S+,S++):
Be aware that big part of the game only has 10 characters(11 if you count Albert)

Chaos gives Cinderella from the start of chapter 6.

COMPLETING Law(advance mode counts) gives you access to crafting A rank weapons of 5 origins, which is a requirement to unlock them as allies.

There are also 2 'cameo' characters:
1 is Ashley from Gears of Dragoon 2 - received via postgame dungeon via item which is random drop from 'Lilith' boss.
2nd one is Revia from VB Lagoon


Tank:
Tank is a character who fully stacks defensive+counterattack crests.
There are only 2 dedicated 'tanks' in the game.
Celes and Mardock
Celes is essentially outright superior choice. Much bigger variety of defensive options and a 15% attack/mnd debuff on basic attack of S and higher weapons.

Healer/Reviver/Barrier user
For general spam - Enri is best, but some hybrid healers can have uses too.

Enri - a 450 power AoE heal + 25% HP barrier in one skill that is spammable(no cooldown)
Revive is on a 'defense' skill, hence costs 0 but revives with low HP.
Only S and S+ weapons have support secret art, it's a huge HP restoration +100% HP barrier +150 activation speed
Great healer but sucks at everything else.

Cybe - another noteworthy healer/barrier character.
Has a heal which on top of healing gives 150 HP regeneration field for 5 turns. Also has a 40% HP barrier spell but that one has big cooldown, also gives phys resistance 15% buff.
Revive is on 'defense' skill yet again.
This one is a bit more suited to be a semi damager semi support. Focused mostly on earth element.

Apsu - very similar to cybe
This one is very similar in how skills work.
Instead of HP regen field this one gives 16 MP Regen one.
The barrier skill of her also revives+heals everyone a bit and also gives 15% magic resist buff.
Semi damager as water element.

Aria/Sonia/Shamash can both heal AND revive with their best weapons but with no extra effects.
Both however stand out more as damagers, so I will cover them there.

Buffers:
There is one BY FAR superior buffer who has a buff on nearly each possible skill and gives essentially max possible values on most buffs.
On top of that some of her buff skills even reduce all ally cooldowns by 1 turn.

Ashley - a cameo from Gears of Dragoon 2
That's pretty much all you need for your buffing needs.
She is so good that I simply have to judge other characters only in damager role long term. Pretty much a mandatory character for higher difficulty content.

With S rank weapon she can actually be healer at same time since her heal is 0 cooldown. It also reduces all cooldowns of all allies by 1, making her pretty top tier healer but reducing her buff capabilities a bit.
S++ weapon has better buffs but big cooldowns and not spammable heal.
Her defend skill is also a revive on both weapons.

Damagers/Debuffers
Damagers are best selected based on element you need in boss battles.
Physical/no element is generally better in random fights since those are random in terms of element.
Hence for bosses - best damagers are correct element ones. It's even better if they have pursuit effect for their element.

Shin - Melee/Range hybrid physical. Has dedicated light and dark weapons which both hybrid with no element skills.
Pretty strong since either light OR dark is often a weakness. Has a debuff for enemy to take 15-20% more phys damage.
Has by far strongest mystic art in the game - light or dark with 200 power.
Light one is also a 25% damage buff to all allies for 10 turns.
Solid phys damager.

Aria - has dedicated Wind + Water weapons with minor debuffs. Also some hybrid weapos which also include fire. Wind Element has a 'pursuit' effect
Solid magic damage dealer. Has AoE heal and a single revive/remove debuff on defend skill.
Problem is big cooldowns, so she won't spam her offensive non stop unless she gets haste or support by Ashley.

Sonia - light/water hybrid ranged attacker Also has a 20% atk/mnd(pairs poorly with Celes who can do 15% with basic attack) AoE debuff.
Can also AoE heal/single revive
Quite weak.

Namtar - almost purely physical damager. Can relieve Celes a bit by casting the equivalent 40% damage cut for everyone so she can do something else.
Has a very powerful physical 'pursuit' on defense skill on top of granting her 'double cast' for x3 mana for 5 turns. Ironically you can use this when she is OUT OF mana and spam double basic attacks for free.
Ranged/melee hybrid.
S++ gives insight buff to all allies, S+ is 20% def debuff.

Sasha - there are mostly light/fire/water weapons, so quite a bit variety. Can also do the 40% damage cut to all allies like celes.
Ranged/Melee hybrid
Quite weak.

Fren - fren is a bit weird. His tec is absurd, he has a very crappy AoE heal and his weapons have almost no variety, all of them are a hybrid of different elements(fire/light/water) 1 skill each.
His ATK/MND stats are very low so his damage is meh. Since he can't even select element to spam - he is kinda meh if you know what you are facing.
His main trick is a buff which makes your MP cost x3 but makes attack skills cast x2
This somewhat makes up for his lower stats... BUT it's only 3 rounds and 10 round cooldown. And you can get it via crests.
Sucks.

Martina
Part of her kit is buffing which is wasted due to there being a much better buffer.
Her damage values are unimpressive and her elements are too spread out on all weapons.
Sucks.

Cinderella
An absurdly strong ranged semi darkness semi no element damager.
Has an unique buff on defense skill which gives everyone 20% damage cut ignore for 5 turns.
Top tier unless facing darkness resistant stuff in which case only part of her kit will work. Still good even then.
Lacks AoE, so better as anti boss.

Tiamat
A ranged mage/physical hybrid(mostly physical)
A hybrid of no element/light/wind with all weapons. Has one skill which guaranteed removes buff. Includes solid 'pursuit' for both light and wind, which is nice extra DPS for bosses.

Cybe + Apsu
I have them in heal section, BUT they are only hybrid healers.
Their damage part is also very good, especially Apsu, with a great 'pursuit' of their own element.
Both are mages, Cybe is Earth and Apsu is Water
On top of that they are VERY solid hybrid healers,

Shamash
Mage heavily focused on Light Element. Has a lot of AoE but is also very solid for boss battle.
Has 15% killer buff for all allies with defend skill.
Top tier for almost all anti 'ash' fight stages.

Revia
Cameo from VB Lagoon
At the moment of writing guide - missing in english version. She was a DLC in JP one.
Purely water element phys/magic hybrid. Obviously anti water weakness boss fights.
Overall quite weak, think ~Sonia tier.

Route explanation
Before we start - I will mention the fact that the game has 2 routes:
1) Chaos
2) Law
Those are the usual from the ninetails games, where law is mostly vanilla and chaos is mostly for fetish H.
Game itself consists out of 6 chapters.
Chapter 1 however is super short introduction/tutorial.
They start branching out in the second half of the game approx, but if you pick correct options then you can have final decision choice in chapter 5.
Only last chapter of the game is fully unique.

Aside of 2 routes - the law route has 3 different 'extra scene endings' for 3 main girls.
Aria, Celes and Enri.
More details in the 'short summary' below.

While I will explain choices/consequences in the main walkthrough section, I will add this here for those who don't want to read the entire thing and want only summary for the actual endings.

Chapter 4 - Thunder Cannon quest:

Turn away from temptation - LOCKED into law route

Give in to Impulse - UNLOCKS possibility of chaos route(does NOT lock you into chaos by itself) and eventually gives access to cutscenes which can lock you into chaos.
Also unlocks the option to get 'ash' monsters. Overall no penalty to just select this.

Chapter 4 - x3 H scenes(Dangerous Curiosity+Fall From Grace+Desire to Serve)
Check those 3 scenes if you still want to have a choice of Chaos/Law going further. Yes, it does sound weird, but those 3 are actually required to still have a CHOICE.

Chapter 4 - x3 H scenes(Defiling the Sanctuary+To the Extremes+Inner Impulse)
If you watch ANY of those you will be LOCKED into chaos. Avoid those unless you plan to go chaos.

Chapter 5 - Sanctuary Violator
If you managed to reach this far without triggering a LOCK, this will give you a final choice between law/chaos(resist/follow temptation)
Otherwise you will proceed automatically into locked route.

EXTRA endings of law route:
Picking ANY of those removes the chance to check the others!!! Aria one appears midway into chapter 6 and Celes/Enri appear before the last mission of the law.
ALL of those are available only for a period of 1 mission and requires a whole chain of side quests related with those girls to be completed. This includes picking 'H choice' in dialogue when 2 choices are possible, otherwise the progress is locked in most cases.
1) Aria - chapter 6 law. Her 'ending' is the first one you get access to after completing Hatred of Destroyer mission.
It's only an H scene - The Temporary Paradise.
2) Celes - chapter 6 law before last mission, this one is a combat stage - Heir to the Kingdom.
3) Enri - chapter 6 law before last mission, this one is a combat stage - The Moonlit Truth.
Combat stages of Celes/Enri have a 'crest' you will guaranteed get but those are not unique - they can be farmed in postgame dungeon as well.

The extra ending itself will only appear after COMPLETING the game and after the credits end.
So to summarize what you need to do to see all 3 without replaying the whole game:
BE AWARE THE BELOW IS BEST DONE ON NG+ ADVANCE MODE(NO BATTLES)
1) Save the game when Aria 'Temporary Paradise' is available.
2) Select it and progress through remainder of chapter 6 and beating the game, you will see Aria ending after credits.
3) Reload and proceed WITHOUT watching Aria's temporary paradise.
4) Play until Celes/Enri side stories appear right before the last mission.
5) Save the game. Do Celes/Enri - beat game watch one of their endings - reload and repeat for the other girl as well.

The last side scene required for extra endings have H scenes but the endings themselves are more like an 'epilogue' and have none.

