UNLIMITED SAGA FAQ / WALKTHROUGH Version 1.2 Copyright - 2003 Square Enix Sony Playstation 2 (US version) Made by Kamui E-mail: leo@inw.psi.br CONTENTS: 1. Updates 2. Introduction 3. Game options and controls 4. How to play? 5. Characters walkthrough 6. The seven wonders 7. Adventure list 8. Glossary 9. Skills, arts and materials 10. Extra / Special info 11. Legal information / Thanks / Contact info 1 - - UPDATES First Version - September 28, 2003 Version 0.6 - October 9, 2003 Version 0.7 - October 14, 2003 - The first "complete" version 0.6 sucks. There were phrases without words, stupid grammar mistakes, the FAQ lacking crucial details. Almost everything was improved on this version. Sorry for the bad FAQ, but I think that the rush of releasing got the best of me. But not fear, this version you can actually read and, with some patience, even like it. Version 0.8 - October 17, 2003 - New adventures are added, as new skills and arts are also included. Many, many mistakes corrected. Laura's section is almost complete as well. Version 0.9 - October 22, 2003 - Laura's section is finished and Mythe section it's almost done. New arts and adventures added as well. Version 0.95 - November 7, 2003 - Mythe and Armic sections are completed. The adventure list is now completed; the material list and arts list are almost completed as well. There is also a new section "glossary" in the FAQ. Version 1.0 - November 25, 2003 - All characters completed!!! All right!!!. New entry on the glossary section and new arts, magic and also corrected some stuff, some of them by Saga fans that send E- mails, thanks. Enjoy the FAQ!!!! Version 1.05 - January 5, 2004 - Some minor stuff added, just corrections and such. New entry in the glossary section. Version 1.1 - January 30, 2004 - New corrections and updates. Version 1.2 - June 13, 2004 - Redone the magic section. New entries on the glossary section. Some corrections, as always. 2 - - INTRODUCTION Unlimited SaGa is the latest game of the SaGa series created by Squaresoft (now Square Enix) and the first one to the Playstation 2 system. The story of the SaGa begins of the way back to the Gameboy (Final Fantasy legends), then goes to the SNES era (Romancing SaGa) and the PS (SaGa frontier). Not as popular as the Final Fantasy series, the SaGa games established himself as a complex game aimed for a hardcore RPG audience. The series always offered interesting non-linear storylines, random status development and almost infinite possibilities for the characters, making that the same game can be played endless times and not ever will be like the other. Unlimited SaGa has met severe criticism by the press and casual players, most of it because it's unimpressive graphics and an uber- complex game mechanics. But the hardcore players thanks Square Enix by creating a game that dare to be different from the others. The Seven Wonders, a mysterious legacy left from an ancient civilization. The last remains of a time called the Golden Age, when wonderful deeds were done and created the base of the world that you know today. Seven persons, seven different destinies are about to join together to unravel the mysteries of the ancient civilization, but they are capable to restore the peace and bring a new Golden Age? Are you ready to discover the hidden truth about the legendary Seven Wonders? 3 - - GAME OPTIONS IMPORTANT INFO - The game requires a memory card to boot up every single time and also a Dual Shock 2 controller. If you don't have a memory card, the game will not boot. The first time you play Unlimited SaGa, it will create a file called system data (154 KB). I know that you probably already have a memory card and a Dual Shock 2, but better safe than sorry. After the CG intro, some game modes will appear: NEW GAME - Starts a new game. Select between 7 unique characters. LOAD GAME - Continue your previously saved game, after you choose to continue, a load screen appears. The game requires 104 KB of the memory card to save. CONTINUE - In this game, you can save in dungeons, but when you load back, this save is deleted. The save will be stored on the system data and do not requires further Kb of the memory card. FFX-2 PREVIEW - A preview movie of Final Fantasy X-2 (not available in the JAP version). OPTIONS - Customize your game. C) Controls X button - Selects a topic. Attacks (on battles) O button - Hold (on battles), open main status menu (field) Triangle - Cancel a selection Square - Check the map and number of turns (field) L1/R1 - Cycles between the characters L2/R2 - Cycles between the arts (skill and arts screen) Analog stick - Moves the character Directional buttons - Select field options and cycles the event list. Press analog stick (L3 and R3) - Rest (in the field) L1 + R1 + Select + Start - Return to the main game screen. 4 - - HOW TO PLAY Probably the most important section of the FAQ, is explaining how to play the game. Unlimited SaGa has no game tutorial, and the instruction manual teaches the basic of the basic, so most of this section is based on mostly empiric findings and from real gameplay, so as everything based on empiric observation only, it is bound to have some mistakes. Please consult others sources in case of doubt. A ) Choosing your character Each character has his role in the history of the game, and 7 characters with at least 25 hours on each character, it's hard to know what person to choose, especially if you are short on time. So I create a table with the difficulty level to beat the game and the level of each character story-wise to understanding of Unlimited Saga as a whole. RUBY - Difficulty - Medium Story - High She has a very cool storyline and the difficulty is not that hard to play. Nice ending as well. VENTUS - Difficulty - Easy Story - Medium If you want to see almost everything that Unlimited has to offer, look no further that Ventus storyline. LAURA - Difficulty - Hard Story - Medium Interesting