---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TALES OF SYMPHONIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BATTLE SYSTEM FAQ & GUIDE v 0.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Cyllya email: cyllya@mad.scientist.com mboard: http://cyllya.myikonboard.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS: INFO TO COME: -Summary -Formation -Basics -User Commands -Battle Modes -EX Skill -Multiplayer and Character Choice -More Character info -Targeting -(any suggestions?) -Using Skills -Combos -Unison Attacks -Defending -Status Effects -Character Specifics: Lloyd Collet Genius Refill Kratos Zelos Shihna Presea Regal -User Commands (coming soon) -Technical Smash -Over Limits -Grade Points ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is the rest of the FAQ crammed into one little list, just in case you're in a hurry: -This battle system is real-time. -Target enemy with R. -Attack with A. Use the control stick for different kinds of attacks. -Use skills with B and the control stick. -Defend with X. Defending is handy. -You control one character while the other three are AI-controlled. -There are settings to control how the AI characters work. You can command them via the battle menu also. -You get bonuses for combos (hitting the enemy multiple times before it recovers) -When your combo gauge fills, you can do a team attack on an enemy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Basics ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The camera will change so that P1's character and the target form a horizontal line across the screen. Here are the general button commands. push... UP - jump (manual mode only [See: Battle Modes]) UP+X - jump (semi-auto mode only [See: Battle Modes]) LEFT/RIGHT - walk to and from the target. Tap twice to run. A - slash (or club or punch) UP+A - attack upwards or jump and attack DOWN+A - stab/thrust/kick B - use first equipped skill UP+B - use second equipped skill DOWN+B - use third equipped skill LEFT/RIGHT+B - use fourth equipped skill [See: Using Skills] X - defend [See: Defending] Y - open the menu Z - initiate U-Attack [See: Unison Attacks] START - pause Cross D-Pad - change user commands [See: User Commands] C-Stick - UP and DOWN are skill short cuts When fighting in Tales games, you must consider the movement speed, attack speed (how fast they can attack), casting time (how long they stand still while preparing to cast a spell), and recover time (how quickly they are up and moving again after being hit) of both your characters and the enemies. In the case of the enemies, you should also consider their size and distance. Press A a couple times to make a few hits in a row (depending on the character and the type of attack, you can usually do a two to four hit combo). Whenever a character uses a normal attack on an enemy, they regain a tiny bit of TP per hit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Battle Modes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can switch battle modes in the skill menu. In battle, you can open the battle menu and change between modes with the START button. Here are the battle modes. SEMI-AUTO - The default setting. If your character is not in range of an enemy when you tell him/her to attack, he/she will run forward to attack. You must push UP+X to jump, which makes it easier to do your UP+B skill and UP+A attack without jumping by accident, but it's much harder to jump over enemies. AUTO - The character is controlled by the AI. Sit back and watch. MANUAL - the character does nothing except what you tell him/her to do. If your character is not in range of an enemy when you tell him/her to attack, he/she will attack thin air. Since only pushing UP makes you jump, you have to be careful not to jump instead of doing your UP+B skill and UP+A attack, but it's easier to jump over enemies (why attack from the front when you can attack from behind?) or to dodge by jumping. [See Also: Multiplayer and Character Choice] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Multiplayer and Character Choice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside of battle, you can change the order of your characters in the menu. To change characters in battle, open the battle menu and flip through your four characters with the Z button. The character in the first slot is the one you control in battle. (This is not necessarily the character who's shown walking around.) The second player controls the character in the second slot and so on. To activate a second/third/forth character, go into his/her skill menu and change him/her to semi-auto or manual. [See: Battle Modes] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Targeting ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- People who have played past Tales games should keep in mind that targeting is more important in this game than it has been in the past. An enemy is automatically targeted at the beginning of the battle, but you can change it with the R button. The camera will change so that the first player's character