Combat is real time, and requires reflexes if the player wishes to be successful.
To enter the combat arena, touch an enemy on the over world. Inside the arena, there will be a primary enemy and “botherers”. Only the primary enemy needs to be defeated for the battle to be considered a “win”. The botherers are there to impede your movement and to make the combat more challenging. They deal trivial damage and move at a very slow pace, they also are invincible.
To cause damage to the primary enemy, you must be a number of squares away from the enemy based on the range stat of the character in control, and be facing the enemy. Once those criteria are met, press the ‘a’ key to attack it. There are exceptions to these criteria. Here is a list of the ways in which you can attack depending on the characters.
Hayate – you must be facing the opponent, and be at least 2 spaces away to attack
Nagi – same as Hayate, the difference is in their attack power.
Maria – You must be facing the opponent, and be next to it to attack.
Sakuya – Same as Maria, to compensate for them not being able to attack unless they are next to the enemy, for Maria, she has a really fast cool-down rate, meaning you can attack in succession much faster than the other characters, as for Sakuya, her attack power is significantly higher than any of the other characters, her cool-down is also slightly faster than average.
Hina – You must be next to the enemy, or one space diagonally away from the enemy to attack it, there is no need to be facing it. She also moves faster than all the other characters.
Isumi – You must be EXACTLY 3 spaces away and facing the enemy to attack it. Her techs are powerful to compensate for the restrictions on her attack.
Ayumu – You must be at least 5 spaces away and facing the enemy to attack it. Every one of her normal attacks drains her SP, but also replenishes her HP. She also moves slower than all the other characters.
To change characters, hit ‘d’ at any time. There is a trivial 10 frame lag before the switch is done. You cannot switch to a character that has been knocked out. The character will automatically be skipped if he or she is knocked out when you press ‘d’. When a character is knocked out, a forced character change will happen. When all your characters are knocked out, there will be a Game Over.
To use an item, go into your menu, go under items and select the desired item to use. After you use the item, there will be a five second penalty before you can go into your menu again if it is during a battle. This is to prevent you from using many items in succession and to increase the challenge.
To use a tech, press ‘s’. Most techs have specifications of when they can be used. Test them out to find out their true potential. Most techs require SP to be used. If you are drained of SP, rest at an inn or use the Pineapple Pocky item to replenish it. For the most part, you must be a certain squares away from the enemy to use a tech. In using a tech, there is usually also some casting time before it is actually carried out, be careful when using them.
For the enemy to cause damage to your current character, whether it would be the “botherers” or the primary enemy, it must make contact with your character. The primary enemy can only cause damage to your current selected character, while a botherer damages your entire party upon impact. The challenge is to keep the enemy at a distance so that you can damage it, but not so close that it can damage you. Certain boss enemies have special attacks that can hurt you beyond the normal way of getting into contact with you. They all have some sort of criteria, usually spatially, before they can be used. Be wary of them and conquer your enemies!
