I did a recent playthrough of this, and by the end of the game, I noticed that my speed was pure crap. I don't remember this happening to me before, so I was wondering. How does one even get speed in the first place?

Basically by running around. The more you run, the more your speed increases. Also, if you use wind magic I believe your speed increases faster than if you don't...

I knew about the running around, but the wind magic I didn't. I never use wind as my primary weapon. Kinda weird that they didn't include some sort of item that increases it.

But cool, thanks.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to figure out. It isn't as if they tell you anywhere. No problem.

So if you're doing a quick playthrough, I imagine your speed will be terrible. Do you know by how much wind magic increases speed?

No, I don't. Sorry. You could always do the old cheat and rubber band the joystick overnight.

Wind can boost speed AND mp gain- just focus on cutter 3 when attacking.

I'd say your agility can be almost twice as high by the end of the game using wind.. perhaps moreso if you don't use water, the HP-booster, which seems to.. "dampen" your other stats' gain, hyuck-hyuck... hyuck.. I'm done.

The reason I never used wind as my primary was because earth and water were just too essential to miss out on. Is there any benefit to using wind besides speed-gain? I never thought it was that strong or anything.

If earth and water are beginner's elements, wind and fire are the advanced player's elements.

You use the first two when you first start playing this, then you use the other two for a better challenge next time.

Although, wind also has some interesting abilities, not as solid as what water and earth offer, but can be just as effective at times with some luck involved. Wind's the strategic gambler/sniper's element.

restrict 2: can paralize multible enemies for several rounds, and is learned at level 16.

evade 2: agility is doubled. This can mean you hit more, and they hit less, effectively stealing and gaining rounds of attack for you, but only effective if it actually caused 2 or more hits/misses, which seems unlikely unless your agility is real low compared to the enemy's or vice-versa.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not so sure it has much of a chance to be worth using.

Ultimate wind: lets you keep your distance enough to completely avoid attacks while dealing decent group damage in larger groups, quite effectively letting you steal rounds.

Cyclone: another sniping spell, letting you deal good damage to smaller groups, stealing free rounds of attack.

Cutter3: six-hit attack is strongest single-target sniper, and makes a reliable finisher as a couple can miss and still deal enough damage to finish a target off.

Large cutter: when a group finally does make its way close enough to attack, this can hit multible enemies for a ton of damage, then finish off the last one with cutter3.

Earth has sniping abilities two, with roller 2 and rock shower being alternatives to cyclone and ultimate wind, making wind not so much of a unique element with it's sniping spells.

Wind is really just for extra challenge... and gambling.

Challenge levels:

1 water and earth

2 fire or wind with water or earth

3 fire and wind