Table of Contents Show
A basic guide for the most common system mechanics found in the game meant to help players being able to quickly look up info along the way. This explains things a little more detailed than the tutorials found ingame.
This guide may update from time to time to add more information people request and when the game is updated.
Battle System: Basics
Commands
Attack
Makes the selected party member do a regular attack against a single enemy. Restores 10 TP.
Skills
Makes the selected party member execute a skill they learned and set in the main menu.
Using skills costs TP. The cost amount per skill is displayed right next to the skill type and name in yellow.
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| Skill Type | Icon | Description |
| Attack |  | Offensive skill that deals physical damage to one or multiple enemy targets |
| Magic |  | Offensive skill that deals magical damage to one or multiple enemy targets |
| Buff |  | Supporting skill that adds at least one buff to one or multiple party members |
| Debuff |  | Supporting skill that adds at least one debuff to one or multiple enemies |
| Heal |  | Supporting skill that increases one or multiple party members’ stats or adds at least one stat regenerating buff |
| Utility |  | Unique skill that varies in effect |
Items
Makes the selected party member use / consume an item from the party’s inventory.
Defend
Makes the selected party member defend. Reduces incoming physical and magical damage until their next turn by 50%. Applied on top of Overdrive modifiers. Moves the overdrive cursor backwards.
Switch
Switches the selected party member with the one in the back row. The switched in member can then use all of their available options except switching out again. Moves the overdrive cursor backwards.
You can only switch members that are in the same row. Which member is in which row is changeable in the main menu under “Formation” and switchable members are indicated with a chain icon between them. In battle, the formation is displayed in the Party Info section on the bottom right of the screen.
Unconscious party members cannot switch. The switched out party member retains all of their buffs and debuffs and durations are paused until they are switched in again.
To switch, press the button during a party member’s turn. A summary of the member to be switched in shows up. Press the button again to confirm the switch.
Escape
Exits the battle and returns the party to the map outside of the enemy’s range. The encounter is reset, which means:
- Enemy formation resets regardless of which or how many enemies were defeated
- Enemies fully recover
- Drops received during the fight are lost
Some battles are not escapable.
Ultra Move
Executes the selected party member’s Ultra Move. The details of the Ultra Move are different for each party member. Depletes the entire Ultra Move bar.
All actions except Switch and Escape immediately increase the Ultra Move bar slightly upon use.
Turn Order
Turn order indicates the order of the party members and enemies in battle from left to right. The currently acting party member or enemy is displayed on the leftmost and highlighted with a banner labeled “Act”. The party member or enemy who acts after that is labeled by “Next”. The following party members or enemies are taking turns in order from left to right.
The party member who is currently acting is highlighted with a yellow ring around their battle sprite and their name is displayed above the action menu.
Enemy Status
When targeting an enemy during battle after selecting an action, their status containing useful information gets displayed.
| Name | The enemy’s name, displayed on the top left |
| Type | The enemy’s type, displayed on the top right |
| Strength | The element the enemy has highest resistance against |
| Weakness | The element the enemy has lowest resistance against |
| Steal | The enemy can be stolen from once using a party member’s skill |
| Canned | The enemy can be canned by a specific character’s “Uncanny Encounter” skill |
A red X indicates that the enemy is not affected by any action influenced or influencing that enemy property.
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Additionally, the currently targeted enemy has their name and HP bar displayed above them.
Battle System: Overdrive
The Overdrive bar controls the flow of the battle. The bar consists of the title “OVERDRIVE” or “OVERHEAT”, an icon on the left and a bar separated into minimum 3 segments with different colors.
Within that bar, the player moves forward or backwards during the battle, depending on their actions, indicated by a white arrow.
A battle always starts in the Neutral (yellow) zone.
The bar is separated into three segments.
Neutral (yellow)
- All party members deal and receive 100% damage
- All skills cost the 100% the amount of TP
Overdrive (green)
- All party members deal 125% and receive 85% damage
- All skills cost 50% the amount of TP
Overheat (red)
- All party members deal 100% and receive 125% damage
- All skills cost 100% the amount of TP
The player ideally wants to stay in the green Overdrive zone as much as possible.
When a party member or enemy attacks or uses a skill, the player’s cursor on the Overdrive bar moves to the right. Specific actions move the cursor to the left.
