~~Most of these tips were made for base PSO2, it may or may not apply to NGS~~

As someone who put over 10,000 hours in the Japanese version and currently have 500 hours in the NA version, I've got a few things to say.

NEW PLAYERS READ THIS
These are the things you should know right away if you plan to play as a free player with as little trouble as possible

• Do NOT feed your mag until you've done your research on how they work
  
• Points in the skill tree cannot be reset without a free reset pass, which is usually handed out often enough as the game updates. But due to the NA version mostly having combat content that JP already has, it's not as often for now. If you have a reset pass feel free to mess around with the class tree to get a feel for things, but if not then you should do your research before putting your points in things you regret. Most of how well your class does depends on how you use these points.
  
• You get 3 characters for free, server-wide. You can put those three characters in one ship, or on different ships.
  
• More characters are your way of making in-game currency, which is how you upgrade your gear and get cosmetics
  
• Don't worry about making your character look perfect on the first try. You can change most things at any time (accessories, eye pattern, tattoos, etc). The things you can't change whenever are things related to the size of the character, shape of their faces, things related to that. But you don't have to worry about that either, because every so often you can obtain a free pass to change your characters looks without paying, and they come often enough. The only thing you can't change at all after making your character is your gender and race.
  
• If you want to avoid paying a cent but want to play every class type, make a character per atk type (Striking, Ranged, Technique)
  
• You can use as many skill discs as you want, there is no limit
  
• Every weapon and unit you pick up is trash, sell it in an NPC shop. Upgrade your gear if it's better. You do not need to hoard them until you start getting 10* drops or better, which in that case you put them in your storage until you learn how to use the recycle shop.
  
• You make money by doing Daily Orders every day, which is located on the left side of the quest gate from an NPC behind a counter. You make the most money by the time you can run things in the Super Hard difficulty. All characters can run them, making them the best way to make money.
  
• Start by talking to Officer Cofy and doing all her client orders, then from there start messing around and have fun!

Now, here are my personal opinions about this game.
I like to describe this game as something like Monster Hunter with Devil May Cry combat. As a free to play MMO, people will approach this with caution. But I'll let you know, this game is very free to play, you can play as well as you desire without paying a single cent. The pay for stuff is mostly for cosmetics and conveniences, to make you in-game money faster through real life money means. But if you know your way around the game, you never have to do this.
Starting out, the game is great! People don't really like to call this an MMO since most quests are only done with up to 12 players in a quest, but who cares. The combat is really fun, the random stuff that occur while going through maps is an experience. Then when emergency quests happen and multiparty bosses appear, those are really fun too! Upgrading gear can be kind of confusing, but isn't hard to do once you talk to others or do your research. It used to be a very frustrating RNG process but not so much anymore.
The only downside is that when you reach endgame, there's sometimes not much to do other than wait for emergency quests to happen and go through your daily CD's (which usually doesn't take too long). Also emergency quests that do not have an objective can be pretty stale, since it's mostly just running around in the circle on a map and one shotting any boss that spawns. A problem can be that bosses aren't all that fun to fight with too many players, since they flinch until dead. But this is mostly fixed later on when harder difficulties are unlocked. Either way though, games combat is too fun to easily put down.
The game is a beautiful anime game, and customizing your character is really great! If you want to make your perfect waifu or mimic a favorite character from a series, it's likely you'll be able to do so in this game. Also, being able to make mech's as well will make the mecha lads pretty happy!
There's talk of censorship but I don't see it. I still have my sexy bikini's, I still can make a character with the fattest and finest tits and ass. When there's cosmetics that pretty much reveals almost all of your characters body, I don't see where the problem is.

tl;dr - Games has really fun combat, true to the term "free to play", character customization is great, nice to hang out in, recommend to any of my fellow dumb weebs

Oh and go to Ship 1 :^)

~~Most of these tips were made for base PSO2, it may or may not apply to NGS~~ As someone who put over 10,000 hours in the Japanese version and currently have 500 hours in the NA version, I've got a few things to say. [b] NEW PLAYERS READ THIS [/b] These are the things you should know right away if you plan to play as a free player with as little trouble as possible [list] [*]Do NOT feed your mag until you've done your research on how they work [*]Points in the skill tree cannot be reset without a free reset pass, which is usually handed out often enough as the game updates. But due to the NA version mostly having combat content that JP already has, it's not as often for now. If you have a reset pass feel free to mess around with the class tree to get a feel for things, but if not then you should do your research before putting your points in things you regret. Most of how well your class does depends on how you use these points. [*]You get 3 characters for free, server-wide. You can put those three characters in one ship, or on different ships. [*]More characters are your way of making in-game currency, which is how you upgrade your gear and get cosmetics [*]Don't worry about making your character look perfect on the first try. You can change most things at any time (accessories, eye pattern, tattoos, etc). The things you can't change whenever are things related to the size of the character, shape of their faces, things related to that. But you don't have to worry about that either, because every so often you can obtain a free pass to change your characters looks without paying, and they come often enough. The only thing you can't change at all after making your character is your gender and race. [*]If you want to avoid paying a cent but want to play every class type, make a character per atk type (Striking, Ranged, Technique) [*]You can use as many skill discs as you want, there is no limit [*]Every weapon and unit you pick up is trash, sell it in an NPC shop. Upgrade your gear if it's better. You do not need to hoard them until you start getting 10* drops or better, which in that case you put them in your storage until you learn how to use the recycle shop. [*]You make money by doing Daily Orders every day, which is located on the left side of the quest gate from an NPC behind a counter. You make the most money by the time you can run things in the Super Hard difficulty. All characters can run them, making them the best way to make money. [*]Start by talking to Officer Cofy and doing all her client orders, then from there start messing around and have fun! [/list] Now, here are my personal opinions about this game. I like to describe this game as something like Monster Hunter with Devil May Cry combat. As a free to play MMO, people will approach this with caution. But I'll let you know, this game is very free to play, you can play as well as you desire without paying a single cent. The pay for stuff is mostly for cosmetics and conveniences, to make you in-game money faster through real life money means. But if you know your way around the game, you never have to do this. Starting out, the game is great! People don't really like to call this an MMO since most quests are only done with up to 12 players in a quest, but who cares. The combat is really fun, the random stuff that occur while going through maps is an experience. Then when emergency quests happen and multiparty bosses appear, those are really fun too! Upgrading gear can be kind of confusing, but isn't hard to do once you talk to others or do your research. It used to be a very frustrating RNG process but not so much anymore. The only downside is that when you reach endgame, there's sometimes not much to do other than wait for emergency quests to happen and go through your daily CD's (which usually doesn't take too long). Also emergency quests that do not have an objective can be pretty stale, since it's mostly just running around in the circle on a map and one shotting any boss that spawns. A problem can be that bosses aren't all that fun to fight with too many players, since they flinch until dead. But this is mostly fixed later on when harder difficulties are unlocked. Either way though, games combat is too fun to easily put down. The game is a beautiful anime game, and customizing your character is really great! If you want to make your perfect waifu or mimic a favorite character from a series, it's likely you'll be able to do so in this game. Also, being able to make mech's as well will make the mecha lads pretty happy! There's talk of censorship but I don't see it. I still have my sexy bikini's, I still can make a character with the fattest and finest tits and ass. When there's cosmetics that pretty much reveals almost all of your characters body, I don't see where the problem is. tl;dr - Games has really fun combat, true to the term "free to play", character customization is great, nice to hang out in, recommend to any of my fellow dumb weebs [spoiler] Oh and go to Ship 1 :^) [/spoiler]