Dark Rose Valkyrie is an interesting turn-based RPG that uses an uncommon combat system. How you arrange your team on the battlefield, who you have on the front lines and in the rear guard, and how the enemies are arranged on the battlefield all affect how you fight.
Talking to your team outside of battle and making decisions is also an important part of the game. This guide will explain the basics and essential things you should know when getting started.
Keep reading or click the links below to learn everything you need to get started in Dark Rose Valkyrie, including:
- Combat System: How it works and important things to know.
- Combos, Arts, and Abilities: What each of these do and how you can customize them.
- Attributes and Elements: The different attributes and elements in the game.
- Ichinomiya Military Base: What you can do here and why it is important.
- Extra Tips: More tips to help you get started.
Combat System
While in combat, you will see a bar on the left side with the enemies and your party scrolling up. This indicates when each person can perform an action. Once a party member reaches the circle, you can choose what you want to do.
If you choose attack, you pick combo 1, 2, or 3. The higher the level, the more damage that combo will do. You will also have to wait until it reaches the level on the scrolling bar.
Front Line and Rear Guard
You will choose four characters to fight with in the front line. The other four can be set in the rear guard, with one backing up each of your front line characters. You can switch out your front line character with your rear guard character during battle.
When you learn Co-op Arts, each person must be on the front line and have a compatible formation.
Formations
There are also Formations you can put your party in. Each formation changes how you are placed on the battlefield, and most gives an extra effect. For example: A formation could increase the amount of experience you get, but reduce the amount of marks obtained after battle.
You can set these formations before battle, or have one of your front line characters change during combat.
Guard Gauge
Enemies have a Guard Gauge, which goes down as you attack them. If you deplete it, they go into “Break”. This will allow you to perform more actions against this enemy.
When your combo is over and the enemy is in Break, you will perform an EX combo. This is a powerful extra attack that only happens in Break. If the enemy is still alive, there is a chance that the rear guard assigned to that character will come out and perform an extra attack as well.
There is also a chance that a Sync attack will happen, which allows the entire rear guard to attack at once. You will get 2 choices, where you must push either triangle or square.
- Triangle will have them attack only the target you are currently hitting.
- Square will attack all enemies on the field.
Make sure you are always watching the screen, because you only get a short time to push these buttons.
Combos, Arts, and Abilities
In the menu screen you can customize your characters’ skills — including combos, arts, and abilities.
Combos
The combo section involves setting which attacks you use when selecting normal attacks. You can set your attacks in any order you want, but you can only use an attack for one combo. So if you use Gatling Shot A, for example, you cannot use that move for any of the other 2 combos on that character.
Also, if you combine your attacks in the right order, you will perform a Riot Combo during your attacks. These are extra attacks that happen between each combo attack.
While setting your combos, you can look at the requirements for each riot combo, which will have you put a specific type of attack in the previous slot.
- Example: One riot combo might require you to use a speed shot in the previous slot, so any attack listed as speed shot will work.
Arts
These are skills you can use in battle instead of normal attacks. They usually have elements associated with them, so use these when you want to target a specific elemental weakness. Arts come in 5 categories:
- Fight: Melee attacks.
- Shot: Normal gun attacks.
- Range: Sniper rifle attacks.
- Support: Can heal, revive, boost, and recover from abnormal effects.
- Co-op: Special arts that 2 characters perform together.
Unlike normal attacks/combos, Arts require TP to use. I suggest you only use these when you have to target a weakness.
Abilities
These are passive skills you can set to each character. You can only equip a total of four, so eventually you will have to decide which to use. They have a wide range of effect, from increased damage when health drops, to increasing the accuracy of certain attacks.
There are also some character-specific abilities, so keep an eye out for those. The ability list will tell you if an ability is specific to a character or not.
Attributes and Elements
There are multiple attributes and elements in the game that affect how you deal damage. Each weapon has an attribute, and most Arts have an additional attribute or element.
There are 10 total attributes, 5 basic and 5 additional/elemental. The basic attributes, which exist on weapons and some arts, are as follows:
- Blunt
- Slash
- Pierce
- Gun
- Explosion
The elemental attributes, which can exist on Arts or as part of a Riot Combo, are as follows:
- Fire
- Ice
- Lightning
- Impact
- Null
When viewing an enemy before attacking, look at each of these symbols. If the number is 100, it means you will deal normal damage when using that attribute or element. Below 100 means you will do reduced damage and above 100 means you will deal extra damage.
Ichinomiya Military Base
Most of the game takes place here when you aren’t doing missions. The social aspect and planning stages of the game happen at this base, and there are two floors you can access depending on what you want to do:
- 4th Floor: Residential Floor
- 3rd Floor: Military Facilities
The 4th floor is where you want to be for any social interactions. The 3rd floor has lots of helpful rooms that will keep your game moving forward and let you upgrade your gear or heal your characters. These rooms include:
Command Room
- This is where you will get your missions and where most of the main story for each chapter takes place.
Development Room
- Here, you can exchange marks (the main currency in the game) for items, and deliver items to earn marks.
- You can also upgrade and modify each character’s Valkyrie weapon, make new uniforms, and repair or upgrade existing uniforms.
Treatment Room
- If your character gets any Fatigue, you can recover from it at the Treatment Room.
Reference Room
- This is where you can unlock several new things. You can exchange medals for different manuals that can unlock new combos, formations, items for the development room, and more.
Extra Tips
Make sure to check everywhere for items
This is especially important in dungeons. You will want to walk around to fill out the map to make sure you don’t miss anything. You will often need to find a key to open a new area, and they can be hidden in corners that you would not normally visit.
Experiment with different parts and party members
Each party member has their own base stats and abilities they can learn. Their valkyrie weapons are also all different. You can switch the gun parts between assault rifle, gatling, and shotgun — which allows you to perform different combo attacks.
Trying out different combinations can allow you to beat harder enemies that you would usually not be able to.
Pay close attention when adding stat points to a character
When you add points to a character, you can sometimes learn new attacks. If you see an “S” next to a stat, that means you will learn a new attack when you raise it one more time.
Since you can add and subtract points before continuing, I usually go through each stat to see if I can learn a new skill before committing my points.
Take advantage of Elemental Weaknesses
Sometimes enemies can be hard to beat, and your normal attacks deal reduced damage. This is when you will want to use Arts of a specific element.
If you don’t know the weaknesses of an enemy, just use each element until you find them.
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That’s all I have for my beginner tips for Dark Rose Valkyrie. Let me know if you have any questions!
