The game came out yesterday. If you're expecting something similar to Etrian Odyssey or Dark Spire then stop because it's pretty different (re: thirty times harder with a steeper learning curve and a dungeon that ****ing hates you). Rather than write up a review or something, I'm going to bring up some of the finer points of the game so new players won't be stuck in an endless cycle of trying to figure esoteric stuff out.
Character Creation - You can enroll up to 100 characters. There are multiple races and majors (classes) and some races have special abilities like levitation. Each race and their alignment determines their affinity with each other. A party with a high affinity gets along well and they get a boost in stats compared to a party that hates each other. The manual has charts for affinity so be sure to read it!
When you enroll a character, you get a randomized number of bonus points from 6-40 with 40 being the max (you also get a degree, which is basically an ingame achievement, for creating a 40 point character). 20 points is the minimum to get a human to apply for any major so don't settle for bonus points less than 20. The majors with low requirements (like warrior) level up faster whereas the majors with high requirements (like valkyrie) take the longest.
Learning Spells- A 1st level character randomly learns the maximum amount of spells for their chosen major. Spells are randomized at 1st level; if you don't like your spell layout then roll up a new character. Every time you gain a level, your character may learn a new spell. If they already know the maximum spells per level for their class then you'll have to forget a spell before they'll learn a new one. The only way to learn spells outside your major is to change majors.
Changing Majors- Changing majors is essentially cross-classing. A character reverts to level 1 in their new major and their hp is halved but they retain all of their learned skills, spells, and attributes. Be aware that you'll forget spells up to the new class' maximum.
For example, a warrior can only have a maximum of 1 spell per type. If you take a wizard to the warrior major then you'll forget every spell except for one (which is choosen at random). If you changed back to wizard, you'll acquire a fresh set of spells.
Items- All items found in dungeons need to be identified before use. To identify an item, you either have to pay a fee at the campus store or you need a cleric or alchemist major. Be warned that if a cleric or alchemist fail, there's a chance they'll be "intimidated" and refuse to perform any actions (including fighting) for several turns. Turns are represented by moving one square in a dungeon so identifying items when you're weak in a dungeon can be dangerous.
Gold is shared equally among your party. You can pool your goal to one character and split it again without penalty. If you receive gold in battle, it's actually the gold each character acquires. For example, acquiring six gold in battle when you have six characters means you actually receive a total of 36 gold.
Resting and Healing- Resting restores
spell slots and it's free. Healing costs 100gp. Needless to say, simple hp damage can be freely healed by resting a white magic caster and using heal on wounded members.
Alchemy- Alchemy is used to create and upgrade equipment. It can be done for a fee at the laboratory or by an alchemist. The stronger your alchemist, the higher items they can create. Failing with an alchemist incurs no penalty.
"Junk" found in dungeons can be identified as useful items for creating new equipment so don't toss it. To learn new recipes, you either have to experiment or purchase recipe books from the campus store. Upgrading an item grants it a bonus distinguished by a positive number. A Longsword +3 is better than a Longsword +2. A
Some items are restricted by race, alignment, and class and some are cursed. There's no way to tell if an item is cursed until you actually equip it. Items forged by yourself or purchased at the store are never cursed.
To change your alignment, visit the principle. Your final alignment is determined randomly which may decrease your party's affinity.
Dungeon Exploration- When you enter a dungeon, you randomly enter from either the right side, left side, or inner sanctum (also called center in game). Each side has its own unique floors that are interconnected to each other. Each map is 19x19 tiles and they wrap around meaning walking left on x1 will bring you to x19.
The game uses an automap. To display the map you have to either have the sight spell (black magic) or purchase the map for that area. You can only see one square ahead of you under normal conditions. Casting light or having a light emitting object lets you see further.
Each floor has an exit, a magic orb that warps you to the surface, and a gate which can only be opened when you find the magic key on that floor. Some tiles have special effects such as electrified floors, warps, sliding tiles, and tiles that turn and disorient you. Some rooms carry certain effects like magic sealing and encounter increasing. Furthermore, there are special icons like automatic battles. Avoiding a hazardous tile can only be done by having a party of all levitators (erdgeists and celestians only) or by casting a spell. Levitators can move over any tile including water.
Battles- Battles are random inside the dungeons. You can fight up to 18 enemies spread out over 3 rows. Short range weapons can only hit front row enemies, medium weapons can hit enemies in the 2nd row when the 3rd row is also present, weapons with long range can hit enemies in the 2nd row regardless, and weapons with longest range can hit all enemies.
