Date A Live: Spirit Pledge is the latest RPG/Dating Sim game from Moonwalk Interactive and stands as the company’s first global game. Fans of Koshi Tachibana’s popular light novel series of the same name that spurred both a manga and anime adaptation will definitely be in for a treat to see Shido Itsuka, Tohka Yatogami, Kotori Itsuka, and the rest of the franchise’s cast in the game.
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge has plenty to offer to RPG enthusiasts and dating sim lovers as well so if you are up for a unique brand of RPG that offers an unconventional mix of action, fantasy, and fun mini games, then Date A Live: Spirit Pledge is definitely worth diving into.
Following a cataclysmic spatial quake that ended the lives of millions of people, Date A Live’s premise centers around Shido Itsuka’s adventure as he discovers a mysterious girl in one of the smaller spatial quakes that followed the disaster. As his adopted sister, Kotori made him realize that girl, like other spirits cause the spatial quakes as they appear in the world. As the spirits hold vast powers that threaten humanity’s existence, their powers need to be sealed and to do so, it is up to Shido Itsuka to make these spirits fall in love with him enough for them to grant him a kiss.
In Date A Live: Spirit Pledge, your action cross dating adventure follows the same premise. There are battles throughout the journey utilizing the spirits’ vast powers and abilities and then there are dating scenarios to engage in as well. While some spirits to join your roster can be earned through natural progression, other versions can be obtained via the summon system that follows a gacha approach. The action part requires manual play, which works very much like a beat ‘em up arcade game and some stages are designed much like an arcade shoot ‘em up.
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge may not be as loaded as other bigger RPGs in terms of content but it certainly holds unique features and mechanics that may take a while to get used to. The initial salvo of storyboard and tutorials can be overwhelming for newbies and perhaps those who lack experience in beat ‘em ups may require extra practice. Considering everything still, Date A Live: Spirit Pledge can be learned and progressed in regardless of player experience and while it may seem more challenging to newer players, a little guidance will suffice to get everyone in on a straightforward enough progression level.
Now, be sure to stay with us and read our detailed Date A Live: Spirit Pledge beginner’s guide, as will share with you a bunch of tips, cheats and strategies to power up your spirits and beat each level in the game!
1. Reroll For The Best Heroes
While developers behind any RPG with multiple character choices always strive to balance each one out, it often cannot be helped that some of them outshine others as far as overall power or utility is concerned. In essence, though, players can still make progress through the game regardless of which characters they use, although it can impose different levels of challenges.
Date A Live guarantees that you will have more than enough spirits to choose from on your adventure as new ones will join as you make progress. With a summon portal to recruit more units as well, you are bound to obtain more, and perhaps, stronger spirits at some point.
Some players actually find it more thrilling to go with whichever unit or units they obtain from gacha and proceed on with their adventure like that is the only way to go. For experienced and veteran players who want to start out stronger, though, rerolling is a standard activity before proceeding to dive further into the game.
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge makes rerolling in the game fairly viable so if you want to start out with the best units and can afford to spend a little time to do so, then you should go for it. Otherwise you can skip this part and move on to the next tip. If you choose the former, be sure to start your adventure on a guest account, as it would be more cumbersome if you link the game to an email since it would require you to make another one for every reroll.
The tutorial at the start of your adventure is actually a quick one that can even go faster if you choose to skip some scenes. Once you are free to venture on your own, you should hit the mailbox and claim some rewards. These rewards should include more than enough Fate Badges to perform a 10x summon.
As both spirits and sephira can be obtained from the gacha, what you would want is a spirit. Considering that spirits are classified into rarity grades as well, banking an S-grade spirit on your first 10x pull should already make for a good, strong start.
Related: Date A Live: Spirit Pledge Spirit Maximization Guide: Everything You Need to Know
There are currently 4 S-grade spirits you can pull from the gacha: Kurumi Tokisaki, Kotori Itsuka, Shekinah Tohka, and Ellen. Among these 4, Kurumi Tokisaki stands as the best pick for most players. As it will be hard to pull any of these girls off of the gacha, Miku Izayoi is a great AA spirit that is as good as the 3 S-grade units. If you manage to pull any of these 5, you should already have an edge in plowing through the game’s story content but if you fail to nab the one you want over the rest, feel free to reroll as many times as you can.
