To complete yesterday’s Famitsu leak, here’s the rest of the information hot off the press from this week’s issue.
As mentioned earlier, this week’s issue continues to explain the My Castle feature (because it’s that big).
More specifically, it begins with the Arena. As we learned in the My Castle trailer, this facility is similar to Arenas in past games, but players gamble resources instead of gold.
At the moment it’s not 100% clear if defeat in the Arena leads to death or not. What we do know is that defeat means losing the resources you gambled, although there’s the option to surrender mid-battle.
If defeat doesn’t lead to death, the option to surrender seems a bit unnecessary, unless wounded players start with low health in the next battle or something.
Another thing: the character who participates in the Arena changes in a similar manner to characters running shops or other facilities.
Furthermore, it’s suggested there can be more than 1 on 1 battles.
Next on the agenda is the Forge, where players can spend minerals (resources) to improve their weaponry.
For now, it seems basic weapons require 1 mineral (of any kind?) to forge and the stats that can be improved are the same as in Awakening: Might, Hit Rate and Critical rate.
Actually… there is a new, peculiar stat that can be improved, simply known as “Weapon“.
Perhaps this stat is an indicator of how many times the weapon has been forged, like in some other RPGs? Eg. an Iron Sword +1.
In the example shown, the Steel Sword’s “weapon” goes from 0 to +1, while its Might goes from 9 to 11.
Maybe weapons can be forged multiple times, with additional minerals needed to do so? If so, what is the upper limit?
Finally, after improving the weapon, players can give it a unique name, if necessary. Although if your name is Odin, that’s a necessity!
The final option in the Forge (below “forge weapon”, “name weapon” or “erase name”) is the “mineral exchange”.
As we learned in last week’s Famitsu, players can only conveniently harvest one type of the twelve minerals from their castle and the mineral exchange serves as a way to obtain the others.
That said, the rate is rather steep (5 of your minerals for 1 mineral), so you may be better off visiting other My Castles via StreetPass or the Internet…
On to the next page, we have the profiles of the three Nohrian characters that we saw in the earlier leak.
After this, finally, we have Famitsu’s take on the controversial face-rubbing feature accessible in My Room.
As some fans guessed, face-rubbing appears to be based off Japanese culture–in particular, “skinship“, which I just learned refers to “bonding via physical contact”.
That said, I’m personally not sure how common skinship is nowadays in Japan.
Whatever the case, players are free to invite their comrades for some quality skinship time. Presumably once their affection is high enough (as shown by the heart icon in the character list).
By continually touching the character in their preferred location, that character will appear closer on the bottom screen (like Sakura in the above example).
It’s not just opposite gender characters players can bond with; they can bond with same gender characters in this manner too. Cyrus certainly doesn’t seem to mind.
Moving on, Famitsu spends a moment explaining Lilith’s Shrine. As shown earlier, here, players can feed Lilith the… Star Dragon.
Whoops, we were all wrong. It wasn’t a Holy or Azure Dragon… Curse these words sounding exactly the same in Japanese!
Also, it’s a she.
Anyway, by feeding Lilith, she will Level Up and her stats will increase according to the food given. For example, after eating a chunk of Meat, Lilith’s HP and Strength goes up.
Lilith aids the player when they fight in My Castle, during StreetPass battles. Curiously, her stat screen shows she’s capable of wielding staves and breath weapons, such as her Star Dragon Breath.
By the way, before I forget, “star” seems to be a theme of the game somewhat. You can see stars in the sky in the main image (the Nohr part, at least) and preview screen (above).
To add to that, the English name for the White Night Kingdom, Hoshido, is based off “hoshi”, the Japanese word for “star”.
Hmm… could Lilith have more importance than we thought?
On the final page, we see the profiles for the other characters, which we didn’t see earlier.
That said, only Zero’s profile is new.
Zero (Thief) [Nohr]
A former thief; now a soldier who serves Nohr’s Prince Leon. An extremely sadistic man who takes great joy in watching others suffer.
Personal Skill [Nohrian Restraint] If there’s a prison in My Castle, after defeating a generic enemy with this command chosen, that enemy will be sent to the prison.
On a related note, the Prison was briefly discussed in the leak.
After capturing an enemy with Zero’s “Nohrian Restraint” or Orochi’s “Hoshidan Capture” skills, they will be sent to the prison in My Castle (if it’s been built).
Inside the prison, players can “scout” an enemy using resources (aka bribe them) or attempt to “persuade” them–either method, if successful, will lead to the enemy joining the player’s side.
Curiously, generic enemies have names (possibly random ones) after they’ve been captured, possibly to distinguish them from other generics you enlist into your army.
Additionally, the prison shown has two cells, suggesting only two generic enemies per battle can be sent to prison. Perhaps after upgrading the prison, more cells will be available?
Choosing to “persuade” sends the character managing the prison to talk things over with the captive(s).
In the example, Orochi appears to be using… questionable methods to get the enemy to serve the player. Maybe some characters are more persuasive than others?
The final option is to “free” the enemy; useful if you end up capturing an enemy you didn’t actually want, I guess.
To finish off, we have the illustrious Accessory Shop. Few new details are given here, except it’s suggested worn accessories will appear in event scenes too.
That does it. I am expecting ridiculous gifs when the game comes out.
Well, that’s it for this week (possibly). If you want to read this week’s feature yourself (and in English too!), Kirokan has you covered.