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Before confirming an action, a second smaller arrow will show up on the Overdrive bar previewing the position the cursor will be in when confirming it.
Actions that move the cursor forward
- Attack
- Skills
- Enemy action
Actions that move the cursor backwards
- Defend
- Switch
- Ultra Move
- Some skills
- Some items
- Skills with the corresponding Overdrive icon type
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When entering Overdrive or Overheat, an indicator will show on the center of the screen with a sound informing the player.
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Once leaving the Neutral zone, the icon left to the Overdrive bar changes from a grey lock to a display of a skill type with a number.
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During a party member’s turn, any skill matching its skill type with the type displayed in the Overdrive bar will be displayed in yellow.
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When using a matching skill type, the player’s cursor on the Overdrive bar moves backwards a large amount.
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The number on the icon indicates how many player turns this Overdrive skill type icon will be displayed. When reaching 0, the type changes to a random other type.
Using a matching skill also immediately changes the icon to a different type, unless the skill used this way moves the player cursor into the Neutral zone.
Battle System: Sky Armor Battles
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Sky Armor battles behave like regular battles, with some differences regarding the Overdrive system.
Overdrive
There is no Overdrive Zone, only Neutral and two Overheat zones to the left and right end.
The player starts in the middle of the Neutral Zone. The skill type icon is always locked.
Combat Actions
Above the Combat Actions menu there is a spinning cogwheel and a number labeled “Gear”.
The battle always starts with all party members in Gear 1.
Switching GearOnce per turn, a party member can switch gears.
Switching order is always Gear 1 → Gear 2 → Gear 0 → Gear 1
Gear 1
- All party members deal and receive 100% damage
- All skills cost 100% the amount of TP
- All party member actions except Items and Defend move the
player cursor on the Overdrive bar forward - Defend moves the cursor backwards
Gear 2
- All party members deal and receive 125% damage
- All skills cost 125% the amount of TP
- All party member actions except Items and Defend move the
player cursor on the Overdrive bar backwards - Defend moves the cursor forward
Gear 0
- All party members deal and receive 100% damage
- No skills are available
- Every party member action recovers 60TP for each attack,
defend and item use. - No party member actions move the player cursor on the
Overdrive bar in either direction
Characters
In Chained Echoes, a traditional Character Menu does not exist.
Information about party members is displayed where that specific information is relevant.
Attributes
| HP | Health Points, a party member’s vitality. When it reaches 0 in battle, the character becomes unconscious. |
| TP | Tactical Points, the resource you spend for executing active skills in battle. |
| Atk | Attack, affects the power / damage of the party member’s physical attacks in battle. |
| Mag | Magic, affects the power / damage of the party member’s magical attacks in battle. |
| Def | Defense, affects the power of reducing incoming physical damage for that party member in battle. |
| Mnd | Mind, affects the power of reducing incoming magical damage for that party member in battle and the strength of the party member’s healing magic. |
| Agi | Agility, affects the party member’s acting frequency during battle. |
| Crit% |
Critical Hit %, affects the chance to land a critical hit during a party member’s attack in battle.⠀ |
Resistances
Each resistance affects the incoming damage the party member receives from attacks of that element. Positive values decrease the incoming damage, negative values increase it.
Fire
Water
Earth
Wind
Darkness
Light
Other
SP: Skill Points available for this party member
GS: Grimoire Shards available for this party member
The total amount of acquired Grimoire Shards are displayed under the Stats section of the main menu. This is equal to the total level of your party member’s total level, considering you made use of all GS for each one.
Skills & Progression
Acquiring a Grimoire Shard (GS) allows all party members to make use of it. Each GS grants an additional skill for you to unlock in the “Learn Skills” menu.
Action Skills
These skills are usable in battle and cost TP to execute. These skills are mostly unique to the respective character and have to be equipped.
Passive Skills
These influence battles by providing character-specific effects but do not consume TP and don’t need to be activated by the player, but like action skills have to be equipped.
Stats Booster
These are bonus stat increases you may choose instead of an action or passive skill and applied automatically upon unlocking them.
Unlocked skills or stat boosters are marked with a star.
Skill Levels
Each action and passive skill’s effects are separated into three levels. Upon unlocking a skill it starts at level 1. Over time, the levels gradually increase in level and become stronger or get reduced TP cost or both.
