Gameplay
Eternal Requiem combines traditional turn-based JRPG systems with modernized mechanics designed to minimize grinding, encourage strategic play, and streamline exploration. The gameplay is built around visible enemy encounters, tactical resource management, multi-layered world traversal, and party-driven combat progression.
Core Combat System
Combat is turn-based, with the player controlling a party of multiple characters that can swap roles and positions during battle. The system emphasizes strategy over repetition, with each fight designed to be deliberate rather than a routine grind.
Key Mechanics:
Visible enemies instead of random encounters; battles begin only when the player engages enemies on the map.
Overdrive Gauge System, where optimal performance occurs within a designated active state, increasing damage output and reducing incoming damage. Exceeding into "Overheat" introduces penalties and forces adaptive strategy.
Resource-based skill usage that prioritizes managing combat momentum rather than stockpiling items or MP.
Party Synergy, where team composition, class abilities, and skill rotations matter more than raw stats.
Design Goals:
Create battles that remain meaningful throughout the game.
Ensure party management and tactical variation remain core to progression.
Progression & Skills
Character progression focuses on unlocking and developing skills rather than traditional leveling loops.
Progression Philosophy:
Skills and stat improvements are earned through major battles and story progression rather than constant grinding.
Growth encourages experimentation with builds and party composition.
Equipment, class options, and passive abilities allow customization without requiring repetitive farming.
Exploration & World Structure
The world opens gradually across multiple traversal modes, each unlocking new areas and mobility options as the story advances.
Exploration Phases:
On-foot travel through detailed regions with enemies, secrets, NPCs, and dungeons.
Mech Units ("Sky Armors"), enabling access to previously unreachable zones and introducing mech-based combat rules distinct from ground battles.
Aerial World Map Travel, allowing large-scale movement across continents and discovering new optional regions.
This multi-phase approach creates a sense of expanding scope similar to traditional JRPGs, progressing from local environments to global exploration.
World and Encounter Design
The world is fully handcrafted rather than procedurally generated, with each region built to support narrative flow and exploration. Level layouts use deliberate pathing, hidden routes, and environmental storytelling to reinforce the history and identity of each area.
Enemy placement is intentional and tied to pacing - encounters escalate as players progress through regions, while optional pathways feature stronger enemies and higher rewards.
Dungeons mix combat with puzzles, vertical layouts, and environmental hazards, each featuring a unique mechanic or theme to avoid repetition. Boss encounters act as anchors, closing narrative arcs or unlocking new traversal abilities.
Access to new regions is gated through story progression and movement upgrades (such as mechs and later airborne travel), expanding player freedom over time while preventing sequence breaks and maintaining narrative structure.
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