Just like its predecessors, Daybreak features towns, dungeons, and fields for the player to explore. Towns are where the player can purchase equipment, items, ingredients, and recipes, upgrade their orbments, and exchange goods. Certain shops have a bargain bin where the player can buy items they have possibly missed in a previous chapter. There is also a delivery service accessible via the Arkide Solutions Office terminal. Furthermore, the player can pay a modest fee for access to a town's sauna to fully restore their party. NPCs can be spoken to to learn about the world and receive quests.
Fields and Dungeons, like always, are filled with monsters and treasure. However, a couple of changes have been made to the orbal recharge stations. First, regular stations can, in addition to refilling the party's HP and EP, reset a dungeon's monsters. Second, before a boss in every dungeon, there is an enhanced recharge station. These have the functions of a regular station and serve as an all-in-one shop.
Gourmet
Cooking has been simplified and is part of the gourmet mechanic. The player is no longer required to pick a party member to cook the chosen recipe, and cooking always succeeds. However, cooking can only be done at a kitchen stove or at an enhanced charging station. Recipeless food items can be recreated by providing Victor, the chef and owner of Monmart Bistro, with the required ingredients.
Food is categorized into meals and snacks. Meals affect the entire party, but can only be eaten outside of battle. Snacks, meanwhile, act the same as food items in previous entries. Consuming food earns the player gourmet points, with different foods having varying point values. Accumulating enough points will raise the player's gourmet rank and permanently increase a stat for the entire party.
Quests
The beginning of every chapter sees Van and his part-timers go around Edith, capital of Calvard, completing quests known as 4SPGs. These are requests made to Arkride Solutions that the client feels uncomfortable bringing to the police or bracers or are morally gray in nature. Business trips to different towns see Arkide Solutions doing the same there.
4SPGs are typically retrieved from town notice boards, but some are taken from NPCs, while a few are sent directly to Van. For most quests, the player can see how much mira and Spriggan Points they'll earn, as well as how it will affect a new stat known as LCG Alignment, before accepting. Accumulating enough SP will raise Arkide Solutions's rank and earn them rewards. Additional SP can be earned by fulfilling certain conditions during quests.
Before accepting a quest, the player will see the words law, chaos, and gray, with an up arrow next to one or more of them. These indicate how much Van's morality, known in-game as LCG alignment, will change upon completing a quest. Van's LCG alignment can further be affected based on how he chooses to resolve the client's problem at a quest's climax. L.C.G. alignment mostly does not affect actual gameplay, but it can unlock things later depending on which alignment Van leans toward the most.
The night before a business trip sees Van doing a nightly patrol of Edith on his own. There are sidequests, connection events, and other interactions that are only available during this period.
Connections
While out taking care of 4SPGs, Van can cultivate his relationships with his part-timers and other people by spending connection points. Each day provides at least two connection points, though an additional point can be earned by completing all 4SPGs. These points are spent for Van to spend time with a person of his choice and deepen his relationship with them in the form of connection points. Van can also give gifts and watch a movie with two of his part-timers to deepen his relationship with them, though he is typically limited to one movie a day.
Once a person accumulates enough connection points, their connection with Van will level up and result in a variety of benefits. For part-timers, raising their connection level will improve their stats and their proficiency with SCLM. For others, Van's stats will increase and reward him with accessories. Van also has his own connection level, which accumulates points when he spends time with people, and his rank benefits work the same as his part-timers.
Orbment
The Xipha is the latest and most advanced orbment yet, sporting far more slots than previous iterations. Quartz are installed in the slots unlocked at orbal factories to improve a character's capabilities and contribute to the elemental value of a line, like how it was in the Liberl and Crossbell games. But unlike those games, the elemental value of a line does not determine what arts a character can use, but instead what Shard Skills they have.
Shard Skills
Shard Skills are passive skills that provide unique effects in and out of battle. The availability of shard skills is determined by the elemental value of a line and the line's designation: Weapon, Shield, Drive, and EXTRA. With a few exceptions, shard skills only have a chance to activate in battle, but there is a way to guarantee their activation. Shard Skills can also be enhanced by increasing a line's elemental value.
Holo Core
Another new addition to the orbment is the Holo Core, acting as a spiritual successor to the master quartz. Like master quartz, Holo Cores can level up and provide effects to their user. But unlike master quartz, Holo Cores do not increase all of a character's parameters, only their max EP and arts damage. Furthermore, they provide multiple effects from the outset, and while they do not gain new effects like master quartz, leveling them up does increase the proficiency of those effects. Holo Cores also need to be activated in battle for characters to gain their effects, but they can be activated multiple times, so long as certain conditions are met. This is in contrast to master quartz, the effects of which automatically activated upon entering battle and were very much temporary.
