Going through trying to get "gold stars" in the Normal campaign, and had a few questions about the game mechanics:


1. Am I correct in assuming there are no "hidden" qualities to equipment - so artifacts in the first playthrough have no special abilities beyond potentially higher damage / armor numbers than what you might buy at that point?

2. How important it was to specialize units - some defenders of the same type specializing in one thing for example, and some in others.

3. How do status effects like bleeding / burning / etc stack when dealt by two defenders with different levels of ability? For example if two ice mages, one with 50% chill slowdown and one with 65% "chill" the same enemy unit, how does that work?

4. Does "bleeding" make the unit take more damage of all types from all sources (fire, poison, other special attacks and from all defenders)?

1. Yes. There are no "hidden" attributes.

2. It's moderately important in the base game, and very important in NG+. Some maps like the Super Sheep may require LOTS of specialization, while other maps can be done by generalists if you place them properly.

3. The most powerful effect takes precedence for strength, and the duration is always added on to that. So for your chill example, it would be 65% chill. It can be very useful to have a low-level low-boost berserker (for bleed) or a low-level low-boost ice mage (for chill) halfway down the track to "sustain" a strong status effect placed earlier in the track. In other words, you never have to worry about a weaker status effect overwriting a more powerful one. They're all cumulative.

4. Yes, it does. I'm not sure if it affects Azra's spell damage, but it does increase damage from defenders, whether they're arrows, swords, or fireballs.

Thanks a ton!

Too bad I haven't specialized as much as I should, might be late to start now, but I guess I'll see how far I'll get in NG+ once I get tired of trying to get 3 stars (i think I should at least be able to get Super Sheep by now - one of my berserkers now has 50% bleed, and last time I managed to get that thing down to under 600k HP).

BTW can you continue getting stars etc in the normal game after beating one of the final "ends the game" missions, or should I try to do everything that's possible first?

You can respec your characters (and Azra) for a scrap fee. It's pretty affordable, so feel free to experiment.

And yes, you can replay everything you'd like. Finishing one of the endgame missions just gives you an endgame cutscene and puts you back at the menu. It doesn't stop your progress. There are several different endings, too... one "bad" ending if you lose the final battle, a few different endings depending on if your ally in the final battle is unharmed/injured/dead, and then the "screw you guys I'm out of here" side-ending. You can get any and all of the endings in one save if you're so inclined.

Also, I'd definitely try to at least 2-star all of the main story maps and do all the bonus levels before moving on to NG+. A lot of the monster abilities in NG+ break "comfortable" strategies, and the more experience you have the better off you'll be.

Yep. In fact, you can hurry to the "run away" endgame, then start new game +, grab the ridiculously powerful weapons and armors there (a new game + stone shiv has a +42 attack bonus, making it better than the best non-unique sword from the normal game), then quit back to the title screen, and there make your party back into the normal game.

Basically, look at this:
http://imgur.com/lGFD6Ak

The first party has triggered an endgame, but you see that you can keep playing or start a new game +. The second party has started a new game +, and you can see there's both "Play" and "Play +" buttons, allowing you to switch between both versions of the game however you want. So don't worry about missing things during your first playthrough, as you can always go back to unlock them.