If you missed out on getting the top spirits on your first 10x gacha, you will have to uninstall and reinstall the game on your device. It may take a while to download it again along with the patch, but it will certainly be worth it to continue your adventure with a top-tier spirit by your side.
2. Prioritize Progressing Through The Story
The tutorial you go into as you start your adventure in Date A Live: Spirit Pledge is actually the initial part of the story’s first volume. Date A Live: Spirit Pledge currently has 6 volumes to complete with 3 different difficulty levels to unlock as you make progress as well. On top of immersing you to the precepts and basic plot of the story, making progress through the volumes and stages earns you rewards.
Note that some stages are only story dates that you need to play through for rewards and to unlock the succeeding stages. Battle stages, on the other hand, have 3 challenge goals you need to take note of as your star rating upon clearing these stages determine how many stars you can obtain.
Story stages provide one-time rewards while battle stages can be replayed for more resources or to attempt a 3-star rating in case you missed it on your first go. The spirits you use on your team earn experience points with each battle as well. Note that there are extra rewards to claim via the Exchange Reward feature at the lower left side of the volume map based on how many stars you have earned.
You need to clear the entire volume first before moving on to the next one although you do not necessarily have to obtain all stars. Completing each volume also comes with its own reward, which may include a new spirit to join your roster.
Beyond experience points that your spirits earn, you also earn experience points to level up your account. Keep in mind that your spirits can only be levelled up to your account level and that succeeding stages within the story as well as other game modes and features will be dependent on your account level as well.
3. Be Selective When Upgrading Spirits
Over the course of progressing through the levels, as well as expending Fate Badges to summon more spirits, you will soon have more than enough units to take on the various challenges ahead. The initial team you use to progress the story will certainly earn experience points and reach new levels, but that will not suffice to ensure a steady, if not speedy, progression through the rest of Date A Live: Spirit Pledge’s contents.
Additionally, as you unlock higher grade or more powerful spirits, your focus will naturally be on them. Given the limited resources you need for enhancing and upgrading each spirit, it is best to manage the resources well right from the get-go.
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge actually provides for a wide variety of upgrade and enhancement options for your spirits. You will often see a red dot indicator atop the Spirit icon on the main screen. This simply means that an upgrade is available for one or a couple of your characters. Again, the idea is to manage resources in such a way that the best units in your collection are more heavily invested in. This means that you may not necessarily have to click on the Spirit icon just because there is an indicator on it.
The most basic means of doing so is through levelling them up via upgrade. Since your starting team will earn experience points as you use them in battle, chances are that they will be close to your account level as far as level goes. If you will change team rosters as a result of having new and better spirits to consider in your team, you will have to boost their levels to catch up.
On the spirits page, you can highlight your chosen spirit and tap on the details. Tap on the upgrade button, then choose an EXP chip to consume for the spirit to gain EXP. Note that you cannot exceed the account level so feel free to stop as soon as you reach a level below the cap. Otherwise, it will be a waste of EXP that can be earned through combat.
Every spirit can be ranked up in terms of grade, and to do so, you need to collect their specific spirit shards which can be obtained from shops and gacha as well as obtaining an extra copy of a spirit you already have. Ranking up will boost the spirit’s overall stats but the shards are not as easy to earn, which means that you will have to focus on earning shards for only one or two spirits at a time.
Another upgrade option comes from the crystal feature. Each spirit has 7 phases to fill up and each phase starts at 5 crystal slots that light up to activate the stat boost that they provide and the number of slots increase on the next phase. This is likewise dependent on a spirit’s grade.
Different materials are required to transcend each crystal and after you highlight the needed material, you can check which stages they can be farmed from. Extra transcend materials can also be dismantled to earn crystal fragments, which in turn can be substituted for missing crystal materials.
The Angel function is perhaps the only enhancement feature that focuses on strengthening the skills of the spirit. On top of the active skills that the spirit use in combat, the angel system also features a passive skill tree that can likewise be enhanced. You will notice upon viewing the angel tree that it is basically divided into sections, each focusing on a spirit’s active skill.
The resource you need to enhance your angel tree can be earned from levelling up the spirit so it is independent from one unit to the next. Note that there is a “Skill Plan” icon at the upper left side of the tree. This houses 4 different skill plans you can utilize and reset if ever you wish to try other setups later on. It is best to browse through each node of the angel tree before you proceed to expend points to unlock and upgrade each one.
