Whether you’ve collected characters from playing the story or spending gems to reroll for the best in the game, you’ll need to level your team for the most powerful loadout possible. Outside of enhancing characters with various items to increase their level, you can also use Nier Reincarnation‘s Ascension system to increase the level cap and gain new abilities with the right materials.
To Ascend characters, you’ll need Texts and Handbooks. Texts are specific to each character. They can be purchased from the Exchange Shop with Automata Medals, found as rewards for clearing certain normal and hard story quests for the first time, or received from dupe summons.
Though every character can use Texts to Ascend, not all of them have Texts that can be purchased or found through quests yet (or at least it seems that way so far). That’s where Handbooks come into play.
Handbooks essentially perform the same function as Texts, and each character can use them to Ascend as well, but they come in three basic varieties: Beginner’s, Intermediate, and Advanced. They are also used to Ascend characters who don’t have Texts available in-game yet.
Beginner’s and Intermediate Handbooks can be purchased with Automata Medals through the Exchange Shop. It appears that Advanced Handbooks are only available via events, though I’ve not found one in the eight or so hours I’ve played.
To Ascend a character:
- Open the main menu
- Select “Enhance”
- Select “Characters”
This will bring up every character you’ve gotten in the game, both through the story and by summoning. Choose the character you want to improve. Click the “Ascend” tab on the far right side of the screen. If you can Ascend a character, the tab will have a red diamond in the top-right corner.
A new set of options for Ascension will appear: Battle Text and Handbook. You see how many you have in your inventory by looking at the icon for each. You can also click on the icons to see where you can find/purchase them.
Some descriptions will simply say “???,” meaning you haven’t discovered the Text or Handbook yet, while others will be more descriptive. Even if you have a certain number of Battle Texts in your inventory, for example, the descriptions may still list their locations as “???” because you’ve acquired them from synthesizing dupe summons. You haven’t actually picked them up in-game yet.
Every time you pull a duplicate character through a summons, you’ll receive a certain number of Battle Texts for that character. The number of texts is heavily governed by RNG, and how many you get is completely random but quickly discernable.
A dupe character will turn into a square with a number in the center on the Summons wrap-up screen. This number correlates to a number of Battle Texts.
- 1 = ?? (I’ve not yet pulled a 1)
- 2 = 16
- 3 = 14
- 4 = 12
- 5 = 10
Make sure to go to the gift box and pick up texts after getting them from dupes.
You can Ascend each character four times. This increases their level cap, grants new abilities, and levels abilities they already have. Each Ascension costs a certain number of Texts or Handbooks (usually 10) and a certain amount of Gold (usually 25,000).
That’s essentially all you need to know about how to Ascend characters in Nier Reincarnation. For more tips, consider heading over to our guides hub, where we have every Black Bird location and more.
