Palace Basics - Navigation

Special Actions

There are certain spots in dungeons where you have to interact with something in order to proceed like jumping over obstacles, squeezing through holes, interacting with doors etc.

Safe Rooms

Safe rooms serve as save points and convenient quick-travel points. Consider it a priority to look for and use safe rooms whenever you find them. You can also escape to the escape room in case an enemy in the immediate area is chasing after you. While inside, you can also consult your teammates.

Quick Travel

You can quick travel between any safe rooms you have already accessed as well as the palace entrance. No resource is needed to quick travel so you can do this as much as you please.

Dashing

While exploring dungeons, you can dash by holding the R2 button as you move around. However, this is not stealthy and enemies will spot you more easily.

Attacking Enemies

When you’re ready to attack an enemy, approach it and press the X button as the red cursor appears when you’re in range. If you’re approaching from behind or from cover, the Ambush icon will appear instead. Make sure to use this often to maintain the edge in all encounters.

Auto Recover

You can recover the HP of the entire party by pressing the Square button. This feature uses your party’s healing Skills on all party members. However, the required SP will still be consumed so you can’t use this anymore if your party members with healing skills doesn’t have enough SP anymore.

Palace Map

Palaces are huge dungeons with several rooms, passages, and corridors. Thankfully, you’ll be able to find maps which will reveal the layout of the immediate areas, including the parts you haven’t visited yet. Palaces usually have several maps.

Acquiring maps usually require some puzzles to be solved. While getting them is not required for your progress in the palace, having it in your possession will prevent you from running blind during your infiltration.

Third Eye

This invaluable skill will give you the sight to spot hidden items that can be stolen (like from vases and urns) as well as points of interest like spots that you need to interact with to solve a puzzle or gain access to a new area. Make sure to use this often whenever you reach a new room or corridor since stealing treasures is the main source of earning money in the game.

This skill also highlights enemies in a color-coded glow, which pertains the enemy strength compared to your party’s average level. Red means the enemies are over-leveled, yellow means the enemies are at the right level, while green enemies are lower thus easier. Use it often, especially when exploring.

Security Level

Ambush is a preferred method for engaging enemies without increasing the Palace’s security level and starting the battle with an advantage. If the security level gets too high, you’ll be forced to leave the dungeon.

Ambushes also help lowering raised security levels. Sneak behind the guard ahead and press X to ambush it.

Later on, you’ll learn how to move from cover to cover and ambush enemies, even while they’re approaching, as long as you’re hidden. Use this maneuver every time to ensure that you have the upper hand at the start of the battle.

At 0% Security Level, enemies can be more easily ambushed, no matter where you attack from. This will help immensely in navigating palaces and keeping the advantage in battle.

Chain Encounters

If you engage an enemy while there's another shadow close to it, regardless if you ambushed it or attacked it up front, you may trigger a chain encounter where the second group will join the battle after you defeat the first group. While this is pretty much manageable, there will be instances that this is bad news - especially if you struggled with the first encounter and you're quite low on HP and/or SP. Consider this mechanic before engaging shadows while they're close to each other.