There are also quite a few side quests which have extra H scenes dependent on choice, I will mention them in the main section of the guide when they appear, but they are mostly obvious with 1 choice leading to H scene and 1 choice leading to nothing.
Some require previous H scenes and picking non H option can lock the scene out.

There are also 3 'loss' scenes in the game:
You do NOT need to lose to unlock them in the gallery. You can win the mission, save the game and go to gallery to check those.
1) Somewhere during The Destroyers Trap of Chapter 3(All scenes page 1 pre last row last scene)
2) During the 'Duel' of Chapter 4(All scenes page 2 pre last row last scene)
3) During chapter 5 assault on the academy (All scenes page 3 row 3 scene 4)
Basically simply playing game will ensure you get those in the gallery, but the game doesn't hint that they EXIST in any other way.

Mostly dialogue, only one story combat stage.
In the combat stage you will learn basics of the gameplay.

Generally speaking the most important aspect is to be able to recognize that there are 2 way roads(can keep going back and forth) and 1 way roads and the fact that camps can restore you fully.
Camps can be reused infinitely despite what game might let you think. Simply return to the square where it used to be.

Always drag the entire map and plan how you will proceed in advance.

In terms of strategy - you shouldn't have trouble BUT I will mention that the buffs/debuffs are the core of the game, so get used to stacking those if you are playing on hard.

Be aware that there are A LOT of settings for combat speed, be sure to check them if you feel like combat is slow.

Game slowly starts to open up with what you can do.

Free quests open up - you can grind those infinitely and those are predetermined stages with fixed encounters.
Most monsters in the game can drop their own crests, I will usually only mention noteworthy stuff moving further than game start.

Free dungeon 1:
Crests: Fang Rabbit + Haggis
Boss: x3 haggis OR x3 rabbit

Rabbit gives 'fortune 1' - a drop rate increase.. better than nothing, but the value is super low.
The biggest value in the game from 1 crest is 'fortune 25' for example, so you can clearly see how non important it is long term.
I would say for first ~3-4 chapters the crests aside of some fortune ones are pretty much mostly useless long term as combat ones get outdated really fast, so don't bother unless you like collecting things or are having trouble progressing.

Collecting Fibers
Main story quest.
A very easy quest with same enemies as in the free quest forest.
Since main quests are not skippable - I won't bother mentioning stuff in them too indepth unless there is something important to be told.

Dustproof Fiber
Next main quest, non combat.

You need to craft 'dustproof hood' to progress the game. It's done in alchemy tab. If you lack some item for it - you can craft it for a very small amount of gold if you change to liquidation and go to material tab.

Mt. Holeb Path
Combat stage
Sonia joins you here but she is put in party 2 by default, so make sure to drag her to main party.

Be aware that the 'corrupted' enemies can't be gotten as crests yet, but they do exist. So don't bother trying to get crests out of those just yet.

Research Campsite
Cutscenes only. Albert joins your party.

Meeting a Heinous God
Your party now has 6th party member,
Albert however is the only character in the game who is not 'permanent', so don't even bother using him much unless you are having trouble.

Stages also start to get longer and harder.
If you are on hard difficulty - you need to pay more attention to your crests. Max HP in particular is super important for characters who have low max by default.

Before you start this stage - I highly recommend crafting Celes her 2nd weapon(silver hilt) because it has by far best secret art for boss fights.

Technically speaking - the party members other than 5 selected do nothing. BUT you can swap party members at any time between battles.

How you use this is up to you. You can either keep swapping entire parties(pretty comfortable to drag and drop the entire party) for when one of your parties is demolished in battle.
Or you can just swap some party member with similar role to replace someone low on mana.
Or you can save/load and change damager allies into compatible element ones.

Usually it's not too required since you almost always have access to camp. Also majority of 1st playthrough will constantly limit you to 5-6 characters.

Boss - Heinous Ugarurum - not too dangerous unless you get unlucky. Celes with her 2nd weapon should give you 3 turns of nigh invulnerability by using her secret art while boosting the damage massively via assault chain mechanic on the turn she uses it.

Be aware that all 'ash' monsters require a chapter 4 key item to get their crests. This includes bosses.
So you won't be able to get crest for this one and quite a few upcoming bosses pre NG+.

Shin and Enri
Mandatory H scene if you are on R18+ version.

Free dungeon 2:
Crests: Bat, Thoth, Nirn
Boss: x1 Hagane - Musuhi + x2 Thoth OR +x2 Nirn

You can save/load to alter 'symbols' which can have multiple encounters like boss one and majority of field ones. Some are fixed however. Same goes for normal maps.

The Purification Fire
This is a simple filler quest to get the materials to craft the next key item.
You can technically just purchase them too and skip this if you really want to, but on harder difficulties I would probably take every chance to develop your characters.

Cave Rabbit crest here is an advanced version of rabbit which gives 3 fortune, still not too impressive.

Purification Furnace
Craft the key item to progress into this stage.

Boss here is Heinous Anzy - another crest you can't get atm.

This mission has a choice of dialogue at the end:
1) Agrees - H scene with Sonia
2) Refuse - skips it

Free dungeon 3
Part 1 Crests: Deer, Wolf, Phaia
1st boss: Flame Wolf + x2 Phaia OR + x2 Wolf
Part 2 crests are Flare Polat and Flare Kodora
2nd boss: Salamander + x2 Flare Polat OR +x2 Flare Kodora

Flare kodora out of those has pretty solid 20 HP/MP + 30atk/def, salamander has 60 atk +30 mnd.
Flame wolf has 15 fire element up.

Mission and Existence
This sidequest is just a cutscene which opens up an actual sidequest mission.

Herb Garden Guardian
Side quest

Boss Ceryneia, has crest.
This boss is always present in all difficulties so I wouldn't bother much.

Reward for quest is ability to craft Paralysis repellant key item.

A new combat instructor
Cutscenes only main quest

Enhanced Liquid Metal
Side quest the main reward for which is ability to craft Amalgam key item(slow resist)

Academic Mock Spar
Main quest - Fren joins you in this party.
Fren has incredibly high TEC value, which means he will be first to move most of the time.
He also has an AOE heal, which while pretty weak is more than enough while your level is low.
His main issue is that beyond this one skill - he is a pure damager with a tiny bit of debuffing... and his atk stat is very low for that.

Either way - he is your only 5th slot for now, so get him into the main party.

Dolls here DO drop crest, BUT it's super rare. Dolls however stay forever on all difficulties and become very high chance drop by nightmare.

The boss here - Albert has 1 attack that's pretty strong, so it's a bit RNG and might take someone down but shouldn't be a big deal.
Albert and all other human opponents in the game have NO crest.

The Road to Purification
Main quest. Sonia is back, Fren is gone.
Yellow sign is not the end of the dungeon yet, it's only halfway. You also can get introduced to 'key' mechanic in the second half of the map. It usually leads to extra path/treasure.
The battle behind the current 'key door' is against a MIMIC.
Mimic crest is 3rd highest 'fortune'(15) skill source in the game so probably worth trying to save scum get it. The other 2 being 16(who is overall worse stat wise) and 25(but that one is quite late)

Boss battle is Heinous Kurgal, can't get the crest of it yet.
It's a somewhat decent phys atk crest if you are on NG+.

North Wind of Disaster
Main quest cutscenes only.

Shin and Aria
Main story H scene.

Ariadna Dust Battlefront
Main quest. Aria is not with you for this one but you temporarily get Albert again, so you can still have full party.
After 'yellow sign' you won't be able to backtrack to prev camp and will need to fight 2 battles to reach next one, so rest up before that.

The boss here - Cinderella is you first chance to get Ruby material - it's a material required for quite a lot of weapons.
The thing is - Ruby is an A rank material and you can only purchase up to B rank ones BUT once you get a higher rank material once you can create a higher rank one from 4 lower rank ones. So technically purchasable, albeit expensive.
It's quite a long fight however and drop rate is pretty meh, so I don't recommend it - those are very plentiful near the game end... and it doesn't matter much earlier.

She counts as 'human' so no crest from her even on NG+.

Ash Fever
Main quest H scene.

Free dungeon 4
Crests part 1: Citra, Fairy, Light Polat,
1st boss: x3 Killer Bee(couldn't get anything else to appear)
Crests part 2: Dark Polat, Mandrake
2nd boss: Dryad OR Jack O Lantern + small fry

I will only mention NEW crests on 'part 2' map sometimes ones from part 1 still appear.

Trap of the Destroyer
Main quest. Aria is back to team.
Green icon end leads to a cutscene which is followed by part 2 of dungeon. You need to do 1 fight to get to next camp and can't return to previous one.

The boss is a 2 step fight with no rest/restoration in between. If that was not enough - you are also forced to take on MP trap before it, albeit that can be solved via MP items.
1st part is against 5 simple ash enemies.
2nd part is against the real boss - Apocalyptic Ninulta, who is also pretty strong if on higher difficulty.
The crest can't be accessed yet, but it's a very powerful one to get in NG+

I also didn't tell you about one mechanic - if your team is fully wiped out the next team comes out and then the next and then the final one. Right now it shouldn't matter much however, just letting you know.

There is a loss H scene somewhere around this chapter but you do not need to lose - scene will just appear in the gallery as you progress past this point.
It's in Event List > All scenes page 1 pre last row last scene.

Heretical College
Side quest, cutscenes opening up next side mission.

Alluring Whistle Rod
Side mission opening up anti confusion key item

Ash Demon Fishing
Side cutscenes with key item above.
This one is a 2 step fight with no combat stage, one against a simple group of enemies and 2nd against a 2k HP miniboss - Bunyip
This boss counts as ASH monster, but he DOES have crest which you can't get on 1st play... albeit he is also present in some chapter 6 law areas.

