Revenants of Fate

The battle system features a typical 3 vs 3 battle layout.

A few things I really wanted to do with the battle system (and could turn out either good or bad, but I wanted it to be..different.); I wanted to make every ability useful. I didn't want how for example: In some Final Fantasy games you get a spell like Fire/Fire1, and its great throughout part of the game.. but eventually you learn Fira/Fire2 and have no reason to go back and use the oringinal Fire spell any more. I want each ability to grow with you and have a different use or meaning, so you could be using the very first ability in the game even against the final boss if its what you like and what works.

I also wanted to not include a magic system, or elemental magic spells. No fire/water/ice/lightning, etc. There are mana attacks in the game that are energy based and used against certain enemies, but I didn't want to use the basic style of those elements. I traditionally love this in rpg's, but again, I am also really interested in seeing an rpg not use this aspect and the story doesn't specifically call for the use of these types of spells so I decided to focus on other aspects of battle instead. Hopefully these things do not turn anyone away.

You can equip all of the abilities and commands you will use in battle. The only required command is the standard attack.

There are 3 tabs of commands with 4 possible options on each tab. You have tab 1, which has your standard attack and you can equip 3 items (each character can equip an item, but each character can only hold a stock of 4 of that item. So like, you could have x99 potions but Tyde can only carry 4 of them with him in battle, as with the other characters. you can have a max of 12 item in one battle then if everyone has it equipped.), tab 2 has all of the AP actions (The more aggresive abilities), which you can equip any 4 character specific AP abilities, and finally tab 3 has all of the SP actions (The defensive and mana abilities) in which you can equip any 4 character specific SP abilities. Each character has 8 unique AP commands and 8 SP commands.

So tab 1 has 4 slots, tab 2 has 4 slots and tab 3 has 4 slots. Giving you up to 12 options per character in battle.

So you must manage each character and their inventory of items, abilities and commands within the main menu, preparing them for different battle conditions and enemies.

Ex: In the screenshot Tyde has Armor Break, Power Break, Enrage and Rapid Slash equipped on tab 2 (The AP actions), but after the battle the player could decide they want to use Provoke instead of Enrage for the next battle, so they would go to the menu and unequip Enrage and equip Provoke in that empty slot.

But lets say you do not want to battle, you don't have the right setup you wanted for the next battle before it initiated or anything of that nature. You can flee from every battle, 100%. The only downside of this is if you want to flee half way through a battle, you don't get any reward and you will still lose any consumables you might have used during battle, and if its a boss fight, they will recover back to max hp. Every time a boss fight is presented, it will give you the option if you want to manage your characters before the fight. If you want to flee from the boss fight, it will return you back to a point before the battle was initiated (as if it never had, then it will give you the option to skip the scene if you wish.).

Explaining the battle system:

1: This is the command menu. There are four icons at the top of the command menu that indicate different attacks, abilities or items currently equipped to thoseslots. The menu displays the name of the command, the AP or SP cost (if any) and the property of the ability/command ("The DEF". More on that in a sec.)

2: This is the tab menu. It displays what tab or 'page' you are currently on. By moving up or down this block of tabs, you can cycle through all of your equipped standard, ap and sp moves. (Tab 1 = Standard moves. Tab 2 = AP moves. Tab 3 = SP moves)

3: The HUD, displaying your party status, current hp, ap and sp.

4: The Action gauge. The heroes icons are displayed on the left and the enemies marked on the right. An icon representing a character has to be at the top before that character can act in battle. Different attacks or commands cost different percentages on the ACT gauge, giving the heroes or enemies a longer or shorter wait on their next turn depending on what they used this turn. Some commands use a full 100%, while others could be 50% (most abilities tend to be), or some times even a simple 20%, allowing you to get multiple turns in a row within very little time, and before an enemy even gets his first turn.

5:The chain display. The battle system has the possibility to utilize stacking attacks to deal more damage. There are four main properties in battle, Quick, Heavy, Aerial and Mana attacks. Enemies can have a strong defense against some and a great weakness to another. Like the Ravager spawn in this screenshot (the small shadowy enemy), their main weakness is against Mana abilities, while being strong defensively against any other attack. Other enemies with heavy armor will be weak against Heavy or Mana but strong against quick or aerial, or a flying bird will be strong against Heavy (based on it being too slow) but obviously weak against Aerial, etc. The more you use the same type of attack, the more the chain will continue up until x9. For every x3 on the chain, there will be bonus damage given on that type of attack, wherein x9 is dealing the most. However, if you have a chain of x9 and then use a Heavy attack, it will break the quick chain and start a new string for Heavy. Moves with the property of Def (Defensive) will not affect the chain at all, it won't add nor break it. Commands that simply have '---' (meaning it doesn't have a specific property) will just break the chain, so these moves must be used strategically.

6: The information window. Displays the name of the current command on the left side, the info on the right, and the percentage it will decrease on the Action gauge if it were used. (So your icon would go down 30% if you used the highlighted command in the screenshot, Enrage, meaning you would only have to wait for 30% before you would get your turn again with that character.)