Characters can attack, defend, cast spells, use items, run, and gambits. Gambits use up a tension gauge which is increased by killing monsters and completing quests. The gambits do things like attacking all enemies, focusing on a single enemy, escaping without failure, and other things. They're also the only thing that raises your party's affinity. Defending increases your dodge which is influenced by agility; defense only reduces the damage you'd otherwise receive.
Most monsters drop unidentified equipment and rarely do they drop money. If a treasure chest is dropped, you have a chance to check it for traps. Thieves can check for traps and so can ninja/kunoichi and rangers to a lower extent than thieves. Luck has the highest effect on thievery; the higher your luck, the higher chance your thief can pick a lock or disarm a trap.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Once you understand these basic concepts you can truly begin to enjoy the game. Hopefully I've saved you 3 hours of experimentation :P
Recommended Starting Party
Warrior
Thief
Cleric
Paladin/Monk
Wizard
Psychicer
The warrior can be replaced with a samurai or valkyrie but they require TWICE the experience to level up. The cleric is better than the devout at early levels because of their appraise ability but at level 7 devouts learn to restore mp. A good recommendation is to take a cleric to level 4 then change majors to devout. A paladin has higher defense and better damage potential than a monk but monks (especially a felpiar monk) have ridiculous evasion and accuracy. Basically, it boils down to a character that takes damage and dishes damage over a character that avoids damage and hits more often. A wizard may begin with sleepum which puts a group of monsters to sleep and is a god send (sprite wizards also have ridiculous evasion). A psychicher is kind of a throwaway character and can easily be replaced with another caster or ranged fighter but they receive vanish which lets you instantly escape from battles. Considering this game will mob even level 1 characters with 15 monsters at a time and escaping seems to only work 50% of the time (and escape is determined by the AVERAGE of your party's agility), vanish will save you tons of hassle. Thieves are, well, thieves and probably the most useful party in the game considering they're the best at what they do. Equip your thief with a ranged weapon and keep them out of the front lines although halfling thieves have a super high evasion and accuracy.
When you reach the point where you can summon monsters, replace your psychicher with an evoker. It might also be useful to train an alchemist to save money from using the laboratory. Ultimately, all of the classes are useful so don't be afraid to create multiple teams designed to do specific things.
Character Creation - You can enroll up to 100 characters. There are multiple races and majors (classes) and some races have special abilities like levitation. Each race and their alignment determines their affinity with each other. A party with a high affinity gets along well and they get a boost in stats compared to a party that hates each other. The manual has charts for affinity so be sure to read it!
When you enroll a character, you get a randomized number of bonus points from 6-40 with 40 being the max (you also get a degree, which is basically an ingame achievement, for creating a 40 point character). 20 points is the minimum to get a human to apply for any major so don't settle for bonus points less than 20. The majors with low requirements (like warrior) level up faster whereas the majors with high requirements (like valkyrie) take the longest.
Learning Spells- A 1st level character randomly learns the maximum amount of spells for their chosen major. Spells are randomized at 1st level; if you don't like your spell layout then roll up a new character. Every time you gain a level, your character may learn a new spell. If they already know the maximum spells per level for their class then you'll have to forget a spell before they'll learn a new one. The only way to learn spells outside your major is to change majors.
Changing Majors- Changing majors is essentially cross-classing. A character reverts to level 1 in their new major and their hp is halved but they retain all of their learned skills, spells, and attributes. Be aware that you'll forget spells up to the new class' maximum.
For example, a warrior can only have a maximum of 1 spell per type. If you take a wizard to the warrior major then you'll forget every spell except for one (which is choosen at random). If you changed back to wizard, you'll acquire a fresh set of spells.
Items- All items found in dungeons need to be identified before use. To identify an item, you either have to pay a fee at the campus store or you need a cleric or alchemist major. Be warned that if a cleric or alchemist fail, there's a chance they'll be "intimidated" and refuse to perform any actions (including fighting) for several turns. Turns are represented by moving one square in a dungeon so identifying items when you're weak in a dungeon can be dangerous.
Gold is shared equally among your party. You can pool your goal to one character and split it again without penalty. If you receive gold in battle, it's actually the gold each character acquires. For example, acquiring six gold in battle when you have six characters means you actually receive a total of 36 gold.
