Have a little chat with your party members in camp mode.
Despite the high linear nature of the game, Softmax still tries to be helpful in reminding you of your next goal in the game whenever you come across camp spots in various areas. These spots are marked by rotating lime coloured crystals and allows you to save the game, socialise with your party members or rest. Again, oddly enough you can already save and rest anywhere in the game so I don’t see much point in two of those options. You can save via the main menu at any time and you can also just kneel down to heal up too.

Socialising with your comrades basically lets you attack quicker during battles and in order to raise the relationships between you and them, you can either offer them gifts they like or speak to them whenever you’re at a camp spot. Speaking to them always gives you a choice of several replies you can make much like the classic text adventure games in Japan and as you’ll probably have guessed, choosing the correct improves the relationships.


Changing Lanterns with talismans can help boost your Chi.
Getting along with your comrades isn’t the only thing that’ll affect battles because every area has a certain amount of “Chi” which will affect what attacks you can perform, a system known as the “Magna Carta” in the MCP world. There are basically eight types of “Chi” which are all elementally based and they are Celestial, Ice, Fire, Lightning, Wind, Water, Mountain and Earth. How much of this Chi or energy there is is shown by eight orange orbs on the screen and can be replenished by either waiting for a little time to pass or using talismans. Once a certain type of Chi has been depleted, you can’t use any attacks that require it. “Lanterns” can also be found in each area showing what element is currently the strongest and needless to say, every element will have its own strengths and weaknesses.

Enemies can be seen walking around on the battle field and depending on what mode you’re in, you can gain a pre-emptive advantage at the start of fights. There are two modes you can use to travel around environments; Dash Mode and Detect Mode. In MCP, “Detect Mode” has been renamed to “Counter Mode” and while using this stance, you walk around slowly with your weapon drawn, allowing you to sneak behind enemies and strike at them to give you a first hit advantage in battles. Dash Mode on the other hand allows you to run as the name suggests. Although it has the same name from the PS2 version of the game, two changes have been made so that you’re no longer more prone to “back attacks” from enemies and have a lower field of view than in Detect Mode.


Detect Mode’s known as “Counter Mode” now.
While the pre-battle system sounds like you’re almost always likely to have an advantage on the enemy, I found the fixed camera to be a little frustrating because you’ll find that it ends up in a lot of strange angles. There are a lot of times when you can’t see where the enemy is even when you’re standing right behind them because the camera just happens to be behind a tree or some other place where your view’s being blocked. Not only that but sometimes you can’t even see where you’re going because the paths you’re supposed to run along are also hidden from view. As a result of the fixed camera, you’re pretty much forced to look at the mini map displayed in the corner of the screen.