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Overview
Spirit Stones are equippable items that allow players to customize Emma's build in Beast of Reincarnation. They are socketed into Emma's equipment, which provides up to six slots for Spirit Stones. Their bonuses stack when multiple stones are equipped, and (most critically) Spirit Stone effects compound when Emma performs successful parries. This compounding mechanic ties directly into the combat system's core defensive action, rewarding players who master the parry timing with exponentially growing power.
Spirit Stones are one of three primary customization systems alongside skill trees and Blooming Arts mods. While skill trees shape the broad strokes of a player's combat approach, Spirit Stones provide fine-grained stat tuning that can dramatically alter how Emma performs in specific situations.
Core Stats
Spirit Stones affect five core stats that define Emma's combat capabilities:
Stat | Description |
|---|---|
HP | Maximum health. Higher HP provides a larger buffer against enemy damage, allowing more room for error during challenging encounters. Stacking HP stones creates a tanky build that can absorb significant punishment. |
Attack | Raw damage output. Affects all of Emma's offensive actions including katana slashes, bow and crossbow shots, and plant ability attacks. Attack-focused stones directly increase the speed at which enemies are defeated. |
Defense | Damage reduction. Reduces incoming damage from all sources, making Emma more durable in sustained fights. Defense stones complement aggressive playstyles by allowing Emma to stay in melee range longer without retreating. |
Skill Power | Effectiveness of abilities, including Blooming Arts and Emma's own plant abilities. Stacking Skill Power amplifies the impact of every ability activation, making each FP expenditure more valuable. |
Critical Rate | Chance of dealing critical damage. Critical hits provide burst damage that can dramatically shorten encounters. Critical Rate stones are high-variance. Inconsistent but devastating when they proc. |
Parry-Stacking Mechanic
The defining feature of Spirit Stones is their interaction with Emma's parry mechanic. When Emma successfully parries an enemy attack, her equipped Spirit Stone bonuses compound growing stronger with each successive successful parry. This is not a simple additive bonus; the compounding nature means that a player who strings together multiple parries in rapid succession sees their stats escalate dramatically, making Emma progressively more dangerous as a fight continues.
This mechanic creates a powerful incentive loop that reinforces the game's core combat rhythm. Skilled parrying already generates FP for Koo's Blooming Arts, but with Spirit Stones equipped, parrying simultaneously amplifies Emma's own combat stats. A player who masters the timing is effectively building power on two fronts simultaneously. Fueling Koo's abilities while supercharging their own damage, defense, or critical rate.
The compounding effect also means that Spirit Stone selection becomes a strategic decision closely tied to skill tree investments. A player heavily invested in the close-range tree (who parries more frequently and generates more FP) will see far greater returns from parry-stacking Spirit Stones than a player focused on long-range combat. This creates natural synergies between the customization systems and rewards cohesive build planning.
Known Spirit Stone Effects
The following Spirit Stone effects have been confirmed through developer showcases and pre-release coverage:
Effect | Description |
|---|---|
Vigor Buffs | General stat boosts that enhance multiple categories simultaneously. Vigor stones provide broad, reliable improvements that benefit any playstyle, making them strong default choices for players who haven't committed to a specialized build. |
Low-HP Attack Boost | Dramatically increases Emma's damage output when her health drops below a certain threshold. This is a high-risk, high-reward stone that transforms dangerous situations into opportunities for massive damage. It synergizes with aggressive playstyles and players confident in their parry timing. The lower Emma's health, the more damage she deals, but the less room she has for error. |
Stealth Bonuses | Enhanced stealth capabilities that complement the stealth skill tree. These stones make Emma harder to detect, improve assassination damage, and support players who prefer to avoid direct confrontation. They are most effective when paired with stealth tree investments and plant ability traversal techniques. |
Tracking Projectiles | Ranged attacks that home in on targets, reducing the precision required for bow and crossbow shots. These stones benefit long-range builds by making it harder for enemies to evade Emma's projectiles, increasing the reliability of ranged damage output. They are particularly useful against fast-moving or evasive enemies. |
Six-Slot System and Build Diversity
The six available Spirit Stone slots create significant build diversity. With six slots and multiple stone types available, players can approach loadout construction in several ways:
Build Type | Description |
|---|---|
Pure Specialization | Equipping six stones of the same type for maximum effect in one stat. Six attack-boosting stones, for example, create overwhelming damage output that can trivialize weaker enemies while relying on parry-stacking to sustain survivability through compounding defense. |
Balanced Loadouts | Mixing offensive and defensive stones for sustainability. Three attack stones and three defense stones provide consistent performance across all encounter types without extreme strengths or weaknesses. |
Conditional Builds | (Combining situational stones like low-HP attack boost with HP stones creates a calculated risk build) enough health to survive reaching the damage threshold, then explosive power once there. |
Playstyle Amplification | Using stones that reinforce skill tree investments. A stealth-focused player equips stealth bonus stones; a ranged player equips tracking projectile stones. This approach maximizes the effectiveness of the player's chosen combat philosophy. |
Koo's Charms
Koo has an equivalent equipment system called Charms. Charms function as Koo's counterpart to Emma's Spirit Stones. Equippable items discovered through exploration that provide unique passive benefits to the companion. While specific Charm effects have not been detailed in pre-release coverage, they serve the same role of deepening build customization on Koo's side of the partnership.
The existence of Charms means that both characters in the duo have their own equipment progression. Combined with skill trees, Blooming Arts mods, and weapon selection, the total number of customization variables is substantial. Six Spirit Stone slots for Emma, Charms for Koo, six skill trees, multiple Blooming Arts with mod options, and multiple discoverable katanas with unique bonuses.
Discovery and Acquisition
Spirit Stones and Charms are found through exploration of the game's wide district levels. The world is designed with hidden locations accessible through creative use of Emma's plant abilities (vine grapples, bridges, wall climbing) and many of these hidden areas reward players with unique equipment. This creates a direct connection between exploration investment and combat power: players who thoroughly explore each district will have access to a wider variety of Spirit Stones, enabling more diverse and powerful builds.