Help for anyone who wants to get the platinum (tips)

[Taruta13]

Here are a few things I discovered after struggling through this game that can help you out:

 

• Do the main story to the final dungeon. Towns unlock as you progress through the story and you cannot enter the last two border towns(Zelgroid and Ibriss) until you clear the bosses in the dungeons connected to them(Zelgroid Fortress and Ibriss Border). On that note:
• I got stuck in Zelgroid Fortress until I talked to the prisoners. Once you beat the first mini-boss, the Necromancer, you might run into a cell door that blocks forward progress and get a message saying there is a key here. GO BACK TO THE PRISONERS. You got an iron key which you can use to release them. After you release them, TALK TO THE PRISONERS. A boy will mention a key in a barrel. Go into the room nearby to find a glowing spot at a barrel and search it. This gives you the key you need to progress in the fortress which will unlock that cell door, the Silver Key. I rage quitted when I thought the game was bugged.
• As said, sidequests appear as you unlock new dungeons as those quests require you to visit those dungeons. You also cannot get 100% monster entries in dungeons the first time you visit them as some of these entries are for boss monsters that you must fight in sidequests. (I did not realize this and restarted the game twice thinking I had missed something in the first dungeon as there was one missing entry. Turns out that was a golden wolf which only appears once you get to Mountain Town and find a sidequest there. )
• DO NOT SKIP DIALOGUE!!!  EVER!!!! Some of the dialogue gives you valuable clues to progress, especially when sidequests. You can talk to the NPCs to find out where you need to go in sidequests but there is a nasty teleport trap in Holy Dragon Castle. If you skip dialogue, you will miss the characters giving a clue: The left room has a path of black tiles. Take a snapshot, transfer it to your computer, and flip that image in a paint program. THAT IS THE PATH YOU NEED TO TAKE TO AVOID THE TELEPORT TRAP. This was another annoying thing that nearly made me create a whole new PSN account because KEMCO games do not have any guides.
• Once you unlock Ibriss Border Town, go to the item shop and buy as many Simple Gifts as you can get. These items will add 3% to the trust of your party members. Buy 240 of them and use max use option on each character with these items to get all of the trusts with everyone to 100%. I do not know if you need to use it on anyone but Yuran, but better safe than sorry as you need 100% trust with all characters to get Hilda's, Silky's and Rugal's endings. Unlick Asdivine Cross, where you got the harm ending if everyone had 100% trust towards Harvey, and if you have played Ambition Record(OMG [bleep] that game), then you'll get a series of options for Yuran to choose to get the various endings if he qualifies for them. There is no harem ending(because one of the companions is a guy) and there is no post game so no happy ending.
• There are two other endings. To get these, you need to equip the Heroes' Ring. To get this, you must do the following (placed in a spoiler)

Spoiler

 

(1) Get 75% Monplete entries by using Researcher or Search Stickers on enemies and killing a certain number of them[they are sort of like the bestiary entries in Final Fantasy XII], then talk to the blue-haired man in Blaze Castle(go up the stairs next to the throne to find some more doors and two of these will lead to a room where three guys are behind counters. The blue-haired man to the left will give you rewards for every milestone of Monpletes you get. Once you get three rewards(for getting 25%, 50% and 75% complete), talk to him again to get a quest update and you will unlock the Ibriss Arena. Defeat the King of Ibriss boss there.

(2) Complete all sidequests(you need to do this for a trophy anyways) and talk to the green-haired dude in that same room until he gives you a key to a door on the second floor. You saw that door when you came here, but it was locked and the game told to ignore it. Now you can enter it and go under the castle to fight King Blaze. Defeat him and them walk out. (A note: You can hit Square to teleport out of a dungeon, but when the game says you can't leave, that means you have to walk out manually to trigger a cutscene.)

(3) You may know about learning skills by using stones that you get from monster drops. YOU MUST HAVE ONE CHARACTER AND ONLY ONE CHARACTER LEARN EVERY ONE OF THOSE SKILLS. All Fire, Water, Wind and Earth skills as well as all the synthesis skills from learning two skills. Once you do that, talk to the pink hair lady in the room mentioned above and she'll give every a skill called Back to Nought, a powerful area of effect attack that debuffs all enemies. Then you get a quest update and unlock Zolgried Forest. Go there, kill the boss, yada yada. Oh, and all three mentioned bosses will do a cheap shot on their first turn that hits one character for 9999 damage and kills them and it cannot be block. I found this out because Yuran kept dying on the first attack.

 

Once you get all three of these bosses killed, you are forced to walk out of the area and get a cutscene where you meet an old man who tells you something and then one more dungeon is unlocked - Mount Fuyjiama. Go there, kill the boss there(who is actually much easier) and you get the Heroes' Ring you need to equip. Equip that bad boy, go back to Dragonlair Castle, kill the Dragon King again...

 

And you have to fight the dragon who you fought in the Land of Death, only HE WILL TPK YOU. There is no way to avoid getting wiped, so you will need some of the LP you earned from battle, 50 in fact, and use the revive option because even at max level with the best equipment, I still got wiped after several turns. Use those turns to spam Tantrum Gems to grind his mental gauge to zero and trigger a Unison Attack because there is no way you can do enough damage without it.

 

Once you kill THAT guy, then you get the ending again and this opens up the remaining endings you need for trophies with the options "I'll stay here in Blaze Castle" and "I'll go on a journey."

 

 

I hope that helps because there is no decent guide for this game and it nearly broke me.