Desecration of Wings walkthrough

Settings
This is its own section so you can skip it if you don't care.

After the game's first scene, when you take control, you'll be able to open the game menu and select "System" to see some game options, as follows:
 * Windowskin changes the color of the game's menus... but not dialogue windows. The only change to dialogue windows is that non-default ones will be a bit translucent (see-through).
 * Animations toggles combat animations. Having animations helps some people keep track of which character is doing what, but if you don't have any trouble, feel free to disable them. You won't miss anything flashy; the combat animations are very simple in an old-school way.
 * Volume options control volume of BGM (background music), BGS (looping background noises like rumbling - these are used rarely), and SFX (sound effects). There's no master volume option.
 * Auto-Dash makes you run by default instead of walking, so you don't have to hold the run button. There's really no downside to this; it's not so fast that you should have trouble controlling it.
 * Instant Text is not a text skip feature; it makes lines of dialogue appear instantly rather than one character at a time. Essential for the sanity of fast readers.
 * Other Equip Color is an awkward name for a concept hard to describe in three words. Leaving most pieces of equipment on for many battles (or as little as one boss battle) will grant a character new skills. Names in equip and shop menus are color-coded: green if a character has not learned any of the offered skills, gold if some but not all offered skills are learned, purple if all offered skills have been learned by that character but not all party members who could wear the equipment, and white if the equipment has no new skills to offer any party member who can equip it. The Other Equip Color is the purple - if this option is disabled, purple will be replaced with white. It's not recommended to do this unless the purple really bothers you.

Settings are stored in each save file. If you start a new game, settings will be default. If you load a save from before you changed a setting, it will be back to how you had it at that point.

Andenville
The game starts with an option to learn the controls. You may as well, if you're resorting to a walkthrough immediately.

As the game truly begins, you are introduced to Lord Krudrik. He is the protagonist... for one scene. Then you take control of Felana, the real main character. You can tell, because you get to rename her.

Now that you have access to the menu, you may want to open it and choose System to see options you can customize. (See above section.) It's recommended to try out Auto-Dash and Instant Text.

Wander around and talk to anyone you wish, but don't use the southwest exit yet. Talk to the blue-haired girl standing among white flowers near the brothel. She will ask you to collect three Holy Lilies. These look like the white flowers she's standing among, but only grow in monster-infested places, like the forest you're conveniently about to visit.

Enter the forest via the southwest exit. An imp will jump out and fight you. Best way to fight imps is Blinding Stab followed by High Stab, ending with a normal attack if it's not yet dead.

The imp will drop money, but note that it's mostly just humanoid monsters like imps who drop money, so don't go fighting slimes if you want to grind for it.

By the way, slimes are the other main enemy here. Pierce will sometimes kill them in one hit; if not, a normal attack should finish them. Where imps and slimes appear together, imps should be killed first, as they hit harder and can poison. You may notice that you're using skills even on ordinary enemies in this game - skills are cheap, so you should be using them most of the time, or you're just handicapping yourself.

Heal your wounds with Felana's Nurse skill as needed. Get the Holy Lily near you to the northwest. Then keep west at the next fork to find 3 dead-end paths, two ending in Holy Lilies and one ending with a Contorted Stone in a chest. If you run out of MP for fighting and Nurse, use the bed in Felana's home for free restoration.

Return to the girl in town who wants Holy Lilies and give her them, to receive 100 Sols. Go to the general store (south of the brothel) and buy a Spear, Buckler, and Travel Cap. The total cost for this is 120 Sols, but you should have run into an imp or two giving you the rest. If not, equip the Spear and Buckler, fight another imp or two, and get the Travel Cap. You don't strictly need it, but it's cheap armor and lets you learn Calmness I while you also learn the other skills.

Equip the new gear. Take the forest path you didn't take before, equipping any skills you learn (using "Set Skills" in the menu). You do not need to have Nurse or Stabilize equipped to use them, so just remove them. Get a fourth Holy Lily in the southeast corner. There is a boss by the relic. Make sure you have full HP a good 50 MP or so, and save.

The boss is a Skeleton and two Slimes. Your main priority should be to blind the Skeleton whenever it isn't blind. Take out the slimes as normal, then Pierce the skeleton while keeping it blind and keeping your HP up with Heal. If you can't beat it, grind until you learn all your passive skills, equip those, and try again.

After you beat it, remove your Buckler if it's equipped, save again, then examine the relic. You will automatically transition to a cutscene and meet Felana's daughter, Trila (or whatever you name her).

Monument Path
Now you control Trila. There is not much point fighting in this section. If you do, you may end up using restorative items just to heal, which is bad because money is scarce without grinding. If you do get into a fight: Grunt Fighters and Swordsmen can be Launched, while Grunt Leaders can stun you and buff other enemies. Giant Bees and Snakes can poison you, and the Bees can be Knocked Down (though this is not that useful since they can still poison you). Your priorities to kill in a fight should go: Grunt Leader > Giant Snake > Giant Bee > Grunt Swordsman > Grunt Fighter.

Equip the Buckler you took off Felana, dodge the enemy nearby, get the Cracked Helm from a chest, and equip it too. Go north across the stream via stepping stones, then east across another stream to a box with 10 Sols. Back west, then north. Save and go west for an unavoidable fight.

Krudrik will run out and help you with the fight. See enemy info above, and also note that Ringing Blow is not particularly good on any enemy. You can either Launch the Fighter and try to Confuse or Launch the Swordsmen, or just focus on killing the Leader quickly.

Krudrik remains with you for the rest of this short section. His equipment cannot be changed, so don't worry about it.

Go north while picking up three Elixirs from a box to the east, then follow the only path until you get to a break in the trees leading to an Andenville Charm in the northeast corner of the map. Equip it. Then go to the north exit to end the section.

Journey North
Now with mother and daughter reunited, your next objective is to travel from this town to Kolis in the north, but you'll do some things along the way. First visit the brothel and talk to the desk madam until she gives you money, along with a tip that will make you more money - your first prostitution housecall. Then, go to Krudrik's house and up to the right upstairs bedroom. You'll see a sparkle in the room - sparkles are usually Contorted Stones and always points of interest. Pick up the Contorted Stone.

Shuffle your equipment around so that no one is wearing anything with a purple name - that means someone else could be learning a skill from it. From this point on, managing equipment and thinking about who should learn skills in what order will be important, and so will choosing the right skills to equip in the "Set Skills" menu. For example, Felana needs Calmness sooner because her healing is powered by Spirit, while Trila gets more use from Third Eye because she can do little that's useful when Blind.

Leave town via north exit. You are now on the world map, which is the only place there are random encounters rather than wandering visible ones you may be able to avoid.

Go north to a tiny village. There is another sparkle indicating a Contorted Stone here in the southwest corner. There is also a fruit merchant here. The three cheap fruits you see in this shop are restoratives that only work out of battle. Later you'll find other fruit that works in battle too, though no fruit will do revival. You can survive the whole game without fruit, but if you want some, Oranges are best since you'll usually have someone who can use the newly restored MP to heal HP.

Leave the village and go west then south to a small farm, where Felana can earn some money with a sex scene.

Leave the farm and go north a bit, but save first.