Im responding hella late to this but since i just binged the game i thought'd i'd share. If you are ever having trouble with Restrains the answer is to swap ivy as your support character. You can swap support characters freely in battle (it doesnt even cost a turn) Ivy's Tackle and later her Aikido is really good at dealing with restrains. I tend to use Aria till i get grabbed then swap to Ivy to free myself then swap back.I'm fighting the trainer in the west scar, and I haven't been able to break out of her grab once. Am I missing something? She grabs me, and I throw the mysterious liquid at her literally 100 times without success. I tried purposefully losing and freezing the HP value in cheat engine. Both do nothing to move the game forward.