There are also Different Astral Dresses you can obtain for each spirit. While for the most part, these will only cause visual change, some Astral Dresses actually come with unique skills for the characters. IF you are wondering about the point of spending time dating characters on the “Date” game mode in Date A Live: Spirit Pledge, then you should know that some Astral Dresses serve as rewards fro your progress in earning more affection from your spirits.
4. Equip The Right Sephira
Equipping Sephira onto each spirit is actually a feature found alongside the other enhancement and upgrade systems. Note that since Sephira are mostly obtained through gacha along with spirits and spirit shards, each one also has unique boosts to provide and categorized according to star grades. Their star level basically indicate their overall strength as well as enhancement capacity indicated by the level cap they have. While each spirit can hold up to 3 Sephira at a time, each one has attributable costs, making the higher rarity Sephira more expensive than the lower grade ones.
The best way to view your collection of Sephira is via the “Bag” icon at the lower section of the main screen. Be sure to check each one you have, particularly the stat boosts they provide before choosing to equip them on your favorite units or spending resources to enhance them. Initially, you will also have to consider each one’s associated costs as your spirit can only equip Sephira within a certain cost limit.
Utilizing a Sephira’s added perks requires full knowledge of the spirit you will attach them to. On top of base stat boosts each one provide, grade 3 and up Sephira offers random stats as well. Depending on their type, Sephira can be equipped to unlock certain combination effects that will further boost the equipped spirit’s capacity.
On the combination tab of each Sephira, you can see which other Sephira types are best to consider as partners for your chosen Sephira based on the chosen’s type. On a related not, you can view the Walkthrough feature of each spirit, which combination of Sephira is best for them.
5. Expend Attempts In Daily Instances
The main story mode ought to be your main priority as you progress on your adventure in the world of Date A Live: Spirit Pledge. At some point, however, you will hit a roadblock either because you have not reached the minimum level requirements or have enemies within the level too powerful for your current team. In such cases, you will have to consider either replaying levels you have already completed or venture into the other game modes.
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge holds a variety of daily instances that you should engage in for specific resources. There are 4 different daily instances that become available each weekday while all become unlocked during weekends. The most basic ones are the EXP Clash and the Gold Clash. Sephira and Prayer Clash are both actually centered around earning Sephira, which is also important.
In any case, make sure you expend the available attempts you have at whichever instances are available for the day. Let the calendar that can be accessed via the top right area of the page serve as your guide to each instance’s availability.
6. Practice Your Favorite Spirits’ Moves And Combos
Spirits you use in combat offer diverse capabilities. While some exhibit more power than others, proficiency may still boil down to ease of use, which is most likely different from one player to the next. At this point, it may happen that you have already taken some characters out for a spin, especially if you have engaged in several battles across a variety of game modes. In any case, there is a “Practice” button on the spirit’s portrait at the character screen, so be sure to tap on it to practice your spirit’s moves and combos.
Relative to this, it is worth mentioning that each enemy has a white bar on top of their health bar. As you attack the enemy, the white bar is reduced and once it is completely gone, the enemy becomes susceptible to air juggles. This is the aspect of the game that is open to cheesy combos that turn the tide of battle quickly to your side.
With juggles being a regular part of combat gameplay, what you have to ready yourself for is how to juggle each enemy fast and how to lengthen your air combo to keep damaging them while they bounce up in the air. A sequence of basic attacks can usually do the trick for some characters, but to maximize damage, you need to squeeze in some active skills or even ultimate moves.
Another trick that you should utilize is pinching the enemy in a corner to boost your juggling capabilities. The natural tendency for some moves and combos is to propel the enemy a little farther the longer the combo goes. As such, much like in most fighting games with air juggles, using the invisible barriers at the edge of the stage is a common exploit among gamers.
7. Add As Many Friends As You Can
Date A Live: Spirit Pledge currently does not guilds, alliances or similar player groupings that seem to support a more social gameplay. Despite that, it still has a social feature that allows you to chat with other players and in-game friends. You can access these features through the “Social” icon located at the right side of the main screen.
Upon accessing, you will be able to see friends, invite some, and even accept invites from other players as well. You can send and receive friend points from friends and friend points earned can then be used at the friendship summon feature of the game.
Using friend points at the Friendship Summon can earn you character shards of A and B grade spirits as well as 2 to 3-star Sephira. Be sure to add as many friends as you can, and especially keep the active ones or the ones who send gifts daily so you can roll a 10x gacha more often.
