Blizzard of Faith & Revenge/Gameplay

Controls and Basics

• Enter: Confirm
• Numpad 0/Esc/X: Cancel/Menu

Blizzard of Faith & Revenge plays like a typical RPG, featuring Marisa and her detective agency exploring the world of Gensokyo, doing battle with monsters and other girls in order to reach their goal.

Field

Outside battles, the player may move Marisa around with arrow keys/numpad, interact with objects by pressing Confirm, and go in the menu by pressing Menu. There are no random encounters - rather, formations of monsters will wander around the field, initiate combat when they walk into Marisa, disappear after the battle (regardless of whether Marisa and company won the fight or fled instead), and respawn upon leaving and re-entering the map.

Menu

In the menu, the player may choose to check the status of Marisa and her party members or their item inventory, as well as prepare them for future battles by equipping them or augmenting their stats. The player may also choose to save the game, load from a previous save, or exit the game. The following is a list of the options in the main menu, from left to right:

• Items (物品)
• Spells (符卡)
• Equipment (装备)
• Status (状态)
• Save/Load (存档)
• Stat points (点数)
• Quit (退出)

Items menu

The player may choose to inspect and use any items that are in Marisa's possession. First, the player must choose the category of items they wish to examine - 普通物品类 are normal items (consumables), 宝具类 are artifacts (Plot items mostly, but very rare usables and equipments also go here), 材料类 are forge materials used for forging at the red well in front of Hakurei Shrine, and other categories are various equipments. Items usable outside combat are white, while items that are not usable are grey. To use an item, simply select it and press confirm. Depending on the item in question the game may further prompt the player to select a target for the item to be used on.

Spells

After the player selects Spells from the menu, they must then choose a character whose spells they wish to examine. After selecting the character, the game will display a list of spells the character can use, as well as their SP cost. Also, if a spell is usable outside combat (healing spells mostly) and the character has enough SP for it, it will be labelled white, and the player may use it like they would with an item. The player may also choose to change the character whose spell-list they wish to examine by pressing Q or W.

Equipments

Again, the player must choose a character whose equipment options they wish to examine or change. Afterwards, the game will display the items that character currently has equipped. The player can change the character's equipment by selecting the slot they wish to change, and then choose the item they wish to have the character equip from the list of available equipments. To de-equip a character, select the empty space that is at the bottom. The player may also change characters by pressing Q or W.

Status

This is another function where the player must choose a character they wish to examine. Afterwards, the game will display a list of the character's statistics, equipments, as well as the amount of money the party currently possesses. The player may change the character under examination by pressing Q or W.

Save/Load

The player must first choose to either Load (读取) or Save (存储). Afterwards, they must choose the slot they wish to load from or save onto. A confirmation prompt will be given if the player saves onto a slot that already has a save on it - choose overwrite (覆盖) to overwrite the previous save on the slot or cancel (取消) to cancel the operation.

Stat points

Each characters gain 4 stat points for every level, and the player may choose to assign them to specific categories to improve the character's statistics. By default the game will display informations regarding Marisa first, but the player may change the character they wish to augment by pressing Q and W. This is a list of options available on the upper left menu:

• Improve HP/SP (增加生命/符力)
  • For each point spent in this category, the character will gain 15 to MaxHP and 10 to MaxSP, and lose 1 point in Strength, Speed, Dexterity, and Magic Power.
• Improve Strength (增加力量)
  • For each point spent in this category, the character will gain 2 to MaxHP and MaxSP, 5 to Strength, 1 to Speed, and 2 to Dexterity.
• Improve Dexterity (增加灵巧)
  • For each point spent in this category, the character will gain 3 to MaxHP, 2 to MaxSP, 1 to Strength and Speed, and 5 to Dexterity.
• Improve Speed (增加速度)
  • For each point spent in this category, the character will gain 3 to MaxHP, 2 to MaxSP, 1 to Strength and Dexterity, and 5 to Speed.
• Improve Magic Power (增加魔力)
  • For each point spent in this category, the character will gain 1 to MaxHP, 10 to MaxSP, 10 to Magic Power, and lose 1 point in Strength, Speed and Dexterity.
• Confirm Selection (确认加点)
  • After assigning the stat points, the player must finalize their choice by selecting this. If the player presses cancel or switches character, their current stat will NOT be saved, which is handy if the player made an error in selection.
• Switch Character (切换角色)
  • This option cancels any stat point assignment made for the character in this session so far and switches to the next character. Somewhat unnecessary as pressing W does the same thing.

The statistic that your party members need the most is speed. It is recommended that a minimum of 75% of all the stat points gained by the characters to be placed on speed.

Quit

The game will give three options: 返回标题画面 returns the game to title screen; 退出 exits the game altogether; 返回 returns to the game.

In Battle

The battles in this game follows an Action Gauge based system. Each combatant on the field has an action gauge that fills in proportion to their speed, and when the gauge is full, the character may issue an command. This is a list of commands a character may use:

• Attack (攻击): The character executes a normal attack using their weapon. The damage is so poor that this command generally isn't useful beyond Misty Lakes except for finishing off very low level or low HP mobs. However, much later in the game, the ultimate weapons received by the girls all have special effects that allows Attack to become occasionally useful again.
• Spell Card (符卡): The character executes a spell card. After choosing this command the player must then choose the spell card that they wish the character to use. Spell Cards can do a variety of things, ranging from healing, damaging, buffing allies, debuffing enemies, or a combination of any of those. Spell Cards cost SP to use, and a character may not use any Spell Cards that cost more SP than the character currently has. Also, most spell cards have a "charge time", and the character must wait for a certain amount of time before the spell card is actually executed. This goes for opponents as well - if you see an enemy flashing, it means that the enemy is charging up for a spell.
• Defend (防御): The character defends, receives reduced damage until their next turn, and their next turn comes twice as quickly. It is useful to allow characters to survive normal fatal attacks (generally, long charging spells signals a dangerous attack, and defending can sometimes save you from a total party kill), as well as timing their turns (important for SP draining later on).
• Items (物品): The character uses an item in the party's possession: The player must then choose which item to use. Items, like spell cards, have a variety of functions.
• Flee (逃跑): The character attempts to flee the battle. The attempt will not actually go through until all characters finish their turn. Beware, running does not always happen, and a failed attempt at fleeing causes all characters' action gauge to reset, leaving them wide opening for an attack. Also, bosses and some random battles cannot be fled from.

Please note that, when selecting a target, the status bar for the target displayed on top is bugged, and tends not to update even when the target is changed.

However, if you press up or down, it resets to the correct health bar.