New Features
- Shops with new products are now marked with "New" and their map icons are orange when they get new product.
- Sub parts are now universal, increase physical damage as well, and add an extra effecct for field battles such as making it easier to perform perfect dodges.
- Shortcuts: With a couple of button presses, the player can quickly access their healing arts and items and edit their party without needing to go through the menu first.
- Shard Search: A new feature of the Xipha to scan for hidden places and objects.
- Quick Art: Another new feature of the Xipha that allows the usage of a basic offensive art dependent on the active character's Arts Driver during field battle. Quick Art goes into a cooldown period after it is used, but attacking enemies reduces the cooldown. Enemies suspectile to arts take extra damage.
- Cross Change: When performing a perfect dodge during field battle, the active character can switch out with an ally with a button prompt. Upon switching, the switched-in character will automatically perform their charge attack and be strengthened for a short period.
- EX Chain: By performing SCLM Chain while boosted against a stunned enemy, the character and their partner will launch a dual attack on the stunned enemy, damaging it and all enemies near it.
- S-Crafts can now only be performed once per Full Boost and cannot be performed until Full Boost is deactivated and activated again.
- New to the series, certain bosses can now perform S-Breaks.
- Dual Arts: a new type of arts with two elemental affinities. If the enemy is effective against either element, they will take damage as normally would from that weakness.
- Follow Mode: For certain quests, Arkide Solutions will need tail a target making sure the target doesn't notice them and make sure not to lose sight of the target.
Minigames
Fishing
After being absent from Daybreak, fishing makes its return, and unlike previous titles, the player can fish with any party member. There are also no designated fishing spots, so the player is free to fish at any body of water.
To actually fish, the player must first use Shard Search to see if there are any fish in whatever body of water they are at. Once the player has confirmed there are fish, they should then ready their bait and cast their line at whatever fishing spot they choose. While selecting a spot to cast their line, the player can see what fish are there and their chances of catching said fish with their selected bait.
Upon responding to a bite, the character can begin reeling in the fish. From there, an interface representing the fishing reel will appear. The player will then need to aim the central arrow to match the rotating outer arrow and press the button while staying in the angle area. Each successful button press will increase the reel gauge, but also shrink the angle area, increasing the difficulty of reeling in a fish. The player should also be careful not to press the button when the arrow is outside the angle area because doing so three times will cause the fish to escape. Once the reel gauge is full, the player will have successfully caught a fish, earning them some sepith and items or quartz.
Basketball
Basketball is another activity that Arkride Solutions can take part in while in Edith. The game consists of two stages: Offense and Defense. During offense, the player must shoot for the basket while avoiding the opponent's attempts to stop them. During defense, the player must stop the opponent either by stealing the ball while the opponent is dribbling it or by blocking their shots.
Hacking
While out exploring, Arkide Solutions will find chests equipped with orbal locks that can only be opened through hacking. Once hacking is initiated, the player must then guide Mare through an orbital maze, the difficulty of which depends on the orbal lock's security level. Guiding Mare to the end of the maze before time runs out will unlock the orbal lock and reward the player with whatever is in the chest.
However, there are a couple of obstructions that look to impede Mare. First are firewalls, which block Mare's progression and require her to quickly input a code (sequence of button presses) to remove them within a time limit. Second are the defense units that patrol various parts of the maze. If they discover Mare, she'll be sent back to the start of the maze. However, if Mare reached a checkpoint before then, she'll instead restart at the latest checkpoint. Also, occasionally, Mare will be able to set traps for the defense units, temporarily incapacitating them.
Seven Hearts
Seven Hearts is a four-player competitive card game. Players take turns playing one card at a time in an effort to each other's life points while making use of card effects and the cards' elemental affinities to counter each other's cards. Cards representing the four standard elements counter each other, while those of the three higher elements counter the four standard elements. The game ends once a player's life points have been reduced to zero or there are no cards in the draw pile. Players are then ranked based on their remaining life points and cards.
Märchen Garten
The Märchen Garten is a virtual reality space created by Marduk. But it has been commandeered by an unknown party, and so Arkide Solution has been commissioned to take it back.
Primarily optional, the Garten serves as the game's extra dungeon, comprising multiple floors that unlock as the story progresses. It can be accessed through either Van's laptop, enhanced recharge stations, or portals. Portals are found throughout town, but they need to be revealed with Shard Search before they can be used. Being a virtual space, the player is free to use any character in the Garten even if they aren't in the current party in reality. More characters for use in the Garten unlock as the story progresses.
Upon accessing the Garten, the player can either choose to enter the Garten proper, access the Mystic Cube service, enhance the party's crafts, or go to Marduk Support.
The Garten itself is, as mentioned before, made of several floors that unlock as the story progresses. Each floor is made of several interconnected areas that Arkride Solutions must proceed through to reach the boss at the end and defeat it to clear the floor.
To clear an area, the player must complete the specified goal. Once the goal is complete, the exit will unlock, allowing the player to leave for the next area upon touching it. Also, after completing the goal, the player is prompted to choose one of three rewards: items, accessories, or quartz, depending on the area. Once the player chooses their reward, they are then free to head for the exit. However, they should consider exploring as each area is full of chests, crystals that contain items, and crystals that provide shard tokens (S-Tokens); S-Tokens can also be found in the real world via Shard Search.
Upon defeating the floor boss, the player will be rewarded with items and S-Tokens. Furthermore, the character who performed the best in battle throughout the floor is marked as the MVP, awarding the player with a skill stone for that character. Additionally, clearing a floor repeatedly increases that floor's S-Tokens, item drops, and sepith gained.
S-Tokens are expended for Mare to analyze a Mystic Cube. Analysis involves holding the designated button down, expending S-Tokens to bring the analysis rate to 100%. Once the analysis reaches 100%, the cube will break, and the player will be rewarded with a variety of goods. What the player gets and how much depends on random chance and the rarity of the cube, as revealed during the analysis process, but the player will always receive sepith of all types during analysis. Furthermore, the player can use a support item to increase the likelihood of obtaining sepith of a certain element as specified by the support during analysis.
Skill stones are used to enhance a character's crafts, increasing their capabilities while also decreasing their CP cost. For example, enhancing an attack craft like Van's Magna Slash increases its damage, while enhancing a support craft like Agnes' Innocent Heal increases how much it heals. However, a character's crafts can only be enhanced using skill stones specific to that character. Additionally, enhancing all of a charcter's crafts to certain level thresholds increases a stat of that character.
Marduk Support serves as the Garten's all-in-one shop run by Marduk concierge Mirabel, but it also has various other functions. For one the player can restore 100 CP to the party, though they'll need to kill a specified number of enemies in the Garten before they can use it again. They can also customize the music in the Garten using songs from previous titles. Furthermore, the player can trade in Marduk Points earned by completing minigame challenges in the Garten to purchase skill stones or trade in skill stones for Marduk Points. Lastly, the player can repair data they got from Mystic Cube analysis to earn songs and costumes.