story, but perhaps the most difficult adventure in the game. Only for the experts. MYTHE - Difficulty - Medium Story - High One of the most interesting adventures, and a quite long journey. ARMIC - Difficulty - High Story - Low Probably the most unfulfilling quest in this game, it's quite hard to beat and the story didn't offer anything new or rewarding. The most "different" quest in the game. JUDY - Difficulty - Easy Story - Medium The most short and easy quest in this game. You can reach the last boss with only 4 hours of gameplay. Good for the first venture in the Unlimited saga. KURT - Difficulty - Medium Story - Medium Interesting storyline as well, and the quest is somewhat short. But it's a fun ride, there are tough bosses on his game also. B ) Towns In Unlimited SaGa, there are several towns in the game. Every town has at least an inn, and a carrier guild. There are others things as Blacksmiths, magic shops, dungeons and story-related places. I will explain every one of these options below. INN - The busiest place in the game. SHOP - In the inn you can buy or sell equipment on the shop. You can get your equipment by paying Kr (the currency of the game) or trading with other equipment's. Some places only accepts trading as the payment method. INFORMATION - Get information and gossip. Some of the characters story will only advance by getting specific information in the inns. ADVENTURES - Explore the world in the adventures section. The core of the game relies on the adventure section; so the inn will be the place that you will spend most of the time. EQUIPMENT - Check and change your equipment and items. ADVENTURE LOG - Save your game. EXIT - Exit the inn. CARRIER GUILD - The place to carriers get his works. Only accessible in Ventus storyline. For the other characters, this place have no use at all. BLACKSMITH - You can create or improve your weapon at the blacksmiths. Each blacksmith works with a selected set of equipment and every blacksmith are specialized on something. More on the equipment section further below. MAGIC SHOP - In this place sells equipment just like the normal shop, but the weapons sold in the magic shops came with magical properties. More on the equipment section. DUNGEONS - There are some dungeons that can be accessed anytime you want, and you can play it several times. The dungeons don't have a specific objective or a maximum number of turns, unlike the adventures. So go there if you want some battle experience and treasures. There is no character development in these dungeons. STORY-RELATED PLACES - In some towns, there are places only accessible by a few characters to advance their storylines. For the other characters, these places have no use at all. OBS: There is only one town that doesn't have any inn or carrier guild but it's just a story-related place. This place is the Galeos Castle, which only appears in Laura's game. The Galeos castle is located near Escata. C ) Going to adventures Just like in every other RPG, you will recruit characters to participate in your quest. Each quest has 8 characters to recruit, some of them are exclusive to his quest and some of the characters that you can recruit are others main characters as well. So you will see Ruby fighting with Mythe, Laura with Armic, Kurt with Ventus and so on. But you can only take 7 characters to an adventure. In the inns, you can choose to participate in several adventures. This adventures are really helpful to increase HP, new equipment and learning new arts, because if you stick to the story related events on each character you won't develop your characters that much. Each town has it's particular set of adventures, related to events that are taking place. Many story related events happens on a place that just like a normal adventure; when this happens the adventure will be not accessible, so don't worry if you don't see a specific adventure in your quest. Every adventure can be successfully finished only one time and the quantity of the adventures is finite, so if you clear all the normal adventures there is no way to further improve your characters (Ventus quest is an exception). If you don't clear it, the adventure will be still there to be finished. But if you don't clear the adventure you won't have any skill development. So my advice is to only begin to make non stories related adventures when you have at least 5 characters in your group. If you do many adventures with a few characters, when you get the other characters there won't be many adventures to develop the status of the remaining characters. D ) Exploring the world On the course of the game, you will explore the world and visit another towns to advance the storyline or to accomplish one particular adventure. You will begin the game on the city, and if you check the world map there will be no other place to go, so you have to pick an adventure that take you out of that city and that leads to another city. - The world map Exiting a town access the world map. Then will appear a world map, you can only see the towns that you already visited in your quest. The world map also has the property that you can visit any town without passing in the field. - Choosing your characters Each main character can recruit 8 extra characters for the entire journey, but only 7 characters (including the main character) can participate on the adventures. Before each adventure you will have to select what characters will join you on the adventures. - The game screen If you haven't got on a particular city before, you must first cross the way to that city, so you will enter the "field" mode. When I refer to the field, it is the exploration mode that isn't the world map. The game screen of the field has a lot of information scattered around, and it's not that friendly to understand, how it can help you or even how it works, in the first place. In the regular field screen there is your "team", the roads, a picture with a