This Guide will detail how keybindings and keyboard/mouse support work in Death end re;Quest 2, what each action does (due to the rather cryptic nature of the keybinding descriptions), and some suggestions to IdeaFactory on how they can improve keyboard/mouse support in future patches and games.
It will also delve into my recommended keybind settings.
I figured I would make this guide to help out Keyboard/Mouse players who are having issues deciding what to do for keybindings, and to provide some needed consulting/feedback to the developers regarding how the keyboard/mouse support can be improved.
Comparing the keyboard controls in IF’s games to higher quality ports leave a lot of things to be desired. However, as many games that were originally designed for a controller (Such as Persona 4 Golden, Devil May Cry V, and the Yakuza series), but have decent KB/M support on their PC ports show, it is entirely possible to provide a gameplay experience that is great on a Keyboard and Mouse.
What Each Binding Does
(The L stick seemingly controls the map menu scrolling as well, although WSAD, the arrows, and dragging the mouse across the map UI element should control this functionality)
L stick up – Move Forward
L stick down – Move Backwards
L stick left – Move Left
L stick right – Move Right
(The right stick movement bindings are pretty much useless on keyboard, and can be set to anything. It does seem to control zooming in and out on the map menu however. That functionality should be set to the mouse scroll wheel)
R stick up – Move Camera Up (When “Camera Up/Down Controls” in the Dungeon settings is set to inverted)
R stick down – Move Camera Down (When “Camera Up/Down Controls” in the Dungeon settings is set to inverted)
R stick left – Move Camera Left (When “Camera Left/Right Controls” in the Dungeon settings is set to inverted)
R stick right – Move Camera Right (When “Camera Left/Right Controls” in the Dungeon settings is set to inverted)
(The zoom camera functionality in the first game was originally used with LT and RT in the first game. This caused a lot of confusion for me, until someone mentioned it to me. On the mouse it was also originally set to the mouse scroll wheel, but that functionality is missing now)
D-pad up – Up in Menus, Zoom In Camera
D-pad down – Down in menus, Zoom out Camera
D-Pad left – Left in menus
D-Pad right – Right in menus
(Both interacting with stuff like computers, and interacting with stuff like save points should be both binded to the action button instead of X button/search)
A button/Action – Select in menus, Actions such as investigating save points
B button – Jump (While in dungeons), Hides textbox (in VN sequences), Go back (in menus and in the minimap)
X button/Search – Interact with certain things such as computers, The Search feature in battle which lets you view enemy weaknesses and such, Fast Forward (in VN sequences)
Y button/Command – Opens the Menu (While in dungeons), Opens the log in VN sequences, Opens the system tab on the event list, Command in battles.
BACK button – Seemingly does nothing
START button – Pause/Stop (in VN sequences), Opens Map (in dungeons), escape (in battle)
LB – Fast forward (in VN sequences), Overhead view (in battles)
RB – Auto progress (in VN sequences), Fast forwards enemy attacks (in battle),
L trigger – Skip sequence (in VN sequences), auto control (in battles),
R trigger – Skip (in VN sequences, although it seemingly does nothing but pop up said UI element), Bug Details Display/Hide (in battle)
R stick button – Resets camera (in battle and dungeons)
L stick button – Opens menu (in VN sequences)
Mouse bindings (cannot be changed):
Right mouse button – Hides textbox (in VN sequences)
Left mouse button – Selects stuff in menus, Melee attacks (in dungeons)
Mouse scroll wheel – Seemingly does nothing, except for opening the log in VN sequences and cycling through them.
What I Recommend End-Users to Change
Out of the box, the default keybindings worked decently enough, setting aside how Number Pad 0 was set to the Y button bindings (Which I changed to Tab), and how backspace was set to the B button (Which I changed to space, since it also controls jumping). I also set the start button to left alt, as that controls the in-game map, and the binding that I had set interfered with some of the hardlocked bindings for stuff like UI.
This sadly has the side effect of controlling the bindings on menus, and secondary buttons can’t be changed in a few scenarios. The primary bindings seem to affect prompts that appear on the UI, which makes this situation even muddier.
Binding Tweaks that I would recommend the developers to implement
Things I would suggest be added or changed in dungeon and battle scenarios:
- Offer support for binding the mouse wheel, Left Mouse Button, Right Mouse Button, Scroll Up, Scroll Down, and Middle Mouse Button to actions
- Remove the Camera keybindings for keyboard/mouse support, as they are redundant when mouse support is a thing.