Artificial Ash Demon
The final step of the side quest chain above. Has an easy single combat.

Visiting a Refugee Camp
Side quest, cutscenes only.

Impulse of Corruption
Main quest scenes + choice:
1) Gives in - H scene
2) Holds back - no H scene
No other consequences here.

Hands of Steel
Main, cutscenes only

Corruption Solution+Joining Hearts+Lap Pillow For Enri
3 optional H scenes you can watch in any order.

Water Sanctuary Eridu
Main cutscenes only.

Explore Lake Eridu
Main combat stage
Green icon leads to 2nd part of map with no turning back, you will need to do 2 fights until camp.

The boss - Nammu is absurdly sturdy. It has almost 10k total HP if we include barrier on hard. 50 fire/earth/dark are it's weaknesses however.
Not too strong in terms of power however.
If that was not enough - it will also spam ~1k HP barrier pretty often.
Boss has a crest but don't bother grinding - you will also get it as reward for NEXT mission.

Lurking Lake Shadow
Main combat stage
After green icon you need 1 more fight to reach the camp.
On the 2nd map there are 3 paths that lead to the end. Northern path has a combat which includes MIMIC behind 2 traps. Probably worth your time to get crest.

The boss - Rahab yet again 50 earth/fire and resistant to light/water, it's not as sturdy however.
It also has a crest but yet again not really that good.

A New Arm + Sonia & Her Role Model + Adept Negotiator Clues
All 3 are main quest cutscenes you can do in any order.
A new arm requires you to craft a key item you got as reward for ending chapter 3.

The Thunder Cannon
THIS MISSION IS IMPORTANT IN DETERMINING CHAOS/LAW ROUTE, PAY ATTENTION!

Once you reach the 'speech bubble' you will get 2 choices:
1) Turn Away from Temptation - you are locked into Law Route with no further possibility of chaos route.
2) Give in To the Impulse - gives you a CHANCE to get into chaos route. It's not yet a 'lock', you can still go into law route after this choice if you are careful.
This option results in an H scene and gives you 'Gospel of Ash' - a key item which finally allows you to get crests of 'ash monsters'.

Regardless of which route you want to go I HIGHLY RECOMMEND PICKING 2ND OPTION. I will warn you on how to avoid chaos route if you want to go law.

2nd part of map has a camp instantly - so don't worry on that front.

Boss of this stage is Tiamat - immune to wind and a 100+ to everything aside of earth.
That being said he is still same HP tier as prev bosses of ~8k on hard.
This version of Tiamat does NOT drop the crest, so don't bother trying to get it.

Free Dungeon 5
A group of 5 enemies here can brutalize you from full to 0 very fast unless you are careful.
Crests: Shell Crab, Aqua Polat, Horn Fish, Sparkia, Remora, Harpewo, Suranoko, Aqua Kodoro
1st boss Kraken + small fry
2nd boss x2 Krakens OR x5 small fry

Going After Namtar
Main combat stage.
This map has only 1 part.

Boss is double: Namtar + Agrippa, both do NOT have crests since they are the few 'human' opponents.
6k/5k HP
Agrippa is easier to take down most likely. A tiny bit less HP, a bit less resistant to most elements you likely have.
Once you rush him down it becomes much more manageable. Namtar is pretty strong physical attacker but she is mostly single target so can't really overwhelm you solo. Damage cut from Celes works perfectly.

Desire to move on > I want to support you > Contract with Namtar > The Teaching Permit
The reason why I target main quests instead of side quest is because we are a party of 4 for now, so I recommend stalling the side quest until 5th member.

Those 4 are simple cutscenes, 2nd being an H scene.

Enri Becomes my Sister
An optional cutscene with choices:
1) I want to stay with you - H scene
2) I start early - nothing and locks you out of further Enri scenes.

Promise of a Knight
While this is a side quest - this one will give you an ally for the period of it, so you should have a party of 5.
You also have chance to get ash monster crests now if you picked the correct option in the law/chaos choice I told.

This map has only 1 part, approaching boss node gives H scene, boss battle itself is pretty easy 5 enemies.

The Primordial Flame
This main quest has to be done with 4 party members.
It's not particularly hard however. Be aware 1st camp doesn't allow you to go back, so if you like to full explore - you have to do 3 fights without it.

Starting from this map I highly recommend fully exploring all maps since some treasure chests might include A+ rank materials which are otherwise very troublesome to get. You also need to get at least 1 to actually start crafting them too.

The boss Ash blaze - a bit strong for 4 party members BUT it has 50 Water/Earth, which is exactly what your party members should have easily.
Boss has chance of dropping crest if you can obtain crests from ash.
I would probably not bother too actively with non route exclusive bosses on 1st run even IF you are collectionist. The chances are simply very low for how long fights are. Unless I mention how crest is especially good.
This crest is in fact not too bad, but probably not worth your time. It has fire element 10 and pursuit magic 100.
You also get H scene after boss.

You might notice how 'Nostalgia' quest disappeared but do NOT worry - it's simply due to you technically being mid quest, it will be back soon.

Save The God
Another 4 member main quest.

This one can be somewhat annoying due to how tanky fire golems are.
But this one has no boss stage and has only 1 part.

Purifying the God of Fire
You need to craft a key item for this one.
Simple cutscenes.
Afterwards you get Anzu/Ugarurum crests + Namtar joins party.

Ugaru crest gives 25 fire element, this paired with Aria's fire weapon will make your fire AoE super powerful which speeds up random encounter battles in upcoming stages a lot.

Nostalgia
We can finally do the side quest we have been ignoring so far.
2 part map - 1 battle until camp after yellow sign.
Pretty easy with 5 members.

There is a 'knocker' rabbit crest with 6 fortune. It's something.

Boss is Ninulta + Shamhat 4.5k/5.6k HP
Kinda reason why I recommended 5 party members. A bit challenging even with 5.
Both have crests.
Ninulta one is pretty powerful phys damage one which among other passives gives a buff that does a bit under basic attack worth of phys damage to all enemies for 8 rounds from combat start each turn.
Highly recommended getting that one at least.

Choice:
1) Hug Tightly - H scene
2) Smiles Gently - nothing

Advice:
Main story H scene.

Fall From Grace + Desire to Serve + A Danger Curiosity
WARNING - YOU NEED TO SEE THOSE SCENES TO HAVE CHOICE BETWEEN CHAOS/LAW LATER.
Those scenes can only be seen if you didn't previously lock yourself into law.

Sealed Memories
Side quest combat stage
No boss here and only 1 map part. Reward is Dreaming Clock key item you can craft, required for next quest.

Anna and Namtar
Side cutscenes, has 2 quite easy fights.
2nd is a mini boss - Riddle Guardian, he has own crest too, somewhat decent for a tank, but it's later a 'regular enemy' in a few stages so you should get it passively too.

Creator God Aruru
Main combat stage.
You can try to save scum crest icon here to get puppetia crest(or just get it as drop) - another 'preemptive attack' like ninulta god. Except this one is semi mage oriented with fire damage boost, great for Aria with fire weapon.
If you get more - I would say it's generally worth equipping on everyone with priority on those with higher attack.
Be aware that damage animation happens only once but damage dealt is stacked.
Albeit the amount Aria can contribute is much lower, it's still something, especially across many turns.

The key is required in part 2 of the map.
Part 2 of the map requires only 1 fight until camp if you got the key.
Be careful of the fights on part 2 - grim reaper is pretty strong and sturdy.
Grim reaper crest is 80 phys damage stat +15% phys dmg passives on top of other stuff.

Boss here is a fight with Aruru(translated as Arle for crest name) + 1 generic golem unlike what cutscene makes you believe.
Arle has own crest BUT this crest is autoequipped on Martina when she joins your party, so I wouldn't bother grinding it much.

Brother and Sister
Cutscenes only

Trial by Duel
This one will be a fight against Type 2 doll

H scene for losing.
If you want to check this scene without losing, simply save the game after winning battle(and getting crests if you were aiming for them) - go to main menu > gallery > 'all scenes' page 2 pre last row last CG(should be last unlocked one)

All 3 dolls have crests. However simple doll is something you might already have.
I recommend getting at least 1 out of Karina/Type-Two if you are completionist, will be easier to get the other next time when you don't need to get both at same time. Albeit fights with those DO repeat.
Those crests are A+ and A++
Their passives are a bit awkward but their stats are pretty high.

WARNING: THE 3 SCENES BELOW DETERMINE YOUR CHAOS/LAW ROUTE, READ BEFORE WATCHING THEM.
To the Extremes+Inner Impulse+Defiling the Sanctuary
If you watch ANY of those scenes - you are LOCKED into chaos route.
You can technically watch and reload and if you plan to play once but want to do a law route.

I will hence explain what law/chaos entail:
Law route is basically complete story which explains everything, it's also longer and has quite a lot of side content. There are also 3 'mini endings' with Aria/Celes/Enri that are technically mutually exclusive but pretty easy to save/load all of them.

Chaos is darker/fetish scenes(albeit honestly pretty mild and lacking), as well as short and kinda incomplete'ish/underwhelming. Doesn't really give much in terms of story.
Has essentially no side content aside of a few H scenes. Even main content is almost entirely battle stages.

You might be asking - which to pick first if you plan to play through both?
Chaos 100%

Chaos has NO unique crests(AND 1 amazing crest near the end that's only farmable on nightmare otherwise)

Chaos also gives you an extra ally - Cinderella, an absolute powerhouse of a unit.
Law does NOT have extra allies BUT once you complete it - unlocks the possibility of getting the 5 origins by allowing you to craft their A rank weapons.

