Controls

Controls can be adjusted from the "key config" menu. This page only explains the defaults for the original game. The controls for the sequel have a lot in common with the original game, but this page has not been updated for that.

If you are playing the sequel and are confused about the controls upon launching the game, the defaults are Z to do something, X to cancel, arrow keys to move, and S/D to switch between panels. Press Z repeatedly to get to the title screen, down repeatedly and then Z to get to operational settings, D to switch panels, and then you'll see the full keyboard controls and can customize them to your liking.

Movement is normally handled with the arrow keys. You move left by pressing the left arrow, and so forth. To go diagonally up and left, you press the up and left arrows at the same time, and similarly for other diagonal directions.

As it is very easy to accidentally press up slightly before left or vice versa when you meant to press both at once, the game offers a D key to force you to move diagonally. While holding the D key, pressing one direction arrow by itself will be ignored. Only when you press two in order to specify a diagonal direction will that register. So if you want to move up and left, you can press and hold D first, then the up and left arrows. This way, it doesn't matter whether you press up or left first, as it will be ignored until you're pressing both at once, and then the game will register that you want to move diagonally up and left.

The Z key is your main button to do things. It performs a normal melee attack, selects things from menus, and so forth. The X key cancels whatever you were doing, or opens the menu if you were doing nothing.

The C key rotates you to face monsters that you are adjacent to. You can press it repeatedly to rotate to the next one. If you are only adjacent to one monster, it will rotate you to face that one. If you are adjacent to multiple monsters, it will have you cycle between them. This makes it easy to face the monster you intended before attacking. Pressing the C key does not use your turn, as it only rotates you rather than moving or attacking.

The A key fires arrows if you have any equipped. You have limited ammunition, so this must be used sparingly. You can also fire arrows by selecting them in your inventory without having officially equipped them.

The S key uses your sword skill from its purple mark, at least if you have a purple mark on your sword and it is fully charged. The details of this vary wildly by mark. Shield skills are not used manually like this.

Holding the spacebar will skip your turn. It can be used to skip many turns in a row. Even a quick tap may accidentally skip multiple turns. If you wish only to skip a single turn, it can be better to attack nothing in particular instead.

Holding left shift or left ctrl will make you run faster, though with somewhat different behavior. In town, this just means that you literally move around faster. Shift will make you run straight until you hit a wall, while ctrl will make you run along a path until you reach a branch. You move fast enough without them that I don't use them much in dungeons.

The F key will use the Look Over option to give you a first-person view of the situation. You can also select this from the menu that comes up when you press X. F is just a shortcut to do it in a single key press.

The M key gets rid of the main display and instead makes the map larger. As the map was normally displayed on your screen anyway, this doesn't serve any real purpose unless it was too small for you to read.

It is possible to assign a hotkey to bring up the friends menu. By default, this is unassigned. Even if you assign it, it's just a shortcut, as you can get there by pressing X and then selecting the friends menu.

The numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 are hotkeys to change your friend orders. 1 and 2 change the orders for your first friend, and 3 and 4 for your second. This can also be done by going to the friends menu, selecting a friend, and pressing the left or right arrow keys to change the order.