Leveling Skills
When in the Set Skills menu, you can spend a party member’s acquired SP to increase a skill’s level by pressing the assigned Level up button. A skill is MAX level upon reaching level 3 and marked with a star.
Class Skills
Unlike Character Skills, class skills can only be equipped in the separate panel labeled “Class ACTION/PASSIVE Skills”, but regular skills can be assigned to class skill slots.
Once maxing a class skill, it can be equipped in a character skill slot as well.
Equipment
Weapons
Each party member can use a specific type of weapon unique to them. Weapons grant flat stat boosts to the party member’s attributes.
The weapon categories are:
- Swords
- Spears
- Bows
- Rapiers
- Guns
- Amulets
- Gunspears
- Katanas
- Great Swords
- Knuckles
- Anchors
- Cards
Armor
Each party member can use specific armors. Usually, a character can wear armor from multiple categories. Armors grant flat stat boosts to the party member’s attributes.
The armor categories are:
- Light Armor
- Heavy Armor
- Clothes
- Robes
Accessory
Each party member can wear one accessory. Aside from stat boosts, each accessory additionally grants a passive skill that does not need to be equipped in the Set Skills menu.
Class Emblems
Each party member can wear one class emblem. Aside from stat boosts, each class emblem also grants two additional active and passive skills which then can be equipped in the Set Skills menu.
Enhancing Equipment
At an anvil, via the “Upgrade Armor” and “Upgrade Equipment” menus, you can enhance equipment to better versions. Each weapon and armor is enhanceable twice, indicated through a + and a ++.
In order to enhance weapons or armor, you need to provide the resources listed under “Required Material” and the amount of money specified.
Crystal Slots
Additionally to flat stat increases, each weapon and armor upgrade also adds an additional crystal slot to it, allowing you to put larger or more crystals into them.
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Crystals
Crystals enhance weapon and armor abilities by providing additional passive skills to the party member using equipment with crystals in it. They can be very powerful and easily turn the outcome of a battle when set up right beforehand.
Types
Crystals come in 4 types:
| Status | Grant passive skills that give bonuses on attributes or bonuses for wearing the equipment |
| Offensive | Grant passive skills that enhance physical and magical attacks by adding properties, increasing their power or inflicting status effects |
| Defensive | Grant passive skills that enhance defense by adding properties, increasing attributes, resistances or status effects |
| Utility | Grant passive skills that greatly vary in effect |
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Variations
Crystals come in 2 variations: Natural and artificial.
Artificial crystals are marked with an asterisk (*) in front of the crystal’s name.
When fusing crystals, the resulting crystal will always be artificial. Artificial crystals cannot be used as fuse crystals, only base crystals.
Purity
Each crystal comes with a random purity level (P) to it. The higher the purity, the better crystals you can fuse with them.
Rank
The crystal’s rank is shown through roman numerals next to its name. It ranges from I to X, with X being the maximum rank a crystal can have, regardless of purity or size.
A crystal’s passive skill becomes stronger with higher rank, in total 3 levels per skill. The required ranks for each level are:
III: Skill level 1
V: Skill level 2
X: Skill level 3
Size
Each crystal comes in a random size between 1 and 3, indicated by small circles representing the amount of slots a crystal needs in an equipment piece.
The smaller the size and the higher the purity the better the crystal is for slotting and fusing.
Fusing Crystals
You can combine / fuse crystals with the same passive skill on them.
When combining a crystal you choose a base crystal and a fuse crystal with purity (P) above 0 for either and confirm the fusion.
Only pure crystals can be used as fuse crystals. Artificial crystals (marked with an asterisk (*) in front of the name) can only be used as base crystals.
After fusing two crystals, the resulting crystal:
- Will have the purity of the base crystal minus 1 (e.g. P3 -> P2) regardless of the fuse crystal’s purity.
- Will have the sum of both crystal’s rank (e.g. III + IV = VII)
- Will be the average size of both crystal’s size (e.g. * + *** = **)
- Becomes an artificial crystal
Adding / Removing from Weapons / Armor
In order to add a crystal into a weapon or armor:
- The crystal needs to be rank III or higher
- The equipment needs to have the amount of crystal slots available / free for the crystal’s size to fit
You can set multiple crystals into the same piece of equipment as long as the above requirements are met.