short description of the location (in the upper left corner of the screen) that you are in the moment and the field options. The field options includes: SKILL - Check/Uses your skills in the field and see the event list. ITEMS - Check/arrange/quick-fix and discard non-equipped items. EQUIPMENT - Check/Trade equipment STATUS - See current status (HP/LP) and stats. For a better- detailed menu, press X on this screen (or press O on the field) QUIT - Quit the game, and save your progress. On the next game you can use continue to start from that point, but this save will be erased. - Moving your characters The game field is like a board game, and you control a "pin" into this field. You won't have freedom of movement; you can go to the places that game tells you. Many times the places to go are marked with (????). That shows you that it's a non-explored place. Sometimes there are several paths to go, but rest assured that every road has only one exit to the desired destination and you can't go to the other exits, so there isn't a way to get lost. The (????) will be marked in different colors: Blue - Low probability to encounter a monster Yellow - High probability to encounter a monster Red - Monster nest In all fields, there are dead ends, so you have to turn back. If you can't find the exit, most likely you forgot to check a place, so backtrack a little to find the place marked by a (????), and go there. There are also places that are only available if you have a correspondent skill (more later on). - Turns Every action that you perform on the field, including walking, resting or performing any skill counts as turns. Battles also count turns but much slower than a normal turn (a battle with 5 turns consumes 2 field turns). Several adventures requires that you finish the quest in less than a predetermined numbers of turns, if not you will leave the adventure. But keep in mind that you can try this adventure again, and all field covered in the previous try will be showed, but not the events needed to the conclusion of the quest nor the fixed treasures. E ) The events - Events Of course, a travel in a RPG isn't a vacation tour. So in these game several things can happen while travelling, can be as good as find a treasure chest or bad like facing an enemy. The game will inform you of the events, by a picture and the name of the event. So there is a list of things that can happen: TREASURE CHEST - Treasure chests are scattered by the world, there content can be equipment, materials and money (this is the only way to get money if you're not a carrier), but you have to open it first. There are 3 kinds of treasures: The chest (that may have traps and are locked), the bag (that may have only traps), and the skeleton (that doesn't have any traps). The game will inform the type of the treasure as well the level of the chest. The higher is the level of the chest, better will be the contents. Level 99 is the highest. ENEMY ENCOUNTER - You will encounter an enemy. A picture of the monster(s) will appear. The enemy may attack you or not. If they attack you, the battle will begin. If they not attack, you can attack him for a preemptive strike or you can escape for another location. A TRAP - In the field, there are several traps placed along the way. If you activate the trap, a person of the group will be chosen to try to escape of the trap, if they are successful, it will escape unharmed, but if not, they will receive damage. Traps also has a level; the higher the level of the trap, it will be harder to defuse or dodge it. OBSTACLES, RIVERS, STAIRS, DOORS ETC. - You can find these things on the adventures. Also have a level description. SWITCHES, LEVERS, ETC. - You can also find these things on the adventures. TETRA FORCE - Tetra forces are like saving points that always appears in the last dungeons of every main character quest. Also, they fill your HP and LP points. But beware, once you save inside the last dungeons you can't go out to the world map, so it's advised to create another file when you want to use a Tetra force. - The event list One of the most confusing things in the game, it's to know how to use the event list. When you choose SKILL on the field options, a screen will appear with HP, LP, etc. but in the upper part of the screen there are a list of pictures, each one represent an event. So if you want open a treasure chest that you see in the field, select SKILL, then select the treasure chest (with the directional button, not the analog one) and select action. But if the chest is locked? Below the "action" will appear the skill list. If you have the locksmith skill, select Skill, then select the treasure chest and select the locksmith that is below the action. Do that to any other events (doors, stairs, monsters, traps) in this game as well. If a skill can be used on the event, they will be on white color but the others skills that cannot be used will have the gray mark. - Kind of traps There are several kinds of traps on the field: some are in treasures chest to forbid the opening of the chest, some in the road to scare off clueless travelers. Use the defuse skill to defuse the traps. Chests - Needle (low damage), poison (medium damage), explosive (high damage, destroy chest contents), mimic (monster in the chest). Field - Falling tree (low damage), boulder (medium damage), pitfall (high damage), icicle (high damage) and drop ceiling (high damage). F ) Game parameters and skills/arts This game has several parameters: LP - It's like the HP on the others games, when you lost all LP the character will leave the battle. But if the main character get 0 LP, the game is over. The LP is fixed for every character and it can't be changed. In every completed adventure, the LP is replenished. You and your enemy can lose more than 1 LP for each hit taken. HP - It's works a meter for the resistance of a character /monster. In theory, when the HP is reduced to 0 you will