and the target form a horizontal line across the screen. (So that left and right move to and from the enemy predictably.) If you're using offensive magic, you target enemies the way you do with weapon skills and normal attacks. If you're using a skill that targets a party member, the target is indicated at the bottom of the screen, and you select it during your character's casting time. (Multi-target healing/support spells effect everyone, no matter who you target.) [See: Using Skills] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Skills ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can equip four skills for Lloyd to use. Use them in battle by pushing B, Up+B (careful not to just jump instead when in manual mode), Left/Right+B, or Down+B. You can open the menu (Y button) to change which skills you have equipped or to command another party member to use a particular skill on a particular enemy. You can turn off certain skills to keep the AI from using them (so they don't waste TP casting powerful spells on weak enemies or don't waste time casting less effective spells on strong enemies). You can set two shortcut skills (for characters other than the one you're controlling) to be used by pressing the yellow C-stick either up or down. Handy for healing. Like in past Tales games, you need to keep in mind how long it takes for a skill to take effect. Most physical skills start hitting the enemy right away, but there are a few that leave you vulnerable for a split second before attacking. When it comes to spells, there's a very notable amount of time before the spell takes place, while the character does the incantations and everything, so remember to move away from enemies before casting spells. [See Also: Targeting] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Combos ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whenever your team hits an enemy multiple times before it recovers from the first attack, that's a combo. The number of hits will appear in the upper-right corner (upper-left if the enemy is comboing on you!). When the enemy recovers, your combo is broken, and the game will display the total amount of damage you did to that enemy during the whole combo. You get some bonus EXP based on whatever your biggest combo was. (Say if you got a 10 hit combo and a 9 hit combo in one battle, you get bonus EXP for 10 hits, not 19 hits.) When you get combos, it fills up a combo gauge. [See: Unison Attacks] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unison Attacks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you get combos, it fills up a combo gauge. [See: Combos] A couple of big combos fills it up faster than getting lots of smaller combos. Also, if your character has the Appeal EX-Skill (level 1), you can increase the combo gauge by pushing Z. When it's full, you can push Z to perform a U-Attack. In a U-Attack, the battle pauses for a short time to let each of your characters pummel the enemy with one skill. (You equip four skills to choose from for each character just as you equip four skills for Lloyd, but each character is assigned a different button out of A/B/X/Y.) The skills will be listed along the side as they are used. Based on which skills they used during the U-Attack, two characters may combine their two skills together. For example, if Genius uses Lightning and Collet uses Pikohan, after all four characters go, they will use Mjolnir together. Each person can only do one combination skill per U-Attack. Just in case someone uses a skill that can be combined with more than one of the other skills you used, there's a predefined priority for which skills will be used. If you add Lloyd using Kogahazen in the example I used above, Collet will do Pikohazen with Lloyd instead of Mjolnir with Genius. [Thanks: GallyYouko, dgjk, maiwurm] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defending ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Push (and hold) X to go into a defensive stance. While holding X, push LEFT/RIGHT away from the enemy to hop backwards. Press DOWN while holding H to use the character's barrier skill (Suigojin, Force Field, Shoudanfu, Chiseijin, Fukai), which takes 10% of their max TP. While defending, you can take as little as 1/4 of the damage you would have normally taken. Also, you're ready to attack again right after the enemy is done attacking, instead of waiting a split second while Lloyd is in "Ouch~ ;_;" mode. If an enemy throws you into the air, push X while in flight, and you're almost guaranteed to land on your feet and ready to fight, instead of on your back ready to get hit as you stand up. [Thanks: dgjk, Chuc] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status Effects ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- STATUS ABNORMALITIES - effective until cured by item/spell/sleeping STATUS APPEARENCE EFFECT Poison green hue/bubbles HP decreases gradually Deadly Poison green hue/bubbles HP decreases more quickly than poison Paralysis lightning over head Restricted in various actions Petrified chara is