Basics
Each Area will have 5 different Pok… I mean monsters. You encounter said monsters by walking on tall grass, giving you the opportunity to capture them. Of these 5 monsters, 4 will be “common”, wich means you wont have any difficulty encountering one, and 1 will be “rare”, wich means it can take you 5 min or 2 hours of grinding to finally encounter. These “rare” monsters are not much stronger then commons, but they might have some perks/abilities you would normally get only in further areas.
Topaz Coins
The holy grail of coins. You will be given a fairly substancial amount of Topaz Coins when you find the Topaz cartridge. DO NOT WASTE THEM. There are only 4 ways (that i know of) to earn Topaz Coins, and all of them require a lot of time in the game. Topaz Coins are not affected by any coin value nor treasure boost. Here they are on the order of best to worse source of Topaz Coins in my opinion:
Beating any regular level of the main game :
Upon exiting any level, you will earn 100 Topaz Coin. (Note: I do not know if it increases with new game +)
Achievements :
Gives you the ammount stated in the in-game achievement menu. Can be a great boost of coins, but are only obtainable once.
Killing wild monster / selling captured monster :
Only gives you 1 Topaz Coin (with some rares exeptions). A waste of time, but if you really enjoy these battles, go for it i guess.
Winning battles against npcs :
Gives you some Topaz Coins, but always less then the cost to start the encounter. There is no way to make a profit out of these.
But what is monster?
Now that its out of the way, what are monsters?
A monster has 4 Major componants: Lvl, attributes, stats and abilities. (and name i guess)
Lets use good old Bouldo as an exemple:
Bouldo Rock / Object
Stats (at lvl 1) : HP = 20 ST = 5 DE = 7 SP = 3 DO = 4 AC = 4
Abilities : Tumble, Armor, Step on, ?
Level
Bouldo is a level 1 monster when captured. He can only be leveled up by spending topaz coins on the upgrade stations in the area (they are orange orbs) for a cost of 100 Topaz Coins. YOU CANNOT UPGRADE YOUR MONSTER BY KILLING WILD MONSTERS (aka there is no experience system). Upgrading improves stats, grant new abilities, and allow you to challenge the area boss, which grants you access to the next area upon defeating. Topaz Coins are very scarce, the rarest coins in game, so I recommend to only upgrade monsters to the requirement to the boss and no more, since the next area will have better monsters to catch anyway.
Traits
His traits are rock and objects. this means that some of bouldo’s abilities will have the trait rock, while others will have the object trait. Rock attacks while deal at best critical (so a lot) of damage against some traits, normal damages against others, and at worse useless damage (very, very little). This also means that bouldo is very resistant against some traits, but gets destroyed by others. So try to keep your lineup as diverse as possible.
If you happen to know what trait is strong against which, please leave a comment
Stats
Monsters have 6 stats : HP (health points) ST (strenght) DE (defence) SP (speed) DO (dodge) and AC (accuracy). Each time you level up a monster, it gains a few hp and a small boost in another stat.
Bouldo has 20 HP. If he takes 20 or more damage (without getting healed), you will automaticaly switch to the next monster, and you wont be able to use Bouldo again until you feed it ( Just interact with what looks like a chicken drumstick with flies around it ) . If all of your monsters have 0 HP, you lose the battle, and need to feed your monsters. Note that you wont lose any Topaz Coin by losing a battle.
Bouldo has 5 ST. ST pretty much just reflects how much damage your attacks do. Im not 100% sure about it, but i think it also affects healing abilities.
Bouldo has 7 DE. DE reduces the damage received from ennemy attacks.
Bouldo has 3 SP. SP dictates which monster can use an ability before the other. If the difference is large enough, a monster might use an ability twice or even thrice before the other can.
Bouldo has 3 DO. DO increases the chance to dodge an ennemy ability. Note that not all attacks have the same hit chance.
Bouldo has 4 AC. AC increases the chance of hitting the ennemy with your attack. Note again that not all attacks have the same hit chance, and some wont require much AC to reliably hit their target.
Bouldo has… nothing else. Moving on.
Abilities
Every monster has 4 abilities. Abilities are the actions you assign to your monster after pressing the “attack” button. Abilities are also gradualy unlocked as you level up your monster. Ability # 1 is always unlocked. Ability # 2 needs level 10 to be revealed and used. Ability # 3 needs level 20 to be revealed and used. Ability # 4 needs level 30 to be revealed and used.
Here are examples of ability effects:
Attack: deals damage to ennemy.
Debuff: lowers one of the ennemy stat.
Attack + Debuff: deals damage to ennemy and lowers one of the ennemy stat. (note: if the attack misses, the ennemy monster won’t be debuffed)
Buff: Raises one of your monster stat. (note: cannot miss)
Attack + Buff: deals damage to ennemy and raises one of your monster stat. (note: if the attack misses, your monster won’t be buffed)
Heal: Restore a set amount of HP of your monster. (note: cannot miss)
Attack + Heal: deals damage to ennemy and restore a set amount of HP of your monster. (note 1: if the attack misses, your monster won’t be healed)(note 2: the amount of gained health is SOMETIME dependant on the damage dealt to the ennemy creature. exemple: lvl 30 Buttonor’s Consume ability makes him heal 14 hp, no matter how much damage was dealt. However, Orbost’s kiss ability will heal Orbost for the exact ammount of damage dealt )
Note: the name of the attack often hint its effect, as Absorb, for example, deals damage and heals.