I don't know if the abilities show right when you get him, but do you see Half-Enc or No-Enc?  Something that looks like those?

Get those ASAP.  

Actually, as long as you keep in mind to change learned abilities often to the ones that are most useful to you (so you don't waste earned AP after a high AP earning boss battle) you can just keep the encounter rate on Half-Enc.  I usually keep it there throughout the game. 

There are lots of extra tricks (to what some would say, break the game) but in all honesty it's made the game so much more fun when you know how to use them.  Like keeping Squall, Zell or Quistis at low HP and changing their turns constantly to activate their limit break option.  You still have to keep them alive carefully, so I don't see why that should be considered breaking the game.

The tricks can make the game too easy, but I don't see why anyone would consider FF to be a series to get into for a challenge.  It's either because of the story, atmosphere, fun battle system,  freedom or in this case manipulation of the mechanics.

Blitzball is terrible. I had such high expetations for it, could have been a fantastic mini-game... oh well

I'll most likely play Xenogears this year, don't worry.

And Diablos' most useful ability is Mug, imo. And Refine of course.

Also, you missed Siren didn't you? That's a hint I should've give you before, to always see what spells bosses have to be drawn. If it's an unusual name, it's a GF.

You might as well watch the cutscenes on YouTube considering the second disc plays out like a book. Imo, Xenogears really isn't all that great. 

Oh god no...the best minigame of all time is the cooking contest from Suikoden 2.

Don't. There was so much potential... but then they threw in numbers and some sort of rpg elements because, hey, it's a minigame in an rpg isn't it?! Makes sense. I guess.

A friend of mine LOVES this game, so I'll play it eventually. Admittedly though, I'm kinda wishing I won't like the game that much, just to piss him off. Though I'm going in expecting something good of course.

I heard Suikoden 1 is a great game too. Not sure if they're connected though.

And why don't you just create an US account and buy Xenogears there?

I strongly recommend playing Suikoden 1 before playing 2. All the Suikoden games are somewhat stand-alone (Especially 3-5) but S1&2 have the most story connections as quite a bit of the characters from the first game come back in the second. There's also a really cool sidequest that's only accessible if you have a cleared save file of the first game. Also, Suikoden 1 is still a fantastic game and I love both S1&2 equally. 

The Order learned something from FF8.... unskipable cutscenes.... Except in 8 you have to see the same scene EVERY time you use a damn summon (wait to you get Eden, the damn summon animation takes like 5 minutes).

9 was better as was 10. In fact 8 is my least favorite mainline FF game. Back in 1998 the game was one of the most beautiful ever made so that gave it some redeeming value, now it just looks horrid. I is the only FF fame I refuse to replay.

Its true stores overprice the US PSN cards ridiculously but Xenogears is what 10$ ? you find 10$ cards for 30R$ or so, I think 30 bucks is very worthy the price of admission for a game as good as Xenogears.

Also about SEED exams, the question are about events that happen in the world and enemies you fight, as the tests progress in lv the question abord enemys and events that only apear/happen latter on the game.  So if youre not gona cheat in anyway youre gona get to top SEED rank by the midpoint of disc 3 Id think.

I know Im in the minority here but I never liked the Suikoden series, the games never went very well with me, I guess the hughe number of playable characters anoyed me somewhat becuase Im always trying to play all of them and I cant wrap my head around why would I have an army of companions and only ever take like 4 to battle, its easier to acept this sort of thing when your party is just 8 or so.