THE13THSECRET'S PROFILE

Characters, Story

Man, I saw the ending a mile away (FOR THE EMPEROR EMPRESS + top secret mission from manipulative leader = ...). But the characters were good; I had a good understanding for the basic personalities and motivations of everybody for the short time I met them. Your NPCs played their parts with a distinct flavor too. And characters are most of what matters, so I'm happy to forgive the plot.

The Spider and Flower bosses didn't really do much for the story, but they were satisfying to beat up.


Skills
The Useful
-Usability seems to depend on whether or not I'm fighting a boss. My most common skills...
Logan: Rally Cry, Defense Orders, Brutality, All Out
Sarah: First Aid, One Shot One Kill, Explosive Shell
Wilder: Precision Strike, Call of the Wind
Baroque: Crimson Massacre, Bloody Thorns, Blood from a Rose

Trash
In general, those inflicting status effects since they don't last too long (Smoke Shell) or lack tangible effects (Stickerbrush Barrage, Obfuscate, Crush), and the owning character has better options

Others
-Still not sure how Logan's Cover worked (I thought it would be just like Minotaur where everyone else is safe except status effects and enemies just targets Logan, but I guess not).
-Malevolent Riposte (Worthless in boss battles and Baroque can do better things vs. non-bosses)
-Glory of the Hunt (Wilder is an attacker, this is worthless if it just lasts one turn)
-Swift as the Wind (I think it only works for basic "Attack", so the skill doesn't combo well)
-Medicinal Herbs (Because I have items and Wilder is an attacker)

Everything else not mentioned in either means it saw situational use (usually the negative stat effect attacks)


Battle
Non-Bosses
Standard pattern:
Turn 1:
Logan--R.Cry/Orders/Attack to build AGR
Sarah--First Aid/Attack, Noisemaker Shot against the "stronger" enemy if move is available (maybe)
Wilder--Precision Strike to build AGR
Baroque--Attack to build AGR

Turn 2:
Logan--Orders (Characters are doling out stat changes)
Sarah--First Aid/Explosive Shell against "stronger" enemy/Attack
Wilder--Call of the Wind
Baroque-- Bloody Thorns vs. "weaker" enemy

Turn 3:
Logan: R.Cry
Sarah: Attack/One Shot
Wilder: Precision Strike vs. "stronger" enemy
Baroque: Crimson Massacre

Turn 4, onwards:
Spam R.Cry/Precision Strike/Attack to finish off the "stronger" enemy (with turns spent Defense Orders/First Aid at weaker levels)

Fewer encounters and letting monsters give more experience would be great.

Bossses
Intro and Spider gave me zero problem (Defense Orders+Defend against Grenade during the Intro Boss since I was still learning the skills, Spider seemed easy in my opinion since there's only one of him and four of me).

I feel I was appropriately leveled at bosses without having to grind except for the end (I sort of considered the no random encounters "bug" a perk until I realized that level 6 would not cut it vs Archmage until after three dozen tries and 5h later--so I didn't know the end castle was full of random encounter).

I was also "Boss FAQ? LOLOL pass." The first time I looked was after I beat the game, and then had a good chuckle about how I did the fights the hard way.


Flowers
First time I fought these guys, I never bothered to save since getting to the forest and promptly died after figuring out how to beat its synergy (Green liked massive heals/attacks and bringing back its allies, and Blue liked the damage-negating covers, Red just a nuisance). So I punched through the Forest to get back.

So I took out Green first with Brutalities on Blue (stop the covers), All Outs on Green (break the covers), and everybody else doling out pain between the covers. Defense Orders/First Aid and items as necessary if I was low on health. Once Green was gone, everything else was a breeze.

Archmage
As mentioned above, spent some time here. I actually took down Minotaur at the end of my rope as level 6, but Archmage revived him, and so I said "okay I guess I'll level 2-3 times", fixed the bug, and went back. In general, the underlevels had the main problems: 1. Noisemaker Shot didn't slow down Minotaur sufficiently to give me a chance to interrupt the Charge-up attacks with Brutality, and 2. I was doing under 100 damage max (30 damage average) and forced to heal over a long time, and tanking isn't a viable long-term strategy in this game.

I also realized that the Archmage and Minotaur had a set pattern of attack (at least the opening 5 turns, the pattern may or may not repeat turn 6 and later ), so that helped anticipating the high AGL boss' Charge-ups with Brutality and Silence, but the pattern wasn't set in stone, so that caused problems down the road.

Came back at level 9...
Strategy was to nuke Minotaur with Noisemaker Shots and Explosive Shells to make him manageable as I concentrated on the Archmage. Archmage was still too fast to negate him, so I spent his epic-summon turns defending and healing...but I was able to defend pretty well against Minotaur with well-timed Brutalities, though a few charge-ups still got through since I was out of AGRO at the moment. Baroque spent the game playing damage sponge and healing everyone with items since Sara had other things to be doing.

Fun fact: of the 3x200HP, 6x400HP, 6x1ups item recoveries I entered battle with, I ended with 1x1up and JUST managed to kill the Archmage. Fortunately, Archmage death made Minotaur and Screaming Horror very, very manageable.

Beating that was extremely satisfying, boss fights that made me think are great.


Music
Kind of forgettable, because I forgot the themes already. But they work.