Combat

From Lost Odyssey Wiki

Combat is turn-based, similar to the gameplay of the Final Fantasy series, and uses a ring system, which allows you to equip Kaim and his allies with rings that add powers to their attacks or compliment the defenses. As your character charges forward to perform a physical attack, holding down the right trigger brings up a circle (ring) in front of your target, and a larger circle will collapse towards it. When the collapsing circle reaches the smaller circle, releasing the trigger completes the attack. Your timing will determine the strength of the attack. Timing the attack just right will deliver a perfect hit and add extra damage to your strike.

As you progress through the game, you can assemble and wear new rings, as long as you have the correct components, which you will obtain as you play. New rings bring new powers, such as adding elemental damage to your attacks or inflicting status ailments on enemies.

Rings play a very big part in the strategy of combat and you can also change rings and equipment on the fly and will not use up your turn, unlike many other turn-based RPGs which require the player to give up their turn when exchanging weapons or other items whilst in battle. Battles are challenging and often require a lot of strategy as far as Ring usage is concerned.

There are eight self-explanatory combat commands to choose from: Attack, Skill, Spell, Item, Defend, Equip, Flee, and Formation.

Located in the upper corner of the screen is a meter that displays your party's front line strength, which is the total hit points of the characters set in the front row. This front row of characters acts as a shield for those in the back. The higher the meter, the less damage your back line characters will suffer. So, as your front line loses hit points, the back line becomes more vulnerable.

As expected, when immortals lose all their hit points, they do not die, but are instead rendered unconscious for a short time and become removed from play temporarily, before automatically reviving a few turns later. However, if all mortals in your party are killed, and all the immortals reach zero hit points, the current game ends, and you will have to reload a previously saved game.