Battle
The battles take place in real time on an isometric grid (see Isometric graphics in video games). The "Wisp," which resembles a small ball of light, is controlled via the touchscreen and moves around the field to give orders to allied units. When the wisp comes into contact with a unit that can be controlled, the attack must be aimed by moving around the Wisp into one of the four intermediate compass directions and then lifting the stylus off the touchscreen. However, the wisp will be under constant enemy fire, so the player must guide the Wisp to dodge the shots as well as order the allied units to attack. Normal attacks generate "Gems", which recharge the Magic Point meter. Equipment, such as swords, axes, and magical wands, can be used to generate Skill Attacks which can kill enemies and destroy objects on the field.
Despite having a timer, "time" is only deducted for charging attacks and when the player's wisp takes "damage" from on-screen bullets. Thus the player has virtually unlimited "time" to plan strategies and in this manner resembles other turn-based strategy role-playing games, but this is done instead in real time. If there is any "time" left, it can be converted in the Pause Menu to either Experience Points or Magic Points and will end the battle "turn".
To further change the pace of the battlefield, the game has a "Rush Count" system. Each time an enemy is hit, this counter ups by one and activates the condition associated with that number, as long as that number remains the same between hits and if there is one available. For example, one hit to an enemy may give a Rush Count number of replenishing to a Knight, similar to how a healing potion works in common role-playing games, while another hit may give maximum health to the enemy.
Goals
Excluding boss battles, the goal of each battle is not to defeat as many enemies as possible, but to align the enemy deaths in a tic-tac-toe style (that is, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) across the "Enemy Matrix" (which is displayed at the bottom of the screen) labeled in-game by "KILL markers". This isn't accomplished in one "turn", but over multiple, since the enemies are selected manually by the player via roulette. Since boss battles always have one central enemy to kill, this system isn't used, and is instead represented by a health bar going across the bottom of the screen, but these bosses normally have extremely large amounts of health and deploy larger amounts of bullet hell-like instances.
However, there are a limited number of times the player can have in any of these battles. Permadeath exists as characters have a "Vitality" stat which decreases when they use skills, and the same applies to the Equipment, but is referred in-game as "Durability". Vitality is replenished through leveling up in the Setup screen, the "Transoul" system, and other special circumstances such as the "Rush Count" system, while Durability is similarly acquired from merging like Equipment.
