Another tip, buy the spyglass when it's available. It allows every character to analyze the enemy's weakness, strength, etc. That way you can free up a skill slot and not rely on a character to check the enemy's stats.
Learning your enemy's info is a must. If an enemy drains/repels your attack, you lose your remaining press turns, and it becomes the enemy's turn even if you exploited one of the enemies' weakness.
For example, in Persona 4: if you were to cast mabufu and exploit one of the enemies weakness but the others null it, you still get a free turn. If that were to happen in DDS, you get no free 'half-turn'; you lose them.
Never use element repel like ice repel or fire repel. It usually ends up healing your enemies. Just keep the void element until you get the drain element one.
Have 'void death' on one of your characters, so your whole party won't die with an instant kill spell.
Have "quick escape" on Serph or someone you're mostly going to use. It greatly increases the chances of escaping a battle, and it helps when you're surprised. When you're surprised, you start off with your human form, so yeah.
Argilla is pretty awesome; she deals a lot of magic damage. My favorite character from DDS is Gale. His constant "I do not comprehend" line is the bomb diggity. I don't like Serph; he's a lame leader imo. :-/
