In NQ, like other tactical RPGs, a character can move to the extent of his/her move range, and perform actions within his/her action range. Range in NetherQuest is shown as circles on the possible spaces when a given character is selected. They are color coded as follows:


GREEN: Movement Range
ORANGE: Individual Attack Range
BLUE: Individual Friendly Action Range
YELLOW OVERLAY: Area of Effect for a Group Attack
BRIGHT BLUE OVERLAY: Area of Effect for a friendly Group Action

Unlike other TRPGs, in NetherQuest, characters do not have to wait for a turn in a preset, or generated order list in order to act. As the player, you will have the ability to move any member of the party at any time during your given turn. So, if you see some tough enemies, you can keep moving your toughest member to the front and use him to weaken up the enemies. You can call out a powerful wizard and wipe them all out with group spells, or if you like, you can just move them at random. The choice is up to you.

Here's another difference between NQ and typical TRPGs. In NQ, the party does not gain experience as a unit. If the Wizard comes out and demolishes the foes, then the said Wizard will receive all the Experience (XP), for the given battle. So, it is important to keep this in mind when on the battlefield. If you want the party to level up together, you'll have to ensure that they do by using all of them!

NetherQuest employs a selectable option called Stars on the battlefield character menu. This option will display the Star Gauges. Stars are linked to elements, and once the party unlocks the ability to use the Stars, these gauges will rise in battle. When the given gauge is full, the party can select it during any turn, and call forth the power of the given star, which typically does mass damage to the entire foe unit.



The elemental star gauges will build when a character is standing on one of the elemental spaces that are on some battlefields.

Lastly, in NetherQuest, the battlefield offers a way to gain a quick upper hand and awards team work. Whenever a foe is completely surrounded or 'Trapped', the player can trigger a Team Work attack from one of the members surrounding the foe. This means that the enemy will be hit twice instead of just once on a given round. But be careful, Foes can also perform team work attacks.

In the Journal Scene of the player's menu, the player has two options, Browse journal entries by NPCs, or browse them by topic.

BROWSING NPCS
The first option is viewed in the image above. Browsing by NPC, allows you to match direct quotes to the NPC who said it. Use the following controls when browsing NPCs:



BROWSING DIALOG TOPICS

Using the entries you've recorded, the journal scene's second option, allows you to view the entries in sorted form, where every entry, (People, Places, and Subjects), that mentions the topic selected can be viewed. This is a good way to review what you've learned about a given topic. For instance, if you learn of Lassian, you can view all of the entries that mention his name from this scene. The controls for the scene are simple enough, just use the Up and Down arrow keys to select the topic, and then the Right and Left arrow keys to cycle through the valid entries for the topic in question.

command options:

Talking commences with an NPC automatically. An NPC has a few lines to tell the player at any moment of the game. Whenever an NPC is speaking, the text of what he/she is saying is displayed in the dialog box to the right of the commands. What an NPC has to say is dependent upon the given NPC and the player's overall progress, as performing some tasks, completing some quests, etc., will alter what certain NPCs say. If the player interacts with the NPC in other ways, he/she can always return to the NPC's talk text by selecting the first option in the command options box.

The second option in the NPC command options box is the Question option. This options allows you to inquire information from the given NPC by asking about a topic which you have unlocked. When you choose to question the NPC, another window will open. It has three options: 'People', 'Places', and 'Subjects'. Those are the groups of topics that the player has learned about. When one of those options are selected, the given topics of the group are displayed, from which the player selects a topic to question the NPC about, and his/her response is displayed in the dialog box. Answers to questions will change over time, given the player's progress, or the status of the NPC. If an NPC knows nothing about the given topic, the player will receive an ignorant response from the NPC. This is a statement that is random based on the topic group. For instance, the NPC, in response to a question about a person, may respond with something like, 'I don't know anything about them.' or 'Who?'. Keep in mind that just because an NPC doesn't know anything about a topic now, does not necessarily mean that they will never have such knowledge later on. Because of the amount of topics available it can be quite hectic to ask everything from everyone. Thus, there is a way to reduce the amount of topics that appear when a given NPC is questioned. This is called Mindsorting, and it will make the conversation much easier. For more on this, read the Helpful Hints section below.

In NQ, most NPCs have the ability to offer gifts to the player's party. All the player must do is request a gift. Further, the player can offer gifts to any NPC in the game. There are two gift icons in the command options. The red one, with the question mark is the Gift Request option, and the blue one is the Offer Gift option. There are many reasons an NPC will give the player a gift upon request. Most often, a gift is given because of something that the player has achieved or done which aided the NPC. But there are other factors, which are listed below: