This guide is meant to act as a game manual for Artifact Adventure as well as give solid, low-spoiler and no-spoiler advice on how to play the game and understand some of the nuances of Artifact Adventure.

I made this guide because I enjoyed playing Artifact Adventure - and for over a month it was my favorite video game - but it lacked a lot of instruction. Most of what I learned here was from experimentation, reading other guides, or/and talking with others on the Steam forum. I also felt unusually inspired to make this guide and others in large part because such a guide was missing on Steam and GameFAQs.

Artifact Adventure Guides Section on Steam - Find other game guides here!

Artifact Adventure Discussion Board on Steam - Talk with other people here!

This game uses only a small number of buttons for normal play. The default controls are below.

UP: Up Arrow OR NumPad8
LEFT: Left Arrow OR NumPad4
DOWN: Down Arrow OR NumPad2
RIGHT: RIght Arrow OR NumPad6
WALK: Hold Shift while moving up, down, left, or right
ACCEPT: Space OR Enter OR Z
SELECT QUANTITY OF ITEM TO BUY OR SELL AT A SHOP: Shift+Accept
MENU/CANCEL: ESC OR Insert OR NumPad0 OR X
SWITCH TO NEXT PARTY MEMBER: Q
SWITCH TO PREVIOUS PARTY MEMBER: W
TOGGLE FULL SCREEN: Alt+Enter
QUIT TO TITLE WITHOUT SAVING: F12
DISPLAY FRAMERATE: F2
RPGMAKER MENU (GAME PROPERTIES): F1

This game does not use a mouse. If you want to use a joystick or gamepad, consult the Game Properties section of this guide, below.

Show this by pushing F1. The menus are in Japanese, but translate to approximately this:

The window title is GAME PROPERTIES.

From left to right, the 3 tabs are GENERAL, GAME PAD, and KEYBOARD.

Under GENERAL, the 4 checkboxes are:
.....[ ] START GAME IN FULL SCREEN
.....[ ] LOCK FRAME RATE
.....[ ] PLAY GAME'S BACKGROUND MUSIC
.....[ ] PLAY GAME'S SOUND EFFECTS

If you don't know what you're doing, expect to make several (or even many) parties to get a feel for what party composition and starting gift you want. I can tell you my preferred party and starting gift, but a large part of this game is finding something that works well and feels right to you.

These are between 1 and 5 characters. I strongly recommend naming your characters {unique names} in ALL CAPS so you can quickly tell in battle who did what.

-The game expects you to fill the 3 roles of Tank (someone with lots of DEF and HP), offensive caster (someone with high INT and lots of MP), and healer (someone with lots of MP).

-Consult the Class Guide to better understand the stats of each class and what they can equip. This is a very low-spoiler guide!

-You can have multiple party members of the same class, and even 4 party members of the same class. I don't recommend having more than 2 of any class in your party unless you know what you're doing or are just experimenting.

-Your party's formation matters! Characters are in spot 1 (the front), 2, 3, or 4 (the back). From my experience, the person most likely to be attacked is #1 then #2 then #4 then #3. Some mid and late game attacks ignore formation or hit everyone.

-In Loutenreck, the starting town, there is a well where you can sell party members into slavery. You gain a bit of money (which you could have gotten by other means) but you permanently lose a party member! Unless you know what you're doing or just want to experiment, this is a very bad trade!

They notably increase the HP healed from Medical Herbs and Healing Water. They also give a slight HP boost of 1 HP/2 character levels of the user when using a Cleansing Tonic. Hermits do NOT improve the benefits of Elixirs nor healing spells!

If you start the game with a Monk party member, ensure to unequip the Dirk he starts with! Doing so will let him fight unarmed and will likely boost your offense!

-You can only choose ONE of these: An airship, exclusive artifacts, or the Key of Time. During that run of the game, you can't choose another. You make the choice when you unlock the door requiring the Authority of Kings artifact to open. For example, if you open the door leading to the Key of Time, even if you never take the Key of Time, you still have used your choice for that game. If you want to choose another, you must restart the game!

-You need not choose any starting gift, but why would you choose none?

-VERY IMPORTANT! There is only ONE copy of each artifact! Ensure the person you want using the artifact is in the lead when you talk to (and accept) the artifact! (Remember, you can push Q and W by default to change who is in the lead!)

