I'd like to take some time to get you a bit acquainted with one of my favorite games on the Vita, Destiny of Spirits.
This won't approach being a review of the game. I'm merely going to explore various facets which the game encompasses and explain some details about them to you so you can decide if Destiny of Spirits is right for you!
Destiny of Spirits is a turn based, location based FREE-To-Play RPG available in all regions under the "Free-To-Play" section or by searching for the game in the search box on the PlayStation Store. The game was released in all regions during the same week in March of 2014. Development of the title was done by Q Entertainment who have made various other notable titles such as the fellow Vita exclusive Lumines Electronic Symphony.
The general idea behind Destiny of Spirits is that you are freeing the world from evil spirits who have attempted to overrun it. You'll achieve this goal in two ways, clearing zones on the World Map and participating in Raid Events. Destiny of Spirits borrows several elements from the famous Pokemon series, perhaps the most clear example of this is presented with the collecting of spirits to keep for show or to do battle with.
Clearing zones found on the world map will earn a variety of rewards for you.
The rewards you will receive for your accomplishment can be any combination of the following:Resources you will be able to use to summon new spirits to your cause or pay for improvements to your spirit(s).
Spirit fodder that you will feed to another spirit to empower them.
A spirit added to your summoning pool.
The more difficult the battle you face, the greater the rewards will be.
Raid Events are a special way to farm resources and get special spirits such as Jokers and event-only spirits as rewards for vanquishing evil from the world.
A spirit added to your summoning pool.
The more difficult the battle you face, the greater the rewards will be.
Raid Events are a special way to farm resources and get special spirits such as Jokers and event-only spirits as rewards for vanquishing evil from the world.
To illustrate what exactly a ‘Raid Event’ is, let's talk about a previous event that happened not too long ago, the Maidens of War event. In that event Nemesis, the “spirit of divine retribution” in mythology, had gathered 7 female warrior spirits and declared war on the spirit masters of the universe. Why did she do this? Well, the spirit masters has recently beat three other minions of hers in a past Raid Event so she was looking for, you guessed it!, retribution. These defeated minions were the evil, fraternal twins of the tutorial spirit guides, of whom one is met depending on your region when one starts the game.
The way the Maidens of War event was drawn up had each maiden appearing on their own day of the week. You had to beat 50 total maidens to trigger the ability for Nemesis to appear. Once that happened, she would appear randomly on any day alongside the scheduled spirit for that day.
As you beat certain benchmarks such as beating 10 levels of a specific spirit, one of them would come to your side and be available for whatever purpose you'd envision for her. Depending on the rarity, there were both Rare and Super Rare spirits up for grabs, you could get 4 or 5 to add to your collection.
There were also rewards for beating these maidens generally, with a benchmark appearing at 100 total spirits defeated earning you a Joker or bundle of resources.
The way the Maidens of War event was drawn up had each maiden appearing on their own day of the week. You had to beat 50 total maidens to trigger the ability for Nemesis to appear. Once that happened, she would appear randomly on any day alongside the scheduled spirit for that day.
As you beat certain benchmarks such as beating 10 levels of a specific spirit, one of them would come to your side and be available for whatever purpose you'd envision for her. Depending on the rarity, there were both Rare and Super Rare spirits up for grabs, you could get 4 or 5 to add to your collection.
There were also rewards for beating these maidens generally, with a benchmark appearing at 100 total spirits defeated earning you a Joker or bundle of resources.
It's quite the imaginative setup, but it does get a bit repetitive after an extensive amount of time being invested into such an event, particularly if its just a reskin of another event.
To the credit of the game's developers they have through this time tried three different methods of raids to mix things up for the player. The first method of raids they have tried is where all the bosses are available at the beginning of the event. They're randomly spawned during play, but the region you are doing battles to trigger them impacts your chances of spawning them.This means if you are doing battles in Asia you have a better chance of finding that region's boss in front of you than you are finding the boss of North and South America.
Another method introduced to raids has been where you have to beat 10 levels of each raid spirit to unlock the final boss' appearance. Once you've defeated the requisite amount of spirits then you'll eventually find the boss staring you down.
The third and final method is the one I described above when we were talking about the Maidens of War event. To unlock the final boss, you need to beat X number of regular bosses, whether it is 50 of 1 or 10 of 5 others it is no matter, to trigger the final boss.
Almost every spirit in Destiny of Spirits is in one way or another a product of mythology, legends, and folklore. The scope of this is nothing short of amazing as many different cultures are represented, examples of these being:
Due to this rich mix of options there are hardly an limits to the combinations of possibilities for battles to have unique dynamics. In one battle you can easily find a Japanese Samurai inspired spirit facing off against an Egyptian God. In another a showdown between two dragons could go on.
