Started playing.
It's funny how this low budget looking game already has more summon options than V.
There doesn't seem to be any way to remove them from the field, but they have behavior settings and a few other useful things you can do.
You spend a little SP to summon creatures called Servans. You can have 4 Servans in your loadout and all of them can be summoned to the field at once. Seems more about resource management and team composition. Too early to say for sure.
Once summoned, you have some commands to work with.
Commands are Rampage, Teamwork, Drink Blood, and Follow, set to the d-pad. Here's what the tutorial has to say. CL comparisons abound!
Rampage
Entrust your Servans to carry out their own actions. Servans act on their own free will.
So basically the same as CL when you don't press anything. Attack type Servans have far more attacks though. My starting one, this little dragon with a sword, has 7 attacks right off the bat, one being a 'summon attack' which is something Legions can do.
Teamwork
The basic command. When using Target Lock, they will aim at the locked enemy and attack.
Similar to CL's lock-on which focuses all Legion attacks on one target. I haven't used this much, but what I've found in Azure is that they won't attack the locked enemy even when set to Teamwork. You have to press the d-pad on the Teamwork option to cause them to attack the locked enemy.
Drink blood
You can restore Servans' HP by having them drink the Blue Blood that splatters on the ground.
Haven't really paid attention to this but it's from killing enemies.
Follow
Call Servans to Arnice. They will follow without attacking. Use this when you want to avoid battle with an enemy.
So this is pretty much CL's Passive Mode. What's cool is the Servans will teleport to Arnice's side so it's great for getting them out of being surrounded, and because Arnice and Servans move at the same speed, you can just sprint around with them. You can't do that in CL since you're limited to walking while legions are out. This isn't better or worse then since different mechanics and all, but this feature in Azure almost completely makes up for not being able to unsummon.
Actually, this command is identical to the follow command in OZ where if you hold down circle, your pals will keep following you. The lock-on one is the same too.
Ok, on to some other mechanics.
Servan Burst
This is their special skill, unique to each one.
Assists
When certain conditions are met, the Servan may assist in some way.
Arnice's attacks
As for Arnice, the player character, gameplay seems pretty basic so far. Attacks are the basic weak, strong and special system, so pressing strong after any amount or weak inputs results in a different attack. The most interesting one she has is weak>strong. She does the first slash, then dashes backward while doing a horizontal slash. The energy effect on the sword goes beyond the length of the sword's tip and can hit enemies even though you're moving away. Very safe as it also functions as a dodge.
Which brings me to dodging, and surprising, dodge offset. Yep, you can carry on your string after dodging. So in the above case, you could slash, dodge, then hit strong attack and get that backdash attack. Sort of like a double dodge.
There's blocking but I'm not sure of the limitations. The tutorial says it 'may' lessen damage.
Servan's can level up and even equip accessories. You can level them up, and they gain more exp. They still gain some exp while not summoned (20% according to the game) which sounds very similar to CL in that Legions gain more exp when they deal the final blow.
Apparently, you can change some abilities they're born with later using an item, and when they level up you get to choose from a few. Sounds like there could be some decent depth to creating loadouts here but I'll have to wait until the game lets me do it. Still in the tutorial phase.
Overall, I'm liking it quite a bit.
Last edited by Birdman on Sun Oct 06, 2019 2:06 am; edited 2 times in total