Main menu

On the left part of the screen, you can check out your playtime (total / current session), the amount of Gald you have, as well as you acquired Lenses. By moving the cursor onto the character portraits, the PARTY menu is automatically opened. The sub-menus are detailed in the following points, going from left to right, top to bottom. (Meaning that the order is TECH, ITEM, FOOD, TACTICS, EQUIP, REFINE, PARTY, SAVE)

Controls:

Select: Open Customize (Options) menu.

O: Select

X: Cancel

TECH

Use it to set the techniques employed by your characters in battle. In the topmost part of the screen you'll see the currently selected skill and its description, CC cost, type (slashing, piercing, fire, water, etc. - a small wing indicates whether the skill can be used airborne), number of times used, and proficiency (basically, use your skills often to gain more proficiency in them, and add a few bonuses to it like more frequent hits or criticals). Below that is the control mode selection, which can be either auto, semi-auto, or manual. Finally, the remaining part of the screen shows your currently selected skills, either in the form of a list (in case of auto), or direction assignments (in case of semi-auto or manual). The small icon next to the skill's name indicates its category: a slashing sword for techs, a red, glowing sword is for infused techs, while the ball of energy is for magic spells. This also determines which stats factor into damage. Techs apply a multiplier equal to your attack divided by the enemy's defense, spells use magic attack and magic defense, and infused techs use the average value of physical and magic attack/defense values.

Controls:

Select: Change control mode

L1/R1: Change character

X: Cancel

- in auto mode:

[]: toggle skill (AI will not use skills that are turned off)

- in semi-auto/manual mode:

O: Select

/\: Remove skill from current slot

ITEM

As usual, you'll see the description on the top. Below that are the item categories, in order: newly acquired, generic (everything that does not fit the other categories), weapon, armor, accessory, jewel, food straps, key items, equipped. Note that you won't find the equipped items in the categories they'd normally belong to. Furthermore, you can access various encyclopaedias from the key items section - just use them normally to view their contents.

Controls:

O: Select/Use/Equip/Swordian Device

R3: Refine

X: Cancel

/\: Discard

[]: Change description page

L1/R1: Change category

FOOD

You can use this page to set the food straps you want equip. These will activate once some condition is fulfilled, and have some beneficial effect on your party (for instance, healing your team for 10% of their max HP if they have less than 80% at the end of a battle) You can check the effect of the selected food in the window at the top. Below that, you have the food sack on the left, showing your equipped straps, and the strap list on the right, listing all the straps for food recipes you have at your disposal.

Controls:

O: Exchange straps

X: Cancel

Left/Right: Change list

- with food sack selected:

/\: Remove

Select: Insert strap into selected position

TACTICS

You can select the tactics applied by the characters here. The tactical settings also determine the formation.

Controls:

O: Select

X: Cancel

EQUIP

You can change the equipment of your characters here. On the top you'll see the description of the currently selected piece of equipment. Below that are the items you're currently equipping: a weapon, armor, an accessory, and up to two jewels. What weapons and armor are good for is pretty obvious, though be sure you pay attention to their additional abilities as well, not just their stat boosts. If the current character is a Swordian Master, you won't be able to switch weapons, you'll be able to customize your Swordian Devices instead (more on that here). Accessories are usually character-specific, and give bonuses of that sort, too (additional techniques you can perform, for instance). On the other hand, the two jewels you can equip are completely interchangeable between characters. They are created from materials through refining them: their effect is the combination of the material's innate bonus, and a stat bonus determined by the color of the jewel. There's one color corresponding to each of your stats, which can be changed, if you wish, as you refine the jewel further. However, the main benefit of further refinement is the larger stat bonus (it goes from +10 to +73 in eight levels).

Controls:

O: Select/Swordian Device

X: Cancel

/\: Remove

L1/R1: Chance character

[]: Change description page

REFINE

The first part of this screen is basically identical to the ITEM menu, so I'll skip right to the important part: select an item (one that isn't grayed out) to see your options for refining it. On this screen, you'll be able to see the description of the item to be created at the top of the screen, and the stats it affects on the bottom left. On the bottom right part, the amount of Lens you need to create the item is listed (top line being the amount you have, bottom line showing the amount you need), and the required party level, if you're lower than that (first number showing the neccessary party level, the latter the remaining levels you need to gain to reach that). Try to pay attention not only to the stat boosts the item provides, but its special abilities as well, since sometimes high stats still aren't going to save you - while elemental resistances and similar things might.

Controls:

O: Select

X: Cancel

[]: Change description page

- on item selection screen:

L1/R1: Change category

PARTY

This is where you manage your party. The first screen of it is the main menu itself, letting you reorder party members, or select the one whose support talent you want to use. This support talent system is essentially a character-dependent bonus: Mary upgrades your jewels every so often, Rutee searches for treasure, etc. Once you select a character, you can view a screen showing detailed info about his/her statistics. On the top is a window showing the character's level, title, HP, amount of EXP needed for the next level, and CC. On the left below, a window with multiple pages. First one should be the stat circle, showing your primary (in the four cardinal directions) and secondary stat scores (diagonally between the primary stats). The eight stats are, going clockwise from the top are the following: Attack, Vitality, Defense, Evade, Magic Defense, Critical, Magic Attack, and Hit Rate. The next screen in this window gives a description of the character's support talent, the third one displays elemental/type properties (the attributes of your attacks on top, resistances below, and weaknesses at the bottom). The final screen is where you can view your titles and set the currently active one for the character.

