I said I'd take notes when this game came out in English and I have been. I'll update this as I progress, I wanted to make sure I got this all copied down before I forgot some of it again. Assume everything already listed in this forum applies to this version except for what I've noted below.
Magic and Enemy SkillsBeakOnly inflicts gradual petrification now. It may be a threat early in the game but it's just silly when a cockatrice's physical attack can turn you into stone outright but their "special" attack can't.
BraveryAvailable via Recall and Twincast with the right character combination, it doubles the party's attack power.
BubbleDoubles maximum HP.
EmbraceNo longer restores the target's HP.
FaithMagic hits for more damage.
LibraWhy is this here? Basically, Libra fills in a few missing entries on the help screen at the bottom of battle. It displays the enemy's current HP, weakness, and resistance. These are recorded permanently, you only need to cast it on one of each enemy to have these stats listed forever. I'm going to take a moment to rant in the two paragraphs, feel free to skip to Whyt (Or better yet, skip that too since it's also ranty and go onto the commands, I only rant about auto potion and cry there).
First off, I really like the help window and the way Libra works, this isn't a rant about them. It's about the bestiary, and how utterly useless it is compared to all five FF Advance games. It only records the monster's level, the number you've killed, where it appears, EXP gained, and treasure it can drop. The help menu only lists weakness and resistance, there is absolutely no place in the game to learn which elements enemies attack with (And they do attack with elements now) or which statuses they're resistant to. It's pointless except for the treasure section. You can poke the enemy on the touch screen to view their attack animation, that was a nice touch (I'm not being sarcastic, I really do like it, I'd happily trade it for that information I mentioned though).
I realize that the GBA games were developed by an entirely different company but you'd think the developers of this version of the game would have a little common sense and realize that knowing these things is extremely helpful. This bestiary was clearly an afterthought, unlike the ones in the GBA versions. I wouldn't have minded it if you had to use Libra or a bestiary item on an enemy to have access to the information either, that would've been cool, but that little bit in the help menu just isn't enough.
UltimaCast when Cecil and Rosa use Twincast together. Massive non-elemental damage as far as I can tell, hard to test because I kept getting Pyroblast instead.
Whyt (Or whatever you named it)
Summons Rydia's Whytkin into battle, where it replaces her. Stats are upgraded by playing mini games at the fat chocobo, you can assign it five commands (Commands like white and black magic are not allowed, instead you must select a single spell from the list), and you can draw a new face for it as well. It's one huge gimmick really, I've yet to find a place where I'd rather replace my best magic user with a marshmallow that randomly uses five commands instead of an entire list of black magic and Eidolons... You can battle them but doing so requires two copies of the game, there's no option to send a small program to the other DS as many games have, and no way to play it over Wi-Fi (Which is the only way it would've been any fun...for a week, before all the cheaters got a copy of the game like Metroid Prime Hunters...).
One possible good situation is right after you get it, raise its intellect until it is higher than Rydia's, fill its command list with nothing but Thunder (And maybe Cure, although with 0 spirit it probably won't work at all) and summon it against the octomammoth. That's the last boss I can think of where it would work well, since most of them change weaknesses or have times you don't want to be attacking them. If the damn thing didn't cost 50 MP to summon it would have a few more uses in random encounters.
Commands and AugmentsDarkness (Dark Knight Cecil/Augment)
No longer a multi-target non-elemental attack; darkness makes the affected character's attacks dark-elemental, every strike they make will do double damage but cost them 10% of their HP. Lasts for a short duration, it's time-based and not turn-based as I've had it wear off while not entering commands for the affected character. Darkness cannot kill the user, it will leave them with 1 HP. The damage dealt to the character by this command is added after any healing from the blood weaponry, so you will always take damage from it.
Defend (All)
Halves physical damage and probably halves magic damage, I haven't tested to be sure but it definitely reduces magic damage.
Auto Potion (Augment)
Use a potion automatically any time you take damage. A good way to waste potions, if it only happened when you were critical that would be one thing, but as it is only teach this to get another character's augments and never even think about equipping it.
Recall (Tellah/Augment)
Recall has far better spells at its disposal now, I've yet to have a chance to document them all but I've seen Blizzara, Thundara, Thundaga, and Bravery.