Another important factor is the fact that you LOSE the 'ash' crest capture item on chapter 6 of law UNLESS you completed chaos before.

Another important reason for chaos is because law playthrough has 'extra endings' which are better done via 'advance' game mode of NG+.
This makes it best choice for people who only care about 100% scenes and not gameplay.

For the sake of guide I will start with - the following until the end of chapter 6 will be chaos route. Albeit chaos route will only truly start midway in chapter 5.
If you want to only do law route - do the chapter 5 pretty much via chaos guide but without watching the 3 scenes below then scroll below for chapter law walkthrough.

To the Extremes+Inner Impulse+Defiling the Sanctuary
Watch those 3 cutscenes to get LOCKED into chaos.

Rivalry
Main cutscenes only, Martina and Fren join you.
Martina has Arle crest on her by default.
Both are IMO among the most useless characters in the game that I never used even to swap into boss fights as they don't really have distinct element and have quite low offensive stats and pretty meh skills on top weapons.
So I would keep going with original party members.

Task of the Wind Dragon
Main combat stage
2 part map, 2nd part needs 1 fight until camp.
On map part 2 - the combat in the 'optional path' near the end has a combat against a 7.5k HP mini boss(almost boss) Ushumgallu He has crest with among highest wind attack passive(wind 25) and has great phys atk stats. It's however farmable in free dungeon 6.

The boss is Tiamat. This version has NO crest, don't bother trying to get it.
12k HP and only a tiny weakness to earth, bulkier than everything you fought so far.
Pretty weak on offensive side however.

Majority of chapter 5 content is however 'global' regardless of chaos/law.

Free dungeon 6
Crests: Gail Polat, Kodora, Knocker, Genomes, Doronoko, Kulullu
Boss 1: x2 Guivre(brown ones) OR Guivre+ 2 kodora
Part 2 Crest: Guivre(green one)
Boss 2: Bune + 2 Gail Polat OR Ushumgallu

Ushumgallu is great wind element crest forever.

Guidance of the Sun
Main combat stage
Sasha joins your party - she is yet another somewhat underpowered ally.
She is not as bad since she has dedicated light weapon + light/fire and light/water hybrids.
But her skills have no powerful effects like 'pursuit'. She also has quite decent ATK growth and some attacks are ranged.
It's unlikely you will use her often but she has uses.

Map is 1 part only.
Boss is Agrippa, he as all humans has no crest. Also pretty weak.

Ash Quicksand
Main combat stage
1 map part only.

Boss battle is against Cybe. 75 wind, 100 light/dark
This version has NO crest drop.
Massive HP and has barrier casts but not too strong offensively.

The final set of global route side quests is here.

Return for the Elixir
Side combat stage
1 part map
Boss node is 5 small fry enemies.

Dialogue choice:
1) Someone special - H scene
2) Family member - nothing

Reward is instant death resistance key item craft

Double Contracts
Side combat stage
Enri will leave you for period of this stage. Just toss Fren in instead.

Somewhat large but 1 part map with no boss.
Reward is being able to craft curse resist key item required for next quest.

Double Contract Truths
Side quest, craft the key item above to unlock it.
Do NOT insert Enri in your party, otherwise you will have 4 members only.
This one has 2 battles - small fry group and then Heinous God Enri - a boss with 75 to light and 125 to most elements.
She is pretty strong offensively but only has 10k HP. On first play I recommend Fren for at least some AoE heal.

Has NO crest. H scene.

Honey is My Favorite
Side H scene only

Recognizing Their Hearts
Side combat stage - gives key item for secret art generation as reward.
1 map part and no boss.

Feelings of Gratitude
Side cutscene, unlocked by key item above.
Dialogue choice:
1) Wants to stay with Maltina - H scene
2) Can't stay any longer - nothing

Free Dungeon 7
Crests: Rock Polat, Genomes, Rock Kodora, Lizard, Ratatosk
Boss 1: x3 Rock Kodora OR x3 Genomes
Crests 2: Guivre(brown), Gavege, Nereus, Naga
Boss 2: Grim Reaper +2 Nereus OR Nightmare+Curse Sword+Procel

Naga has an interesting passive - 2 turns of x3 MP cost but allows repeats of PHYSICAL skill used twice. This includes phys basic attacks for no extra MP cost.
Not really worth it IMO. Esp since her other passive is a penalty to own def.

Procel has similar effect but only for 1 turn and for magic type attacks.

The Vision of Apocalypse
Main cutscenes
You should be seeing signs of chaos if you are 'locked' into chaos already.

Violator of the Sanctuary
THIS IS THE FINAL DECISION FOR LAW/CHAOS.
This however only has 'choice' if you are not 'locked in' already. Otherwise you simply use the only choice into chaos or law.
IF you have choice:
1) Resist - Law route > Fren H
2) Follow Temptation - Chaos route > Cinderella H

It's a 1 part combat stage with no boss.

Lurking in the Dark Water
Chapter 5 continues almost identically between law/chaos.
Main story combat stage.

The corrupted dolls here DO have own crest version.
The crest has 'valor' passive which increases exp gain. Since exp gain depends on level gap between you and enemy - it's not too important until you are aiming for level cap(150) with extra levels on enemies.

Boss is Heinous Apsu - 75 wind, 100 light/physical
This version has NO crest drop.

Assault on the Academy
All the original allies(aside of Albert of course) are together for a party of 9.
Sonia is yet again a pretty so so ally compared to shin + main girls.
She is a ranged phys atker with light/water hybrid being her only choice in elements.
That is further mixed with a so so healing AoE and a 20% debuff for atk/mnd of all enemies... so she kinda lacks offensive options.
It sounds good but the problem is celes has 15% on her basic attack which is not much worse.
Pair that with quite meh secret art and we are still at 5 useful characters only.
However ALL the remaining 8 characters we lack range from top tier to having some decent utility in comparison.

Main story stage with 3(!!!) parts.
You need to start with left path if you want to explore the 1st one fully.
ALL dolls with unique name have their own crest, even if they look same'ish.
There are 3 dolls which look similar but have different one(Test, Assault, Gunner)
Human Soldiers do NOT have crests.
Assault doll is pretty good for physicals. Having both exp gain and phys damage up and good stats.
Gunner dolls is neat for magicals.
Don't bother too long since the stage is one we will still repeat regardless of route and doll chances are very low until at least very hard difficulty.. Dolls always stay obtainable in all difficulties and chances raise dramatically.

The boss fight on map 2 is against x2 assault, x2 gunner dolls and a human miniboss with 6k HP.
I tried farming this ~15 times with heavy drop rate set but it never dropped a single crest, so I assume this is some special encounter where doll CAN'T drop a crest... or I got super unlucky considering how many dolls there are. Most likely unlucky honestly.

Map 3 is a bit hard to full explore since you can't access camp and backtrack.
Left optional path has Mimic + 2 Riddle guardians.
Chance to get your 3rd mimic.
Right optional path 1st fight AND 2nd fight also have same encounter so 4th/5th mimic chance.

Boss on map 3 is Johann +type 2. Both don't have too much HP individually.
Type 2 has 75 earth/light, 100 water/phys
Johann has 100 to all except fire/dark where he has a bit resist.

Type 2 can drop a crest you might already have. Johann as a human has no crest.

This missions has loss scene, no need to lose however, it will appear once you progress past it.
It's on all scenes page 3 row 3 scene 4.

Chapter 6 is fully unique to the route, so chaos/law are fully different from this point.

Eternally Painted Black+Bathe in Moonlight+Dissolving in the Mud
Main 3 H scenes in any order

Parting with the Origins
Only main girls + namtar + shin stay in the party.
Cinderella joins you.
Cnderella starts simply decent'ish, being a hybrid of many attacks.
Her best weapon is half dark half no element with 1 water.
All her attacks are ranged. Her stats are absolutely absurd values.
If something is weak to dark - she absolutely massacres it.
If something is not - it's a bit annoying but paired with her absurdly strong basic attack she has good uptime of non element attacks. Non element attacks pierce quite a lot of damage reduction and also have increased crit chance... She also has a powerful dark pursuit.
Basically an ally you certainly want to use in most scenarios.

I would probably replace shin with her for now. They are similar in their use and shin has much more developed 'skill' level.

The Pride of Rive
4 new main quests appeared - doesn't matter in which order you do them however.
Each of those is an easy combat stage against previous human allies followed by a harder one against one of the 4 origins.

I highly recommend you try to explore fully as materials are often high rank so you can craft majority of the under S rank weapons if you do.
Crests are non unique, I will mention some interesting ones, but all of them can be farmed elsewhere, hence chaos route is fully optional in terms of collecting the crests. The only interesting crests are origin god ones and even they are farmable in postgame.
I will mention when something interesting appears aside of that.

This map is 1 part. The fight BEFORE boss is a fight against Arle. Should already have her crest guaranteed. She shouldn't pose much danger by now.

Boss fight is x3 bosses: Maltina, Fren, Karina.
Karina has non unique crest you might already have. Maltina/Fren have none.
Mostly high resistances, a common 100 or lower resist is towards water/earth/physical
Karina has super low HP so take her down first.
A pretty hard fight, even just Maltina/Fren have dangerous one shot moves. Simply gotta get lucky to burst them fast.
I recommend taking down Fren 2nd. Maltina solo should pose low danger, so can chip her slowly after that even with low mana, just beware of her secret art big damage AoE.

The Rage of Hellfire
Continuation of the Mardock quest. 1 part map.
The tile before boss is Ugarurum+Anzu - very easy miniboss fight with crests you already have 100%.

