The Ryu ga Gotoku Ishin website was just updated with a ton of info about Weapons, leveling and skill ranking. Thanks to http://gematsu.com/ for translating them all!
Weapon Training and Strengthening
- The weapon and armor training system has the biggest volume of the series.
- Not only is there the katana and pistol, there are also special weapons including the spear, long sword, and cannon. Furthermore you can equip armor on your head, arms, and chest, resulting in endless combinations.
- Test your weapons at the blacksmith.
- You can create and strengthen your armor at the blacksmith. By working, your blacksmithing skills will improve.
- Creating and strengthening weapons requires raw materials, of which there are over 100 kinds.
- These materials can be found in various ways, including when you defeat enemies and pick up the items they drop, when you break jars during battle, when you help people, and when you cultivate vegetables. You can collect them in various ways. The rewards you get from clearing the battle dungeon also make for an effective way to collect materials.
- At the blacksmith, by adding materials to your base weapon you can make new weapons.
- Of the weapons you can make, aside from the attack and defense parameters there are also special abilities like cladding yourself in flame or making enemy defense easy to pull down.
- It is also possible to make special flame and lightning bullets.
- There are three ways to strengthen your weapons and armor: tempering, status elevation, and synthesis.
- Tempering: By forging and fixing weapons and armor, your basic attack, defense power, and abilities will level up. There is an upper limit to the numerical values, but raising the status of a weapon or armor will yield even more possibilities with tempering.
- Status Elevation: All weapons and armor without exception will be dull immediately after being made. With status elevation you can strengthen each high weapon or armor, such as by making a sharp sword into a first-rate sword. By promoting your weapons and armor, the upper limits of tempering will not only be thrown open, competition with enemies will become advantageous components that control the state of the war.
- Synthesis: Cross breed weapons or armor. The abilities of the arms that you make into raw materials are marked into base arms. Weapons that feature the abilities of both can be made. The number of marks differs depending on the weapon or armor.
Levels and Grades
- Of the components of growth for the main character Sakamoto Ryoma there are levels (max 99) and four types of grades (max 25).
- With each gradation you will obtain a “spirit globe,” and by injecting these you will acquire more abilities.
- The main character’s level will go up with the experience points accumulated by defeating enemies and clearing goals, and can be raised up to 99. When you level up, your physical strength and hand-to-hand attack power will rise.
- By using and fighting with the four types of unique grades, sword, pistol, boisterous dance, and hand-to-hand combat, you can rise to 25.
- Leveling up and raising grades will allow you to obtain a “spirit globe.” Inject these into techniques in the ability enhance screen and you will be able to make use of them in battle.
- Ability enhance items are divided into types, and the training spirit globe you acquire by leveling up can be put inserted in each slide. But the spirit globes acquired by grading up are colored and can only be injected into with abilities of the same type.
- How far the grade of each type can be raised, and where you inject spirit globes, will greatly influence your fighting style.
Records & War Record
- The battle evaluation system “war record” has been added. Answering to the main character’s fighting style in each battle, “records” will be decided, and experience points and rewards will increase and decrease.
- In battle, how well you perform combo attacks and if you decided on counter techniques or hit action—answering to these actions, valuation will be added and you can raise your “records” grade by grade.
- When the grade of each “record” is raised, experience points you gain from that battle onward will increase, and will be added to the “collective war record” that is calculated when you finish a battle.
- When battles finish, the entire valuation will be displayed as the “collective war record.” Sum up the valuations at the end of battle, and depending on the variation of the techniques you used and their difficulty, the valuation will be determined. As valuations rise, you will receive wrapped offerings of money and added experience points.
Overall it’s a ton of new changes to the fighting system especially with the incorporation of the Final Fantasy X style sphere grid for leveling and a Devil May Cry style ranking system after each battle it’s a huge change to what we generally see in the Yakuza series.