Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Clearing the game on Universe or Chaos difficulty level is not that hard. The problem is at the early parts of the game, especially during your first time on Aeos.

The only thing you can do to avoid trouble here is be patient and level up a bit, using Blindside whenever you can against those insect enemies. Set everyone to BEAT B and take it up to level 5 or more, this way you earn some precious points to defense that can save you from being beaten.

The first boss is very easy to beat if you control Edge, put Faize to "avoid trouble" and use Blindside constantly. Your trip on Lemuris and Roak will be easier as well if you stick to blindside and avoid direct confront to enemies.

After Sarah joins your party you can buy a few ingredients on Roak, 20 Warning Brooches and Silvances and create Curry Rice with Item Creation. With these you can synth +15%/+20% Experience factors to your weapons and acessories. If you have 8 acessories (4 neck and 4 wrist) with 3 +15% Exp on them and at least three characters with weapons with four +20% Exp, you can easily reach high levels that will make the game easier.

By the final boss, using Exp equipment since getting Sarah, I was at level 80 when avoiding most battles. Fighting a few phantom enemies on Nox Obscurus put me near to level 100 in less than an hour. Defeating Satanail will be very easy at these levels.

It also helps to give priority to increasing your defense. Always buy the best armors when you reach a town ad put everyone to BEAT B except for Edge because you'll want a good Blindside damage. At level 100 the defense bonus from BEAT B will be insignificant, but the AI benefits more from it anyway.

Obs.: I didn't use this tactics for Chaos mode, but it shoul work as well. It took me about two hours in Aeos fighting some bugs until I was ready to proceed, then I just rushed, avoiding all enemies. You can use the refresh point near the boss to level up a bit in a faster way. The boss itself is beatable at level 4, but being at level 7 or 8 surely help.

Tactics: After Arumat joins the party I gave him "Chain Combos" and maxed out his Diabolic Edge and just spammed it every battle with three of them configured to RT. This way I could fill my board with HP/MP recovery and ignore using MP items. You can use similar tactics with other characters, but Arumat has huge MP and with 10% recovery at the end of a battle you will almost likely recover everything you wasted during combat.