The luxury chest in optional path of this map is guaranteed ruby(at least quite sure it is, save just in case it needs a bit save scum)
It was a gate block for quite a few weapons, now you can craft ruby too.

Boss is Mardock - 75 water, 100 wind/dark/phys
This form HAS crest.
This is a very annoying fight, BUT the crest is very neat.
The boss has over 20k HP, can heal+buff for ~3k HP and AoE remove all removable buffs.
My recommendation is for everyone to have Mimic. On top of that - I would use:
Default weapon cinderella(+phys boosts/preempt attack), water D rank weapon on Aria(+water boosts), Knight of Honor on Celes(defend move spam is good barrier for 0 MP and all single attacks into her is neat), arachne picks on Enri(has def debuff + AoE heals), Namtar(B or A weap+phys atk/preemptive attack)
The chances are LOW. I had to beat it 7 times on hard(I think difficulty increases drop chances, but not 100% certain). with 1 mimic in each slot.
Other origin boss crests took 2-5 rounds, so I might have been unlucky.

Crest gives counterattack(250) and massive boost to atk value - 3rd highest in the game(with highest 2 both being 300)
This makes your Celes from a simple tank to literally top damager if you use the single target bait skill from Knight of Honor weapon. Can keep dealing good damage even without mana consumption, which is amazing.
If you remotely plan on getting other crests - this is HUGE and reason I made this our first goal.

Overcoming the corpse
2nd main quest chain, this time we will tackle Cybe.

1 part map.
The one way road battle chain has x2 Naga as 2nd fight. VERY damaging if they do double firestorm twice.

The middle optional path near the end has a crest node which give Ninya OR Ninyl, those are hard to get so worth grabbing.
Doesn't matter which one you get since they are so so and there is a battle against them coming next map so you can get the remaining one.

The fight before boss is against 4 small fry + 1 naga.
Boss is a pretty weak Albertos. As a human he has no crest - so just decimate him.
75 dark, 100 fire/light/dark

Purging of the earth
1 map combat stage

Fight before boss is Ninya + Ninyl - you can get the one you didn't get before.
Pretty weak with 2k HP each and you can just camp before it. Pretty rare crests.

Boss fight is against Cybe - 75 wind, 100 light/dark, 125 phys/fire
If that was not enough - she can spam 3k barrier
She has unremovable round end AoE + 25% damage cut and 22k HP yet again.
Just like other gods - she has crest but she is not unique.

Her crest is a bit clunky - big def/HP, protection passive(lure single target attacks), 35 MP regen, 15 earth element..
I would say if you get it - I would probably use it on cinderella for the MP regen alone if anything. This way she can spam her very strong skills infinitely in longer boss fights, which is a big deal if you are farming crests. If she dies she will lose the annoying provocation but MP regen will remain, so don't worry on that front.

Massage
An H scene you can watch after stage above.

Guardian Blockade
Another 1 part map

Fight before boss is against Ushumgallu - he is not any stronger so pretty easy to handle.

Boss is Sonia, 16k HP. 100 fire/wind/light/phys
Pretty sturdy for a human but still a pushover like all map 1s. No crest as usual.

Trials of Wind&Thunder
1 part map again.

FIRST fight is against Shamhat - easy way to get her crest if you want to.
Fight before boss is random small fry. One way to do things out of usual pattern, heh.

Boss is Tiamat - 75 earth, 100 fire/dark/phys
This one can dodge melee, so cinderella is even better than usual.
This one is strong offensively with a lot of AoE but has no HP regen and such, so if you are careful - it's fast and not too hard.

The crest is nothing too great for you right now, it has decent physical stats, 25 pursuit and 15 wind element out of good stuff...
Pretty good for tiamat ally that you don't have yet if it's NG.

Memory Regression
H scene after completing the above.

Steel Ambush
2 part map - surprise!

2nd part is however 1 fight + boss.
The fight before boss is against Nammu - can get her crest if you don't have it. She is a bit annoying with 7k HP + 3.5k barrier however.
Another problem is you have to fight boss without healing.

Boss is not too strong yet again, Sasha as you might have guessed is the boss. 100 water/wind/light/phys.
She is with 2 very weak dolls.
No crest as usual.

Spiritual Water Torrents
1 part map.

Fight before boss is Rahab - very weak to fire/earth and generally weak, easy to get her crest here if you want to.

Boss is Apsu - 75 fire, 100 light/dark/phys
Apsu only has 16k HP but has an 8k HP barrier
She can cast a ~400 HP regen per turn AND heal herself or ~1k so she needs to be bursted down with strong moves ideally.
Counterattack is MASSIVE against her. And generally if you left her for last - you should be fine since you got some extra power and can burst her down.

Another weird crest - stats are 80 tec/mnd BUT the function of it is a 70 barrier + 100 healing prop +15 water element... technically okay for some squishy water mage I guess..
Overall not worth bothering too much.

Princess and the Master
H scene for completing the mission above.

The Eroders
Appears after beating other 4 Origins.
We are approaching the end, last 2 stage combination time.

1 map stage.
This map has NEW crests.
They are however not unique and not that great. But quite easy to get majority or even all here. Next map ALSO has nymphs.
They are the Nymphs - Ruby, Opal, Amethyst, Agate, Emerald, Sapphire
Ruby nymph is kinda decent for magic pursuit.

Overall if you want to get crests - save/load before starting battle to get the correct encounters, there are older crest fights in the mix.

Before boss is a super easy Seshat which you should already have.

MORE IMPORTANTLY - the crest icon below the Seshat includes quite a few non nymph crests. The important one is a SPHINX that I highly recommend save/loading for.
It's a crest for tank with great stats which gives 20% def AND a start with 25% protection. Very neat for tank to be able to do something else turn 1.

Boss is Faust -75 dark, 100 water/wind/earth/phys... despite the impressive cutscene he is a pathetic 12k HP pushover.
No crest as usual.

Solar Eclipse
The final map.

Quite annoying to navigate it, has a key to the right from the start if you can't spot it.

This map has a lot of prev map crests. Mimic is also one of possible random encounters.
As you exit the 'key' received path there will be sphinx encounter. If you save scum got it prev map - you won't need to try to get it. It's a 9k HP somewhat easy miniboss.

Above sphinx is a crest icon. The crests it can give are same as prev map. So if you already got sphinx then the only possible interesting crest is Mimic.

The key room has huge amount of rubies/sapphires.

The fight before boss is against Fafnir OR Lindworm - ~10k HP minibosses.
I highly recommend to save/load Fafnir. It drops one of the best physical crests in the game.
It has 150 preemptive, 15 physical damage and 15 killer prop - 3 top tier physical passives.
DEFINITELY GET THIS ONE! It should be an autoable fight so shouldn't take long.
It also drops king's water - a material you can't craft for improved key item version. Neat but not mandatory, crest is more important.
You can NOT farm those minibosses pre Nightmare, so this will be a big boost for a very long time.

There are 2 boss fights - you will fully recover after the 1st one however:
1st is Shamash - 75 dark, 100 earth/phys
Not really much different from other origins. This one has 20 melee evasion and the usual HP.
In fact it's probably one of the easier ones. You are overall pretty strong by now and while it IS pretty strong in terms of AoE - a simple every turn AoE heal spam should cover you just fine.
It can also heal, but nothing too crazy with your potential damage output.
Crest from this one is quite decent for mages, especially ones with light element. It has 250 magic pursuit and 15 light and 2 invulnerability. Yep, essentially making character nigh immortal during random encounters.
Quite decent but if you are having trouble/find it annoying - don't bother.

SAVE THE GAME AFTER YOU ARE DONE WITH THE FIGHT AS 2ND FIGHT STARTS AFTER CUTSCENE.
2nd fight is against Shamash Eclipser - 75 earth, 100 fire/wind/phys
Having different set of traits and high resist to light/dark is annoying.
Has the usual ~2k heal/boost next attack move.
Otherwise quite similar to all other origin fights.

Has own crest - the noteworthy stats on it being killer 25 and light 20
Not unique and not really worth the hassle if you find it troubling.

Congrats on beating chaos! And that's really it, underwhelming, I know.

At this point you are done with main game of chaos route entirely.

I will start with short introduction to postgame as we will be skipping it for now and I will give more info on it later.
Postgame is literally one dungeon: free dungeon 9 - it consists of level 55+(by default) enemies.

Almost all enemies exclusive to routes are here. All encounters here are 'fixed' encounters, meaning there is no RNG.

It's a very long dungeon which starts with enemies from chaos route INCLUDING origins as random enemies.
It also includes some brand new enemies enemies.
It also is how you get the 'secret characters'. 5 origins require you to beat law route once.

I would say even on easy it's not really viable to do it on NG. It's simply too slow atm, better to clear law on nightmare first to get more resources/levels.
You CAN do it if you really want to, it's totally possible, but better leave end content for when you are actually about to be done, right?

Moving onto NG+:
NG+ has a lot of options you can select:

Game mode:
Normal/Advance
Normal is what you played.
Advance is a mode with NO battles. All stages are autowon. You still GET the REWARDS for stages. INCLUDING key items(with exclusion of origin +5 resistance key items) and resources.
This is pretty nice since you can select 'nightmare' and get top tier resources with 0 effort. All the while getting flooded with gold/ether.
Free dungeons however give nothing.

Transfer settings:
'Full transfer' is the best as nothing is lost.

'Keep allies' - you start with all allies that you ended previous playthrough with. And the allies who join you will NEVER leave.
Sadly 'Shin' transforms into his 'base' state, so can't get him to stay with extra dark resistance from chaos.

