It’s really a nice game, though it’s too expensive. I bought it last year on my NS and then, I bought the steam ver. for a better gameplay experience.

This guide will show you some practical tricks or data that most players hard to find out. Some of these are from the official guide book, while most are from many tests with my friends.

Unfortunately, in the game, even in the guide book, some descriptions are confusing or even wrong. I will note these when I talk about them.

如果你能看得懂中文，你可以去A9VG论坛的帖子中查看一些资料：
http://bbs.a9vg.com/thread-5291265-1-1.html

Current game version is v1.00 when I start writing this guide.

There are three waves of DLC. I will list them except the costumes and bgm packs.
Also I will mark the price in JPY without tax.

First wave on 2018.4.17:
a. More traits (free)
b. Two maps of Night of Azure 2 including one boss (1200)
c. More recipes (cores, use items) and more catalyst and agents (500)
d. More recipes (exploring equipment) (200)
e. 5 items with good traits and high quality (free)

Second wave on 2018.5.8:
a. Character Lucia (1000)
b. Two maps of Blue Reflection including one boss (1200)
c. Quests of gaining more exp and money (100+100)
d. Rare item merchant (free)

Third wave on 2018.5.29:
a. More side events (free)
b. Battle against hyper Falgior (the Demon Thunder God) (free)
c. Battle against Sophie (free)
d. Character Ilmeria (1000)
e. One map from Atelier Firis (1000)
f. More battle mix recipes and Archeus Anima amount limit up to 990 (300)

Price of PS4 or NS game soft is JPY7300. Season pass of all the DLC is JPY8800. DLC without costumes and bgm packs and exp/money quests is JPY6400.

Game of v1.01 came before the first wave on NS or PS4. It increases party level cap to 100, and two hidden bosses‘ level cap to 200. I don’t know if this will come along with the first wave of DLC on steam.

Not like A17 or A18, quality only affects few things in this game.

For weapons and armors, quality doesn’t affect anything, including their basic stats, stats bonus of ingot or cloth.

For accessories, quality doesn’t affect almost any of their effects. I only made tests on some useful accessories, so I don’t know if there are exceptions among others.

For healing effects of items, I haven’t made any tests.

For damage effect of items(bombs), damage of magic and elemental type IS NOT AFFECTED, while damage of physical and non-elemental magic type IS AFFECTED.

For buff and debuff effect of items, stats like ATK, DEF, SPD, EP up/down effects ARE AFFECTED, while others almost not.

In battle mix, total quality (item quality * current use count + Archeus Anima addition) will affect damage and most stats buff/debuff effects.

For traits, except stats buff/debuff traits, I haven't found any other affected by quality.

So, in most time, we don’t need to care about quality.

EP will SLIGHTLY increase your dealt damage. Yes, SLIGHTLY. So it is usually less valuable than ATK.

Except Alt.

Alt’s skills, follow-up skills are most enhanced by EP, sharply. If Alt’ follow-up is important in your party, you need more EP, and his buff skill Oath of Glass. This skill can enhance his EP by 50%.

If crafting a weapon or Armor needs ingot or cloth, the bonus effect on them can enhance the basic stats of this weapon.

The best ingot is Harmonium. Max the second effect, and change the first effect if you need ATK, ATK-SPD, EP.

The best cloth is Velvetis. Max the second effect, and change the first effect if you need DEF, DEF-SPD, EP.

Every member has 5 weapons to craft. The last may not be the best. Consider its number of ingot and cloth materials, you should compare the total stats with material bonus. Beside, Harmonium and Velvetis are also belong to the category of Hidden Power. You can choose them when the weapon needs this category of materials.

The best Armor is Dragoon Mail. It needs one Velvetis and two Harmonium.

This is a bad bug.

When you customize your weapon, you will first choose the main and the sub core, and then choose 3 traits from both. This is a nice design, but is smashed by the bug. Trait list you can see is the result after merging and removing duplication, but the real list is still the original one. Which you chose may not be which you want. You can even put two same traits on one weapon through this bug.

This bug is not repaired even on the latest version on PS4 and NS.

To precent this, I have some advice:
a. Do not put same traits on main and sub cores. Some traits allow you do that, but don’t.
b. Do not do trait merging when customize your weapon.
c. If you really want to put quality traits, then put them first on the main core, and last on the sub core. This will not affect your target traits.

This is not a bad bug.

Like A17, you can make a 999 quality armor by materials whose average quality is not 999. Just follow these steps:

a. Choose the materials. Among them you need at least one quality trait.
b. Choose "Next", and choose the quality trait.
c. Do not finish, press B button to return.
d. Do not re-choose the materials, press START/OPTION button to go next.
e. Loop b c d steps until you get 999 quality.
f. Choose your target traits, then finish.

But quality doesn’t affect anything on armor. So I thing this trick can only satisfy your eyes.

Except the first test (the game force you to get the worst result), there are 7 tests in total. Each test you get the best result (flower mark, fulfill the gauge), you get 3 hidden points. To unlock the true ending in this game run, you need at least 19 hidden points. If you can’t meet it, you can only start a new run if you still want to watch the true ending.

About father’s tests, I don’t know what will happen if you don’t fulfill the gauge.

You can choose materials or synths from your inventory. When you choose items, press L or R button to change to materials or synths page.

About gather equipment, quality and traits affects nothing.

Critical x Critical+ = Critical Finish
Critical+ x Critical++ = Half Critical
Critical Finish x Half Critical = One Hit Kill

One Hit Kill gives you a chance to KO the monsters. The chance will increase if your level is higher than monsters. Much more higher, more chance. About a 20 level gap will let you always KO the monster.

A trick is put the trait Consume Soul before One Hit Kill on your bomb. If it’s still not enough, you can put Soul Dwelling on your recovering or buff items.

Most monsters can be KOed, including all the dragons and golems, even including Fuoco’s Fire Dragon. Those rare monsters with opening animation are usually resist KO effect.

If you need some end game data, then check this:
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359286607

I will update this guide when the game updates to a new version (if I think it's necessary).

If you or I find something new, I will also update this guide.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, both English and Chinese are OK.