In the JRPG Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2, you’re in charge of a group of children fighting their way through a war-torn world in tank-on-tank combat. Like the original game, each of their children has the capacity to break their limits and control the battlefield in ways they normally couldn’t.
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This is called Hero Mode, and for five of their turns, it grants a unique power to each child, which is one of the reasons whyit’s devastating to lose even one. Though they can all be quite useful, they’re not created equally. If you want to know whose heroics reign supreme, here they are.
12Kyle
Kyle’s Hero Mode allows all attacks, whether they are skills or normal attacks, to be critical hits. This basically just means more damage. While more damage is always good, it’s not exactly remarkable, especially since these are critical hits with a Machine Gun, the lowest-damage weapon in the game.
Of course, that’s not to say that this Hero Mode is useless; there are ways to use it tactically to get the most out of it. For example, the extra damage allows Kyle to wipe out pesky air units with relative ease, especially since he can hit them all at once with his Air Strike skill.
11Wappa
In Hero Mode, Wappa’s normal attacks can inflict the Weakness status ailment, which lowers the damage output of afflicted units. Afflicting units with Weakness is a decent way to mitigate damage, but it can feel underwhelming, especially in the face of particularly hard-hitting attacks.
Still, taking less damage is always good, and affecting multiple enemies with Weakness will make a good dent in enemy damage numbers. Since attrition is often your number one enemy, don’t feel the need to save this one for big fights since deploying it early is a good way to show up to those fights in better shape.
10Socks
Theoretically, Socks’ Hero Mode can feel like it warrants a much higher ranking since it has the possibility of landing any status ailment with a normal attack. This includes devastating ones like Shock or Smoke.
Unfortunately, variance is precisely why this Hero Mode isn’t ranked higher. Of course, any status ailment is good to land on an enemy. But with the randomness of which status ailment your enemies get, you’ll have to make your decisions on the fly.
9Jin
Jin’s Hero Mode lets him use skills without spending SP, which isn’t too shabby when you consider how recovering SP is either costly in the form of items or infrequently recovered on the map.
Jin has a pretty good suite of skills, both offensive and defensive, that are quite valuable and have uses in multiple situations. That you’re able to use them without worrying about unintentionally robbing yourself of SP that could be used for a clutch heal later is also a nice bonus.
8Mei
Already the fastest gunner in the tank, Mei’s Hero Mode makes her even faster. The speed boost is no joke, often allowing her to act multiple times before enemies even get a turn.
The extra speed is perfect with her suite of skills, which, while not remarkable, give her a lot of flexibility with what to do on her extra turns. She can heal, shred armor, buff allies, or just hit the proverbial NOS button and speed herself up even more.
As a side effect of all the extra turns, she also builds up Link Gauge pretty quickly, allowing you to use powerful Link Attacks more often.
7Malt
Malt’s Hero Mode makes his normal attacks deal double damage. Since he operates the most powerful per-shot normal weapon, the Cannon, it’s a lot of damage to double. This can lead to some spectacular hits without using up precious SP, especially if you’re lucky enough to get a critical hit.
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While it won’t help you in situations where you need to be on the defense, extra damage is still handy, if only to hasten a fight to its end.
6Vanilla
Vanilla’s Hero Mode allows her to go tit-for-tat, ignoring the turn order and letting her act immediately after you take damage.
The power of this scales mostly with how many enemies are attacking you, with more enemies allowing her to act rapidly in a short period of time. However, even a single attacking enemy means that she goes two turns for the enemy’s one.
Her moves mean that she’ll be using this mostly to hammer enemies with hard-hitting Cannon fire, but she has a few skills that allow her to buff herself for harder hits as well. If you’re on the defensive, you may also use the extra turns to pop some recovery items instead.
5Britz
Shock is arguably the best status ailment in the game, effectively stopping enemies in their tracks for quite a number of turns. And Britz’s Hero Mode gives his normal attack a chance to inflict Shock.
Unfortunately, it’s also one of the hardest to land, with most bosses being outright immune to it. Still, in a game where every enemy is a credible threat, the ability to halt enemies in their tracks is a powerful one, buying you time and saving you resources in eliminating them.
4Sheena
Sheena’s Hero Mode allows her to act again immediately after using a skill, allowing her to have consecutive turns for up to the duration of Hero Mode if you have the SP and inclination for it.
Sheena has some strong offensive and defensive options, allowing her to keep your tank topped up while hitting enemies with magic and grenade explosions in equal measure. Of course, her Hero Mode power drops off significantly if you don’t have the SP to support it, so you might want to bench her in that situation till you get some SP back.
3Chick
The most lifesaving Hero Mode belongs to Chick, bar none, since it doubles the effect of all her health recovery skills. Since she’s already one of the best healers in the game, this means that when it’s time for her to be a Hero,she can bring you back from the brink.
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Unfortunately, this can be a bit of a double-edged sword since once she’s in Hero Mode, you’ll want to save her for when you desperately need healing. If it comes down to just her blasting the last yellow icon on an enemy unit, you’re better off taking the shot, but verify to always save a turn or two for emergency healing.
