Am I a complete idiot, or is there some magic trick on how you are able to use skills in this game? You use skill points to unlock different forms of skills, but I cannot seem to access skills for any of my characters. Help me, please!

Well...You use skill points to unlock skills, then you have to put points into the skills to be able to use them. For instance, if you put a point into Healer to unlock Cure, you have to put a point into Cure to be able to actually use it.

I hope I understood your question. lol

You also have to have the right equipment to use certain skills. For example you can't use a sword skill with an axe and vise versa.

I know when I first started this game it was actually confusing.

When you buy a point in "healer" it says "Cure unlocked" this dosent mean you can use the skill cure yet, you need to put a point into it. so in your 'custom' screen, scroll down till you find 'cure' then put a point in that and you can use the skill this is the same for every other character type.

Heh... This game is notorious for playing around... 30 hours through, then restarting because your skills SUCK. It takes some practice and logic, but you can get it right on the first try... I kinda did... Just think about your needs, and what level you will need to be to get it, then devote all your points into getting it.