I had typed up lots of side-quest goodies for you here, but it was all out of place. It is now the foundation of the next and final page of this walkthrough. Go there if you want to learn all of the preparations which I would call "Necessary", or even "Required". By doing these preparations first, you will find a majority of the ultimate weapons as well as some gear that makes you damned near invincible, and the most powerful Erde Kaiser known to this date (it can kill the Boss of the game in 3 or so summons... can you say "overpowered"?)