It's quite fascinating that Cross has made such a departure on Trigger's simplistic battle system. What could be enjoyed by all has been replaced by a deep and complex battle system that needs a lot of work to learn.
But despite being such a solid battle system, I almost never hear of it when it comes to battle system discussion, in fact I even get to hear quite weird arguments against it. There is a lot of things it does right:
This is where the game is lying to you. Attack accuracy is lower than what is shown on the screen. This means that risk-taking is much higher than you think. But why is the game doing this ?
It's because the battle system understands that it truly shines when things don't go exactly your way. Adapting to the situation is when the game really elevates itself to be truly engaging and nerve-wracking. Your attack misses and you can't have the element you needed, then it opens up to so many possibilities : do you defend to wait for your next turn coming faster and regain stamina, or do you for a weaker element, or do you go all in and take a level 2 or 3 attack and hope for the best ? Even then, what about your teammates ? The field effect ? Should you really try it ? Or maybe run away and come back when you have fine-tuned your strategy further ?
The crux of the battle system is about taking risks, and being rewarded for it. Walking this fine line between playing it safe and taking risks is the great quality of the battle system, and I think it's something quite rare in the genre for a game to force situations where you have to think outside your comfort zone.
The battle system is really something I enjoyed, and it really gives the oomph for the game to be rewarding and engaging. You don't win by grinding your way to victory, you win by outsmarting your opponent. Really great gameplay.
But despite being such a solid battle system, I almost never hear of it when it comes to battle system discussion, in fact I even get to hear quite weird arguments against it. There is a lot of things it does right:
- You can escape from every fight with 100% accuracy. The battle system being about fine-tuning your deck to fight back, the game allows you to escape even from boss fights, leaving you the ability to go into the menu, change your strategy, and then fight back. You don't have to suffer a game over because you messed up something, and it's a HUGE change.
- Grinding has been neutered. Most of your stats comes from beating bosses. You get slight stat boost from fighting random battles, but it comes at a point where you will not get any stat boost until you defeat the next boss.
- Element system allows for several things: there is no MP management, you manage the use of your elements that are refreshed every battle with the exception of consumables. This means that you can go for your strongest attacks immediately at every battle. But this also means that you need to have extreme confidence in the way the battle is going to play out, lest you waste your elements and are left with weaker ones.
- The Grid has several levels that informs the power of your elements. Elements at a level 5 Grid are much stronger than ones at level 1 Grid. But, you have to get there. This means that you have to earn a power level proportional to the level of the element.
- Attacking increases the power level, and there are 3 levels of attacks that have different levels of accuracy. Level 1 has the highest amount of accuracy, but only give 1 point of power level. Level 2 and 3 have both worse accuracy, BUT starting with level 1 increases the accuracy of level 2 and 3 respectively. This means that you are given a choice : do you start with a higher level at the risk of missing and not receiving anything ? Or do you start with level 1 and use the accuracy boost for the subsequent levels.
- Stamina is probably the best thing out of the bunch. You earn Stamina either by defending or when your turn comes up. This stamina is used to attack, and the attacks increases your power level for the Grid. Stamina is what informs everything about the battle system and allows for a huge amount of strategy.
- Lastly, there is the field effect. Each element has an effect (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green White, Black) and using an element fills one bar of the field effect (composed of three). One element is opposed to another one, which means that using a blue element will be decreased in power heavily when the field effect is red. The fight then becomes a tug-of-war where you sometimes have to use another element just to prevent the enemy to have a field effect to their advantage.
This is where the game is lying to you. Attack accuracy is lower than what is shown on the screen. This means that risk-taking is much higher than you think. But why is the game doing this ?
It's because the battle system understands that it truly shines when things don't go exactly your way. Adapting to the situation is when the game really elevates itself to be truly engaging and nerve-wracking. Your attack misses and you can't have the element you needed, then it opens up to so many possibilities : do you defend to wait for your next turn coming faster and regain stamina, or do you for a weaker element, or do you go all in and take a level 2 or 3 attack and hope for the best ? Even then, what about your teammates ? The field effect ? Should you really try it ? Or maybe run away and come back when you have fine-tuned your strategy further ?
The crux of the battle system is about taking risks, and being rewarded for it. Walking this fine line between playing it safe and taking risks is the great quality of the battle system, and I think it's something quite rare in the genre for a game to force situations where you have to think outside your comfort zone.
The battle system is really something I enjoyed, and it really gives the oomph for the game to be rewarding and engaging. You don't win by grinding your way to victory, you win by outsmarting your opponent. Really great gameplay.