lose one LP, and the following hits with 0 HP will also take 1 LP. This doesn't happen, though, because there are others factors like strength of the attacked and the armor and endurance of the defender involved in this. An attack performed by a character reduces his HP as well. The only way to replenish the HP is to rest in the field or leave a character out of the battle turn. The enemy has also a fixed LP, so no matter how much HP damage you inflict, if you not destroy its LP, the enemy will not be defeated. HP RECOVER - The rate that a character recovers his HP in the field. The valor varies to A (best recover rate) to E (worst); there are skills that improve the recover rate. ENDURANCE - Also works likes the HP, but when the endurance is low, the probability to lose LP (even if your HP is high) increases. But if you endurance is high, even if your HP is 0, you can avoid losing a LP. Every weapon attack performed by a character reduces his endurance as well. So if the battle drags too long the probability of you receiving great LP damage increases drastically. There some attacks that inflict endurance loss. At the end of every battle, the endurance is replenished. STRENGTH, MAGIC, SKILL, SPIRIT - Works as the same like others RPG's. This group is called Ability parameters (Endurance is also a ability parameter). WOOD, METAL, FIRE, EARTH, WATER - Improve magic use. This group is called Elemental parameters. DURABILITY - It's the value that indicated its durability of an equipment. When the durability is 0, the equipment lost its use. SKILLS - An ability that can help in most things in the game, that ranges of battle skills, to improve your fighting methods, to negotiate better deals in the shop. There are many skills in this game, and so you will have to customize the characters with your needs. ARTS - It's the different attacks that a weapon or a melee can perform. A particular weapon has different attack categories and each category has it's particular set of arts. You will learn new arts only in battle. G ) The reel system Probability is a factor very common in the RPG, but in Unlimited SaGa the probability is made in a very peculiar way: the reel system. The reel system can be translated as a wheel of fortune. And the player has to press the button to stop the reel and the icon that stopped will be the result. There are 2 kinds of reels: The events reel and the battle reel. The difference is in the results icons on the both reels. EVENT REEL - Green orb - Success Red X - Failure but you don't are penalized Dynamite - Failure and you are penalized BATTLE REEL (arts) - Green orb - Level 1 art Blue orb - Level 2 art Pink orb - Level 3 art Orange orb - Level 4 art (gun) - Red hit - Random shot Green hit - Shot Yellow hit - Shot White hit - Shot (magic) - Wood Earth Metal Fire Water The event reel is related to success of failure of using a skill in an event or escaping a trap. The green orb represents a success, that you used the skill successfully or escaped the trap. The red X shows failures, but like a little failure, if is a skill, you will not use it but you won't activate the negative effects (like activating traps in treasure chests when you try to unlock it), if is a trap you only take damage but only a parcel of the total. The dynamite shows a total failure, if is a skill, you will not use it and will activate the negative effects, if is a trap you will take full damage. The battle reel (arts) is related of using different arts in battle. In the beginning of the game you will only have one art, then the reel will only green. As you will learn new arts, others orbs with different colors will appear on the reel. The battle reel (gun) is related the success rate of the shot, red hit (worst) means miss or very little damage and white (best) is a critical hit of sorts. The battle reel (magic) is related to the use of magic, if you use water magic and hit the water icon on the reel, the damage will be greater, but if you hit the fire icon, the damage will be reduced. The reel of magic and gun, all icons are available from the start. If using a reel it's a nightmare for persons with low eye-hand coordination, fortunately there 2 things that worth mentioning: here is no time restriction on using a reel, and the reel sequence repeats endlessly, so take your time and let it roll many times until you get the feeling of the reel. Some skills works improving the probability of success on a reel, which means as higher is the level of the skill, more green orbs will appear. When it's an event reel, the chance of success with the reel its proportional to the level of the event (chest, trap etc.) and your skill level related to the event. When you begin to learn arts but your weapon skill level its low, the orbs of the battle reel will be much separated from each other, and there is only one orb by color, so hitting a high level orb is a matter of plain luck. But as your weapon skill grows, the high level orbs will be placed together, and there will be 2 orbs of the same color, so hitting the desired orb will become much easier, and in no time you will begin to hit the art that you want. As the event reel, there will be always a "hot spot" to press the button. This hot spot can be several green orbs placed together (high level skill) or a single green orb surrounded by red X (low level skill). If you are defusing a high level chest, with a low level skill try looking for the hot spot, especially when you are unlocking chests with explosive content, if you don't unlock it at least the chest won't explode. OBS: It seems that with some characters, there is a lag in the time that press the button, and the reel to stop. This can cause annoying outcomes, especially if you are good with the reel. But this effect only happens with the event reel, like unlocking or evading traps, in the battle reel this won't happen. In any case this lag not always happens, so look for