'Resource/Currency' +50k ether/gold when you start the mode IF you start a 'Normal' mode only.

Yeah, it's weird to skip directly to it. But all the chaos walkthrough stands correct for the law as well.

So simply follow the walkthrough and always pick H choices(THIS IS IMPORTANT, NOT DOING CAN LEAD TO LOCK OF PROGRESSION TOWARD EXTRA ENDINGS) in scenes, a lot of 'side stories' are part of 'progression' for main 3 girls all of whom have individual mini ending in law.

Your only difference is literally NOT watching the 'defiling/extremes/inner impulse' scenes near the end of chapter 4.

Normal or Advance for NG+?
If you only care about story - feel free to use Advance mode to get done pretty fast, skip the next 'recommended for gameplay' section and move onward with actual walkthrough.

My PERSONAL recommendation if you want to get full value out of gameplay and still care about getting all extra endings is to:
1) Start by doing ADVANCED mode on nightmare(bigger rewards) and doing Aria ending then reloading and replaying for the Celes OR Enri to get their crest+ending.
This is honestly simply faster AND gives you resources to develop character weapons more. If you were to play manually, even if you swap to easy - the stages still take a boatload of time to complete and the progression won't be saved in between, so you will waste even more time and get nothing to show for it.
Of course you could also replay game 3 times fully - but that will stall your scene gain a bit.
However you DO need to complete thrice for all content, so you could technically skip the 'advanced' mode play.
Hard+20, Very Hard and Nightmare are required for the

2) After that - start playing on HARD +20 levels.
20 starts with enemies a bit underleveled but they won't get out of control too fast this way and you only need levels ~50 for postgame content to be comfortable.
USE THIS RUN TO GET ALL NOOB CRESTS IF YOU CARE ABOUT THAT - next playthrough very hard still has old enemies - but they are much more scarce overall due to addition of recolors of almost all basic enemies.
Also make sure to use postgame dungeon to farm all the 'main boss' crests you want.
Almost all big boss enemies in postgame dungeon depend on difficulty range.
Basic versions are in Easy-Hard
Heinous versions are in Very Hard
Girl versions are in Nightmare

I recommend using this time to proficiency up apsu+cybe+tiamat+cinderella+namtar

3) Change difficulty to EASY then back to HARD(this removes level bonus to enemies) and complete postgame dungeon.
Posgame dungeon default levels are ~55. Which is what you should approximately have if you were playing on +20.

The main goal of postgame dungeon is to get Dragon Ribbon from Lilith and get Ashley as an ally.
I highly recommend also getting 1 king water so you can make her S rank weapon instantly.
She is best buffer in the game and also support healer/reviver(not really viable as full time healer though) on top of that.

4) Start game on Very Hard +0. You might have been wondering how come you miss over half the crests in the game despite getting all of them, right?
Very hard changes almost all basic enemies to new ones.

Very hard goal is however postgame dungeon bosses.
Those are 'heinous god' versions and a lot are unique to very hard since nightmare has yet another version of them.

5) Start game on Nightmare +0
Nightmare starts at ~lvl 70 by default.

6) Complete the postgame dungeon on nightmare - the one true challenge of the game...
Unless we count Nightmare +bonus levels of course, which requires CRAZY grind.



MAKE SURE YOU GO TO SETTINGS > ADVENTURE AND SELECT FOLLOWING TO SAVE TIME IF YOU DIDN'T ALREADY:
'Start skipping scene at phase transition' > YES
'Scene skip setting' - previously read for both

This way you will only see new dialogue and selection choices.

Also read slightly in advance before watching the scene - I will tell which scene to stop on for the 3 main girls and when there is 'point of no return' for extra ending selection.

The Road To succession
Side combat stage
2 part map
Some new ash crests, but nothing special.

Boss is Grayman 75 wind/light, 100 water/phys - he HAS crest.
The drop rate however is ultra low even with full mimic set.
He stays on very hard and nightmare however.
He is also in very hard postgame dungeon.
He has dark magic 15 and double magic cast for x3 MP cost for 8(!!!) turns, however also a penalty of 10% HP/MP, there are other 8 turns with less penalties, but they are very endgame.

Dialogue choice:
1) Leave it for Tomorrow - H scene
2) Tell Her Now - nothing

Sonia and her Goal
Side combat stage

1 part map with no boss
Reward is Dustproof Medicine Super X crafting

Side Effect Hustle
Side H scene, requires key item above(you have it auto if it's NG+)

A Kidnapped Princess
Side combat stage

1 part map, boss node is 5 enemy group of dolls/guards.

Caged Bird
Side cutscenes only

Reward is Washing Machine key item craft

Hot Spring Rabbit
Side H scene

Light for Her
Side combat stage

1 part map with no boss.
Reward is Crown Lens key item craft

For Kate
Side cutscenes, requires key item above(if you are on NG+ - you should have it)

Dialogue choice:
1) Praises Namtar - H scene
2) Pushes Her Away - nothing

A New Relationship
Side cutscenes

Dialogue choice:
1) Expresses his feelings - H scene
2) Can't reciprocate - nothing

The Glorious Maltina
Side cutscenes

Dialogue choice:
1) Stops Maltina - nothing
2) Stares Blankly - H scene

A Moment of Relief
Side cutscenes

Dialogue choice:
1) Agrees - H scene
2) Shakes his Head - nothing

Beyond the Desert
Main Combat Stage

While it seems like you can't get every reward node on map - it's doable by heading via right on the first split.
2 part map with no boss.

Trials of the Sun
Main Combat Stage
A massive but 1 part map with no boss.
Middle optional area(access from the left) has mimic as 1st encounter.

The Sun God
Main Combat Stage
1 part massive map with boss.
SW optional area has mimic encounter.
SE one has key. Last enemy of it is sphinx mini boss. Key area has some rubies/heliodors.
NE area has mimic as 1st fight.

Boss is Shamash - 75 dark, 100 earth/phys
This version has NO crest.

Reward for this stage is the 'light element origin' key item you need to craft Shamash weapon and get her as ally if you are on NG+ with law completed.
However this mission is not present right now since you are 'fixed' into mission chain.
Shamash is pretty neat pure light/no element mage.

The Tower on the Sand
Main Combat stage
2 part map with a boss.

Boss is Heinous Cybe - 75 fire, 100 water/wind
This version has NO crest

Hatred of the Destroyer
Main Combat stage
1 part map with a boss.
Boss is a double: Cinderella + Albertos - they share a 100 or under fire/light/phys
Both have no crests.

Purpose of Those in Line
Side combat stage
1 map with boss.
Sphinx miniboss seems like RNG spawn on this map.

Boss is Heinous Yggdrasia - 50fire/light, 100 wind/phys
She HAS crest. 25 MP regen +2 turns of double spell for x3 MP but -25% max MP

WARNING(!!!)
The following quests LOCK the extra ending:
The Temporary Paradise(Aria), Heir to The Kingdom(Celes), The Moonlit Truth(Enri)
Once you complete ANY of those - the option for the other two will disappear.
Temporary Paradise one can ONLY be selected the moment you see it.
The other 2 ONLY appear before final mission IF you didn't take Aria one.

If you want to see all 3 - here are the instructions:
1) Save the game when Aria 'Temporary Paradise' is available.
2) Select it and progress through remainder of chapter 6 and beating the game, you will see Aria ending after credits.
3) Reload from before you selected Aria ending and proceed WITHOUT watching Aria's temporary paradise.
4) Play until Celes/Enri side stories appear right before the last mission.
5) Save the game. Do Celes/Enri - beat game watch one of their endings - reload and repeat for the other girl as well.

This is the reason why I recommended advanced mode even if you care about gameplay too as that's quite a lot of replaying quite hard stages with no gameplay grind progress saved in between.
If you are doing my 'hybrid play' recommendation and still caring about gameplay then do only Aria + Celes OR Enri(kinda up to you) and then play normal playthrough to get the last girl ending normally.
The only reason to play normally is only postgame dungeon.

Alchemist of Harmony
Side Cutscenes

Strength Sought
Side combat stage

1 part map with boss.
Has a miniboss Mynoghra, she has her own crest. Seems like RNG spawn on the map, but I think the fight node after 1st split path merges together either has it guaranteed or very high chance. Pretty decent tank counterattack crest.

Boss is Ash Variant #6 - 50 fire/light, 100 wind/phys. Quite strong offensively due to double skill but rather squishy. It can be buff removed.
It HAS a crest. It's quite meh. However you can't farm this crest easily, so get it here if you plan to!

The Sunstone
Side combat stage

1 part map with boss.
NW room has 2 mimic fight.
The fight behind key room also has 2 mimic combat.

Boss is Golem Leonessa - 50 wind/dark, 100 water/phys... a reskin of sphinx. Pretty weak.
She HAS her own crest. Has 30 negation and 7 MP regen and 30 mutant kill... one of the best negation crests.. but not best.

To the End of Socie
Main combat stage
Very short 1 map with no boss.
This map has 2 new robots, each has own crest.

Workshop of the Apostle
Main combat stage
1 map with no boss.
Has weak miniboss - Virus Killer with own crest.

The Truth of Socie
Main combat stage
1 map with a boss.
You can't fully explore the map - to get key you need to skip 1 chest.
Key Room has 1 sapphire+ruby.

Boss is Johann's doll - 75 wind/dark, 100 earth/phys.
It HAS own crest. It's another ultra rare one since it's S rank.
It has 3 phys skill double use for x3 MP and a new passive - HM. It's a passive which allows you to also damage enemy MP. Unless you stack A LOT of those - it's unlikely to do anything at all since monsters have huge MP pools.

