[Games: Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille Zur Macht Tips & Tricks]

Xenosaga

Earning Money:

Money will be a problem when you want the really good A.G.W.S. and equipment, so if you are dying to get some cash consider these few methods:
The Encephlon One of the best places to get money is after you complete the Encephalon mission. Go back to the Encephalon and in the first screen, kill off all the enemies by walking in the search lights. By now, Jr. should be able to kill them in one turn with a Storm Walz or have Ziggy use Executioner instead. You will net 1600G per battle and then get a Junked Circuit, which is sold for 200G at any shop. So for a few minutes of fighting you get 9000G.
Dark Scepter When you get this technique for MOMO after the Mintia Sidequest (see the Walkthrough) you should go back to the Cathedral Ship. As you know, the only enemies here are Gnosis, and now MOMO can turn them into Barter items. Walking through the level, and killing especially the Ogres and the Unicorns, will get you a whole stash of nice gems, provided that you kill them with the Tech Attack that MOMO now has. Sell of the items for some good money.

Leveling Up:

Leveling up can be a painstaking process, luckily there are some enemies that will help you with this, as well as a nice item that you may not have considered before. On the Cathedral Ship, the Lizardmen drop the Hemlock item, which will give any ally 1 HP. Now after you are done with the Song of Nephilim, you can fight Din Gareth in the U-TIC Battleship (see the Walkthrough). Make sure you have the Erde Kaiser Summon before you go into battle. Equip whomever you want to level up with the Craft Apron from Mintia and the Swimsuit from Great Joe. Now when the battle begins, cast boost 1 on Shion and make sure she casts Erde Kaiser on the Bonus Points slot. However, if you want to level her up, or someone else, kill off the other teammember by using a Hemlock, and then let Din Gareth finish him/her off. If you want to just have Shion level up, kill them both off. Now you can a thousand T.Pts (80 x 10 = 800 + 25% from the swimsuit is 1000). When you get the x2 Bonus, you get 200 T.Pts., and with x4 you get 400 T.Pts. Always remember that the bonus points slot will help you get the points you need. Another few good occassions to get points are:
Onboard the Woglinde, with only Shion, go to the A.G.W.S. hangar and fight the Drone PCS simulation over and over for a lot of points (on an easy win)
The Cathedral Ship, at the last part where you figh the Unicorns with the Lizardmen. Kill off two of the Lizardmen and have the Unicorn revive three times. Kill them all in the bonus points slot, and you get net over 200 T.Pts each fight.
In the Encephalon, in the park where Shion and chaos start, the enemies here have an insane amount of points are easy to kill when you have good ether attack. The Kobolds are especially good because of their low HP, any of your All-Enemies attacks should kill them instantly.
Some Gnosis and enemies, such as the Ace Pilot, carry Skill and Tech Upgrade Items. Since Shion, Jr. and MOMO have stealing skills, you can always steal them. In Proto Merkabah, you can turn the Armaros Gnosis into Skill Upgrade Z with the Dark Scepter Tech Attack for MOMO.

Free Items

MOMO has an ether called Prayer, for 6 AP, of which the description is nothing more than “A Heavenly Gift”. So what does it do? Cast it in battle and you will get an item. So what? Well, you can get some of the best items this way, and if you give MOMO the Angel Ring, she can cast it 10 to 20 per battle. Apart from basic items, you can get great things like the Med Kit MAX or Tech, Skill or Ether Upgrades.

Double Powerful Ether

KOS-MOS has a special ether called Ether Limit. This doubles Ether Attack damage but also doubles the cost of Ether Points. You can reverse this effect by equiping the Angel Ring or extracting its ability, which cuts the cost of Ether by 50%.

Jr. the Powerhouse

One of the advantages of Jr. is that all of his attacks are determined by his Physical Attack strength. At the Casino you can win the Bravesoul item. Equip this on Jr. and you will see that his attack becomes insanely strong as his HP goes down. If he has 40% health, his attack will be 160%. You can equip the item or extract the HP Strong skill from it to make Jr. your most powerful warrior.