a statue Can't do anything Sealed XX over head Can't use skills Dead dead-looking HP is 0. No world-saving for you. STATUS CHANGES - effective during only one battle (icons are above a chara's picture in battle) STATUS ICON EFFECT Attack Up/Down Arm Attack is increased/decreased Defense Up/Down Shield Defense is increased/decreased Accuracy Up/Down Arrowhead (?) Accuracy is increased/decreased Mag Att Up/Down Staff (?) Magic Attack is increased/decreased Angel Aid (Bless) Flower? Light? Attack and Defense increased St Change Immune Heart Immune to the other stuff in this list St Effect Immune Body shape Immune to the stuff in the above list Weakness chara pic is red Max HP decreases by half ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Character Specifics ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I thought I'd add some info specific to each character, since the manual and most other info usually focus on Lloyd. If you have any comments on how to use a specific character (especially non-Lloyd characters) more effectively, please feel free to send them too me (email or messageboard(above)). ------- Lloyd ------- He attacks quickly because he two swords. He is pretty good at everything since he's the default character. -------- Collet -------- Pressing Up+A or Down+A will make her throw her chakram (unless she's very close to the enemy), which isn't something she does quickly. She can't throw it clear across the battle field, mind you. I find her awkward in Semi-Auto mode, but maybe that's just me. She can combo two hits with a non-throwing attack so long as the first hit doesn't push the enemy too far away. -------- Genius -------- Pay attention to how much range Genius has, because you tend to expect him to have more than he actually does. He loses a lot of range when jumping, so try to keep him on the ground. -------- Refill -------- Remember to read about targeting healing spells. [See: Targeting]She jabs with Down+A and tends to miss when attacking downward from the air. Not much to say about her otherwise. She seems easier to use than Genius. She can combo two hits, but she moves a bit slow, so it only works if the enemy doesn't recover too quickly. ------- Kratos ------- It's been too long since I've used Kratos. So [See: Zelos] until I write something here. ------- Zelos ------- He does stab/slash just like Lloyd does. He's very good at all types of normal attacks. He's handy in a clump of enemies because his slash swings around to both sides of him. He does three hits in a row easily. -------- Shihna -------- She just swings her ofuda with A, and Down+A is the same thing only lower. (Might be handy with small ground-going enemies.) She attacks upwards pretty well. She can do a four-hit combo pretty easily. -------- Presea -------- She jabs with Down+A. Considering her axe is often almost as big as she is, she swings it pretty fast. She can usually combo two hits with normal attacks. ------- Regal ------- He does a wide kick with Down+A and flips up to kick the enemy with Up+A. He can do a two-hit combo easily. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- User Commands ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Switch commands with the cross button (in battle) or by going into the strategy menu. [Thanks: GallyYouko] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Smash ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You get a Technical Smash if you meet certain conditions when killing an enemy. A few examples: NO DAMAGE Kill the enemy before it does any damage to your party COUNTER Kill the enemy just before it was about to attack you SKILL Kill the enemy with a skill SUMMON Kill the enemy with a summon AERIAL Kill the enemy while it's airborne (higher % if non-flying enemy) COMBO ~+ Kill the enemy with a ~ or more combo. (~ usually intervals of 5) You want technical smashes because... they increase chances of dropped items? Well, they do something good, so get them. o_O ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Over Limits ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- When a character (or enemy) gets beat on enough, he/she will go into overlimits mode. Overlimits mode continues for a fixed amount of time, during which the damage he/she takes is halved, and he/she dodges attacks more easily. There are also other more noteworthy effects (e.g. Shihna can summon). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grade Points ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The system grades how well you fought after each battle. Most battles tend to range between -2.00 and 2.00 grade points, but the total possible range is bigger (not sure how big... -15.00~15.00?). You can use your grade points to purchase stuff sometimes. It also effects which things you get to keep when you go into Clear File (playing the game after beating it). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help me and I will put you here. - GallyYouko - dgjk (http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/45191.html) - Chuc - maiwurm