Free Dungeon 8
This one is available in this small time frame only, after which the free dungeon 9 aka postgame dungeon will appear instead.
All crests are a repeat of what you could get in this route.

Crests: 6 nymph variations, Al-Lat, Black Widow
Boss 1: 5 small fry enemies - robots OR nymphs
Crests part 2: Eliminator, Kirasheia, Puppetia
Boss: Virus killer+4 minor robots OR Atlach-Nacha+Mynoghra minibosses

WARNING - this is the point of no return where you can select either Celes or Enri endings IF you didn't do the Aria one.

Heir to the Kingdom
Celes extra ending

1 part map with boss.
It has a miniboss Atlach-Nacha with her own crest. I think it's RNG, I confirmed it on the node where paths merge together after getting key and the fight before boss.
It's not unique - you can also grind it in Free Dungeon 8.
Key Room has some ruby/sapphires.

Boss is Inanna - 50 dark, 75 water, 100 light/phys.
She has crest but it's also a quest completion reward, so don't bother grinding.

The Moonlit Truth
Enri extra ending.

1 part map with boss. Only old enemies here.
Boss is Anat - 75 wind/light, 100 fire/phys
Has crest but it's also quest completion reward.
Anat cerst is actually quite decent for mages early on when MP is a problem. Barrier 60, MP recovery 20, Abnorm resist 15 and it has 80 MND.

The Last Pilgrimage
Main combat stage(yes, speech buble is a lie)
2 part map + 2 final boss fights with a full recovery inbetween.

Fully exploring map is troublesome since there is no camp to backtrack to for over half of the stage.
There are 2 new crests here - Pranoia and Dacia, try to get them for collection if you care. They are meh. They are also often spawning in next map too.
The 'crest node' gives one of 3 random minibosses of this route. Nice to get one if you skipped getting some.

Getting to 'speech bubble' at the end of map 1 will lead you to next area and there will be camp after 1 fight. The fight is against a miniboss you have already seen before.

3 new crests on map part 2: Yig, Iod and Amnesia
Iod is quite nice since it has BOTH HP steal and MP steal.

As I already mentioned there are 2 bosses - both have crests. You heal between those 2 fighs.
1st boss is Heinous Astarte - light 75, phys 100, 4 main elements 125
THIS BOSS CAN DROP NOT ONLY CREST BUT ALSO PRIMORDIAL ELEMENT OF DARKNESS. Like all other primordial elements - it gives +5 dark resist as it's 1st copy reward.
Her crest is pretty nice with 35 dark attack - highest value in the game. Great for Dark weapon Shin and Cinderella.
Main problem is it has -40 atk and +100 mnd and a penalty of constant HP degen.

2nd boss is Zagreus - 125 all resists... yup, really.
It's a very strong boss for sure, the most dangerous part is if you are slow - the ultimate skill is likely gonna wipe you out entirely. But on NG+ even hard+20 levels is rushable no problem.
Zagreus crest is kinda meh in terms of skills with best probably being haste 25 or dark 15... it however has 60 of each stat but -60 HP... kinda nice but gets increasingly worse with more levels.


If you completed one of the 3 extra ending unlock conditions - you will see it after credits.

Congratulations, you have completed law route(and possibly all 3 extra endings)
Law route completion unlocks access to 5 origins as your allies.
Albeit if you were doing advance mode for law - you will lack the materials to craft Shamash weapon.

What to do next?
Well, if you only seek scenes AND got all 3 extra endings like I told - you are pretty much done.
You can go to gallery and be proud because everything should be 100% if you were following the walkthrough..

If you are seeking gameplay value - you can check the crests and notice you likely miss over half... yep, you haven't even seen half of this games monsters, no kidding.
Return to start of LAW section, where I summarize my advice to get maximum out of gameplay with minimum effort.

If you were following it - you should be on Hard+20 difficulty and ready for postgame content now.

If you were following my guide up to this point you should have:
1) Completed the Chaos + Law and have 16 allies with you(if you count Albert as one)
2) Current placement being post game dungeon with settings of Hard+20 levels and your average party members are likely ~50-55
Your 'skill' on the more useful characters is likely ~1-1.5k aside of Shamash who is likely quite low still.
3) If you are collectionist - the total possible crests is 128(technically 129, but chaos has final map minibosses - Fafnir and Lindwurm that you can only fight ONE out of 2 and you won't have chance for more pre VH+ and stable farm is nightmare only) from law + chaos assuming you get ALL crests, including the annoying boss/miniboss ones.
That's assuming you didn't get 3 new crests in Postgame Dungeon at all.

Your best way to progress is now to swap to EASYthen back to HARD difficulty to reset level +20 and start postgame dungeon on it.
Your first goal in it is to get the best buffer in the game, which is quite easy.

Easy-Hard postgame dungeon has exactly same enemies, BUT if you are trying to get all the NEW crests(and old if you missed some) if you are collecting them then you want to pick HARD difficulty(still swap to easy and then hard to remove the +20 levels)
For whatever reason the drop rate is massively affected by difficulty on free dungeon 9.
Some things might even be limited to hard, I am not sure.
But what I am 100% confident in - it's much more efficient to grind crests on hard.
The NEW crests that you see are in most cases exclusive to this dungeon.

It consists of FIXED encounters - yes, there is no need to reload. All encounters have their own place. VH and Nightmare changes this up compared to easy-hard however. But we are not that far yet.
So yeah, you don't lose anything if you choose easy instead of medium or hard.

I won't bother describe each enemy in detail as it would take long and it's mostlly repeated process.

Use save/load and adapt. You will quickly memorize most enemies if you decide to retry it.
There are a lot of exits so it shouldn't be possible to get hardstuck.. at least on easy.

Crests that are there on easy-hard:
1) A few small fry enemies near start
2) Non final chaos/law map minibosses(final map ones are not present on easy-hard)
Exclusion is grayman for some reason.
3) ALL big bosses of both law AND chaos.

I will also mention new crests AND somewhat nice farm:
Easy-Hard post game dungeon NEW crests:
Wood Dragon Mistress, Dimention Dragon Midgard, Lilith - all of those are 'unskippable' boss icon nodes which after 'split paths.
Out of those - dimension dragon is nice on all heavy Light Element allies. It has 25 light element + 30 negation.
Lilith is our first goal.. and not because of her crest. We are most interested in her other drop - dragon ribbon.
Both her crest AND dragon ribbon are ultra rare. If you get dragon ribbon first - don't bother farming crest, I had more luck with her crest in very hard difficulty.
Her crest is pretty powerful BUT I recommend farming it on very hard for much better drop chance and there are also 2 liliths at same time, so chance to get 2 crests... and crests along the way are more useful.

Ninurta despite being kinda 'final boss' here only has his usual 80 preemptive crest, so don't bother farming him expecting something new.

King Water farm:
King water is arguably most annoying resource to get in the game. So if you want some early - you would have to grind for it in postgame dungeon.
The most noteworthy spot where it can drop is inanna/anat fight where BOTH drop it.
Also each of the 'boss' node(new crest) enemies can drop it. And a few other enemies on top of that.

Recommended grind path is:
Rush the Inanna/Anat/Yggdrassia fight(they are blocking key) - I recommend going through top split path since it feels a bit faster.
All 3 can drop king water so chances are good to get 1. If you do get 1 - I would be satisfied and leave/repeat the dungeon instead of trying to get more.
On the way you also beat Wood Dragon who can drop king water too. So pretty fast farm with a lot of king water chances.

Nothing else is IMO worth grinding unless you specifically are missing some of the existing crests OR want to get multiple of some crests. There is nothing absurdly superior however.

MAKE SURE TO GET ALL BASE GOD VERSION CRESTS AS VERY HARD CHANGES ALL GODS TO HEINOUS VERSIONS AND NIGHTMARE CHANGES ALL TO GIRL VERSIONS!
Albeit nightmare has 'double encounter' of base form god + girl form god for main origin fights in postgame dungeon. So you can technically gain main origin ones there.

Once you are done with postgame dungeon on hard - your next step is Very hard +0 difficulty.
You CAN'T swap difficulty on very hard+, hence why we don't pick extra levels.
Very hard starts with ~level 40 so it will yet again take some time until it starts becoming challenging.

Almost all stages have NEW enemies which outright replace OLD ones(with a few exclusions), including free quests.

I won't cover all stages as that's a lot of effort and you can simply save before each stage and see for yourself. As long as you beat all stages - you will see everything there is to see.
Just remember that MOST boss nodes in free dungeon can have 2 different encounters so you have to save/load to see what both entail. It's often only a small fry enemy change.

Some bosses change to different(usually Heinous) version and NOT ALL of those changed are present in the Postgame Dungeon. In particular I would pay attention to some mini boss'ish ones and try to get those just in case.

Origin bosses during story drop their Hard difficulty postgame/chaos route crest now... you probably have those but letting you know just in case.
Heinous Origin bosses drop crests as well if you encounter them - those are also something you can get during this very hard postgame dungeon trip.

I recommend always going for law route. It has some semi unique stuff in last map in comparison to chaos which has everything you can easily farm elsewhere.
Make sure you start looting fully on stage 6 - guaranteed A-S rank mats.

I will mention however some crests I highly recommend getting while getting through:
1) ALL mimic encounters are replaced with 'platinum box'. It's a 25 fortune crest and by far best fortune in the game. I usually use a full set of platinum boxes on everyone if I am expecting to get new crests at all. If you are grinding for crests then platinum box + mimic on everyone is the way to go.
They are still in the same places, so feel free to ctrl+f mimic.
Go out of your way to grab those.