the hot spots for a better probability of success. H ) The battle - The battle screen When you trigger a battle (intentionally or not), a battle screen will appear. Once you enter the battle, the rules are simple: You and your enemy will exchange blows and the one last standing is the winner. No items to use, or running away from the battle. The first thing is to select 5 commands and the enemy that you will perform the action. A command can be attacking the enemy, or using magic. The 5 commands can be that the same character attacks 5 times in a row or each one attacks once, or one character attacks 3 times and 2 others one time, so you have total freedom of choose your strategy of fighting. - Choosing a character The battle screen will appear. There will be a circle with every character and his HP/LP. And a white circle shows the number of remaining command that can be made. - Choosing an action After choosing a character, a screen will appear to choose an action related to that character. It shows every weapon and accessory equipped by that character, and also the melee and a familiar (if you have any familiar in the skill panel, more later on). Below the weapon, there will be the categories of that weapon/ accessory/ melee/ familiar. Only black categories can be chosen, the gray ones cannot be chosen. If a weapon has only grayed out categories, this weapon has 0 durability and can't be used. Also you can check the HP and endurance required to execute a action, pressing square or O buttons on the categories. Press X to choose the desired action and the enemy. Repeat that 5 times and the battle will begin for real. - The combo system When you choose the 5 actions, the battle will begin. The reel will spin and you have 2 options: GO or HOLD. If you choose GO (pressing X) the character will perform the action of the icon that you previously. If you choose to HOLD (pressing O), the character will try to combo with the next person, and the next person will be in the control of the main reel. If your 2 characters choose to HOLD as well, you will try to do a triple combo, and so on. You can do a maximum of a five-hit combo. When you successfully do a combo, the name of the combo will appear and the combo rate also will show up. The combo rate is related to the extra damage inflicted by a combo, if a combo rate was 130% that means the combo will deal damage 30% higher than done the hits by itself. A combo with more than 130% has a high probability of LP damage on the enemy. The advantage of the combo is that it will increase the damage inflicted in the enemy, with the last person of the combo makes the makes the great part of the damage. If the last person selects HOLD, you will only use the basic attack of the weapon category. - The enemy reaction Of course, the enemy will attack (and combo) like you do. The enemy doesn't have any restriction of numbers of turns. They can attack only twice (weak enemies) or even 7 times (bosses). And its order is unpredictable as well, but if you notice that the enemy group is attacking fast on the first turns, probably they will stop and open a window to combo. Combos do not always happened like you wanted to, because the enemy can break the combo. If the enemy breaks your combo, 2 bad things will happen, the first one is that the last blow it's the most powerful of the combo, and that you can't do high level arts if you have the combo breaked. There is an example of a combo breaked: You choose 4 HOLD, 1 GO: Hold Hold Hold Hold GO Attack - Attack - Attack - Attack - Attack The enemy chooses 2 GO, 1 HOLD GO GO Hold Attack - Attack - Attack Here's what happens in the game: You will have your combo breaked in the second character. There will be a 3-hit combo in total. The 2 ally characters will begin the combo, and your enemy will end it. The third ally character will also have its combo breaked. Two-hit combo with the ally beginning the combo, and the enemy end it. In the last turn, the enemy will begin the combo and the 2 ally characters will end it. That is just a possibility, but in the real game you won't know what your enemy is planning. Since the last person of the combo inflicts greater damage, trying to combo without much thought can make things worst, because if the enemy just breaks your combo again and again they will, in the end, inflicts massive damage on you. But always doing GO won't help you either. In difficult battles, since doing combo increases the possibility of draining LP of the enemy (your main objective) you have to take your chances and combo. So you have to find a way to combo the enemy, without giving the enemy chance to retaliate. It's a guessing game, but it's that makes the battles in this game so fun, but frustrating at the same time. - Team formation The basic formation is always the same with 3 characters in the front row, and 2 on the back row. The front row has a greater chance of being damaged by an enemy. If you choose fewer characters, you will fill first the front row then the back row. This can change with some locations, which can have variables kinds of formations. Also, there is a battle in tight spots that requires a maximum of 3 different characters. There are few situations in the game that requires one-to-one battle. - Battle tips Knowing the battle rules, there are some tips to help you out: 1 - If you want to score a greater damage without being much damaged in the process, leave the high HP/LP on the front row and leave the main character and the character with the most powerful skill for last. So make HOLD on the first 2 characters, this forces the enemy to break your combo and attack. You will receive greater damage, but if your characters are strong, even you lose some LP it compensates the trouble since the others 3 characters can combo without have much fear of has it combo break and being damaged in the process. If the initial HOLD trick does not work, you can play it safe, doing GO on the remaining 3 characters or risk a higher combo, it's up to you. The enemy AI is smart though, so they will change his strategy constantly. 