When removing a crystal from a piece of equipment, the crystal:
- Will get a purity of 0 (P0)
- Will get a size of 3 (***)
This means that once removed from equipment, artificial crystals can not be fused anymore and only set into other equipment again but now use up 3 crystal slots.
When removing a pure crystal from a weapon, it can not be used as a base crystal for fusing anymore, but as a fuse crystal.
Deals
Deals are unlockable by selling loot at a vendor.
Specific combinations of loot unlock new deals. Once you sell one of the loot required for a deal, you will get a notification informing you that new deals are available.
A deal’s description tells you what you will get in return, more or less precise.
Each deal shows which required loot you already sold at a vendor and which you still need to sell to unlock the deal. Additionally, the amount of money you need to pay for the deal is listed.
Deals are shared between all vendors that offer deals. If you sell loot to one vendor, you can continue selling loot and buy the deal at a different vendor.
Map & Fast travel
Use the map of your current location to get an overview. The map also displays fast travel crystals and exits as well as quest markers for your convenience.
Map Information
- To display location info for exits on your map, toggle them using the “Show Location Info” button.
- To display quest info for quest markers, toggle them pressing the button used to display location info again.
- To hide all info, press the button again.
Fast Travel
- Fast traveling unlocks once you find a fast travel crystal.
- To fast travel, open the map and then the fast travel menu to select your destination.
- You can display quest info on the screen where you select a crystal to travel to.
Reward Board
Instead of getting side quests through NPCs, Chained Echoes has a reward board accessible through the main menu under Journal -> Reward Board, alternatively by pressing L2 / LT / L key while running around.
The reward board displays common tasks found in RPGs and gives you rewards in return. When you enter a new area, the tasks for that area are unlocked on the reward board automatically.
A task shows you its location, what you need to do and the rewards you get for them.⠀
Once you finish a task, the respective task is marked with a red dot on the board.
You can then select it and claim the reward for it.
If at least two completed tasks are adjacent to each other horizontally and vertically, they will form a reward chain. The longest chain you currently have is displayed on the bottom left.
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Chain Rewards
Additionally to the task rewards, you get rewarded for making your reward chain longer. You can access the Chain Rewards with the “View Chain Rewards” button.
FAQ
Which button does [thing]?
On your controller press [Start], on your keyboard press P. This will bring up the Pause menu and show all your currently mapped buttons and what each button does.
What does Oil, Dry etc. do?
Enemies with these debuffs receive increased damage (“weakness” is triggered, then the debuff is removed).
Oil: Increases fire damage
Dry: Increases water damage
Heavy: Increases earth damage
Wet: Increases wind damage
Are there missables?
No.
What are SP? How do I use them?
You gain Skill Points (SP) from battles. SP is automatically applied to a party member’s equipped skils (“Set Skills” menu) but also additionally added to their separate SP pool. You can then spend SP to level up skills in that menu to make them stronger. Don’t sit on 999SP! Spend them!
What are these weird circle + arrow markings on the ground?
Each circle points at a hidden treasure’s location with an arrow. If there is more than 1 arrow on a circle, only one points into the right direction, the others are fake. There are at least two circles on a map. Find the spot where both circles directions cross and press the action button. A hidden treasure lies there and you’ll receive it.
Can I respec / reset skills?
No.
These ghosts are weird! What do I do?
The first attack you do to a ghost grants them a buff that makes them immune to that type of attack. They can become immune to physical or magical damage, but not both.
In order to defeat them, attack them with one type of attack, then defeat them with the other type.
I can’t access this location! I tried everything!
Continue the game, you will unlock ways to traverse maps differently and access new parts of the game this way.
How does Sienna not get caught by the man having dinner?
In the part of the town, go to the very right of the map behind a house.
Where is the Phioran couple?
The wife is to the south of Basil at the lighthouse. The husband is outside of Farnsport, to the south, you exit Farnsport to the north, head right, jump into the water and follow the river. He’ll be swimming there.
What is Hate? Why is this enemy only attacking the same party member?
It’s this game’s aggro mechanic. The more damage a party member does to an enemy the more hate they have against the party member and the likeliness of the enemy attacking them is increased.
What does “Aggressiveness” mean in the options?
This option affects how often enemies use skills instead of regular attacks.
How do I get to the Phyon Oasis?
On your controller press [Select], on your keyboard press K. You will enter your airship. The Phyon Oasis is northeast of Farnsport, in the desert.