2) Furfur is a 15 valor(exp gain) crest which is best in the game - there are multiple places for it, but the first one is Thunder Cannon mission in chapter 4.
Farmable in free dungeon 6 map 2.
Once you get furfurs - start wearing a full set of them as bare minimum valor.
I usually run 1 platinum box and 1 furfur on everyone at least. Other 2 slots depend on role usually.
Enemy level raise pace is simply too high without valor.

3) Wind Dragons Task in chapter 4 has another Fafnir miniboss on map 2 optional path near the end. Highly recommended, one of the best phys crests.

4) Algol(flying demon girl) - farmable as boss node 1 and 2 in free dungeon 6. phys skills x2 for x3 MP for 8 turns. With the only penalty being 30% MND. So if you are pure physical damager - essentially no penalty. Unless we count one nightmare postgame crest - it's pretty much best in slot. However best used on higher levels when MP ain't as much of a problem.

5) Ash variant #7 boss - I mention it only because this guy drops #6 crest despite being #7. So you could have already gotten it on hard playthrough.

6) Heinous guivre(baby dragon) - appears in a lot of places, has 15 phys+25 dark but a 5% decrease to MND.. pretty decent for Cinderella.

Postgame dungeon changes:
The only change is all base gods become 'Heinous gods'. The other bosses remain same.
This is THE ONLY chance to get some heinous gods.

Postgame dungeon things to do for completionism:
1) Get EVERY crest from every enemy that you lack. Majority of those are outright replaced in nightmare.
Even lilith is replaced with stronger one and different crest on Nightmare.
Might be better to replay multiple times rather than trying to get double of some minibosses you miss like Ninurta miniboss ones.

2) Farm any useful crests for multiple copies if you need to.
Impressive crests are:
All heinous origins also give +20 to their own element attack, I won't mention this to avoid clutter..

Heinous Mardock - 120 atk stat, 15 phys boost, 20 negation
Sounds nice but gets worse the more levels you get as the flat atk stat keeps mattering less and less... and skills are not super impressive by themselves.

Heinous Tiamat - 200 preemptive, 200 pursit.. godlike on tiamat and quite useful on A LOT of allies.

Heinous Ninyl(miniboss before Cybe) - 15 physical, 50 preemptive.. not exactly great, but might be decent for physicals.

Heinous Cybe - 25 protection, 300 counterattack.. you only really need one for tank however. Paired with base mardock crest - you get 550 counterattack, 25 block and 25 protecting across 2 crests, basically covering majority of tanking needs and allowing the other 2 slots to be used for grind improve ones.

Heinous Sphinx(before Shamash) - 20 magic atk, 120 pursuit magic.. BUT she has -50 MND stat so it's not as cheery as it sounds before super high levels when flat stat changes are more negligible.

Lilith crest - targeting properties(couldn't figure out what it does, sorry), 25 to ALL elements, 12 haste. Pretty good for most mixed element damage dealers.
I have 0 idea what targeting properties does... and she is the only one in the game with this skill.
NIGHTMARE VERSION OF HER IS DIFFERENT CREST.

The 'after key' battle and the encounter before it are USELESS by the way:
Encounter before key gate is a mass of dolls + doll bosses you have already seen.
Encounters after gates are:
All humanoid'ish bosses, out of which only Grayman has crest. Other ones have useless resources.
x2 Ninulta is the other node... it still drops the same old B rank crest... yep. He also drops kings water, but there are better farms for it.

Best king water farm stil l remains rushing the 3 minibosses guarding the key.

3) All the misfortune versions of bosses drop their 'ULTIMATE origin element' key item.
This one stacks with +5 resistance key item and gives +10.
So you can reach +15 to all resistances.
Both cap out at 10, but there seems to be nothing special for getting multiple, only 1st one does anything.
Girl versions of bosses in nightmare also drop it, so up to you to get them now or later.
HOWEVER - you need a LOT of those if you want to max all weapons. Weapons for all characters aside of origin ones require some ultimate Origin key item for their high rank upgrades.
So having more is not a waste.

Once you get everything you want out of postgame - it's finally time to move on to NIGHTMARE.

If you got EVERY SINGLE CREST POSSIBLE on easy-hard and very hard by following the guide so far then you would have 230 crests(technically you could have 1 more if you have lindworm, but we will get it on nightmare as you were getting fafnir instead of him if you were following my advice)

You can technically miss most basic enemies and still be fine. Nightmare has majority if not all of them. But do get absolutely all crests from the postgame dungeon, a lot of those disappear entirely.

Nightmare starts at lvl 70

Nightmare has very big groups - majority of groups are 3-5 enemies... so AoE are king of random encounters.
Cinderella, Shamash, Tiamat and Apsu are your best friends overall, esp if you get their relatively easy to craft S rank weapons.
Last is up to you, for general progression tank/buffer aren't mandatory.. only once stuff gets hard. So can slot in some other AoE... or tank for boss convenience. Up to you.

Nightmare adds only a few new basic enemies but majority(if not all) basic enemies of very hard are still here.

What it adds the most is new boss variations for bosses with crests aside of origins(but them too, only in postgame dungeon however) and humans.. humans are still no crest and as weak as they always were.

Out of a little under 60 new unique to nightmare crests - almost half are minibosses or bosses.

Be aware that NOT ALL nightmare unique bosses are farmable in postgame dungeon.
Walger - road of purification
Damkina - nostalgia
Ururu also has unique form you can't find in postgame
Those are only the ones I remember not appearing for sure, but I might be forgetting someone, so you better be careful and farm all new stuff when you see it.

Origin bosses remain in their 'default' form with hard difficulty crests BUT they drop 'GRAND king water', a resource exclusive to nightmare. You can grind it in postgame dungeon however... you can also craft it out of 5 basic ones +2 S rank resources... not the best idea for sure.

Law route end has one fully unique enemy you can't discover in any other way - Gold Robot. The other new ones are farmable in posgame dungeon. It still has all old ones from very hard however, so if you miss those for some reason - get them now while you can.

I will mention some interesting crests along the way of story:
1) Free chapter 1 has golden rabbit - 2nd best 'fortune' crest with 16 fortune.
2) Chapter 4 - Save the God mission has Fafnir as BOTH save scummable 'random crest' on the map AND as last encounter before map end.
3) Free dungeon 6 has fafnir+ushumgallu+dark ushumgallu as possible encounter of boss node 2.
4) Chapter 6 - Strength Sought sidequest is earliest you can encounter Dark Shadow Sleeping Beauty miniboss - by far best tank crest.
30 protection, 25 block, 300 counter and 10% max HP
5) Free dungeon 8 is farm spot for Princess Abyssal Weaver + Dark Shadow Sleeping Beauty as one of boss 2 encounters. Those are however also in free dungeon 9.
6) Final boss of law route is Moon God Zagreus -80 HP/40 MP but +80 all 4 stats.
Her passivess are attack/magic link 8(no matter what double cast for x3 MP basically), 20 all elements, 10% decrease def...
Very solid on anyone if you want to use double casts.
But it's also farmable in postgame dungeon.

Celes ending mission is most rewarding in terms of resources, but it's not a big deal as those are farmable in postgame dungeon.

Make sure to loot the chapter 6 fully, loads of resources for weapon craft.

Postgame dungeon changes:
Fights blocking origin bosses are mostly things you have already seen, one noteworthy is Lindowrm who blocks Tiamat, whom you might have missed.

Dark origin fight is Moon God version of zagreus

All 5 main Origin boss nodes are now Girl form(unique) + Easy-Hard form duo boss.

All 3 'roadblock' boss nodes are now UNIQUE versions with own crests.

The fight BEFORE key has unique unique(yep, she has 4 forms in total basically with this one) Inanna form. This miniboss is also present on the fight before Shamash origin node.
The fight blocking the key directly has the 3 usual bosses with each having unique form.
Yggdrassil being one you might have already got durin story

The fight before key gate has Agrippa/Cinde/Shamash Eclipser combo.
Almost nothing good unless you need shamash eclipser crests.

The fight after key are:
Boss node - all 5 origin gods togeteher.
Mostly a for fun challenge fight I would say, since it's easier to grind them separately.

'Ninulta' node - x2 Super God Ninulta
By far hardest enemy in the game. Unremovable 75 damage cut AND 40 melee evasion AND 140k HP on +0 levels.
However no new crest. Instead each can drop BOTH king water and GRAND king water.
Probably not worth the farm consider how difficult the fight is though... so purely for challenging yourself.

Both those nodes however seem to have pretty high chances for their drops.


IF you got ABSOLUTELY ALL crests then you should have 286 of them now.

Where are the remaining 3 you ask? Well... not in the game I think. If you got one of those and I indeed miss them - do let me know, but I am at least 100% certain I got all crests that exist.

Might be some deleted concepts or something?
Fun fact: Marduk girl version has no ID, while her ID should be 251, she is however placed correctly if you sort by ID.

According to IDs they should be:
51 - logically speaking by where it's placed it should be some 'easy ash variant monster'
But I didn't find a single one I didn't have in the game.
Some very rare one during easy-hard is my only 'maybe'?

137/138 - those are surprisingly close to 'oor' monsters, might be some 3rd oor monster + variation of his that got cut out of the game.

My only possible idea might be chaos very hard for those... but it's very unlikely.

Either way - if you have reached this far congrats on seeing everything there is to the game!
You can technically try +120 levels nightmare and try to beat Super God Ninulta fight that way for hardest possible challenge... but unlike VB games - this one doesn't offer anything new for +levels at all. So only purely for your satisfaction.