2 - When you have more than 5 characters in your team, swap the front row once in a while, specially in boss battles. Leaving the same characters over and over, will deplete his endurance and they will die quickly. 3 - Use skills that reduce any parameters of the enemy. They can't be strong by itself, but in the long run it can save your life. Arts like brute force (punch), deadly palm (punch), aim (spear) and nutcracker (staff) destroy the defenses of the enemy. Use them on bosses and tough enemies. - Taking out a character When you have a character with blackout, sleep, or petrify status or even dead, they will remain in the battlefield until you take him out. To do take that character out you must choose the "rescue" option below in the melee attacks. This option always appears, but if you aren't with a character that can be taken out, this option will be inaccessible. As the stunned character is in the battlefield, his turn will be spend like a regular character. When you choose a character to rescue another, his turn as well will be lost (rescue counts as a action) but if think about it, you will replace for a good character and also you won't lose the stunned character turn. But not always a character can successfully rescue another, this depends of the build of a character, if he is tall and strong, the odds of a little girl carry him out of the battlefield are slim, so put a strong character when you try to rescue another character. - Game over The game will end if the main character gets 0 LP or all characters in the battlefield get 0 LP or are unable to make any actions. I ) Equipment, materials, skills and items - Equipment Each characters has several equipment that he can...well, equip. There are 2 weapons slots, 2 accessories, one head, one armor and one legging. The weapon that you can equip includes daggers, swords, axes, staffs, spears, bows and shields. You can equip 2 attack weapons or 1 attack and one shield (yes, you can equip 2 shields, and yes, you're dumb if you actually do that...^_^) - Materials Materials are items that only have utility in a blacksmith. They can be use to improve the durability of an equipment or to make new weapons. They materials can be find on the adventures or bought in stores. There are several types of materials, which can be further divided on 5 groups: Fire, Water, Metal, Wood and Earth. - Skills There are several skills in this game but 2 of them are of the most importance: Defuse and locksmith. These are truly essential skills that at least one person has to have all times. Others required skills are swimming and obstacle crossing. I like also the iron body skill, which reduces damage and LP loss probability. J ) Character, equipment and arts development - Character development In Unlimited SaGa they taken off the random character stats gained in every battle and created a different system. The character development can be only done on the end of every cleared adventure. The character HP will grow only for the characters that participated on battle in an adventure. You can gain one new skill and a status boost. Both are handled in the same way: The skills panel. You can check your skill panel only in the field. - Skill panel The skill panel looks like this: ___ ___ / \/ \ _\___/\___/__ / \/ \/ \ \___/\___/\___/ / \/ \ \___/\___/ After the end of the adventure, the game will choose randomly 4 skills for each character, so you pick a skill and place it in the skill panel. The harder is the adventure that you accomplished; the level of the skills will be higher as well. But even if you make the most difficult adventure, if you skills are low, you will grow, but a little bit, so if you have only levels 2 or 3 in your panel skill, the odds are that you will receive a level 4, not a level 5. The panel has 7 slots for skills, and when the 7 slots are full you will have to overwrite a skill, even if you won't to part with any skill you have. Each skill has 5 levels, as higher the level; the effects of the skill also will be higher. If the skill deals with the reel system, like unlock/defuse, when higher the level of the skill, the higher is the chance of success (more green orbs). Each skill has a category (symbol) and a definition of its use. There are different skills that are from the same category. OBS - Negative status (like phobia, seal weapon and pacifist) can be only being replaced with other negative status. The gauntlet skill, that is also a negative skill, cannot be replaced at all. Magic tablets don't count as one of the 4 skills that you receive, and you can place the magic tablet on every character. - Boosting status For boosting status there is 2 conditions that you have to notice. The first one is the skill that you are placing in the skill panel and the slot that you are putting in. The skill chosen will improve part of your status by the characteristics of the skill, just like Melee and weapons skills improves more STR, END and SKL than ELM and MAG and Familiars have the tendency to improve more MAG and ELM than STR. Keep in mind that the ELM skills like familiar do not improve all ELM, since a water familiar will improve water, fire familiar improves fire and so on. The others skills like negotiating, key and health have a more balanced status growth. The slot works like this. Every slot in the panel is related with a particular status parameter, so every skill putted on an empty slot will improve a parameter, following that rule: ___ ___ /STR\/SKL\ _\___/\___/__ /END\/ALL\/SPR\ \___/\___/\___/ /ELM\/MAG\ \___/\___/ Each slot affects the adjacent slot as well, so when you put a skill on the STR for example, the END and SKL will grow as well but in a smaller proportion. It's the reason why the middle slot improves all parameters. So