Higurashi Mei: Gameplay Basics
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Mei is an auto-battler mobile game based around collecting and training up "Cards", which each represent a character you can add to your party to participate in quests.
As it is the primary gameplay feature of Mei, here is an overview of the basics of most quests you can send your Cards on.
On the Home Screen, tap the little scroll icon. This will take you to the quest menu, featured above. We'll cover each of the different options in more in depth posts, but for now let's go over the basics.
In order to run MOST quest types, you need to consume Stamina. You will find your current amount of stamina at the top of most screens-- It's the little counter with the big red Heart by it.
You will also see it once you select a quest to run, toward the bottom right. The middle line shows you how much stamina the quest will consume: In the example above, it will consume 8 out of my 18 remaining stamina points. A note: If you fail the quest, the stamina will not be consumed, aside from some exceptions.
I'll cover how to earn stamina in it's own section. As a beginner, you should have enough to play quite a bit for now!
Quests come in many different forms, but all involve your party battling monsters and/or other Cards. Your Cards will battle on their own-- All you have to do is organize a strong enough Party to complete the quest.
Quests are completed by defeating all the enemies on screen. If all your party members are knocked out OR if the timer in the top right runs out before they can do this, you fail the quest.
💮Wave Counter: Firstly, in the top left, we have a "Wave" counter. This is to tell you what "Stage" or "Wave" of enemies you are currently fighting. Most quests have 2 to 3 Waves.
💮Item Boxes: Next to the wave counter is a little box icon with gold detailing. These are Item Boxes. Enemies drop them, and each contains a reward you will receive for completing the Quest. If your party loses, you will not get the boxes you've gathered.
💮Timer: In the top right, you have your time limit. It resets with each wave. As mentioned above, if the clock runs out and enemies are still standing, you lose.
💮Menu: The top rightmost button is your menu. The middlemost button will allow you to mess with volume mixing, as well as toggle whether or not to skip Limit Skill animations. The rightmost button allows you to quit the quest-- Select the red button on the screen it leads to to confirm, and the other to cancel. The leftmost button will resume the quest.
💮Party Members: On the bottom you will see your party members. They have a health bar, and, if they are an SR or SSR rank card, they will have a blue bar below it. When this bar fills up they can perform their special Limit Attack. They'll have a little "GO!" Next to their name when this is availible. Tap them to activate it.
‼️Note: If you see little flashing white segments on a health bar, that means the character is healing that amount due to a party member's healing skill.
💮Auto Limit Skill Toggle: The top button in the bottom right is a toggle to automatically activate a character's Limit Skill when ready. It's on when it's highlighted blue like above.
💮Speed Up: You can speed up battles up to 4x speed. Big recommend.
And Lastly for our basics guide:
When you clear a stage, you'll get a star ranking from 1 to 3 (in the bottom left, there.) 3 stars are obtained when you complete a quest with all party members still standing. I recommend doing this, as you get 10 Oni Stones, the primary gacha currency, per star earned, as well as various bonuses for collecting as many as you can!