Is it realistic to ask if I could get any general tips for getting through this game? Tips that don't spoil the story or involving cheesing/breaking the mechanics. When I say cheesing, I mean things like "this certain class and build is broken and you have to use it cause its meta" or things like "remember to pick up this secret rare weapon that only spawns in this certain area". Just any advice thats universal that I can take with me for the entire game. Or is this one of those games were you definitely need a guide?
I've played this game years ago and I enjoyed it but I didn't get very far bc I simply didn't have much time on my hands. However, I do enjoy games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, so I'm hoping this is just one of those games i can have fun figuring out along the way (and struggling). But if its one of those games where I'll just be lost unless I look up guides then I'll shift my expectations
Generally, the main bottleneck for many beginners is the stamina management; action, getting damaged, walking in the otherworld all spend stamina. General tips for it are to buy Blue Potion at Elise's clinic ("Omnivore" trait make it so you can chug a lot of it without puking), to play stealthily, lure and fight ennemies 1 by 1, and do as much damage to them as fast as possible.
Now there's the trait point distribution, you'd want to distribute most of your point to the trait that gives you damage (COM for physical, WIS for mage, and CON for juicing), the other relatively important common trait to get for all classes for beginners are, 4 SCU (for stealth mode), "Omnivore" trait, 10 SUR (optional, this is for "Improved Trap" trait stun, and being able to cook smoked meat, food that doesn't spoil on Hell or Doom mode).
Next is money, the main goal of the game is to get enough money to board the ship, which takes 20 golds, the gold required will keep increasing depending on the passing days until 30 golds (this is actually tied to world difficulty, world difficulty will keep increasing the more day passed, max world difficulty is 100, additional gold required increases by 1 each 10 world difficulty, you can lower it by donation through a preaching priest event in Noer Town). Quests and saving the raped captives are the conventional way to get money (Siding with Milo net you the highest profit since he gives 15 golds in total, but at the expense of some precious companions); for grinding money, farming and selling Mutated Mushroom in a dead forest at the abomination land is the easiest but most dangerous way to get money.
Afterwards, there's the leveling, more levels mean more trait point to distribute, leveling doesn't increase Lona's stats, it only gives trait point, and the more trait points you have, the easier the game will get, as ennemies don't scale with your level (there's only more types of ennemies depending on how high is the world difficulty). Again, quests and saving the raped captives are the conventional way to get experience; for grinding experience, masturbating and saving the raped captives are the most efficient way, although, saving the raped captives is pretty annoying for two things, they are hella slow and their pathfinding is pretty screwed, the only time they're somewhat faster is if they didn't get touched by anything that damages them (the goblin place, north of the moutain priest and mine cave killer rabbit, is the place I found where captives are the easiest to rescue), and getting XP through masturbating too can be mind numbing after a while
I think that's it for my general advice. Knowledge of the game is pretty important here, otherwise you'd have to experiment and explore a lot to get through multiple situations, and that takes effort. I'd advise first to get used to the game, and then look for further tips afterwards. You can consult this beginner tips and some more info here in this wiki
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This beginner tips don't tell about Mage build though, I have my own way of getting all magic weapons right after tutorial with minimal grinding, which is to get max loan, go to Fishtopia to get the SCU set, finish Sea Witch quest, go to a dead forest to farm Mutated Mushroom for the 80kp repayment and money, and then afterwards I'm goocci.