Bardsong (Edward/Augment)
Read: Sing. Works like magic now, it can be accessed in the magic menu and songs are selected from a list. Edward has his normal songs and Life's Anthem, which is like Mighty March in FF5; the user sings and HP constantly regenerates at a rate of 5% per turn, the character continues singing until they are hit or a long period of time/number of turns.
Salve (Edward/Augment)
Read: Heal/Medicine. Opens a menu with all your healing items, I've only tested it with potions but quite a few things are highlighted as usable. Does not do split recovery, instead it functions as if you used a potion on each character, they get the full amount of healing.
Aim (Rosa)
Can be applied to
any weapon Rosa has equipped, not just bows and arrows. My first time through the Japanese version I would have sworn it did reduced damage compared to a normal attack command, that does not seem to be the case though. Essentially replaces attack for Rosa, which is exactly what I do to free up another command slot. Takes slightly longer to "charge" than a normal attack.
Pray (Rosa)
Restores a percentage of HP and a smaller percentage of MP, I've yet to determine the actual values but it definitely improves later in the game.
Item Lore (Augment)
Doubles the power of items in battle. Can power up magic-casting weaponry
if that weaponry comes up as the weapon's name instead of a spell when used.
Kick (Yang/Augment)
Now factors in the properties of his equipped weapons. Attacks much faster and although it does split damage it seems stronger than in the other versions, less accurate than a normal attack though. Essentially the same as attack when there's only one enemy in the battle.
Focus (Yang/Augment)
Read: Power. Doubles the character's attack power. Can be applied up to three times, which means you can hit for 8x damage. Seems to apply to every physical attack command. Lowers magic defense.
Brace (Yang/Augment)
Read: Gird/Endurance. Super defend, user takes 25% damage from any physical attacks from the time this is selected until the next command is input.
Counter (Augment)
Counter attack with the command at the top of the command list whenever the character with it equipped is attacked. One could set up some interesting strategies with this.
Twincast (Palom and Porom/Augment)
Works nearly the same as the original for Palom and Porom, except both must chose the command separately, this is because the command can be given to any other characters via augments. When used by other character combinations different spells are cast.
Bluff (Palom/Augment)
Doubles the user's intellect until a black magic spell is cast, after which it must be reapplied.
Cry (Porom/Augment)
Halves all enemies' defense. Oddly enough it seems to have a 100% success rate, which means it has the potential to massively unbalance the game.
Curse (Augment)
Scarmiglione's curse spell. Forced multi-target, causes curse status obviously.
Analyze (Cid/Augment)
Read: Study. Essentially Libra on all enemies, does not work on bosses. See Libra in the magic section for a description of how it works.
Upgrade (Cid/Augment)
This is an interesting one. You can use elemental magic-casting items to upgrade Cid's weapon with that element for a single battle. Turn those useless bomb fragments into a fire-elemental hammer in the Tower of Zot. I didn't test to see if stronger items yield stronger results, doesn't seem like it would though since the hammer's attack power was unaffected.
Tsunami (Augment)
Cagnazzo's tsunami spell. A multi-target water-elemental attack.
Last Stand (Augment)
Doubles a character's defense when they're critical.
Whirlwind (Augment)
Barbariccia's whirlwind spell. I made the mistake of giving this to Yang and saving immediately afterward, he didn't have enough MP to actually make use of it. Does multi-target wind-elemental damage and makes the target weak against fire but does not override the absorb property for enemies that absorb fire.
Fast Talker (Augment)
Halves the casting time of all spells.
Draw Attacks (Augment)
Every attack and enemy spell targets the character with this equipped until they die, multi-target attacks aren't affected by it. I suppose it would be useful if you equipped it on a tank who also had counter equipped.
Adrenaline (Augment)
Doubles the character's attack power when they're critical.
Inferno (Augment)
Essentially Meltdown from FF6 without the wind element. MT fire-elemental damage to both the enemy and the party.
Bless (Fusoya/Augment)
Read: Regen. Now regenerates MP, restores about 10 MP every other turn. Doesn't seem to be affected by the character's stats. Far more useful than the HP regeneration in the original, easily abusable in battles where the enemy doesn't attack unless you do.
Omnicasting (Augment)
Allows you to split any spell. This has massive potential if given to Rosa, as you can do things like cast Blink or Haste on the entire party at once. Spells still do split damage like a normal multi-targeted spell would.
