General tips:
- First check out move lists. Go to officer info in the menu and press X (360) or Square (ps3). You'll see their move lists. Move lists expand as characters level up (for the most part).
- DW characters have ex attacks. they'll unlock their ex after a certain level.
- SW characters are mostly charge attack based.
- DW characters do a musou that uses up a portion of their musou gauge and it's just one animation.
- SW characters don't require you to do a musou. Press B/Circle to activate it. You can do anything you want, but if you want to activate the musou, hold the musou button.
- When you unlock new characters do what I do, if you think they look cool, put them on your team, go to battle of Yiling (first stage) and set it to normal (or easy if you prefer). If you like their base move set, keep them and level them up. If you don't, drop them.
- Using "suggested officers" is only good for story purposes (aka these are the characters this map involves) and because it'll make the game more challenging.
- Use triple musou on enemy officers as much as possible for gems and crystals.
Weapons/loot:
- don't bother with buying weapons until you get access to four star weapons and lots and lots of crystals.
- completing maps will unlock better loot just beating them, and this will be more than enough without resorting to wasting precious gems.
- for weapon fusion, just pick the base weapon you want the other weapon to fuse into. First, you want lots of skill slots for your weapon of choice. Check out the skills on each weapon before you fuse and do this with a plan. So if you have a character who's real fucking strong (Zhou Tai) put some Courage on that sword (Courage increase attack). You can also stack skills. So if one weapon has courage and the next also has courage +2, your fused weapon will have Courage +3. Keep doing this until you have the weapon you want.
- Low level weapons are great for fusing to create more slots and that's their greatest benefit. So if you have a bunch of leftover shitty weapons with shitty skills, fuse them until they have 8 skill slots, saving your weapon list some room for the really good shit.
Bonds:
- Fighting with characters raises bonds, whether they're on your team or if they're just friendly officers in battle.
- On chapter 2, you unlock the teahouse. Use that to raise bonds with gems earned in battle.
- Change characters frequently while in camp because sometimes officers will show up, talk to them and you'll raise your bond with them.
- Some stages require high bond in order to unlock. Do all of the above until the stage unlocks. So if your bond with three characters is low, try making a team of those three characters and play a few maps with them and abuse the teahouse until the stage unlocks.
Playing the game in general:
This is a good video that shows that Koei makes more than button mashers
Action starts at 1:59
Enjoy!