Part 3: Mechanics Update

Interlude: Mechanics Update

Rather than try to remember all of the battle mechanics I need to cover going forward, I'm just going to drop it all into a handy update for reference. This will cover combat, stats, strategy, and so on.



This is the menu, and let me just stop for a moment and gush about how much I love the design of the menu in the game. All the other Tales games have the standard JRPG menu, but here it looks like a paper journal that the party is keeping with them, which actually makes sense. In particular I love the party member photos, haphazardly taped onto the page.

At any rate, this is the main menu screen, that shows us our current party members, their status, and a few other things.

HP is hit points. Do I really need to explain that?

TP is technical points. Technical points are kind of like mana, but not really. Artes use TP, regardless of them being melee attacks or casting. It isn't a concern right now, but once we get good artes to chain together and combos become much longer, TP will drain fast and watching it is critical. You also gain back 1 TP for every regular hit you land, as well as a handful of TP back after every battle.

The graph next to the character's name is your Capacit Core Chart. We won't be introduced to this for a bit yet, but Capacity Cores let you buff certain stats for certain characters.



This the status screen, and one exist for every party member. The stats are pretty self explanitory Physical Attack and Physical Defense Boost your damage dealt with and resistance to normal attacks, respectively. Fonic Attack and Fonic Defense are the same, except for artes. Agility slightly increases movement speed in battle, and attack/casting speed. Another stat you can't see because I forgot to scroll down is Luck which as per usual gives you small bonuses to everything.

Pretty standard fare, but the newcomer here is Enhancement. Enhancement serves an interesting function in that there are a number of AD Skills you can only obtain by getting a certain amount of Enhancement. You get your first AD skill at 20 Enhancement, then a new one every 10 enhancement beyond that until you reach 200. The only way to gain enhancements is through Capacity Cores.

Also under name is Title. Titles don't mean as much as they do in Symphonia or Graces, but each one offers some form of unique bonus. For example, Luke's current title of Duke's Son heals him for 2% of max health for every 15 seconds he spends standing still in battle. Yes, that is as bad as it sounds. There are some great titles though, and also titles that don't provide effects but change the character's costume.



The Artes menu shows you your list of Artes, and how you've assigned them. It also allows you to set your control mode. Auto makes a unit completely controlled, while Semi-Auto puts the unit mostly under manual control, though blocking and some movement are done automatically. I actually hate Semi-Auto with a passion, but we can't turn it off... yet. The last control mode is Manual, which gives the player full control.



Tear's arte screen. Notice that the screen looks different when a character is in Auto, because artes don't need to be set for the computer.



The equip screen. Every character gets four equipment slots. Weapon for... weapons, Body for armor, Hand for gloves/gauntlets, and Other which lets you equip anything from helmets to capes to gems and rings.



The items menu, which is pretty self explanitory.



AD Skills. This just lists all the skills, what they do, and if they are an “active” skill (that is, one you can control) provides the inputs for doing so.



The Strategy menu is where it's at. In the top right corner is the Formation Map, which lets you set the formation of your party. Party members always start a battle in formation (with one exception, which we'll get to later) and all things being equal, will generally try to stay in formation if they can.

Below that you can set Commands. Sort of like a pared down version of Final Fantasy's gambit system, commands let you tell your party what to do in certain situations. With these options, Tear will prioritize casting Fonic Artes on the same enemy I'm attacking, and cares more about HP than TP. She also stops using artes after her TP falls below 50%, at which point she will start using physical attacks. OL refers to Over Limit, which is an AD skill nobody has learned yet. Over Limit puts the character into a temporary state where they are unstaggerable, and can perform special attacks if they have them.



The cooking menu, where you can set what recipe you're using, and who's cooking. We don't have any recipes or ingredients yet, however.

That pretty much covers the menu, so all that's left is to cover battles

Click here to watch an example battle.



One of the things I show off here is freerun, which Luke uses to juke out of the way of attacks and then circle around to the enemy's back. One of the more broken components of Free Run is that this is the first implementation of it in a Tales game, and the programmers weren't sure how to have the AI respond to it. A good tactic in harder difficulties is to get aggro, then just run in circles while the enemy just chases you around, eating damage from your other party members.



This the end battle screen. EXP is the experience gained from the fight. I'm using 2x exp, to cut down on my grinding times. Bonus is additional exp gained from performing good combos. Max Hit is your highest number of hits in a single combo for that battle. Gald is how much money you got off the corpses of your victims, and Time is how long it took you to kill them.

Grade is something different. Grade is awarded based on a variety of factors: battle time, combo length, damage dealt, artes used, and so on. If you do well, you'll get grade. If you do poorly (take lots of hits, use lots of items) you run the risk of actually losing grade! So what is it good for? After you've beaten the game once, Grade can be used to purchase New Game + bonuses. Some of them are stupid (Carry over total play time) some add new features to the game (increase max items you can carry), some make the game easier (more exp/gald/grade) and some are just broken (Carry over AD Skills, Artes).

My list of New Game+ Purchases:
2x Experience
2x Gald
+500 Initial HP
Carry 20 of each item.

All of these are really just for my benefit. Putting an LP together is already hard enough without me having to spend my precious time grinding out gald and levels or dying against bosses.

One thing I didn't take is 10x Experience, on account of it taking all challenge out of the game. It is hilarious though.