Resting and Healing- Resting restores
spell slots and it's free. Healing costs 100gp. Needless to say, simple hp damage can be freely healed by resting a white magic caster and using heal on wounded members.
Alchemy- Alchemy is used to create and upgrade equipment. It can be done for a fee at the laboratory or by an alchemist. The stronger your alchemist, the higher items they can create. Failing with an alchemist incurs no penalty.
"Junk" found in dungeons can be identified as useful items for creating new equipment so don't toss it. To learn new recipes, you either have to experiment or purchase recipe books from the campus store. Upgrading an item grants it a bonus distinguished by a positive number. A Longsword +3 is better than a Longsword +2. A
Some items are restricted by race, alignment, and class and some are cursed. There's no way to tell if an item is cursed until you actually equip it. Items forged by yourself or purchased at the store are never cursed.
To change your alignment, visit the principle. Your final alignment is determined randomly which may decrease your party's affinity.
Dungeon Exploration- When you enter a dungeon, you randomly enter from either the right side, left side, or inner sanctum (also called center in game). Each side has its own unique floors that are interconnected to each other. Each map is 19x19 tiles and they wrap around meaning walking left on x1 will bring you to x19.
The game uses an automap. To display the map you have to either have the sight spell (black magic) or purchase the map for that area. You can only see one square ahead of you under normal conditions. Casting light or having a light emitting object lets you see further.
Each floor has an exit, a magic orb that warps you to the surface, and a gate which can only be opened when you find the magic key on that floor. Some tiles have special effects such as electrified floors, warps, sliding tiles, and tiles that turn and disorient you. Some rooms carry certain effects like magic sealing and encounter increasing. Furthermore, there are special icons like automatic battles. Avoiding a hazardous tile can only be done by having a party of all levitators (erdgeists and celestians only) or by casting a spell. Levitators can move over any tile including water.
Battles- Battles are random inside the dungeons. You can fight up to 18 enemies spread out over 3 rows. Short range weapons can only hit front row enemies, medium weapons can hit enemies in the 2nd row when the 3rd row is also present, weapons with long range can hit enemies in the 2nd row regardless, and weapons with longest range can hit all enemies.
Characters can attack, defend, cast spells, use items, run, and gambits. Gambits use up a tension gauge which is increased by killing monsters and completing quests. The gambits do things like attacking all enemies, focusing on a single enemy, escaping without failure, and other things. They're also the only thing that raises your party's affinity. Defending increases your dodge which is influenced by agility; defense only reduces the damage you'd otherwise receive.
Most monsters drop unidentified equipment and rarely do they drop money. If a treasure chest is dropped, you have a chance to check it for traps. Thieves can check for traps and so can ninja/kunoichi and rangers to a lower extent than thieves. Luck has the highest effect on thievery; the higher your luck, the higher chance your thief can pick a lock or disarm a trap.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Once you understand these basic concepts you can truly begin to enjoy the game. Hopefully I've saved you 3 hours of experimentation :P
Recommended Starting Party
Warrior
Thief
Cleric
Paladin/Monk
Wizard
Psychicer
The warrior can be replaced with a samurai or valkyrie but they require TWICE the experience to level up. The cleric is better than the devout at early levels because of their appraise ability but at level 7 devouts learn to restore mp. A good recommendation is to take a cleric to level 4 then change majors to devout. A paladin has higher defense and better damage potential than a monk but monks (especially a felpiar monk) have ridiculous evasion and accuracy. Basically, it boils down to a character that takes damage and dishes damage over a character that avoids damage and hits more often. A wizard may begin with sleepum which puts a group of monsters to sleep and is a god send (sprite wizards also have ridiculous evasion). A psychicher is kind of a throwaway character and can easily be replaced with another caster or ranged fighter but they receive vanish which lets you instantly escape from battles. Considering this game will mob even level 1 characters with 15 monsters at a time and escaping seems to only work 50% of the time (and escape is determined by the AVERAGE of your party's agility), vanish will save you tons of hassle. Thieves are, well, thieves and probably the most useful party in the game considering they're the best at what they do. Equip your thief with a ranged weapon and keep them out of the front lines although halfling thieves have a super high evasion and accuracy.
When you reach the point where you can summon monsters, replace your psychicher with an evoker. It might also be useful to train an alchemist to save money from using the laboratory. Ultimately, all of the classes are useful so don't be afraid to create multiple teams designed to do specific things.
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