Part 4: Mechanics Sperging 1
About Mechanics, part one.As promised, here is the part where I explain what those numbers on the status screen do and how to make them go up.
First, let's take a look at the basic status screen.
Here, you can see some of the basic, important stats: Hit Points, Special Points, and our three levels of Magic Points.
Hit Points, if you've never played D&D, Final Fantasy, or basically any RPG ever, are your health. When these hit 0, the character is out of combat until they get revived. They can be restored by certain items, skills, and spells.
Special Points are more akin to TP from the Tales series. SP are consumed to use skills. They are restored by some rare items, but most often by hitting enemies with normal attacks.
Magic Points, again, are pretty much the same thing as MP in Final Fantasy, except Grandia gives you three "levels" of it. MP is used to cast spells, with the level of spell determining which pool of MP it uses. MP is usually restored by items.
All of these points are restored to full when selecting the "recover" option from a save point.
Now, let's go over to the Status section of the menu.
Here we can see many more numbers. Let's start with the top and work our way down.
Gold is, unsurprisingly, the amount of money you can spend on items and gear. Found laying around in dungeons or dropped by monsters. Not much else to say here.
The numbers in the box with Justin's portrait are a bit more interesting.
STR, as usual for these types of games, affects how much damage you do to enemies.
VIT, conversely, reduces damage taken.
WIT is more akin to speed in other games. The higher your WIT, the more often your turn comes up.
AGI is how far and fast you move around the battlefield.
And finally, "level" there increases when you kill monsters. Each level causes the other four stats, as well as HP, to increase.
To the right of that, in the box with our equipment, you'll notice four more stats on the bottom: ATK, DEF, ACT, and MOV. Each of these four stats is equal to one of the base stats (STR, VIT, etc.) plus whatever bonuses you get from equipment.
ATK is short for, surprise, attack. It's base stat is Strength, and, as such, determines how much damage you do when you hit an enemy.
DEF,or defense, is VIT-based and reduces incoming damage.
ACT is usually just equal to WIT, but, in Justin's case, the Hero Badge he has equipped is adding a +2. It determines how quickly your turn comes up, and is thus pretty much the most important of the four.
And finally MOV is
The lower-left window has already been covered, except for EXP. You get it by killing things. When the Total EXP exceeds the "Next" value, your level goes up and the "Next" value jumps up to a higher number. None of this should be surprising.
The lower-right window, though, is what this game is most well-known for. You'll see three different icons, each at level 1 with 0 exp. These icons represent swords, maces, and axes, and are the three weapon types that Justin can equip. Each time you attack an enemy or cast a spell, you gain exp for the weapon or element(s) used. Once you gain 100 EXP in a weapon or element, its level increases by one. Weaker enemies provide less and less EXP as your levels go up, to discourage grinding.
So far, that sounds almost exactly like Final Fantasy 2. But if we head over to the "Moves" screen, we can start to look at the differences, as well as exactly why "goons voting on weapon use" is a challenge.
Here, we have a list of Justin's skills. We start out with one, V-Slash, but the rest are just question marks, with icons and numbers next to them. These icons represent what levels our various weapons must be at to learn these skills.
For instance, once Justin hits level 6 in swords and 4 in maces, he'll learn the next technique on that list.
The last one, though, has the level requirements as question marks, too. That just means that we have to hit a certain point in the plot to unlock the ability to learn it. Not that it matters; the few techniques that have this double-unlock usually hit their plot-unlock well before you have the levels to learn it.
In addition, look at the window on the lower left.
It shows our current weapon levels, as well as telling us which stats increase when each one levels up.
All weapons grant +1 SP per level. All of them. But they also all have more unique, specialized gains.
Swords, for example, increase strength by 1 and wit by 2. This means that every sword level gained makes you hit harder, and hit more often. Swords are the only weapon not to boost HP, but they make up for it by raising really the only two stats you'll need.
Maces, on the other hand, increase HP by 2 and vitality by 1, making maces great if you need to boost your survivability.
Axes boost HP by 1 and strength by 2. THORG AM USE AXE! THORG SMASH!
Sue, meanwhile, only gets access to maces and bows. Bows, interstingly, share the same stat growths as axes, meaning we can turn Sue into a little shitwrecker without even changing her default weapon.
For completeion's sake, and because they're all listed in the manual, the other weapons and their growths are:
Dagger: HP+1, AGI +2. Makes you run faster!
Whip: HP+1, Wit +2. Get more turns in!
... and that's all of them.
Magic, once we get some, is similar, only each element gives +2 MP, randomly distributed among the three levels. Well, not quite random; Level 1 is the most licely to get a point, while 3 is the least, but you get the idea. In addition to the +2 MP, each element grants a +1 to another stat.
Fire boosts Wit.
Wind boosts Agility.
Water boosts HP.
And Earth boosts strength.
While this system is pretty well-balanced and customizable, it's easy to see how a character who, for example, can't equip maces, would be limited in their options for survivng. Fortunately, that's pretty ra- What's that? Half of the characters can't use maces?
... Shit.
Well, while we're here, let's look at the rest of the menu options.
The items option allows us to see, use, and trade items. Each character has their own inventory with twelve slots, and, as you can see, this fills up very quickly.
Thankfully, equipped items are not counted against this limit.
The three options are use, which lets us make use of a consumable item, give which allows us to move items between party members, and discard, which tosses an item.
Key items, such as the Four Treasures, cannot be discarded.
The equip menu lets us change our equipment.
Change lets us equip items from the inventory...
... while trade lets characters swap equipped items between themselves.
The magic option allows you to cast certain spells out of battle, as well as look at the skills you have already learned. Fairly pointless right now, but it'll be getting more important as the game progresses.
And, with that out of the way, and with the first dungeon coming up...
Which weapons should I use?
Valid choices for Justin are Sword, axe, or mace, while Sue is limited to Maces or bows.