- Remove the d-pad menu navigation keybindings for keyboard/mouse support, and have the Arrow keys and WASD (When a menu appears) set to d-pad menu navigation by default.
- Have Backspace/Right Mouse Button set to go back in menus, Enter for selecting (Alongside the left mouse button with mouse navigation, of course) no matter what your input bindings are. menus should have completely separate bindings from actual gameplay scenarios, as menu navigation works differently from gameplay, especially compared to a controller.
- Allow camera zooming with the mouse wheel, like with the first game.
How I would recommend keyboard/mouse bindings to be set up by default (Perhaps, a category option could be added to separate the bindings, to organize them more):
General Bindings:
Move Forward – W
Move Backward – S
Move Left – A
Move Right – D
Camera Zoom In – Mouse Wheel Up
Camera Zoom Out – Mouse Wheel Down
Battle Bindings:
Battle Action – 1
Battle Search – 2
Switch Party Member – 3
Battle Command – 4
Escape Battle – ESC
Camera Perspective – V
End Turn/Standby – E
Fast Forward Attacks – F (Change this functionality to behave more like the fast forward functionality in the Trails series, so enemy movement isn’t slow and unskippable, and spamming the button isn’t required to speed up enemy attacks)
Overworld Bindings:
Interact (Overworld) – E
Melee Attack (Overworld) – F/Left Mouse Button
Jump (Overworld) – Space
Toggle Dash – Shift (Give an option to change between toggle and holding to sprint, and have it set to hold by default on Keyboard/Mouse)
Overworld Map – M (Secondary Input: F1)
Quest List – comma key (Secondary Input: F2)
Warp (Although I’m unsure if this applies to the second game) – N (Secondary Input: F3)
Management Menu – ESC (officially called the Main Menu, but that term is misleading due to the term Main Menu being synonymous with title screens. Decided against naming command menu or status menu to avoid confusion with battle UI or other portions of the management menu)
VN/Cutscene Bindings:
Skip Sequence – Tab (Find a way for this to apply during transformation sequences and drawn out attack cutscenes during battle as well)
Hide Dialogue – Space
Dialogue Log – Tilde (~/`)
Pause – ESC
VN Bindings:
Auto Play – Q
Fast Forward – F
Things I would suggest be added or changed regarding keyboard/mouse in menus:
The event list should have 1 and 2 be used to change tabs. Tab should be system, and E is just fine as confirm.
When you are in a menu category, you should be able to click any of the other categories to switch quickly. Sadly, this functionality is not present.
Menu binding related stuff:
In the management menu that can be accessed in dungeons (also counts for skill and item menus): Enter/space should be confirm, backspace/Esc should be return, and tab should be episode chart
In the Skill Menu, which has sub-menus: Should have mouse wheel scrolling between different categories, just like how the settings area should be. Enter/Space should be confirm, Backspace/ESC should be return.
Equipment Menu: Enter/Space should be confirm, Backspace/ESC should be return, mouse wheel up and down should control the zoom, and holding down the right button over the character preview should allow dragging the mouse to control the rotation (while nullifying going back from menus), reset should be Left Alt. Z and X to switch categories should be changed to 1 and 2 keys
Party Menu: Enter/Space should be confirm, Backspace/ESC should be return, F can stay as removing party members, Tab can also stay as switch display, and switch leader should be changed to Left Alt
Status Menu: Backspace/ESC should be return, F can stay as change size, and change style can stay as tab, switching characters should be changed from Z and X, to 1 and 2
Library: Backspace/ESC should be return, switching pages on hints should be changed from Z and X, to 1 and 2
Mission: Backspace/ESC should be return, switching pages on missions should be changed from Z and X, to 1 and 2
Settings: Enter/Space should be confirm, backspace/esc should be return, and the scroll wheel should be able to move between the different options, such as settings, back to title screen, etc
System Settings: 1 and 2 should be for switching categories instead of Z and X.
ETC (Suggestions that don’t fit anywhere else):
- Remove mouse acceleration from camera movement, or give an option to toggle it on or off, as it doesn’t feel good to use on a mouse.
- An “Auto” button prompt option, that will switch between Keyboard/Mouse and Xbox controller prompts based on the last used input method.