June 19th - Take back the navel fortress¶

You begin in control of a group of Military Cadets in the Juno Naval Fortress during a crisis. This early section takes place a lot later in the game and offers a taste of things to come. Unfortunately, those that haven’t played any of the previous games or any turn-based RPG before will struggle, as the game throws you in the deep end without any tutorial. To begin, switch your character to Kurt by pressing the [L1] button and then make your way over to the right and smash the boxes open by pressing the [X] button.

Proceed up the stairs and smash a few more boxes open before looking to your left to encounter your first battle. Here you’ll want to get a little closer and the press the [R2] button to unleash a Special Field Attack, this will deal some damage and stun the enemies which will allow you to take your turns earlier in the battle. You can interact with enemies by pressing the [Sqaure] button to bring up a list of it’s weaknesses and strengths, so for example you’ll want to play close attention to the numbers shown on-screen as anything over 100 means they’re weak and anything below means they’re resistant.

So the Saber Cougars are really weak to Fire with 160 and resistant against Earth. If you don’t have any Arts with that element you’ll want to use Crafts, so make use of your character’s Crafts, making sure each enemy has an arrow above their heads, this means the attack will damage them. You have a lot of Crafts right now so try not to get too overwhelmed and just go with what feels best for now.

After that first battle has been won head up some more stairs to face off against five Sneak Gunner G’s, quickly inspect their weaknesses to find out that they’re really weak to Fire with 160 and get to work on taking them out. During this battle you may notice that a Link Attack will quickly pop up on your screen, here you can either Assist with a follow up attack and restore some BP or you can choose to perform a Rush that costs two BP which will initiate an attack between two linked characters. Finally, Burst which costs five BP, will trigger an attack that involves the use of all party members, this is only worth doing if the enemies on the battlefield are broken.

After the second battle has been won, head up the stairs and take out another group, now continue on further and you’ll enter a cutscene. After the cutscene has concluded you’ll face two Sleipnir F2’s, these are weak to both Water or Fire, so Musse and Kurt’s Crystal Edge Art is the best to use on them. Once the they’ve been defeated another cutscene will play out followed by a second battle against Ennea the Sharp and Ines the Stout.

Boss: Ennea the Sharp and Ines the Stout¶

Ines the Stout has 42220 HP and Enea the Sharp has 41960 HP. To begin this battle you’ll want to press up on the D-PAD and select the Sledgehammer skill, this will allow you to increase your Break Damage to 300%. Once depleted their break gauge they will be placed in the Break status, which means you’ll want to use normal attacks or S-Crafts as it will have 100% Critcal Attack chance. During this time so you can peform Assists to deal loads of damage and build up some BP, eventually they’ll charge up abilities of their own which will require you to use a skill that can Impede it to outright cancel the attack.

• Nightmare Strategy

For those of you playing on Nightmare, this guide will provide additional information when playing on this tough difficulty. For this first fight, don’t be afraid to use items as you won’t have them after this battle anyway. Focus your attention on one of your foes and work on breaking them, Juna especially is effective at this with her Cross Break Craft. Be sure to use an Impede Craft any time one of them is charging an attack or else you’ll suffer heavy damage. It shouldn’t be too tough a task to deplete one of their gauges below the red line and end the battle.

Upon victory you’ll have finished the Introduction and be given a choice to save as the Prologue will begin.