I don't agree with a lot of these opinions. Money is easy to make in this game, so buying stuff from the general shop is no big deal.
The tear stones are convenient when you just don't feel like going through a gauntlet just to retrieve your lost Lacrima (or lose it when you die again before you retrieve it).
Spirit Orbs can be useful in conjunction with Willpower Orbs, which consume 3 Spirit in order to heal yourself for 50% of your health. You can carry up to 20 Willpower Orbs at a time, so you don't need to rely on those shards for crappy healing when you've run out of Netherworld Energy.
No mention of Tyranny, huh? It's basically THE isometric CRPG focused on playing a protag that works for the big bad where you get to determine how an evil empire gets managed.