-Orange artifacts cost 0MP. Blue artifacts cost 2+ MP. No artifacts cost 1MP.

-There is no cooldown on artifacts. You could theoretically cast the same spell every round so long as the fight was still on, you had the MP, and you could still cast spells.

-There is no maximum number of spells/skills a character may know.

When, outside of combat, you see a window say you got X experience points, this means you completed a quest and got Quest EXP. With Quest EXP, all party members (even dead ones) get the same amount of Quest EXP. This is unlike battle EXP where only living members get it, and the battle EXP total is split among all surviving party members.

Bonuses to max HP, max MP, ATK, DEF, INT, and SPD are slightly randomized upon level up. What stats are boosted by how much varies by class and level. For example, a Warrior never gains maximum MP from leveling, but the amount of HP he gains from leveling varies slightly. This also means you can save right before leveling and get the EXP again to try to optimize your stats. (I don't recommend this due to the time involved and the very little gain it provides.)

The only 2 ways to restore MP are at inns or leveling up. (Whenever a character levels, he regains all HP and MP!)

Spells never miss, though they may have no effect. For example, using Exorcism damage (hurts Undead only) against non-Undead has no effect, as does using Fire damage on Fire creatures. Physical attacks can miss.

ATK is your physical damage. DEF is your physical defense. (DEF does NOT apply to spells!) INT is your magical offense. (INT does NOT apply to healing spells!) SPD is turn order and how likely this character is to go first. Actions (friendly and enemy) tend to occur in the order of highest SPD to lowest SPD.

With one notable late-game exception, you can only save in select towns at Save Girls. You can't switch save slots upon saving, but you can back up your saves in your Steam\Artifact Adventure\EN\ (or JP) directory. Copy those files to another directory (or to a ZIP or RAR archive) for backup purposes. Why back up the files? For the same reason you'd back up any other game files, plus whatever reasons you find!

If your party dies, you warp to your most recent save point with your lead character having 1 HP and the rest of the party dead. You keep your progress, though. (Bosses you killed stay dead. Items you collected stay collected. Switches you pulled stay pulled. Etc.)

The cost of reviving a dead character at a Witch Doctor is (Character's Max HP) x (3G). Thus, a character with 200 max HP would require 600G to revive.

-They happen after a random number of steps and only appear on maps that can generate them. Change maps (like using stairs) to reset the random encounter step counter.

-Certain enemies are considered minibosses. Each miniboss has a * (an *asterisk) before its name (like *Goblin). It has more HP (and perhaps higher other stats) than its standard version and is worth more EXP and G than its standard version.

Each character has 5 item slots: Body, Head, Weapon, Shield, and Accessory. 2H weapons like axes take the weapon slot and the shield slot. Ammo for bows and guns takes the shield slot.

-These weapons require ammo. The character equipping the bow or gun must also equip a suitable piece of ammo (arrows for bows, bullets for guns). The bow or gun occupies the weapon slot and the ammo occupies the shield slot.

-Ammo is finite! That is, there's only so much ammo you can hold, and once a stack of ammo is depleted, you must spend a turn in combat (or arrange your inventory out of combat) to equip more ammo. If you have no ammo equipped and you try to attack in combat, you waste a turn.

Elixirs are 1-use consumables that permanently boost the target party member of your choice. They can't be bought or sold for money. Each elixir type has multiples in the game. All elixirs are found in the same areas between games. Enemies never drop elixirs.

-ELIXIR OF FORTITUDE: +1 DEF

-ELIXIR OF GUILE: +1 SPD

-ELIXIR OF LIFE: +10 max HP

-ELIXIR OF MAGIC: +5 max MP

-ELIXIR OF STRENGTH: +1 ATK

-ELIXIR OF WISDOM: +1 INT

You can run this game directly from your Artifact Adventure\EN (or JP)\ directory. Hotkeying Game.EXE lets you start the game faster, and without the Steam overlay! Enjoy!

-Certain shields and weapons have a special effect when used from the ITEM command in combat. The item must be equipped to be able to use its power. Items available from town vendors never have such usable powers.

-You can equip an unequipped weapon, shield, ammo, or accessory by selecting it from a character's inventory in combat. This takes the character's turn, though. You can't access other characters' inventories in combat.

NOTE: Status effects are generally far more useful when used against the party compared to being used against enemies. Also, all bosses that I know of are outright immune to all status effects except death by HP depletion and sometimes also Dizzy.

