YMMV / Sacred Earth - Promise

• Game-Breaker:
  • Relima's Inspire skill fills up everyone's EX by 10, and while it has a long cooldown time, it can be significantly reduced by having Relima use EX Recover as much as possible. This makes it easy for characters to dish out EX Arts on the first round of combat, making quick work of random mobs.
  • The Boost mechanic gives the party a buff at the start of battle while healing their LP and EP, all for 10 TP. This effect is far more powerful than the effects of bonus nodes, making it preferable to choose to gain TP at these nodes rather than the bonus effect. The only catch to the Boost mechanic is that it's only usable on normal encounters.
  • The stackability of Freeze, Blind, and defensive debuffs can help the player maximize their damage output. With the right setup, it's possible to deal over 18k damage to the Final Boss on Nightmare.
• Scrappy Mechanic: While the game is beatable on all difficulties, there is no way to display the current status effects of the enemies, making it harder to read the flow of battle and make informed decisions.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: This game is generally much easier than Sacred Earth - Memory and Sacred Earth - Bonds, even on the highest difficulty.
  • Support Ether Arts don't use up a turn, but they still increase EX.
  • In Memory, skill and stats have to be allocated through player choice. In this game, all base stat gain and skill gain is predetermined, with the customization being handled by the Ether Gem system. This functions like equipment rather than permanent skill or stat allocation.
  • The Boost mechanic heals the party and buffs their stats for the next encounter, making it easier to overcome the difficulty jump of new dungeon.
  • EX Heal no longer has to be chained from another action and is instead a turnless action, making it combinable with Focus to increase the party's survivability.
  • EX Arts require 25 EX, which can be reached very quickly depending on the player's actions. In contrast, Bursts in Bonds and Memory require three BP, and you can only get 1 BP per normal attack or strike chain. This means the player can reach their EX Arts much faster.
  • Limit Breaks in Promise require four uses of EX Arts, but require ten Outbursts in Bonds. Memory requires specific party members to have certain Command skills active before their combined Limit Break can be used.
• That One Puzzle: The music puzzles in Filbumvetir Forest are usually merciful enough to provide color cues in case the player can't differentiate the music notes, but the optional flowerless gate has a less obvious solution than the mandatory gates. Worse yet, last puzzle in the forest's hidden looping room has no color cues. While the flowerless gate and looping room are optional, they're still required for the true ending. This is somewhat fixed by an update that adds color cues to the looping room.
• Useless Useful Spell: Priel has the Tremor spell, which inflicts Hamper on an enemy. The status ailment lowers the target's speed, but also raises their defense, which actually works against Priel's playstyle because she's mainly a physical attacker. Tremor/Hamper become obsolete once Relima joins the party, since she can just inflict a standard speed debuff without increasing the enemy's defense.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Balcruade and Zuleika are far more difficult than the Beholder boss, since they can easily exploit your characters' elemental weaknesses. The battle serves to teach the player how to do the same to them, as well as how to use auras to cover elemental weaknesses.