feotakahari

You give yourself stat boosts, and eventually new skills, by slotting items into a pipe grid that looks like the hacking minigame from Bioshock. The more levels you gain, the more items you can fit. Each item has a pipe shape and an element, and each stat slot gives double the value if you put in an item with the element matching the stat type. So do you want to put an ice element in this defense slot, because ice gives twice the stat boost when used on defense, or do you want to put in a holy element that's a straight-line pipe piece, so you can keep the straight line going until you reach the block that will teach you a new skill?

Except, even though you learn new skills from this grid, you level up the power of your skills via a completely separate mechanic that involves permanently consuming these items. Each item has a shape and a weight, and different shapes and weights benefit different skills. So do you want to consume that potentially useful pipe piece because it gives a lot of points to improve your warrior's thrusting attacks?

Except you also consume these items for temporary boosts to things like the warrior's guard ability, and you also consume them to change the element of your mage's attacks. That last not only increases how much damage he deals with and takes from each element, it also affects what type of magic he uses when you have him destroy barriers in the overworld. If you've just set him up to do fire damage, you'll have to consume a lot of items to make him do noxious damage to destroy this withered tree that for some reason is fireproof . . .

Why is every game that Tilde One makes so ridiculously complicated?