Inside the Game: Tips and Tactics

[AtlusAram]

INSIDE THE GAME: THE STRATEGY OF ETERNAL POISON
An in-depth look at the unique tactics at your disposal in the upcoming SRPG

Eternal Poison is a strategy RPG with a strong emphasis on story and characters. It offers fans of the genre a variety of ways in which to put sound battle stratagem to good use. Throughout the grand narrative experience, players will encounter a variety of conditions and scenarios that will demand some keen tactics in order to achieve victory. For some of the ideal ways to approach combat in Eternal Poison, look below:

General Strategy

• Try to attack opponents from behind or the side. This game heavily rewards the player for positioning yourself well while attacking, even when using magic. As such, Eternal Poison’s mechanics make it difficult to flank someone by requiring a unit to expend two steps to get around an opponent’s side. This is a costly penalty when most characters have movement ranges that hover around five steps. Alternatively, you can use this concept to your advantage by creating a shield of strong units in the front of formations while keeping the weaker, but quite important, healing units out of harm’s way.



• Single out enemies in battle. It becomes much easier to damage and overkill a Majin if there aren’t five of its buddies healing it or attacking your party. Most of the enemies in this game have a limited range of awareness, so it is very plausible to draw out the Majin one-by-one by advancing your party carefully instead of just charging forward.

• A smart player will also pay attention to an enemy’s physical and/or elemental weaknesses (which can be figured out by looking at a unit’s status screen). If an enemy is even slightly resistant to a certain kind of attack, that type of attack is close to worthless.

• Inflicting opponents with status effects is an effective strategy in this game. For example, the Bleed status ailment takes away a certain percentage of the affected unit’s life each time the bleeding unit performs any action, including moving, attacking, or BEING attacked. If the unit has high HP and strong resistances to many attacks, sometimes the Bleed damage is more significant than the actual attacks that are being used. And since Bleed can bring an enemy’s HP down to 1 but not kill it, putting a Majin into Bleed status before overkilling is ideal.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Overkill Strategy

• In order to overkill a Majin in Eternal Poison, the player needs to damage the Majin by a certain amount beyond their normal HP with the killing blow. If a Majin has 50 HP left and a 120 HP overkill threshold, the player will need to do more than 170 damage to overkill, or less than 50 damage to make sure the Majin doesn’t die before being overkilled. If the player does do somewhere between 50 and 170 damage to that Majin, it’ll just disappear from the map, and it may drop an item at best. Obviously, that means the player needs to get the Majin’s HP down as close to 1 as possible before going for a killing blow.

• When attacking a Majin for the first time, initially use whatever you think would work best as a killing blow on a unit, and note that damage in your head. With a few exceptions, most Majin are strong enough to endure even the most powerful attack from your units. There are usually the same types of enemies on each map, so you can assume that you will do that same amount of damage to that type of Majin after this “experimental attack.”

• The ideal party setup in Eternal Poison usually revolves around having a few over-powered characters in your party for overkilling (the main characters in each respective path of the game suit this role well), and then having a few support characters there to heal your “overkiller” units and capture the bound Majin quickly.



• Combo attacks are almost a necessity when you want to overkill a strong opponent, especially when your mage units don’t have spells which target the enemies’ weaknesses. Remember that combo attacks follow the rules of weaknesses and positioning just like other attacks. Thankfully, you can use the combo ability with ranged units, so it is even possible to get two back attacks in one combo by having a melee and ranged unit work together.

------------------------------------------------------------------

While these tips are useful, please note that there are many other strategies a player can and should use to succeed in the world of Eternal Poison. Be sure to pick up the game and find out for yourself on November 11!

Fans who pre-order the upcoming strategy RPG Eternal Poison for PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system can pick up Librum Vespera, the official Eternal Poison art book, upon the game’s release this November 11th (at select retailers, while supplies last). Librum Vespera is a 5” by 8”, 100-page, full color art book featuring art from the visually unique Eternal Poison.



Librum Vespera is only available as a pre-order bonus and only at participating retailers. Eternal Poison is one of three titles featured in the “Atlus Spoils” promotion, along with Luminous Arc 2 for Nintendo DS™ and Persona 4 for PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system. Each game includes a soundtrack CD free-with-purchase, and each game offers a deluxe full-color art book exclusively with pre-orders. Guarantee yourself a copy of this exclusive bonus item and pre-order today!

