FAQ/Gameplay Tips

General Tips

 * The in-game help system is fairly robust and provides all the basic info needed to play the game, in addition to some tips.
 * If the game is too difficult, Gilius's shop sells Butterfly Stones that can be used to change the difficulty. They may be too expensive at the beginning of the game though, so at that point it might be easier to simply start over.
 * Gillius's shop does not ever restock items, so take care when using the rarer items. Some items can also be found via item drops and monster ambushing.
 * Selecting event NPC art style (Yoko Tsukamoto/Oxijiyen) via the options menu also affects cutscene art stills as well; save often and reload if you'd like to see cutscenes in both styles.
 * Giving items to the Mumic is the only way to "re-roll" the random bonuses on unique items. However, the Mumic can only handle one of each unique item at a time (in successive playthroughs).

Life Point Management
The best way to deal with the game's Life Point system is to simply avoid losing LP by approaching the game more cautiously than you might in other RPGs. But sometimes, you can't avoid misfortune: As mentioned on the Character Creation page, it's a good idea to keep a set of party members in reserve. Instead of reloading a previous save and losing progress, it's usually easier to accept substituting in some reserve party members instead.
 * Check your enemies' levels before fighting; you'll often come across enemies 10+ levels higher than you.
 * Running away is a key strategy. You won't be able to always fight everything you come across, and sometimes it's necessary to reduce your risk. Flash Escape is always a 100% instant success rate for non-scripted events. Smoke Balls and Magic Wands also always work, but they are used as a combat item so the character with highest AGI should use them.
 * Likewise for dungeon exploration, instead of pushing on further into a dungeon like you normally might, sometimes it's safer to head back to town to recuperate and save your game. This does take a small amount of time, but losing a character to LP recuperation or reloading a save is usually more time-costly.
 * Characters can be revived and recover LP instantly at a high money cost, or for free. Free recovery takes a week each for both reviving and LP recovery.
 * In-game time seems to pass at a rate of around two combat turns per hour. The in-game help says that the recovery is based on strength of the monsters, but this might be an indirect way of saying that it's tied to the number of turns. (testing needed!)
 * Party members can be revived with items found in Gillius's store or from adventuring. These are somewhat uncommon, but still common and cheap enough that they're worth using since it'll remove a week of recovery time.
 * There are also items that can restore LP, but these are much rare and more expensive. But if you need a character back immediately, sometimes this can be an acceptable choice.
 * Do not use the Poiney Powder! It will reduce your character's max LP.

Chest Traps
In this game, the Open Lock skill doesn't determine the chance to successfuly disarm a trap, but instead narrows down the possible choices to one or more traps. If the player chooses the right one, the trap is always removed successfully, so if only one trap is listed, it will always be the right choice. When given multiple choices, sometimes the best option isn't to select the most likely trap, but instead the most dangerous one. For example, if the choices are between a Needle and Mimic trap, the better choice is probably to choose the Mimic. Needle damage is negligible and can be healed very easily, but a Mimic can be a tough opponent early on, and running away results in losing the treasure.
 * Needle: Inflicts a small amount of damage (10% max HP) to entire party.
 * Poison: Poisons entire party.
 * Explosion: Inflicts heavy damage (50% max HP) to entire party.
 * Lich's Hand: Party members lose small amount of MP (10%?)
 * Mimic: Party encounters a Mimic around the same level of the area (confirmation?). Must be fought to reclaim the treasure; running away forfeits.
 * Teleport: Mostly harmless, but teleports the party to a different location on the map. Treasure is lost.

Also, remember that you can always opt to simply abandon the chest or run away from a Mimic using Flash Escape instead of risking a character's death, costing you a lengthy or expensive LP recovery period or a game reload.