All status effects can be removed by a character's death then resurrection and all (except poison and death) will end if you wait enough turns in battle. Notes below on how to remove them focus on the specific counters to these conditions.

-CONFUSION: Subject can't control itself and my harm its team. Taking physical damage (or magical damage?) will end this condition.

-DIZZY: Subject loses its action about 25% of the time. Taking physical damage will end this condition. Some bosses can be affected by Dizzy.

-FATAL: Subject is instantly dead. Remove by casting Heavenly Gates or Gates of Hell or by revival via a witch doctor.

-INJURY: Subject is dead. Remove by casting Heavenly Gates or Gates of Hell or by revival via a witch doctor.

-PARALYSIS: Subject can't act. Remove this specifically by the Needle of Mobility spell.

-POISON: Subject takes damage each turn in combat and damage each step out of combat. Remove via the Cleansing Tonic item or by any of these spells: Light of Rebirth or Purifying Light.

-SILENCE: Subject can't cast spells, but can still use items, defend, flee, and attack. NO unique way to remove.

-SLEEP: Subject can't act. Remove this specifically by having the subject be damaged or by the Waking Bell spell.

Artifact Adventure has these HP damage types:

-Physical. Not magical in any way. Too many sources to list.
-Electricity. No foe is strong to this, but some are weak. Shocking?
-Exorcism. Only hurts Undead, but hits them hard.
-Explosion. Many mid- and late-game enemies are outright immune. Boo(m)!
-Fire. The opposite of ice.
-Light. Nothing is strong nor weak to it. (If you encounter any foes immune to light damage, you probably don't need this manual!) Effectively as powerful as untyped magical.
-Ice. The opposite of fire.
-Untyped magical. This is rare.

If attacking an enemy type (Aquatic, Bug, Demon, etc.) with a weapon that does bonus damage against that type, you do about 1.5x damage (or 50% more damage). This is usually only worth it if your current best weapon is within 5 points of ATK of the weakness weapon. Otherwise, the returns are negligible.

If attacking an enemy with an energy/elemental weakness, you instead deal double (2x) damage!

Let's put this in perspective. For example, attacking a crab with an electricity-based attack would deal double electricity damage. If you instead hit it with an Aquatic Slasher weapon (bane of arthropods and aquatic creatures), you would only deal about 1.5x physical damage.

NOTE: This was tested and confirmed on version 1.9.

To do this, you need the airship and the Airship Summoner ability.

-On the overworld, be 1 step away from the area (the town, cave, tower, etc.) you want to enter. Move your party to enter that area, but before your party enters the area, push the button to open the menu!

-Activate the Airship Summoner. You'll summon the airship inside this area where you weren't meant to have it!

-Enter your airship, land, then enter it again. Now you can move full speed!

NOTE: You can only use the airship on the starting map of this area, meaning you can't go up or down stairs or use warpers with it. This is still useful in certain places for getting around quickly, looting the first floor, scouting new places, and avoiding fights!

NOTE: This glitch lets you move out of bounds! The only way to exit maps is at the normal exit points (stairs, side exits, etc.) Aside from perhaps losing yourself briefly, this glitch is safe to use!

NOTE: You can also use this glitch to enter forests, but you must time things more accurately. Land immediately next to a forest, then as you are landing, hold the direction (right or up) to enter the forest and push the menu button. If your lead character (not the airship) is facing the forest's direction when the menu opens and you use the Airship Summoner, you've done the trick correctly. Refer to about 6:08 of this video[www.speedrun.com].

JESUS[www.biblegateway.com]: Yes, that Jesus as famously preached by that guy. Thank You, Abbi, for your continuous inspiration, motivation, and ability to work on this guide and others because i found a wonderfully spiffy game!

EXTRA CREDITS: They recommended Artifact Adventure in Games You Might Not Have Tried 9. Thankee!

MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS: Thank you, my family and friends, for your continuous love and support! A special thank you to my friend Amy whom I met in January of 2014 and whom is now in Heaven.

STEAM COMMUNITY FOR ARTIFACT ADVENTURE: Thank you for telling me more than I wanted to know and giving me your encouragement and advice, especially for party building!

ARTIFACT ADVENTURE'S AUTHORS, TRANSLATORS, AND LOCALIZERS: THANK YOU for making such a spiffy game and helping me to play it in English! Alleluia!