For more information on Eternal Poison, please visit:
http://www.atlus.com/eternalpoison

[Zachalmighty]

Atlus, you are too awesome for us mere plebians. Your games and localizations are like gifts from god. I love you.

[jeffx]

So I was just wondering, can your characters get poisoned in this game?

If so, do you lose them permanently (à la Fire Emblem)?

[dragonlife29]

I think they mentioned somewhere that fallen units will just leave the map ^

Wow, November 12th, huh? I thought it would be after that! =O Cool that it's sooner than I thought--can't wait! Useful tips, by the way...

...I guess I'm going to start relying on status-inducing attacks; I usually stick to physical/magic attacks in my SRPGs.

[Olethros]

Aram, that was a very un-robot-like post. You're going to start confusing your younger fans if you keep switching back and forth like that.

My god, think of the children damn you!!!!!!!

[TheMagicHat]

This is just what I wanted to see. I think I can at least start to fight my way through the game with this, seeing as there is a lack of strategy guides in stores and even the library of gameplay that is GameFAQs.

Next week's gonna be busy...

[White Rob]

jeffx: Eternal Poison's Bleed status is the equivalent of poison in most games. You don't permanently lose any units in Eternal Poison if they die, as was mentioned by dragonlife.

dragonlife: Magic and physical attacks are still very useful. Actually, most of the magic and physical skills inherently add status effects. So wind magic will have a bonus side-effect of Bleeding the opponent, for example.

[kolaces]

Aram's upgrades have made him more intelligent than the enemy AI.
I'll take his advice and thank him for it. Can't wait for my copy to ship.

[dragonlife29]

Originally Posted by White Rob

dragonlife: Magic and physical attacks are still very useful. Actually, most of the magic and physical skills inherently add status effects. So wind magic will have a bonus side-effect of Bleeding the opponent, for example.

Yeah, I figured that would be the case when I turned some Majin into Critical 1s and found out you equipped them...pretty awesome!

It's still kinda weird for me that there's a turn order, but I am warming up to it really fast.

[Zachalmighty]

Originally Posted by dragonlife29

Yeah, I figured that would be the case when I turned some Majin into Critical 1s and found out you equipped them...pretty awesome!

It's still kinda weird for me that there's a turn order, but I am warming up to it really fast.

Well every game SRPG or TBRPG has a turn order whether or not its visible! It all depends on the units speed, when it will be allowed to attack.

[dragonlife29]

Haha, of course I know that! What I meant is that it's a little weird that you have to control a unit without being able to control another at your leisure.

It certainly makes it interesting.

EDIT: I do! Trust me, I like it a lot.

[Zachalmighty]

Originally Posted by dragonlife29

Haha, of course I know that! What I meant is that it's a little weird that you have to control a unit without being able to control another at your leisure.

It certainly makes it interesting.

Just think of it as a little more strategy in your SRPG

[Rise]

Originally Posted by White Rob

jeffx: Eternal Poison's Bleed status is the equivalent of poison in most games. You don't permanently lose any units in Eternal Poison if they die, as was mentioned by dragonlife.

dragonlife: Magic and physical attacks are still very useful. Actually, most of the magic and physical skills inherently add status effects. So wind magic will have a bonus side-effect of Bleeding the opponent, for example.

You don't lose any character or mercenary units, but if a majin unit is defeated, they're gone permanently (which especially sucks if it's a boss majin).

Tips for keeping your sanity while playing EP (or what has helped me, anyway ;D):

- Have a unit ready to capture a bound majin so that nothing happens to it.

- Have multiple save files at different points in the game, because you never know when you might need to have something you could have only gotten on a previous map.

- Thieflers are a blessing and a curse. Keep one in your majin lineup and treasure chests won't be quite so problematic.

- There are some benefits to NOT allowing all mercenaries to join your party right away.

- Focus on a few characters (i.e. a few main characters) when leveling, rather than trying to have everyone (i.e. characters + mercenaries) level up (remember, you can only visit each battlefield ONCE).

- It's a good idea to try and capture all (or as many of) the bosses you come across. They can help in a pinch -or- yield some pretty interesting items or skills.

- ANYTHING with null-bleed or added speed is your FRIEND.

- Don't forget to talk to your refugees!

- Don't give up with this game! The ending is really interesting!

[dragonlife29]

You know, I anticipated that there might be a downfall to letting everyone join my party...but I'm just too nice Everyone has to join me! So far I've let everyone join my team in Thage's path up until the yellow (scarf) bear thing.

