This a quick and dirty guide on the game based on my own observations. I'll let someone else do the more detailed dives, and I'll instead just put together a few simpler things here that some players may or may not know about.
Time Management
- Always make sure to get back home by 12am at night. If you get home any later, you will end up wasting an extra 6 hours of your day, as you'll wake up at 12pm the next day. Sleeping on time will cause you to wake up at 6am, which is preferable.
- All training times will take 4 hours (from what I've seen so far).
- All player-triggered conversations with the girls will always take 1 hour. Event related conversations will depend on the event.
- Gifting items to girls will not take any time, but can only done once per day per girl.
- Combat outside of the city will take 6 hours to complete on a successful run. Not yet sure if this changes depending on what happens.
- Roughly plan out your day based on all the info above along with travel times between locations.
- Avoid using the time skip option, as that would just be a waste of time you could instead use to move to different locations grabbing items, training, hunting monsters, and talking to girls.
Gifting
- Not sure if this is due to the harder difficulty I'm playing on, but girls will have certain objects they will like or dislike. While it is preferable to actually give favoured items to the girls at all times, make sure to not give the same gift twice in a row, as the girl will not like it as much. Variety is a good thing here.
- Amy will eventually introduce you to a shopkeeper who will sell you gifts for 30 gold, and buy any items / gifts you no longer want. The gifts sold will potentially have a greater impact on the girl being given that gift if she favours it.
- Give Giselle a Giant Grimoire.
Farmable Items
- Home: Milk Bessy every morning.
- Castle: Check that flower-ornament-mechanical-statue-thingy in the hallway, and pat the dog in the throne room.
- Infirmary: Nab some medical supplies, and check the drawer.
- Outskirts: Fish for a... uh... fish, and find one of 2 other things if you're lucky.
Combat
- Taunt early. Only discovered this recently, but if you were to taunt the opponent and take damage, it will increase the amount of loot you can get from 1 to 2. Whether or not that will increase I have not yet found out. Just keep an eye on your HP, as you are much squishier than Hugh.
- After combat, your total gold is based on the gold that you looted along with any mission clear rewards, and then you will unceremoniously be given 1% of all of that. Enjoy.
- Taunt and Loot will always occur before anyone attacks, while Heal and Cheer will occur after enemies attack.
Getting The Girl(s)
- If you are gonna talk to the girl, why not also give her a gift?
- I actually recommend prioritising training up your STR, INT and CHA, as each girl will give you bonus relationship points based on your current stats that they favour (10% extra per favoured stat level). I don't know exactly what each girl wants yet though. Still working on that.
- Meeting a girl for the first time nets a nice 40 points. Amy doesn't get that though... one can only hope your lil' sis wasn't left behind...
- Regular gifts a girl favours (items found around the map) will give 4 relationship points. Giving the same gift the next time you meet will net you 2 points if they have grown tired of getting the same thing again. Giving a gift they don't favour will net you 1 point.
- Giving Gaselle items you took from the Infirmary will make you lose the item, with no relationship points at all to speak of. Don't do it!
- Progressing through a girl's relationship storyline will net a whopping 100 relationship points, plus the point bonus based on stats!
Source: https://gameplay.tips/guides/5502-love-esquire.html