Arts Driver
As mentioned earlier, what arts a character can use is not determined by the elemental value of an ornament's line. Instead, a character's available arts are determined by their Arts Driver and Arts Plugins. Arts Drivers are installed into a character's orbment and come preinstalled with a set of arts, but the stronger arts require a character's Holo Core to be leveled up first before they're accessible.
Arts Plugins are arts bought from orbal factories and grant characters to those arts when put into the custom slots of their Arts Driver. The number of custom slots varies depending on the Arts Driver. Custom slots need to be unlocked at an orbal factory before they can be used, just like regular orbment slots.
Battle System
Daybreak's battle system is a major departure from the rest of the series, featuring both action combat and turn-based combat. Before getting to combat, though, the player should first check their equipment. Equipment is mostly the same as it was in previous games; weapons for offense, armor and boots for defense, and two accessories for various effects. But a new addition is sub parts, which are weapon attachments specific to a character. All sub parts increase arts damage and other parameters depending on the sub part.
Field Battle
While out in the field, the player can engage in action combat known as field battle. Characters can attack enemies to deal damage to them and fill their stun gauge. Enemies can attack as well, but characters can dodge enemy attacks. Repeatedly hitting an enemy slowly fills a character's charge attack meter, while performing perfect dodges fills it even faster. Once the meter is full, characters can perform a character to deal even greater damage and stun damage to an enemy. Enemies that are stunned take increased damage. Characters that aren't the leader also participate in field battles, but they cannot use charge attack, and they deal and receive less damage.
In the presence of enemies, the player can deploy a shard field to initiate turn-based combat known as command battle without transitioning to a separate battlefield. The shard field can be cancelled to instantly return to Field Battle. If the player deploys a shard field against a stunned enemy, it triggers shard strike, damaging all participating enemies for a portion of their max HP and delaying their turns. But the player should take care not to take too much damage in Field Battle because if they weren't hit while on low HP, the enemy starts Command Battle with an advantage, delaying the player's turns and preventing them from cancelling the shard field for a few turns. Shard Field is automatically deployed and cannot be cancelled during important battles.
Command Battle
Daybreak's turn-based combat brings several changes and new additions. One of the most significant changes is that characters can now move without using a turn, with the MOV stat determining the size of the area a character can move freely in. Another change is that some crafts deal bonus damage if performed at an enemy's back or side. The player can also see an enemy's stats and weaknesses anytime. Additionally, S-Crafts now always only use 100 CP, but a prerequisite must be met to enable their use.
Defend is a new basic option that reduces the damage a character receives and reduces their delay by half.
Attacks (basic, crafts, and arts) can now hit multiple times. Dealing repeated hits during a turn adds to the new Chain Hit multiplier, increasing damage based on the multiplier. The multiplier applies to both the player and enemy parties.
Enemies, like in field battles, can also be stunned in command battles. Upon being stunned, the enemy's turn is delayed, and any arts or crafts they were casting are interrupted. Stunned enemies also take increased damage, just like in field battles.
SCLM
A major addition to the battle system is SCLM: Shard Circular Linked Metafield. Like the combat link mechanic from the Erebonia games, it allows two characters to cooperate but requires no additional setup to utilize. To activate SCLM, a character simply needs to move near another character. A shard ring will form around characters that are near each other, and when these rings interlink, it means the characters have activated SCLM.
While SCLM is active, characters can trigger either SCLM Chain or SCLM Support. SCLM Chain triggers when a character does a basic attack, prompting their partner to automatically do a follow-up attack. SCLM Support triggers when a character casts an offensive craft or art, buffing the damage.
Shard Boost
Another major addition is Shard Boost, shortened to S-Boost. To activate S-Boost, a character must expend a segment of the boost gauge, which is filled by characters dealing and receiving damage. The boost gauge is made of three segments and is shared across the party, but the gauge can be extended by characters performing an S-Craft.
By boosting, characters can activate the effects of their Holo Core, increase the probability of their shard skills activating, expand their SCLM, and gain access to their S-Crafts. S-Boost lasts for two turns and has two levels, with the second being called Full Boost. Characters who are fully boosted have access to their S-Crafts.
Graendel
For certain storyline battles, Van will transform into the Grendel. As the Grendel, Van's stats are vastly increased, and he has an entirely different skillset. He can also act twice in a turn, and by boosting, he can act up to three times. However, while he is the Grendel, Van cannot use items or arts.
At the end-of-chapter evaluation, the character who performed the best that chapter will earn Employee of the Month (EOTM), increasing several of their stats.
.png)