Battles are done in turn based combat as mentioned earlier. Each spirit has a gauge that fills up based on the speed of your spirit, with additional factors being accounted for such as any boosts from your daily element matching a member of your team's or a passive ability of a spirit in your squad giving a speed boost. Generally speaking more speed is better, but it needs to be a balanced part of your plan or it isn't very much of an advantage. If you have a lot going on during the battle attacks will be queued up so speed isn't necessarily an advantage all the time.
While your spirits are fighting normally, a second gauge will fill up which allows you to perform in-battle skills your spirits may possess. The skills at your disposal vary spirit to spirit and a spirit will only ever have one at a time. An attack skill on a spirits of yours can deal a range of potential damages from 0.7 of a regular attack to a whopping 200% of a regular attack.
Aside from attack skills, there are a great deal of passive or status skills. The best skill in the game is actually a status skill. It will stop time for the opponent which means they can't attack you, leaving you free to deal thousands of points in damage uninhibited. As you can imagine a skill like this is very valuable. It's also extremely rare as only around half a dozen spirits are able to perform acts like these.
A passive skill can help with things such as speed or attack for the entirety of a battle. Occasionally these skills will be limited to helping only spirits of the same type, limiting the value and usefulness of spirits outside of ideal situations.
It is advised you activate a skill like these immediately after the spirit with the desired skill performs their attack to maximize effectiveness. If you start a skill with 99% of the normal gauge filled, it will all be lost. This could without exaggeration be the difference between winning and losing in many battles!
Improving your spirits to make them fit and ready for the tough battles you will face is a pretty straightforward and simple process. Levels are gained by feeding the spirit other spirits. The amount of experience gained is decided by the level of the spirit being merged as well as the spirit’s rarity. Queens and Princes will provide a monumental experience boost to spirits of the same type. Jokers WILL NOT do the same, so do not use them expecting the same result.
All spirits you obtain whether by purchase, capture, trade, or summon will start at level 1. Depending on the rarity of said spirits, you can achieve a variety of levels.
Levels can only be gained to a certain point before they require a copy of the spirit or a Joker of the same type to break through the level. The amount of breaks needed depends on the rarity, 1 for a common and 4 for a Super Rare.
One of the biggest aspects of this game is your ability to play the game with spirits brought over from other games, if you are willing to pay of course, that is. It is a free-to-play game after all, they need to keep the lights on somehow.
Spirits made available for purchase in the past have included everything from Gravity Rush to Knack to Patapon, etc, etc.
It is an extremely safe assumption that if it is a top tier, Sony franchise or a brand new release it will have a place in Destiny of Spirits at one point or another. These offerings that pop up every month or two simply are not going to slow down anytime soon. They're exremely popular items that get a lot of people excited with pre-announcement speculation and the rolling the dice to see what character you can get after they have arrived in the game.
Being such special things these spirits are quite coveted in general, but some are more desirable than others by far. For instance, Lady of the Depths, which comes from Gravity Rush, is the hands down best spirit in the game and there isn't really a close competition either. She basically breaks the game with her ability, the aforementioned stoppage of time, and as a result commands a King's Ransom to obtain and owners are envied by many in the DoS community.
The third and final method is the one I described above when we were talking about the Maidens of War event. To unlock the final boss, you need to beat X number of regular bosses, whether it is 50 of 1 or 10 of 5 others it is no matter, to trigger the final boss.
Almost every spirit in Destiny of Spirits is in one way or another a product of mythology, legends, and folklore. The scope of this is nothing short of amazing as many different cultures are represented, examples of these being:
- The Celts.
- The Inuits.
- The Incas.
- The Chinese.
- The Native Americans.
- Many, many more.
Due to this rich mix of options there are hardly an limits to the combinations of possibilities for battles to have unique dynamics. In one battle you can easily find a Japanese Samurai inspired spirit facing off against an Egyptian God. In another a showdown between two dragons could go on.
Battles are done in turn based combat as mentioned earlier. Each spirit has a gauge that fills up based on the speed of your spirit, with additional factors being accounted for such as any boosts from your daily element matching a member of your team's or a passive ability of a spirit in your squad giving a speed boost. Generally speaking more speed is better, but it needs to be a balanced part of your plan or it isn't very much of an advantage. If you have a lot going on during the battle attacks will be queued up so speed isn't necessarily an advantage all the time.