Controls:

Select: Set as lead

/\: Change position

O: Select

X: Cancel

[]: Toggle support talent

- on character screen:

[]: Change description page

L1/R1: Change character

Select: Rename

/\: Change title (with title page selected)

SAVE

You can save your game to a temporary file anywhere, which is deleted after you load it once - essentially, suspend playing before you turn off the console, then resume it the next time you turn it back on. You can create 'proper' saves on save points or the world map. Not much else to be said here.

S. DEVICE

Short for Swordian Device, which you can use for improving the abilities of Swordian Masters. The rules are simple: each device (I'll sometimes refer to these as skills) costs a set amount of Device Points (DP) to equip. Once you equip one, you'll start learning it, and will be enjoying its effects in battle. After enough fights, you master a skill, and its DP cost will drop by 20%. A restriction in learning higher level skills is that you have to master the ones its based on. To find out which ones, check out the graphical representation of your skills and their progression on the left.

Controls:

O: Select

X: Cancel

L1/R1: Change character

Device list:

CUSTOMIZE

This is where you can customize various aspects of the game, such as video, sound, controls, difficulty, et cetera. The list of options is as follows:

• Message speed
• Auto-close message
• Difficulty
• Key customization
  • Attack
  • Tech
  • Defend
  • Menu
  • Blast Caliber
  • Target select
  • Tech shortcut 1
  • Tech shortcut 2
• Window position
• Rumble
• Movie subtitles
• Camera focus: target / party / enemies / all
• Horizontal camera movement: reverse / normal
• Vertical camera movement: reverse / normal
• Vehicle speed
• Stereo / mono
• Volume
  • Music
  • Sound effects
  • Battle voices
  • Event voices
  • Chat
  • Movie

Controls:

O: Select

X: Cancel

L1: Undo changes

R1: Restore default settings

- on volume adjustment screen:

O + Left/Right: Change volume

- on control customization screen:

Button: Change button mapping

Left: Back

Coming soon...

ENCYCLOPEDIA

A collection of your items, weapons, cutscenes, defeated enemies, visited towns, and various other things is available from these screens. They all follow the basic design of a list of items being shown on the left, and the details of the currently selected item being displayed on the right.

Controls:

L3/R3: Change book

X: Cancel

WORLD MAP

A list of locations you've visited (or are going to visit) is available on the left, a little icon showing whether there's a shop there or not. Just above this list is a small panel showing which category you have selected, towns or dungeons. The world map itself, and a description of the currently selected location is on the right. You can also view what goods the shops carry, where any are available.

Controls:

O: Open shop list

L1/R1: Change category

[]: Zoom map in/out

- while zoomed in:

Right analog: Move map

- in shop listing mode:

Left/Right: Change list

X: Return

[]: Change description page

MONSTER BOOK

This book contains information on every enemy you've fought. On the left is the list itself, with the sort order (by name or by level) and various stats being displayed above (completion rate, number of encounters, and longest combo, to be exact). A star next to the name of an enemy denotes that you've successfully perfomed a definite strike on the enemy. The details on the currently selected enemy are on the right side, organized into multiple pages. On the first page, you can see the enemy's name and type (human, flying, etc.) on the top, below that are the enemy's level, max HP, experience and Gald carried, dropped items along with drop rates (assuming you have actually gained said item from this enemy previously) and the amount and types of Lens gained after defeating this enemy. A picture and description of the currently selected monster is also available. On the second page, various stats are displayed. The top half shows, starting from the top and going clockwise, the attack, defense, magic defense and magic attack values of the enemy. Listed below are the resistances to the various elements, and on the bottom, weaknesses. The third and final page shows which character can perform a definite strike on the enemy, and what's the correct move combination to do it.

Controls:

[]: Change description page

L1/R1: Change sort order

FOOD LIST

Coming soon...

DISCOVERY LIST

The discovery points you've found can be viewed here. It also shows your completion rate.

COLLECTOR'S BOOK

The list of items you've collected is available here. As usual, list is on the left, with the category selection and completion rate for the currently selected category being displayed above, details for the current item are on the right. The categories, from left to right, are as follows: supplies (gummies, herbs, materials, etc.), weapons, armor, accessories, jewels, food straps, key items.

Controls:

[]: Change description page

L1/R1: Change category

STORY BOOK

A summary of the game's story is available here, broken up into chapters. The description of the events is on the right, accompanied by a picture.

Controls:

Left/Right: Change page

Note: I used 'refine' instead of 're-rise' or 'realize', since it sounds less Engrish-like. Feel free to provide a better alternative, though. ~pkt