the key for a powerful character lies in the combination of this 2 factors. You can put any skill in any slot that you like, but you won't have the best combinations, since if you add a powerful weapon skill (like Axe) in the first slot, you will improve more your STR than if you put in the last slot. Do not worry if you have the same combination of skills/slot on several characters but the growth is different. This depends on the characters, some characters are bound to have a strong STR and mage characters are bound to have a strong MAG. The limit for the all parameters is 80 points. To see the change of the status when placing a new skill, press the square button, making this you can evaluate the changes that placing a skill give to a character. There is also the panel bonus, which is a bonus that you receive if certain conditions are made: JOINT - It's the bonus that you receive by placing the skills with the same category in an adjacent slot, but not the center slot. LINE - It's the bonus that you receive by placing the skills with the same category in a line using the center slot. TRIANGLE - It's the bonus that you receive by placing the skills in a triangular shape, once again not using the center slot. JOINT LINE TRIANGLE ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ /JNT\/JNT\ /LIN\/ \ /TRI\/ \ _\___/\_ /__ _\___/\___/__ _\___/\___/__ / \/ \/ \ / \/LIN\/ \ / \/ \/TRI\ \___/\___/\___/ \___/\___/\___/ \___/\___/\___/ / \/ \ / \/LIN\ /TRI\/ \ \___/\___/ \___/\___/ \___/\___/ There is also an additional bonus that you receive if the skills that form the panel bonus are the same level. It is called same level bonus (duh!). So to have a good character, leave the fighting skills to the upper part of the screen, a good health skill on the middle slot and the lower part leave with skill like familiars, negotiating or key skills. - Weapon development Every weapon and equipment has 4 slots for development. When you buy or find equipment, it's common that it comes with only one slot with something. As you use the weapons or being hit with armor equipped, it can release new weapon category or ability at the end of every battle. But this development is made at random, so you can gain several things in just one battle or gain nothing for several battles. Weapon category releases a new set of arts, and ability can give you protections against several status and such. If equipment has already filled the 4 slots so it can't grow anymore. But equipment with 0 durability can learn new category, but it has to be equipped on a character. OBS: Guns haven't any category, or any arts. Just the normal shoot. - Arts development Arts development it's a tricky subject, so probably it's the most controversial section of this FAQ. You learn new arts as you will use a particular weapon category, but it's learning ratio (or learning at all) is a total mystery. A person can learn different arts per category, and in just one round 2 persons can learn an art, or even one person can learn 2 arts at once (it happens to me, once). There is no 'way' of learning arts, which means that you can learn a powerful art in the beginning of the game and don't learn the weaker arts forever. But, as the game says, practice makes perfect, and so use the desired category over and over, and eventually you will learn arts, - Tips for arts development Just remember to take that info with a bit of salt, that I cannot prove this factors: EVERYONE CAN LEARN ALL ARTS FOR MELEE ATTACKS WITH RELATIVE EASE, so just keeping using it and he/she/it will eventually learn these arts. Exception goes to the Hairdryer and Humming bird categories. THE START WEAPON OF A CHARACTER CAN BE A GOOD INDICATOR of that he will learn some arts of that weapon, but that don't mean that he will learn every single arts for every category with ease. THE LEARNING CAN BE ASSOCIATED WITH A BUILD OF A CHARACTER, if a character is strong, the probability to adapt to a heavy weapon like swords, spears and axes is greater; like small, weak characters are bounded to be good with daggers, bows and staffs. Of course, there are exceptions. A CHARACTER HAS AFFINITY WITH SOME WEAPONS, so if you use a particular character that appears in several quests (like Ruby), the chance that she has of learning an art that she already learn before in a previous game is huge. THE MAIN CHARACTERS HAS AFFINITY WITH VARIOUS WEAPONS. Basically that's true, but Armic and Judy that has serious problems at learning different weapon arts. FIGHTING STRONG FOES increases the probability to learn new arts. This is very important. Fighting a really strong foe (like the Giant in the Knight's Mausoleum or the Elder Dragons) can unlock more arts than 20 hours of normal quest. WEAPONS WITH LOW DURABILITY HAS BETTER CHANCE TO LEARN AN ART, it's probably the most controversial point, but I believe that's true. THERE IS SOME ARTS THAT IS JUST TOO HARD TO LEARN, some categories has trouble in releasing arts; just like saying that spear it's probably the worst weapon to learn anything. Particularly, I tend to keep distance from spears, even if my most powerful weapon its, guess what, a spear. - Magic learning and using it A) Learning magic Magic in this game don't use the same rules as weapon arts. There is 2 ways to learn magic: Learning magic from magic tablets or using a familiar skill. - Magic tablet Magic users like Judy requires magic tablets to learn new spells. Magic tablets can be found on adventures just like other items, but they can't be equipped. They work like a normal skill that you have to put in your skill panel. But that isn't enough, you must have your character begin the study of the magic tablet if they want to learn something, so select the main status screen (use the O button on the field), select magic tablet and select what magic tablet you want to learn. After selecting a magic tablet, on every single battle you can learn a little of the new