While your spirits are fighting normally, a second gauge will fill up which allows you to perform in-battle skills your spirits may possess. The skills at your disposal vary spirit to spirit and a spirit will only ever have one at a time. An attack skill on a spirits of yours can deal a range of potential damages from 0.7 of a regular attack to a whopping 200% of a regular attack.
Aside from attack skills, there are a great deal of passive or status skills. The best skill in the game is actually a status skill. It will stop time for the opponent which means they can't attack you, leaving you free to deal thousands of points in damage uninhibited. As you can imagine a skill like this is very valuable. It's also extremely rare as only around half a dozen spirits are able to perform acts like these.
A passive skill can help with things such as speed or attack for the entirety of a battle. Occasionally these skills will be limited to helping only spirits of the same type, limiting the value and usefulness of spirits outside of ideal situations.
It is advised you activate a skill like these immediately after the spirit with the desired skill performs their attack to maximize effectiveness. If you start a skill with 99% of the normal gauge filled, it will all be lost. This could without exaggeration be the difference between winning and losing in many battles!
Improving your spirits to make them fit and ready for the tough battles you will face is a pretty straightforward and simple process. Levels are gained by feeding the spirit other spirits. The amount of experience gained is decided by the level of the spirit being merged as well as the spirit’s rarity. Queens and Princes will provide a monumental experience boost to spirits of the same type. Jokers WILL NOT do the same, so do not use them expecting the same result.
All spirits you obtain whether by purchase, capture, trade, or summon will start at level 1. Depending on the rarity of said spirits, you can achieve a variety of levels.
- Commons - 20
- Uncommons - 35
- Rares - 50
- Super Rares - 65
Levels can only be gained to a certain point before they require a copy of the spirit or a Joker of the same type to break through the level. The amount of breaks needed depends on the rarity, 1 for a common and 4 for a Super Rare.
One of the biggest aspects of this game is your ability to play the game with spirits brought over from other games, if you are willing to pay of course, that is. It is a free-to-play game after all, they need to keep the lights on somehow.
Spirits made available for purchase in the past have included everything from Gravity Rush to Knack to Patapon, etc, etc.
It is an extremely safe assumption that if it is a top tier, Sony franchise or a brand new release it will have a place in Destiny of Spirits at one point or another. These offerings that pop up every month or two simply are not going to slow down anytime soon. They're exremely popular items that get a lot of people excited with pre-announcement speculation and the rolling the dice to see what character you can get after they have arrived in the game.
Being such special things these spirits are quite coveted in general, but some are more desirable than others by far. For instance, Lady of the Depths, which comes from Gravity Rush, is the hands down best spirit in the game and there isn't really a close competition either. She basically breaks the game with her ability, the aforementioned stoppage of time, and as a result commands a King's Ransom to obtain and owners are envied by many in the DoS community.
An interesting thing you can do in Destiny of Spirits that really isn't found anywhere else is the act of Destiny Summoning.
Many games have some method of breeding put into their game, such as Conception 2 and its classmating capabilities, but Destiny Summoning while similar in spirit to breeding isn't quite breeding in my opinion.
Once a day you are allowed to choose one person from a select list generated by means I don't have the slightest clue, but usually include some of your in-game friends though it isn't a guarantee. Once you select a person you will each get the same spirit created as one another.
What this spirit ends up being is not only impacted by the compatibility you have with the person whom you chose to summon with it is also impacted by the region of whom you're making it with. If you summon with someone in Asia, you're getting an Asian spirit only.
This opens up the ability to collect in the game to people who aren't keen on trading or simply don't have the means to trades as it allows without ever trading someone in America to get a rare spirit from Asia or some other combination.
Well, that covers most, if not all, of the essential parts of Destiny of Spirits! If you want anymore information and have any questions, feel free to ask! I’m happy to be of help.
Many games have some method of breeding put into their game, such as Conception 2 and its classmating capabilities, but Destiny Summoning while similar in spirit to breeding isn't quite breeding in my opinion.
Once a day you are allowed to choose one person from a select list generated by means I don't have the slightest clue, but usually include some of your in-game friends though it isn't a guarantee. Once you select a person you will each get the same spirit created as one another.
What this spirit ends up being is not only impacted by the compatibility you have with the person whom you chose to summon with it is also impacted by the region of whom you're making it with. If you summon with someone in Asia, you're getting an Asian spirit only.
This opens up the ability to collect in the game to people who aren't keen on trading or simply don't have the means to trades as it allows without ever trading someone in America to get a rare spirit from Asia or some other combination.
Well, that covers most, if not all, of the essential parts of Destiny of Spirits! If you want anymore information and have any questions, feel free to ask! I’m happy to be of help.
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