Last time, the party had finally gotten to battling, but the damn guard still wasn't satisfied.
I think this time I'll talk about the menu.
"Why isn't this a supplemental," you ask? Supplementals are just things I want to explain that wouldn't have much of an impact on gameplay anyways. The menu, though, has a big impact on gameplay, so it gets its own update.
Press Y when not in battle to open the menu. You see 7 options:
- Items
- Skills
- Status
- Equip
- Custom
- Party
- Book
Items takes you to your item bag. All of the Etrian Odyssey games give you a bag with only 60 slots, but EO3 differs in that it has a separate (and bottomless) pocket for key items, meaning half of your loot space won't be taken up by crap you can't get rid of halfway through the game. From here, you can use your consumable items, as well as discard unneeded loot to make room for better stuff.
Skills opens a list of the character's skills. Ours is empty right now, because we don't have skills yet.
Status lets you see a character's stats, limit gauge, and how much exp they need to gain a level.
Equip is where you go to switch characters' equipments.
Custom is a menu you'd better get used to seeing. A lot.
Party allows you to reorganize your party's formation. Unlike the "Formation" option at the guild, you can only reorder members of your active party.
Book is where you view active and completed quests and missions. We haven't gotten to quests yet, and there's nothing under completed missions because the guard is a jerkbag.
...Let's talk skills.
>>Custom
Okay, selecting Custom opens a smaller list, "Skill" and "Limit". Let's go to "Skill" first, using Axel as an example.
>>Skill > Axel
Here is Axel's tech tree. In order to obtain skills, you have to buy them in the Custom menu using SP, or Skill Points. Normally, you gain 1 SP per level gained, but recall that I have a cheat active that multiplies gained SP by 4, so all of my characters have 11 SP currently (3 to start + 4 x 2 levels)
Right now, Axel only has five skills available: Endless Battle, Sword Mastery, Club Mastery, Berserker Vow, and Wolf Howl. As you purchase and level skills in the skill tree, new ones open up when the conditions are met. Some of them are simple, like the Gladiator's Break, which requires a Sword Mastery level of at least 1, but the Monk's Ressurrect requires both Refresh and Unbind at level 2, both of which require Healing level 2 to be unlocked.
In addition, all classes have Common Skills, which are basic abilities shared by all characters. Class abilities tend to be more of a priority than Common Skills, though.
...So let's buy some skills.
Axel
- Sword Mastery 4 (Required for sword skills, and increases sword damage)
- Avenger 3 (Recover HP when an ally falls)
- Break 1 (Strong Cut damage to one enemy)
- Rush 1 (Cut damage on random enemies)
- Berserker Vow 1 (Sacrifice HP to boost ATK)
- Wolf Howl 1 (Lower all enemies' DEF)
Gabe
- Rapier Mastery 5 (Required for Rapier skills, and increases rapier damage)
- Lights Out 1 (Damage to an enemy with chance to blind)
- Chase Saber 1 (Follows ally cutting attacks with normal attack)
- Chase Thrust 1 (Follows ally thrust attacks with normal attack)
- Chase Blow 1 (Follows ally blunt attacks with normal attack)
- Eagle Eye 1 (Lowers one enemy's defense)
- Trouble Maker 1 (Increase encounter rate temporarily)
Ranko
- Fist Mastery 1 (Increase unarmed damage, required for fist skills)
- Waking Chakra 2 (Increases own natural recovery rate from status ailments)
- Healing 2 (Restore HP to one ally)
- Refresh 2 (Remove status ailments from one ally)
- Unbind 2 (Remove bind from one ally)
- Resurrect 1 (Revive a fallen ally)
- Kikouken 1 (Blunt damage with chance to paralyze)
Ere
- Bolt Mastery 5 (Increase crossbow damage, required for crossbow skills)
- Heavy Shot 1 (Strong thrust damage to one enemy)
- Snipe 1 (Attacks all enemies with status ailments at end of turn)
- Sharpshooter 1 (Attacks all bound enemies at end of turn)
- Fire Barrage 1 (Inflicts fire-elemental thrust damage on all enemies)
- Ice Barrage 1 (Inflicts ice-elemental thrust damage on all enemies)
- Volt Barrage 1 (inflicts volt-elemental thrust damage on all enemies)
Report
- Royal Veil 5 (all allies recover HP at end of turn if yours is maxed)
- Reinforce 1 (Prince's buffs also restore HP)
- Attack Order 1 (temporarily increase a row's attack power)
- Guard Order 1 (temporarily increase a row's defense)
- Fire Arms 1 (enchant an ally's weapon for fire damage)
- Freeze Arms 1 (enchant an ally's weapon for ice damage)
- Shock Arms 1 (enchant an ally's weapon for volt damage)
Compared to EO, Resurrect is a lot easier to get here.
Okay, now on to Limits.
Replacing the crap-ass Force Skills from the previous game (which themselves replaced the totally awesome Boost from the first) are the Limit Skills. As a character takes and deals damage in battle, their Limit Gauge slowly fills. When full, the character can activate their equipped limit.
To equip a Limit Skill, go Custom > Limit
All of the Limit have a requirement to the number of characters that the skill must be equipped to in order to use. Right now we have three: Cross Slash, Indomitable, and Charge Tactic. Cross Slash and Charge Tactic require two people, while Indomitable requires only one. For now, I set the Ehts to Cross Slash, and Ere and Report to Charge Tactic, while Ranko gets Indomitable.
Limit Skills are found at the bottom of a character's skill list when in battle, when the conditions are met, and always activate at the beginning of the action phase. In addition, they themselves don't take up turns, so for example, Report can use Charge Tactic and buff the front line with Guard Order in the same turn.
Now that I have some skills, let's try them. Normally skills cost Technical Points, but I cheated to make them free.
Hm...Axel, Gabe, and Report are injured. I'll have Ranko heal them.
>>Skills > Ranko > Healing > Axel, Gabe, Report
Now let's try 'em in battle.
More Fanged fish...oh well, they'll do.
Hm...Report will buff the front row with Attack Order while Gabe hits the left fish with Eagle Eye. Axel will use Break on the right fish and Ere hits the left one with Heavy Shot, while Ranko stands there and looks like Ranma.
>>Skills > Break > (Right) Fanged Fish
>>Skills > Eagle Eye > (Left) Fanged Fish
>>Defend
>>Skills > Heavy Shot > (Left) Fanged Fish
>>Skills > Attack Order > (Front Row)
...
Success! The fish go down instantly. Well, they would have done that from regular attacks as well, but...meh.
Before I wrap up this update, let's go talk to that guard one more time.
Guard: The map's still not done yet.
Grrr....
Next time: More disappointment on my end!
