I played the game at the third difficulty level as a detective and I want to highlight some tips to survive. There are many mechanics that are not very well explained. I will talk about experience and how to use it, the importance of persuasion, and combat mechanics.

The experience is the only value that can be used to level up. Can be obtained by fighting monsters, in a fixed amount, investigating and convincing people to join you. The experience comes in a fixed amount, since the enemies do not respawn, so it is very important to use it correctly.

One very important thing to know is that when advancing in the history, the experience cost will increase. If at the beginning increase an attribute will cost 3xp, after entering in the main asylum will become 6xp, and 9xp when entering the catacombs. For this reason it is very important to spend all the experience before accessing a new area, generally after a main boss, to avoid to be in the situation of having lot of exp from the previous area and having to pay the double for everything. Luckily the enemies will also give more experience to balance it, and new abilities will become available. Even if the enemies can be almost all avoided, for how difficult it could sound I suggest you to kill every enemy before moving to a new area, and to use almost all the experience. Remember that if you barely survive a fight and you spend experience to rest, in any case you will have a margin of profit.

Experience can be also used to rest, also this will increase in advanced areas. It is suggested to use it only in desperate times or before bosses, since exploiting the guard mechanics it is possible to finish every fight healed, but I will talk later of this.

Items could also be converted in exp, and sometimes it is an important thing to do.

How to spend experience?

I will explain later why but it is important to spend point immediately to gain the talent persuasion 1. After this focus on incrementing HP to exploit guard mechanics, and on guts and combats to deal damage and defend. If you want to attack using intelligence, you should increment this instead of combat and immediately buy the skill Psychic Assault.

The first thing you should immediately buy with your first 6ex is Persuasion 1. This talent is the only way to increase your party gaining new friends. Without this early on, you will immediately lost another party member. Since this game is very difficult in 2, alone will be impossible to complete the game. Also at the end of the catacombs, persuasion will be crucial again to get the third party members, and an extremely powerful one.

Guarding is a poorly explained mechanic in this game, but will be crucial to survive. Guarding is very different for any other RPGs, where usually reduces the damages of the enemy attack. In this case by guarding your character will get HP and SP back, making the best free way to heal. What the game is not telling you is that the percentage of HP that will be healed is proportional to the maximum number of HP your character has. This is why early on it is very important to increase your HP at least till 60. In this way you will be able to easily heal by guarding more than the damage that you will receive, making your character virtual immortal.

This is very useful also to avoid to spend experience by resting. When there is only 1 enemy remaining, just guard till you are completely healed before finishing it. Exploiting the guarding mechanic is the best way to survive, the only way to die will be usually by having bad luck with status effect. Using this simple trick will make your game a lot easier.

For a detective, the basic Critical Shot is a very useful skill able to reduce the physical defence of an enemy (Guts) and even rarely inflicting bleed. While guarding to regenerate HP and SP this should be your main why to attack.

The first support character Peter is quiet useless, but could be useful as healer and debuffer. Buy quickly the skill Fearful Word, that will be very useful to lower the physical attack of bosses or enemies that are able to increase it, like zombies. Also in the catacombs the skill Holy Blessing will be very useful to completely heal a character. Peter will become more useful after the second boss. Answering about searching student and with enough persuasion he will get a useful skill that will increase both physical and magical defence for a character.

The third character is a psychic war machine, able to cure and to inflict heavy damages. Don't miss her!

Specific fights and bosses could be avoided with specific skills:

- Boss 1: unknown
- Boss 2: with Investigation 2 you will be able to shoot a barrel before the fight, killing it!
- Boss 3: Maria can be recruited with Persuasion 2 (highly suggested!)
...

Secret boss and escaping route:

If you at the beginning would try to escape from the asylum, you could go in the guardian house and unlock the main gate, after trying to escape before. This will trigger a secret boss battle, that will trigger a secret ending. This route will become unavailable after accessing the catacombs.