First of all - guides are essentially full of spoilers, so ye be warned. Story section would be 100% spoilers, Tips heavy on them too and Miscellaneous not so much.

First of all - prepare to cry. You might cry, companions of heroine would cry and heroine cries a ton, cause even getting gear means crying.

Then - prepare to cry, as you would need to go through the game 4 times.



Well, not exactly whole game.

• There are 8 chapters, each having several story ordeals and optional. You would need to go through all 8 story ordeals of 8 chapters on first playthrough
  
  
• Second playthrough would be only chapters from 6 to 8
  
  
• Third one still from 6 to 8
  
  
• And forth one would be additional chapter, that you have not seen in previous sessions.

Story would be different for each one, with some new facts uncovered and another ending each time.

Now be ready to cry, because gameplay is pretty boring, and enemy variety is nonexistent, you would see every enemy except for few bosses and all locations, save for one, on first playthrough. You would need to be strong and push through for plot, as it is the one thing that truly makes it worth playing.



Now gameplay tips :

You could only collect 10 memories from revenants, so make sure you leave place for boss memo, otherwise you would need to kill it extra time if you are going for Memoirs of the Dead, Complete achieve.

When you are in tear charged state, pressing charge state button one more time would execute extra powerful combo. However, it would take the rest of the tear charge and you would exit the charged state after it is executed. Its damage depends on amount of charge and probably on length of combo, I am not absolutely sure on this one.

There is a very rare modification for your gear called soul drain - it grants you 1% of your damage as a lifesteal, that means a lot, especially in Boss Rush ordeal

Now to characters - you get 4 of them, each is probably good for something and might suite your playstyle better.

Boss rush is aftergame ordeal that unlocks after you get through your 4th and final playthough. It is there to get you to maximum level, as it is most effective way to level up your characters.

You get to fight all the bosses you met in game one by one. Their strength would increase each time you defeat them all, but so is experience you gain.

After you kill last boss Mephistopheles, if you choose to proceed start from first one, but every boss would be stronger. They scale up to 5 times.

If you choose to exit the ordeal and start again, you would begin once more from lowest difficulty first boss.

You do not level while in this ordeal, exp is gained by your characters only after you exit or lose. You could stop the ordeal before or after the boss is killed and exit getting all exp you gathered, however, as I saw, exiting after the boss, would not grant you exp for its defeat, so you should go to next one and quit there.

There is no shop in this ordeal, so make sure you are stocked on consumables beforehand.

If one of your characters die and not resurrected before you exit, it would get no exp. If your whole party is dead, you would get 0 exp.

Get soul drain modification on your gear - it would give you 1% of damage dealt lifesteal. With Nanana, well placed triple Nanana Beam spell could grant you more than 100 hp in one go.

Do not be hasty in disposing the bosses. If you are sure in yourself, know bosses moves and could guarantee that you would not be hit, take your time to use them to replenish tear gauge, mana bar and if you got soul drain - health.

Get rare all ailments resist accessory - it only drops endgame, but madly useful.

Doing character specific ordeals and killing boss there could net you that character specific best weapon or armour.

Optional Ordeal IV for Rei
Kokoro's Verdict for Kokoro
Confirmation of Justice for Sen
Nanana mystery! for Nanana

I do not play much with Kokoro and Sen, so could only say that from my point of view - almost all bosses are best done with Nanana. Her triple Nanana beam annihilates large bosses and her mobility greatly help with annoying ones that run from melee.

Now to bosses themselves:

Epicurean - punching bag
Carneades - runs from melee, got only mage revenant attacks
Hobbes - His attack power increases greatly with difficulty, but attacks are rather simple - seed throw, melee chomp and seed barrage. Seed barrage becomes deadly on further difficulties.
Nanana - runs from melee, while on the run, would not hit back. From what I saw got only Nanana's basic attacks, no abilities.
Epicurus - runs from melee, would hit back even while running away, got some of Nanana abilities.
Unknown a and Unknown b - punching bags
Therion - got big dogo chomp, aoe chains from the floor, chains from the front, and X like aoe with doge in the center.
Bouraki - a bunch of mages, could be annoying if they spam shots one after another
Parmenides - charger, that could use some lousy front abilities and knockback back legs. If you are not knocked back, would continue to spam knockback attack.
Anamnesis - till 50% of hp would try to get close to you and cast her melee aoe. After 50% would mostly try to run from melee and cast ranged attacks. Rarely hits back while on the run.
Plato - till 50% hp would either his with spinning spear in melee or in ranged. After 50% hp would start doing mage revenant attack with debufs one after another with homing effect and front cone aoe, that does not hit if you are fully in melee.
Aristotle - if you are ranged - would cast barrage following you or throw disks. If you are melee would either do body slam or cast tornado with boss in the center. Would mostly try to avoid melee with teleportation back. After 50% disks become homing.
Sen Megumiba - after difficulty raises becomes a total beast. Has all Sen attacks, so could both chainlock you in melee or spam ranged attacks. Best to either bait her in starting chain attack or keep her in midrange, not getting away for her to start spamming range attacks and knocking away so that she would not reach you in melee.
Kuon Hatada - being the true heroine, along with Nanana in story does not stop her from kicking behinds here. Got best of Rei attacks, so could throw feathers in ranged, start barrage of slashes, cast a moving tornado or do a knockback horizontal slash. Best to keep midrange, as with Sen.
Mephis/Pheles - run from melee and teleport away. Better focus Mephis first, as her barrage is mighty annoying and becomes very damaging on higher difficulties. Mephis casts barrage and triple mage revenant attack. Pheles casts aoe chains from the floor, that paralyze you, triple mage attack and 3 blades cone, same as Parmenides.
Mephistopheles - uses giants swords to do vertical or horizontal slash, does chains from the floor aoe, summons 6 blades cone attacks with homing effect. Sometimes gets away from platform and becomes untargetable and uses one of 3 attack types. Uses giant swords to do consecutive vertical and horizontal slashes, that could be avoided with dodges. Rains down swords that follow you dealing small splash damage or rain down swords in set locations dealing giant splash damage.

Those are story related achieves, that you cannot miss when completing the game:

There are no missble achievements, so rest easy:

No missables here either:

Hope this helps, so get get busy crying (in game) or get busy crying (irl)!