If you notice as well on the pre-battle screen, you can have an assisting spirit on top of the 3 you are using to engage in battles whenever possible. These assisting characters can be borrowed from friends and your friends can likewise borrow you main spirit to take into battle with them for extra friendship points.
8. Participate In Events For Even More Rewards
To avoid confusion, the Events we are considering for now are the other game modes within the battle mode that are outside of the daily instances. Date A Live: Spirit Pledge holds a variety of “other” events that offer great rewards based on the player’s progress within the duration of those limited events but there are these events that are actually various dungeon modes every player should progress into for added resources and EXP. These are the Endless Corridor, Online Battles, and Spirit Trials. Note that these event dungeons are more challenging than most battles within the main story and the daily instances.
The Endless Corridor is the first one you will unlock and partake in. Within a limited period of time, the Endless Corridor works much like a tower you need to climb to earn as many rewards as you can. Note that it is not like the typical tower features in other RPGs that set you on a linear track from floor 1 up to the highest floor and, instead, you will move up the floors typically 5 at a time, or depending on your performance. Naturally, the higher the floor, the more difficult the enemies are but higher floors likewise offer better rewards.
The Online Battles lets you team up with some other people. Various rewards can be earned from familiar boss battles and while it will naturally be more difficult than solo plays, the rewards are better and the scenarios are much more exciting to look at and participate in.
Spirit Trials test your mettle against the very same spirits you collect and use in combat. There will be a lot of loosely similar scenarios in story mode, but in Spirit Trials, the challenge levels are at a totally different league. You need to reach account level 23 to unlock this mode and there is good reason that you should be best prepared for it.
9. Accomplish Orders To Boost Your Progress Further
Orders are actually quests or missions that essentially reward you for your progress in several aspects of the game. The objectives you need to complete are divided across three main categories: Main Quests, Daily Quests, and Achieved Quests. While each one set may typically offer some type of rewards more than others, the Achieved Quests actually provide more varied reward types than others., It’s the best to look into each list every once in a while as you would want the listed objectives to serve as your guide in determining your progress and focusing more in some aspects of the game you may need to spend more time on.
Main Quests are essentially limited and have targets that revolve around the player level and progress in the story mode. Gold, EXP, and Fate Badges are usual rewards to obtain from clearing these objectives, making progression in the main story even more important to put some effort in.
EXP and gold are abundant in clearing Daily Quests. These quests are fairly easy as it involves all the basic activities you engage in on a daily basis. Note that for Daily Quests, there are immediate rewards for every objective you accomplish and you earn activity points as well. Reaching certain milestones as far as activities are concerned opens up extra rewards at the top of the page. For maximum pay-off, strive to earn 120 activity points and obtain the top rewards.
Achieved Quests are like achievements in other games and also offer one-time rewards for various accomplishments. Unlike the objective under the Main Quests, the targets here are varied and yet still revolve about milestones that span across the various aspects of the game.
As some rewards here are strikingly more attractive than others, be sure to look into the long list and target specific feats that earn you the reward you mostly need or want.
10. Remember To Date The Spirits
Let’s not forget that Date A Live: Spirit Pledge is half action RPG and half dating sim. On the main screen, you will actually see the “Date” icon alongside the battle icon, giving a good sense of its value and playable content. As you make progress through the main story and unlock new spirits to date, you will have a chance to spend more time with them and earn their favor via the various activities within the date feature.
Under the Daily Date, you have 3 attempts each day to choose which spirit to spend time with. For the most part, these dates are relatively shorter and you have a bit more control on the scenarios. These dates offer different possible choices, CGs, and endings as well. For the other date option, you can date each spirit depending on your favor level with each one of them. This does not count against the 3 dates under the daily date and are basically storyboards to read through.
You can earn more favor from this as well and can lead to unlock new CGs. The gallery showcases various collectibles that you have unlocked. The “Send Gift” feature allows you to do just that, send gifts to any spirit to boost their mood and favor levels.
Considering everything to unlock and collect via dates, the extra costumes are potentially the most difficult but likewise most rewarding. There are some resources up for grabs as well, but the costumes cannot be earned through other means.
And that’s it for our Date A Live: Spirit Pledge beginner’s guide. We certainly hope that you learned a lot from the various tips and strategies we shared in this article. If you have ventured into the world of Date A Live: Spirit Pledge and have stumbled upon some tips, cheats or strategies we have not mentioned in this guide, be sure to let us know about them!