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As soon as you start playingReverse: 1999, you’ll already be introduced to the turn-based battle system after a few dialogues. Combat is an integral part of the game since it is the main driver of enticing you to pull for various characters, so you’ll see yourself against different enemies regularly in both the main story and side content.
When it comes to the main story, you’ll only get Clear Drop from a certain chapter if combat is involved. The same goes for beating a Resource stage for the first time or taking part in Artificial Somnambulism. Hence, it’s quite important to learn the ins and outs of the combat system.
Afflatus System Guide
Afflatus is one of the most important parts of the combat system in Reverse: 1999, and they cansingle-handedly decide the fate of the combat encounter during the late game. If you head over to the character information menu, you’ll be able to see an Afflatus assigned to each character on the top-left side of their portrait.
There are a total of six Afflatuses in the game, andeach one of them is weaker and stronger against another Afflatus. Here’s a table to easily learn the relationship between all of these:
Spirit
When you’re about to start a combat, you’ll be able to see all theenemy Afflatus that you’ll find on the left side while choosing your characters. If you’re about to face a boss enemy, you’ll see a crown on top of their Afflatus here. Finally, you’ll also be able to see the recommended Afflatus at the bottom.
However, the recommended Afflatus isn’t always the best choice. Moreover, sometimes the game shows thatthere are no recommended Afflatus since the enemies' Afflatuses are quite diverse. In these scenarios, you have to choose one on your own based on these points:
How To Use Your Cards
Now that you’ve chosen your party members using the Afflatus screen, thenext step is to enter battle and learn the card mechanic in the game. As soon as you enter battle, the first thing you’ll notice is the card layout on the bottom right side of your screen and the empty slots in the middle.
Your team always gets the first turn in battle, andyou can pick cards from your layout to use them on your allies or enemies. Whenever you move a card or decide to use one, a slot in the middle of your screen will get filled up. You will have the same number of slots as the active characters in battle.
Your turn automatically starts as soon as you fill all the slots, but you cantake all the moves back before thatby clicking on the slots in the center.
Each character contains a set of two Skills and one Ultimate. These Skills can haveattack, healing, and debuff effects, which can be seen on your card layout. Some Skills may have an attack effect on one star and debuff/healing on two and three stars. You can check what each Skill or Ultimate does by long pressing on its card when it’s your turn.
Alternatively, you can also long press on any character or enemy to open their information screen and check their abilities. Thisscreen can be used to understand the effects of each buff and debuff. After understanding your character abilities, the next step is to learn the order in which you should play your cards.
Ever since the start of the game, it’ll keep telling you that the order of your cards is extremely important during battle. This is especiallytrue for instances where you’d want to place a debuff on the enemies. The cards get executed in the left-to-right order on your actions in the middle, so you’d want to place the debuff on the left-most slot.
This will allow you to put thedebuff on the enemies before your attack abilities.
Some abilities even get buffed simply by using them on an enemy with a debuff.
Another thing to note here is that you will be able to see"Stronger" written on the top left side of your damage-dealing cardsif you’re targeting an enemy with a weaker Afflatus. Character abilities can be of two types: 1-target and mass attack. The mass attack abilities will always attack the chosen target and then choose the rest of the targets at random.
You have to remember all of this information and use them in battle, howeverthey become second nature quite fast since it’s easy to get used to them.
How To Build Your Characters
You can win almost every combat as long as you pay attention to your card layout and Afflatus,but building your characters is also important for the late game. When you’re about to enter combat, the game usually tells you the recommended character level for it. However, you can still beat it with lower-level characters if you have them built properly.
Themain aspects of a character’s kit are their Insight, Psychube, and Resonate.
Description
Insight
This directly connects to the level of your character. Once you reach the maximum level, you canupgrade your Insight to reset the level and increase its maximum cap. Raising your Insight also gives you special effects that can be seen in the bar below it.
Psychube
This is essentially the weapon of your character. You can obtain Psychube for free by simplyusing your Activity in the Pneuma Analysis resource area. They can be upgraded and ascended multiple times to get an increase in their effects.
Resonate
Finally, Resonate is a unique feature in Reverse: 1999 that can also be upgraded regularly to increase your brain capacity and get new ideas. You canfit these ideas inside the brain’s grid to get various buffs.
You have limited resources in the game, so it’s important to pick a few characters and upgrade them properly.
