Orb System

The Orb System is a new magic and stat customising system in Final Fantasy: Zero. It involves the use of equipping summoning orbs into an orb grid to increase stats, learn spells, passive abilities and equip summons.

Equip Orbs
The orb system really is kind of a cross between Materia, Dress Spheres and the Abilities from Final Fantasies VII, X-2 and IX respectively. Much like the real Final Fantasy series, the main system in Final Fantasy: Zero, is based upon the use of Summons interacting with the bearer.

Summons are held within Orbs, which are crystalised magicite embedded with the soul of an Ancient. Orbs can be used by characters with help from an Orb Grid. One grid can be equipped to one character. However with an Orb grid not only does the character learn the summon, but it also grants the user the ability to temporarily learn certain skills, abilities and stat boosts.

Every grid has a certain number of slots. Much like materia, the Orb is fitted into the slot. Each slot has a property based upon one of the six main attributes in the game; HP, MP, Strength, Spirit, Magic and Speed.



This is what a basic orb grid looks like. Say for example the Shiva Orb is placed in the HP slot then it would give the character who has the Grid equipped Shiva's HP increasing stat of +120HP. If it were equipped into the STR slot then it would increase his/her STR by Shiva's STR increasing stat. However as can be seen there is a coloured bar linking the two orbs together. These are what are called Links they are links in the grid that allow a percentage of the Orb's energy to be passed to another Orb slot.

Gray for 25% Blue for 50% Green for 75% Red for 100%

This means that for example if Shiva were equipped in the HP slot, it would gain the HP Stat increase but also a part of the STR stat increase. For example, say Shiva's Stat increase of it was 12 STR, then on a Gray link to the STR slot it would give the character 25% of an increase in his STR, meaning 3 STR. If it were Blue then it would be a 50% increase, 6 STR and so and so forth.



There are also multiple links so say Shiva were equipped in the MP slot, it would give 100% of it's STR and 75% of it's HP stat increases without even being equipped in that slot. The same would work if another Orb were equipped in the STR or HP but as there is no link between them, they would not benefit from an increase in stat off each other.

Learnable Magic
Orbs can also be used to give that character use of a summon and it's abilities it provides. Here are five examples of summoning orbs and their base element.


 * PEGASUS - Wind Based
 * SHIVA - Ice Based
 * IFRIT - Fire Based
 * HADES - Status Based
 * ASURA - Healing Based

Now, when an Orb is equipped into an Orb Grid, it gives it's powers to the bearer of the Grid. This is not just limited to Stat Increases however, this also includes various protections, abilities and even types of Magic. Obviously, when equipping a summon it will naturally give you the summoning spell itself. However if you were to equip Pegasus for example, it would also give the user the ability to learn a spell such as Aero. Or if you were to equip Shiva you would not only learn the summoning spell of Shiva but also Blizzard. Other summons later can teach other spells too not just a single spell.

Passive Abilities
They also teach characters abilities much like the ones you could learn in Final Fantasy IX but with a few differences. For example, Equipping Ifrit would give the character the ability Fire Guard which would make him resistant to fire up to 20%. But this would require him to use up AP to equip this ability.

AP are Ability Points, they are gained in small increments as the player levels up, in the same way they would with HP or MP. Some of the later summons such as Hades or Asura can give them other abilities such as, "Antibody" a protection against poison. Or an instant HP +20%. But it's not just defensive abilities that can be learnt. Abilities such as High Tide which help to increase the limit break faster, or Bug Killer, which increases the damage done against Bug-Type Monsters, EXP +10% which increases the EXP gained by that character by 10%. These abilities are equipped through a seperate window to be accessed through the menu.