Just Breed Manual

So, what's the deal?

In December of 1992, Enix released arguably the last truly epic RPG for the Famicom, "Just Breed". It's a tactical RPG, not unlike Shining Force, except it uses the so-called "Team Spirits" gimmick, which basically means that your characters are divided into several seperate armies, which need to act along with their leader. It was never released in America, but due to the awesome work of Stealth Translations and Shih Tzu, an English translation patch has been made! Hooray!!!

Just Breed? That's a funny name for a game!

Yeah. It is.

Why should I care?

The translation is top-notch, the script is filled with quirky humor, and the character design was done by Yuzo Takada, who wrote the 3x3 Eyes Manga. Yeah, I've never heard of him either.

OK, I'm in a town, and I can't figure out all these menu options!

Speak -This option lets you talk to other people, animals, etc.
Items -Select this to use an item in your inventory.
Status -Use this to check the statistics, equipment and magic for any character.
Magic -Select this, then select one of your magic users to cast a magic spell.
Equip -If you need to equip a weapon, armor, shield or accessory, this is where you need to go.
Search -Use this to search the ground all about. Anybody who has played any early Enix RPGs should be familiar with this...

My game's broke! I want to check the status/equip something on a character, and it only gives me a few choices!

Remember, your characters are partitioned into seperate armies, each with a leader and five others. You need to select a leader first, then select somebody from the army.

Explanation on stats, plz

Fine.

HP -The character's life. When attacked, the character loses HP. When their HP reaches 0, they die.
MP -The character's magic points. Casting magic consumes MP. When a character does not have enough MP, they cannot cast spells.
Power -The character's strength. It helps determine how much damage they deal.
Attack -The characters's Power + the Attack Power of their equipped weapon. The higher their Attack, the more damage they deal when attacking.
Stamina -This helps determine how much damage characters take from attacks.
Defense -The character's Stamina + the Defense Power of their equippment. The higher their Defense, the less damage they take when attacked.
Wisdom -This aids in the casting of magic. The higher the wisdom, the more potent the spells.

That's fine and dandy, but how the diddly to I do battle?

It's pretty easy, really. Follow my simple instructions!

Before you attack!

You control a little cursor. FUN, FUN, FUN! You can scroll anywhere on the battle map to see where your armies are, and where the enemies are. If you select an empty space, a menu will come up where you can check your characters' status, abort your turn, or "suspend your game" (which is like a quick save... not really needed if you're emulating). If you select an enemy, you can see the enemy's stats, and a nifty picture of the enemy. You can also select a character and see his or her stats.

Prepare to attack!

When you're ready to attack, select one of your army's leaders, and the screen will center around him or her, and that army will light up. You can now attack with that army. Note that once you select an army, all of that army's characters need to act before you can select another army. However, you can back out of your selection via the B button (twice) if you haven't done any actions yet. Each character has a chance to move and perform an action. After you're done with one army, go onto another until everybody has acted. Then the enemies will all attack, then it will be your turn again.

Time to attack!

Select a character you want to act, and he or she will start flashing. You can then move the cursor around as far as that character's walking range is. Select an area of ground to move that character there. If you don't want a character to move, select the space he or she is already standing on. You can then act. If you are in range to attack an enemy, you can Fight, and that character can cast magic, you can access their magic menu. You can also use items, change your equipment (changing equipment doesn't take up their turn) or perform no action at all.

What's the deal with the classes in the game?

There are four different classes in the game:

Hero -Each army leader is of this class. Generally, these characters combine the best qualities of the Fighter and Wizard classes, being powerful and able to equip all the equipment of a Fighter, but also being able to cast magic. The exception is Hans, who is more of a combination of an Archer and a Wizard.
Wizard -Physically weak and only able to equip staves and cloaks, Wizards are able to cast magic spells. Each army has exactly one wizard in it, which may specialize in offensive or defensive magic. Wizards tend to have high magic defense due to their cloaks.
Fighter -The physical grunts of the game. They are able to equip swords, spears and shields and generally have high physical strength and defense, but need to be close to the enemy to attack. Each army has 1 or 2 Fighters.
Archer -Archers cannot equip shields, spears or swords, but they can equip bows, boomerangs and bowguns. Their advantage is their ability to attack enemies from a distance, but their physical strength and defense is a bit lacking, so keep them away from the enemy.

Any other gimmicky things about the battles?

There are lots and lots of monster dens throughout the levels that constantly spew out enemies. You can unarm them by moving a character next to them. Then the character will have the "unarm" option... and it should be pretty obvious at this point.

Any... uh... Status Ailments?

Just a couple

Sleep -Caused by the Toromar spell. It makes a character or enemy unable to move or perform any actions for a few rounds.
Poison -When a character is poisoned, they lose 10 HP per round of battle.
Paralyze -Inflicted on the leaders during a certain part of the storyline. Causes them to sometimes not be able to perform actions in battle, which also means their armies cannot be controlled for the round.
Dead -Caused when a character's HP reaches 0. They can be brought back by a LifeHerb, the Arienas Spell, or at a Hospital. If an army's leader dies, the rest of the army runs off, and is unusable. If the Hero dies, the battle is lost.

Get to the good stuff! What are some tips?!

Fine...

• This is probably common sense, but try to keep your distance with Archers and Wizards, and let your Fighters and Heroes take the physical abuse. But be careful, since if a Hero is slain, the rest of that army will scatter.
• Try to keep your troops close together. If a single character strays too far, the enemies will tend to gang up on him or her, which can cause a quick fatality.
• Wizards and Heroes tend to be able to take magical damage better than Fighters and Archers, due to their armor and gems, respectively.
• The first thing you should try to do in every battle is close off monster dens as soon as possible. Nothing turns the tides of a battle faster than monster dens.
• Arienas is nice, but it costs a lot of MP. Be sure to have plenty of LifeHerbs for revival purposes. Have plenty of Herb1s and Herb2s as well, for that matter. The MP you save could be the difference between victory and defeat.
• You can have everybody take advantage of the Speed without using up a turn or an equipment slot. Just equip them on who you want to move, then after they're done, un-equip them and perform your action. Then you can do the same with everybody else!
• You can run by holding the "B" button in towns. And you can change the text's speed by talking to a man in a house in southeastern Astholm.

  (c)2006 RPGClassics.com. All materials are copyrighted by their respective authors. All games mentioned in this site are copyrighted by their respective producers and publishers. No infringement on any existing copyright is intended. All rights reserved.