spell, just like the weapons development, but also this happens at random. You can check out the learning rate of the magic by seeing how full is the learning bar. You can also accelerate the study by using the desired spell once for battle. Each magic tablet has 3 different magic to learn, and as soon as you complete the study, the magic will remain with you forever, even if you don't learn the others spells on the magic tablet, but if you stop the learning of the magic before the magic is fully studied, they won't be available. Fortunately, some characters begin the game with some magic on his sleeve, so avoiding wasting much time (learning magic from a magic table can be a very slow process). To use magic from a magic tablet, beside have equipped the magical tablet, you also must have a weapon/accessory that has the elemental compatibility of the magic that you want to learn. So if you want to use the purify magic (a water-elemental magic), you have to learn the purify magic from a magic tablet and also have a weapon/accessory with "water arts". Magic, like weapon arts, drains durability from the equipment that has the elemental arts. You cannot use any learned magic without any weapon/accessory. The best way to use magic in this game it's to use familiars. Familiars appears just like normal skills when you clear an adventure, and has a fixed, ready to use set of spells. To use a familiar, place a familiar skill in your skill panel. Using a familiar doesn't requires that you learn the desired magic (since each familiar has its own set of spells to use), not even it has an equipment requirement. So just equip the familiar and begin to use it. The bad side of using familiars is, beside taking space of the skill panel, it's the fact that familiars gives you only low-level spells. If you want stronger spells, you will have to learn them from magic tablets. K ) Random things - Carriers Ventus storyline will enable you to play as a carrier, that's basically a deliver guy. This works as a part-time job, which you can do between your adventures. Doing carriers is positive because: You can go to places that you can't go normally on your adventures, that you can get money (others characters relies only on treasure chests to get money) and your development will be quicker. To make carriers, go to the carrier guild (every city has one) and select a job. The owner of the guild will tell you what object that you will carrier, the city that you have to deliver, the difficulty of the carrier and the reward. Sometimes will be a carrier that is impossible to do because the difficulty is high and your carrier rank is low. As you are do carriers, you carrier rank will grow and you will be enabled do make more difficult jobs, and with better rewards. A carrier is just like a normal adventure but you have to pass all roads to the city of the deliver. An example is that you are getting a carrier in Torle to Loch Vaan; you have to pass in Iskandaria and Escata before reaching Loch Vaan. But each stop in each city worth like a full adventure. So in this example you will develop your skills and increase your HP 3 times. SO if you run out of adventures you can rely on making carrier to develop your status. Ventus story also requires that you visit a carrier guild once in a while. - Blacksmith When you use your weapons, its durability will diminish and eventually reach 0. On this time this weapon will lose it's use, but not the category or the arts learned so far. But the blacksmith can make that weapon work again; just go to a blacksmith and it can repair it. The blacksmith requires 2 things: A base item and an additional item. The base item is the item that you will work into. So if you want to repair a copper sword, you will put the copper sword as base item. The additional item works as the extra material make to improve the base item, like improving the durability or transforming the base item type into another one. It can be a material or other weapon as well. You can also make other things in a blacksmith. The first one is create a new weapon, with a material or other weapon. With a new material, just put the material as the base item. The weapon will be created based on the type of the material that you put on the base item. You can see the preview of the weapon created before doing the real thing. One good use of this it's that you can make powerful equipment of weaker things. A good example is an accessory with only 1 of defense, but it's made of dragon scale. So go to a weapon blacksmith, choose sword and put the armlet as the base item, and you can produce a mighty Dragonscale sword with 77 of attack (one of the most powerful weapons in the game). There is no restriction or penalty to change a bow to an axe, for example. The only thing that matters is the type of the material. But there are some restrictions: some types can't be used as base or additional item, like armors, leggings or helmets; and some kinds of materials can't be used as a base item, like angelite can't be used to build weapons, just accessories. OBS: Since in blacksmiths don't produce armors, helmets or leggings, the best way is to buy them in the inn's shops, or finding then on your adventures. - Clear game data When you beat a game with one character, the game will save on the system data the information that you finished the game with that character, so you can play several quests at once, without having to play one character at the time. To start with a new character, select NEW GAME from the main menu and choose the desired next character. The game only "ends" when you beat with all 7 characters. 5 - - CHARACTER WALKTHROUGH A ) RUBY Ruby is a carefree girl, which only objective on his mind is making a buck. One day, when his sister Sapphire, which is a respected fortuneteller and runs a fortunetelling store in Loch Vaan, reads the future to a man (Lord Burgundy) she only sees death, and she gets