Resonance of Fate Interview

IGN AU has produced a brief Q&A they conducted with tri-Ace director Takayuki Suguro and producer Mitsuhiro Shimano about their upcoming "gun combat-focused" RPG.
IGN AU: Given that focus, how do you ensure that the combat stays compelling? In a traditional fantasy RPG, for instance, you might summon some huge monster to do battle for you, so how do you ramp things up here without magic and more over-the-top elements?

Takayuki Suguro: Obviously since we're using the guns, like you mentioned, there won't be many visibly changing abilities or skills, but the battle system lands quite heavily on the strategy side. It's not completely strategy, but it has a strong sense of strategy, so what's going to happen is that in the beginning of the game you have quite a limited amount of skills, and you might find some of the enemies to be relatively difficult, but as you unlock skills, you'll have more [strategic options] to work on. Even if you take the same enemy, you might find some other ways to defeat it; you might find it easier just because of these unlocked skills.

Out of the skills we've revealed so far, there's one which is a blast up and smack down. When you blast up an enemy, the enemy stays in the air, and you're able to jump over it and shoot it downward, which comes with added damage when it hits the ground. Now in the beginning, the blast up doesn't really lift as high as you want [it] to, but as you get stronger you can lift enemies higher, you can lift the heavier guys a little bit higher, and it adds a little bit more time and a little bit more damage as you progress.