Battle System

Demon Encounters

Demons appear in dungeons as garbled, ghost-like figures that take form as a beast, bird and small/large bipedal humanoid. Their appearances will give you a hint on what demons you’ll face if you engage it. A humanoid form for example will let you battle against humanoid demons while bird-like forms will make you fight winged/ flying creatures. These forms will aggressively attack you and chase you if they see you. Be careful as well since some of them will engage you as soon as you exit from a door. There are also special demons that will just stay on their place until you engage them deliberately. These are usually Quest-related demons and thus, more powerful than the normal ones you’ll encounter.

Engaging to Battle

A battle against a demon group will take place if your character and their ethereal form make contact. You’ll want to have the chance to attack first and possibly exploit their weaknesses to gain the upper hand and minimize the damage that will be dealt to you. This is called a preemptive strike. To do this, you’ll have to get within range and attack the enemy with your sword. If done successfully, the demon figure will turn red upon impact. Starting a battle with a pre-emptive strike also deals additional damage to all enemy Demons.

Demon Reinforcements

It is a good practice to focus-fire on a single target when fighting Demons. However, you can overlook this idea if the demon you’re using can exploit another enemy demon’s weakness compared to attacking the current target. There will also be times that you’ll have to deal with reinforcements. This bodes ill news especially if you just barely survived the last encounter. Fight efficiently and exploit enemy weaknesses to victory!

Press Turn

The game’s battle system is turn-based, represented by the Press Turn Icons in the upper right corner of the battle screen. Basically, this system relies heavily on exploiting enemy weaknesses to gain the upper hand in battle. If you or your allied Demons deal damage to an enemy using an attack it is weak against, the attacker’s press turn icon will blink, giving it an extra turn. Enemies can also take advantage of this system if they ever exploit your party’s weakness.

Smirk

This is a special status that will be triggered if you or your Demons deal elemental damage to an enemy it’s weak to, nullify an enemy attack or land a critical hit on your opponent. This effect only lasts for a turn and will greatly increase your evasion, hit rate and attack rating.

Take note that if you have a status ailment, you won’t be able to gain Smirk. In the other hand, if you have Smirk and you’ve been inflicted with a status ailment, the Smirk status will disappear.

Escaping

In case you want to escape an ordinary encounter, your chances of escaping increases if your level is greater than the enemies. If you fail to escape, the enemies will get a free round of combat. This is not a really good option, unless your chances of escaping are high. Planning ahead, saving often and avoiding combat altogether is still a good way of outmaneuvering enemies, especially if your supplies, Demons and health are critically low.

Battle Menu

In the battle menu, you can choose several actions. This section will discuss them briefly.

• Skill: This will allow you to perform a normal attack or spend MP to use any Skills you have learned
• Item: This option allows you to use an expendable item during the battle. Demons won’t be able to use this menu unless they have the Skills “Healing Knowhow” or “Attack Knowhow” equipped.
• DDS Skill: Short for Digital Demon Service. This becomes available later in the game. This allows you to use cards with Demons attached and sent over via Streetpass. For more details, please refer to the DDS section.
• Talk: This will allow you to initiate a conversation with Demons, provided that you purchased the right
• Burroughs app.
• Flee: Select this option to attempt to escape the current battle.
• Next: You can pass your turn to the next party member
• Auto-Battle: This will have your party attack automatically using normal attacks.

Game Over

If ever your party is wiped out, you’ll meet Charon, the ferryman in River Styx. He can revive you and the party before the battle in exchange for macca, play coins or put the fee on the tab for the meantime. You can also refuse and just load from your last save. (This is one reason why saving often is very convenient in the long run)

If you ever get wiped out again for the second time after getting revived, you can have the option to select your difficulty settings. “Prentice” lowers the game’s difficulty while “Fellow” returns you to the normal difficulty setting. Fortunately, changing the difficulty will have no effect in the story and rewards you’ll receive.