Starting the Game

Before you do anything, first make sure that your computer can display text in Japanese software correctly, if it can't the game wont run.
Follow this link for instruction on how to set it to run Japanese programs. You only need to do part A, the game will run fine without doing the other parts.
http://home.comcast.net/~kagamix2/xp-compatible/japanese_setting.html

Once you done that, start the game with the shortcut and it'll start patching, once done hit the green play button.

After the game started type your name and password in the text boxes and click "entry".

Afterwards you will be presented with the server/channel selection screen, choose server 2, since most English players play there. The channel selection doesn't matter, you can change the channel your in while your in-game, but you wont be able to see people on other channels.

After this you will be presented with the character select screen, the following image translates the buttons:

At this point you would want to create a character, choose the 2nd option and you will be presented with the screen below:

Take note that there are 4 classes in the game, swordsman, mage, thief, and archer. Get high DEX if you're going to be an archer, high LUK and DEX for thief, INT for mage, and STR for swordsman.
Also make sure you press the name check button, clicking it is necessary to complete the character creation.
The clothes and weapons don't really matter as you can buy different ones in-game, however the eyes and hair color is much harder to change.