[Rise]

Originally Posted by dragonlife29

You know, I anticipated that there might be a downfall to letting everyone join my party...but I'm just too nice Everyone has to join me! So far I've let everyone join my team in Thage's path up until the yellow (scarf) bear thing.

It's not necessarily a downfall, it's just that if you don't let everyone join right away or wait off a little bit... those mercenaries will appear at a later time, leveled higher than they were the first time you met them. There's benefits to either way.

[Numerrik]

I was wondering though, I have talked to all my refugees at every chance i get, but they don't seem to do much besides tell me a small bit about their personal story lines. I never get any items, which thanks to Fire Emblem is what I expect out of them. the musicians are nice though... And I was told we could unlock a fourth group to play through with. anyone unlocked them yet?

[Rise]

The amount of time refugees stay varies a lot (some just don't know when to leave), but when they do... they'll give you an item (usually an accessory or weapon - some better than others).

I think there's either five or six musicians. You find more... as you unlock each character storyline.

[dragonlife29]

Originally Posted by Rise

It's not necessarily a downfall, it's just that if you don't let everyone join right away or wait off a little bit... those mercenaries will appear at a later time, leveled higher than they were the first time you met them. There's benefits to either way.

Curses! I should have let Komori and that red knight dude for later, then XD

I will definitely get Ares, right? I feel like I need more powerful units.

[Rise]

Yes. Over the course of the whole game, you should be able to get every mercenary (the order of appearance just changes from storyline to storyline).

[bullman422]

Originally Posted by Rise

Yes. Over the course of the whole game, you should be able to get every mercenary (the order of appearance just changes from storyline to storyline).

That's good to know Rise. I only wish I wasn't so quick to recruit every mercenary that asked to join. Not that my team is in any bad shape though.

[Gen Eric Gui]

The Refugees you get in each character's unique starting levels wll hang around for a long time, as they seem to be unique to each character(afaik).

The refugees that show up in the shared areas tend to leave rather quickly, not a single character in my Olifen playthrough stayed for more than one conversation past the two I got in the unique stages, although a handful from my 4th character playthrough stayed a couple stages.

I have yet to see a Refugee that didn't give me an item when they left, however. So yeah, talk to them.

Oh, and you get a new musician for each path you complete. They're tied to a given character.


As for the auto-levelling Mercs, if you know you're going to use somebody there's really no point in waiting. They're going to level either way, and the game's auto-levels generally suck. I had Velnor join near the very end of my Olifen playthrough, and he was level 14 to my party's average of 20.

And not just Null-Bleed, but pretty much any piece of equipment that prevents or auto-causes an ailment is your great friend. A sword that causes sleep or bleed is sometimes a lot more useful than one with 50 greater attack power.

[Auden]

i was wondering if anyone knew what bonuses do the necklaces "ancient" & "righteous" have. both items are poached from the mantis & trinity majins respectively

both show some golden icons that i can't find in the instruction manual... anyone knows what they do?

[i took a pic but how do i get a pic up in a post?]

[Hamel]

One physical defence and one magical

[Auden]

thanks Hamel ^_^

[Auden]

BTW anyone knows if you can get an item from a Thiefler after it steals it? i have a problem with a thiefler that beats me to a chest in the last stages of the forest [can't remember witch exactly...]

sending a unit alone to get it is massacre with the aracnias, and it's hard to get the patrty movin up until the chest..

anyhow, is there a way to get the item back from a thiefler?

[Hamel]

Only way is to summon one of your own or kill it before it reaches the chest

[AdrianMorales]

It's really hard to pull of a combo. You need to move your units next to an enemy and then just wait it out until the leader gets her turn. In all of this time, the enemy has time to inflict pain on your stupid units who have passed their turn and to also move away from your own party. So yeah, setting up a combo is really hard and quite laborious

[faithfulfanboy]

This game looks great for a PS2 title, but it's a little too easy for experienced srpg vets. Buy it anyway and support the genre!

[cj iwakura]

So apparently I suck at getting the right ending. Just got Thage's bad ending, and I'm not even sure how. I made it to the end of the Third Stratum, and they 'missed something'.

[Hamel]

Originally Posted by cj iwakura

So apparently I suck at getting the right ending. Just got Thage's bad ending, and I'm not even sure how. I made it to the end of the Third Stratum, and they 'missed something'.

*kind of spoilers?*

Thage requires that you go to the middle route on the 2nd strata and fight one on the secret bosses there (I think it's one before the last floor on that strata)