Getting all your characters properly equipped in dungeon crawlers can be a bit of a chore. You know you’re going to need a good number of characters in your guild, so you’ll be ready for any situation. Especially since Strangers of Sword City makes you send people off to recover Life Points so they won’t die. Ensuring all members of your guild are ready to be pulled into the field could get expensive. Fortunately, there’s a method of getting equipment rather easily. All you have to do is be willing to fight for it.
The dungeons in Strangers of Sword City have ambush points in them. If one of your party members has the Wild Eye talent, they’ll be able to discover this while you’re walking. However, it never hurts to press X to investigate when you come across a suspiciously empty room. Once an ambush point has been identified once, it’ll permanently appear as a shaded space on the map, so you won’t forget it’s there. Ashibi, the starter Fighter available in the guild when the game begins, already has this Talent, but it’s always good to have at least one other character with it as a backup. Educated is a good Talent for ambush parties too, since it lets you identify items and objects. It’s a good way to know what kind of foe you’re facing.
Once you find a hiding place, it’s usually prudent to only use it once early on. Hiding the first time in an area takes five points of morale, and you only have 10 points to start. This quickly jumps to 20, but it’s still better to be cautious early on. The three earliest Divinities, Flash Escape, Black Wall 1, and Holy Light 1 all require 5 morale as well, and you don’t want to find yourself facing a Lineage Type without the morale to act as a last minute save. Each time you hide in the same place, it costs more morale. Since dungeons have multiple ambush spots, it’s smart to visit 3 of them in one run, leave, then come back to “grind” for equipment that can be given to characters or sold in the shop.
Time is also a factor when it comes to that initial hideout in one of these ambush spots. You won’t be caught the first time you hide, but you have the option to pass up to five times in hopes of finding better treasure. Each time you pass, there’s a better chance the enemy will discover that you’re there and ambush you instead. Fortunately, you can check the enemy and get an idea of what sort of item is in the treasure box before you decide to pass or fight, and I’ve found I didn’t face a high chance of being caught by the enemies unless I’d passed at least twice.
I’ve found a handy strategy for Strangers of Sword City that revolves around this ambush system. Since I’ve been rushing through it a bit, I’ve found characters tend to die on me during Lineage Type battles. When this happens, I go on between two and four ambush runs with a specialized party while I wait for my main party to recover. This means I have 10 characters who all stay around the same level and are growing into formidable fighting machines.
Certain characters are better than others for this ambush party. While any character can eventually work, due to Strangers of Sword City allowing members to reclass and keep skills, some are key for these special runs. The Dancer, in particular, is important. It has a skill called Sword Song, learned at level 10, which can sometimes heal morale. (Sometimes it doesn’t work, but still.) This is important for people who want to maybe ambush more than once in the same room. You want to build up morale quickly. Though, the Dancer’s level 28 skill, Miracle Song, is handy too. Some Lineage Types only show up in ambush scenarios. It’s worth it to sacrifice half of the Dancer’s health to make the next Divinity free. Use that to cast a Holy Light, which restores a percentage of the party’s health each turn, and you’ll be in a better place to fight the unexpected boss.
I also recommend having a Wizard around. It learns a support spell called Force Hide at level 18. This improves your odds of ambushing, while also deterring weak enemies from attacking the party. This ability is critical when you’re hunting for a Lineage Type that only appears if you try to hide and ambush it. Also, magic is handy as well, since targeting enemies’ weaknesses is always a solid way to end a battle fast. The Wizard’s High Cast, learned at level 14, is good for that. It lets you use the same spell twice in a row. Since you only have a limited number of turns before the leader of the transporter group of enemies you attacked leaves and takes the treasure with it, it’s best to deal heavy damage to that foe within two or three turns to wipe it out.
Finally, I recommend a Ranger. The transporter leader in an ambushed party will often switch between the front and back rows. You want a character that could hit both rows easily, without having to worry about MP. The Ranger learns a Long Range Shot at level 3, which doubles damage when you go after an enemy in the back row with a bow or special weapon. Its Confine attack, learned at level 6, is great too. That decreases an enemy’s Hit and Avoidance stats, meaning you’ll have a better chance of taking out the enemies’ leader quickly.
Once an ambush is over and you’ve won, you get the treasure. It’ll need to be identified, which means you’ll want someone with the aforementioned Educated talent around. I actually recommend waiting until you get to town, though. There’s a chance item identification can fail, which results in a curse. Leaving a dungeon to return to the city automatically identifies all items for free, so it’s usually safer to wait. Once you know what you’ve got, you can equip, sell, or store it.
The Xbox One will get Stranger of Sword City on March 22, 2016. It will come to the PlayStation Vita on April 26, 2016.