Phoenix (Augment)
If the character with it equipped is killed all their MP is sacrificed to revive any other dead party members with full HP. Give it to Kain, he doesn't have enough MP to really be useful with anything else anyway. If the character does not have full MP the party is still revived but with less HP, most likely the percentage of MP the character had left is the percentage of HP the party will be revived with.
Piercing Magic (Augment)
Magic ignores reflect status.
In addition to these any item or spell that character knows can be added as a command. This includes the weapon they currently have equipped, meaning it's possible to have Mage Arrows at a single click early on. These "shortcuts" are incredibly useful while playing on active, provided you don't mind constantly updating your characters' command lists to be situation-relevant.
Status EffectsBerserkUnchanged, except for the fact that it no longer randomizes the target, it hits whatever the default target for an attack command would've been. Berserk characters can attack even if they don't have an attack command. Can be cured with Esuna.
BluffSee bluff command.
BraverySee bravery spell.
ConfuseConfused characters always attack and can attack even if they don't have an attack command.
CrySee cry command.
DarknessDarkness is the status applied by the darkness command, what was called darkness status in previous versions is now called blind. See the command description for more information.
FloatFloat status is not removed while casting Warp in a dungeon.
FocusSee focus command.
HasteHaste is now a status effect, it doubles the speed of the ATB bar for the duration of the battle.
MagnetizeThe magnetic paralysis gets its own name now instead of sharing it with the normal paralyze status. It has its own double small lightning bolts icon in battle, out of battle it uses paralyze's large lightning bolt icon. It's convenient to have the out-of-battle display, if you accidentally equip something metallic you can find out before you get into a battle.
ProtectProtect is now a status effect, it works just like in later games, it doubles the character's defense for the duration of the battle.
ShellShell is now a status effect, it works just like in later games, it doubles the character's magic defense for the duration of the battle.
SlowShell is now a status effect, it works just like in later games, it halves targets' speed for the duration of the battle. It works on everything and is pretty much required for some faster enemies.
MiscellaneousItems and weapons that cast magic are now based on your intellect or spirit. This has the unfortunate side effect of making them worthless for the characters who used to benefit from them, dark knight Cecil can't kill groups of zombies with bomb fragments, Kain can no longer use his lances to take out flans, etc.
Enemies play fair sometimes, zombies are no longer immune to the dark element so dark knight Cecil has a fighting chance against them without resorting to fighting unarmed. Flans no longer completely nullify physical damage so your fighters can take them out now, it just takes a while.
Enemies have elemental attacks now, the potential was there in the SNES version but never used. List of ones I've encountered and identified so far:
Bloodybones:
DrainSuccubus:
DrainFlamehound:
FireFlame Knight:
FireBlood Eye:
DrainSince there's no indication that an attack is elemental, with the exception of drain, until it hits someone who is weak against or resistant to that element I've probably missed some already. Zombies do not attack with dark, unlike I speculated elsewhere.
There are two new elements, water and earth. Both are used where you'd expect, water on Flood, Tsunami, Deluge, and Leviathan, earth on Quake and its variants. A few enemies resist or absorb these now. There's also wind, which just seems to be the anti-aerial element from the original, except there also seems to be an independent anti-aerial property used by arrows.
Physical attacks check for elemental resistance and absorption before weakness, so Yang with a Flame and Ice Claw will heal a Frostbeast/Flamehound instead of damaging it like the original. This has the positive benefit of unbreaking armor resistance to enemy physical attacks.
Blood weaponry seems to restore 10% of the damage it causes to the wielder.
Deathmask appears to have two different attack sequences. Normally it acts the same way as usual, Reflect on itself, Reflect on the party, Holy on itself, etc. Sometimes however it simply blasts the party with Laser Barrage every turn. The only thing I noticed is that the two times I saw this alternate sequence was when I was surprised or attacked from behind.
This is probably common knowledge for anyone who's played the game but the command in your auto-battle slot doesn't need to be one in the command list. This means you essentially have six command slots, you just need to have good timing with the X button to take advantage of the sixth.
And since this is a research topic,
Auto-Battle: Allows the user to select a single command for each character to use, when X is pressed in battle auto-battle is enabled and the commands will be used as soon as a character's ATB gauge is full. There is no AI or anything of the sort, so it's almost entirely worthless unless you're clearing out weak enemies that don't need any special attention or using it for a sixth command.
Yang's claws now raise his attack power. I've yet to test if he still has his own special damage formula.
