Silfade Gensoutan (2)

To begin, a short primer on the battle system:

In battle, the player may fight normally, launch an all-out attack, run away, or consult with their Totem. Fleeing offers generous odds and is possible even in event battles (but not when you're cornered, such as in the battle with the purple lizardman); your Totem offers an estimate of the enemy's strength (this doesn't use a turn); all-out attack simply has you use all your actions on basic attacks (essentially an autobattle function); and fighting normally opens the battle options proper.

From there one may use a basic attack, concentrate (required before activating Force powers), defend, use an item, or use a Force power or skill; once they have multiple actions, they can do any combination of these things, other resources permitting. One can, for example, spend one action defending and the rest attacking, cutting damage taken while still dishing out; or spam a bunch of different healing items; or use an attack-strengthening Force power followed by attacks. My usual combo against bosses is XXX (boosts ATK by 1.5) followed by Bash (consumes a bit of HP and reduces weapon disability twice as quickly, but does more damage—you likely recognize this one from One Way Heroics).

You may also choose to consume a point of WILL, greatly powering up all your actions for the turn (this doesn't consume an action itself). The effect is dramatic, but WILL is only restored upon day rollover or death, so it's a bit scarce. Contrast Silfade's system, where the player has a large pool of WILL and regains some each turn, individually allotting any number of points (up to a cap) to each attack performed and defended from.

This is a round-based system, not pure I-GO-U-GO: enemies can act before you do, and your actions aren't even guaranteed to happen all in a row. Defending, therefore, has value even if you can wipe the enemies in one turn, though I'm too aggressive to actually do it much of the time.

After battle, your stats gain EXP (the weaker you are relative to the opponent, the more they get) and possibly level up. EXP requirements vary by stat and Totem: my Totem, Crow, has excellent physical stats but atrocious magical ones. I can't tell if actions in battle affect which stats go up; I seem to gain Intellect experience even in battles where I never cast a spell (which is most of them). You also gain a small amount of S.EXP (cue laugh track), a pool of bonus experience which can be allocated to stats or spent to learn skills (including permanent boosts to action count!). Dying not only awards experience but seems to award twice as much as winning would've.

I won the battle against the lizard army by spamming WILL-boosted basic attacks that could take them out in a single hit, usually before they attacked me; this left me with enough LIFE to beat the surprisingly fragile purple lizard. She promised vengeance and ran off with the rest of the troops, leaving me to explore the fortress without intermittent attacks and moral choices. I found four things:

• Equipment hung up on the wall... that I had already bought from Sasho's shop
• A mysterious basement door I couldn't open :(
• A lizardman who had locked himself in the storeroom (lol) and been left inside; I unlocked the door and graciously fled the battle when he tried to kill me 
• A jail.

The jail held none other than Mr. Flashback himself, the totem-wielding hero Aegis who had departed to slay the Dark Lord, who had apparently been captured and poisoned. Talking to him lets you automatically escort him to the hospital in Riril, consuming an hour (more than walking there normally does, which makes sense). They couldn't treat him—although, the doctor suggested in bright yellow text, the poisoner might have the antidote...?

    

I say "bright yellow text" but you honestly have to look pretty closely to notice a difference.

After that I wandered the world doing a whole bunch of crap:

• Visiting a third town, Mu, which sells armbands (accessories)
• Beating up a bunch of spiders in a cave where Force doesn't work (imagine using Force) to snag the Key of Seals
• Buying a bunch of Mysterious Keys from a guy in a shack
• Opening up this weird temple built by Great Sage Sarim full of doors, sick chests, and nonlethal yet deadly mystery cubes (losing to them leaves you with 1 HP but the red ones sure make you lose

All the while, time passed—which matters to more than the deadline. A traveler seeking to circle the world sets up camp in a new place each day, and the girl with the sick brother continues to travel to the forest to gather herbs; both have new dialogue each day, and the world is small enough that I haven't missed a day with either yet.

There was a short event in some woods where I joined some soldiers in searching for a lost child. She turned out to be the smaller lizardman who had accompanied the purple one. The soldiers offered me 2,000 Silvers if I handed her over, but anyone offering you a bribe in a video game is evil, so I refused; an extremely easy fight ensued. Afterward, the purple lizard herself came, acknowledged me as a good human, and gave me her name, Seta, along with the antidote to the poison.

The last thing I did was go to a town where everything was closed because it was night. Kinda rude given that the other towns are open 24/7! I revenged myself upon them by burning four keys to steal a legendary suit of armor from their underground storage chamber.

Score!