Part 22: Interim Report: Our Party Members

Interim Report: Our Party Members

Today in a very special edition of Let’s Play Atelier Iris 2, I’m going to talk about our five party members, what sorts of things they actually do, and how best we can use them. I don’t usually talk much about gameplay in updates, but I do want to go into it a bit so here goes.

Felt:
Our party’s leader, Felt is a very balanced character with so many uses we’d be crazy to leave him out.
Role: Felt is able to slug it out with physical attacks while supporting the party with Mana Synthesis. His Magic stat isn’t amazing which limits his ability to really make use of offensive Mana Items, but at least it doesn’t take any skill gauge to use them.
Skills: Felt has three main skill families, the Strikes, Edges, and Waves. Strikes are single target hits for decent damage with a moderate delay on Felt’s next action. Edges are also single target and do more damage for more delay on Felt’s next action. Waves hit a group of enemies for decent damage, but aren’t worth using on single enemies obviously. Felt also gets some buff skills from his last few weapons, they’re decent but a long way away. Mana Synthesis sort of also counts here, and is why we want to keep Felt around no matter what really.
Offensive Power: Good
Defensive Power: Good
Magic Power: Okay
Utility: Great
Overall Evaluation: Great

Noin:
Noin is the first character we met, and unfortunately she’s also one of our less useful party members.
Role: Noin is fast and has a very good Critical Hit rate, so she’s going to be best used to dish out damage on the enemy. Felt is a better healer with Mana Synthesis once you get the first group healing item, so just save her for hitting with regular attacks or her skills.
Skills: Noin also has three main skill families, the Blasts, Combos, and Heals. Blasts are multi-target magical attacks. They’re stronger than Felt’s Waves, so if it’s one or the other use Blasts. Combos are decent single target attacks, and the Heals restore health for the entire party reasonably well but again are outclassed about halfway through the game by Mana Items. She’s also got some decent self-buffs from her highest level weapons.
Offensive Power: Okay
Defensive Power: Okay
Magic Power: Okay
Utility: Okay
Overall Evaluation: Okay

Gray:
Gray is by far the toughest character we’ve got, and he’s second to none for dishing out massive hits.
Role: Gray is a tank in every sense, he’s hard to kill and he can smash anything to pieces with his best moves. He doesn’t have much in the way of support, he’s all about hitting.
Skills: Gray’s skill families are the Dragons, Blades, and Breaths. Dragons are brutal single target combos that can tear a Broken enemy down with ease. Blades are interesting single target hits that do more damage the more resistant something is to Dark attacks (i.e. they do more damage to ‘evil’ enemies). These are amazing against bosses, who tend to have such resistances. Breaths are area of effect elemental attacks, but aren’t very good overall. Gray also gets Taunt, which attracts enemy attacks, and a skill that can paralyze enemies.
Offensive Power: Good
Defensive Power: Great
Magic Power: Poor
Utility: Poor
Overall Evaluation: Good

Fee:
Fee is fast and all about hitting multiple times, which makes her incredible for building large combos.
Role: Fee is there to dish out powerful attacks on both single and multiple targets that do a lot of hits, giving us huge Combo counts at the end of the battle. She’s how we can level and learn skills quickly and efficiently.
Skills: Fee’s only real unified skill families are the Slicers and a single target attack we haven’t seen yet. Slicers are multi-target attacks, and the real amazing one is the final one, Endless Blade. This hits every enemy a huge amount of times, and allows us to build huge combos on anything we can build 3 skill gauge against. Her single target skills (which we won’t have access to for a bit yet) hit six times for a bunch of damage. Her other skills include a powerful Lightning attack, debuffs, an attack that does a bunch of damage but also hurts her, a powerful self buff, and even a revival skill.
Offensive Power: Good
Defensive Power: Poor
Magic Power: Good
Utility: Okay
Overall Evaluation: Good

Poe:
Poe has some decent skills but his stats suck for much of the game which limits his value.
Role: Poe is a glass cannon for most of the game, he can do massive damage with his skills but dies very easily. He also has a limited but strong healing ability.
Skills: Poe’s skill families are the Bullets, Dynamites, and Missiles. These are all pretty powerful attacks but I don’t use Poe enough to really comment on their best uses. Poe’s best skill in use is Refuel Shot, which he comes with. This is a group heal Time Effect and if you’re on a fight that is proving tough it can be a real help.
Offensive Power: Good
Defensive Power: Poor
Magic Power: Good
Utility: Okay
Overall Evaluation: Okay