I've now implemented status-touch/strike and element-strike abilities.
So, let's talk about how equipment's going to work this time around. Instead of having a traditional-style weapon, and several ability slots, instead, you'll have a weapon and an armor, which themself may contain abilities. Similar to FFX, the weapons and armor have
no special features whatsoever outside of the abilities on them - so even if you got them in different places or they have different names, two weapons with "Physical Damage +10%" as their only ability will function exactly the same.
Currently, I'm thinking along the lines of capping the number of abilities per equipment piece at 4. Remember - this is per piece, so between a weapon and an armor you'll be able to have 8 total abilities. However, I don't plan to allow total freedom over what abilities are on equipment - I might implement shops where you can custom-build a weapon, but this would only be from a (shop-specific) limited selection of abilities. For the most part, it'll be a matter of what you find (which will be fixed) or receive as drops (which there will be room for variance on - for example, the swan enemy I've been using as a test will have a 50/50 chance of weapon vs armor, which then has a 50/50 chance of having either Physical+/-5% (+ for weapons, - for armor) or Magical+/-5%, and then a 10% chance of also having the corresponding 10%). The scripting for drops allows for a bit more complex than this - for example, the abilities could vary depending on which character they're for.
Any individual weapon / armor is tied to a specific character. However, the character will be able to switch weapon / armor at any time (even in-battle, though this will cost a turn, and only one piece can be changed per turn, not both).
Abilities also won't always be positive. While there'll be more positive than negative, you may very well come across an armor that gives you an elemental weakness, or a weapon that reduces the damage you deal, or an armor with something like Hasteproof on it. In some cases, this really will just be junk equipment that serves no purpose, but in other cases, it might be that you come across a double-edged sword (pun not very intended) - for example, you might find a weapon that reduces your physical damage dealt by 10% but increases your magical damage by 25%, or an armor that makes you immune to Haste but gives you auto-Shield and auto-Aura. Or, there might be situational uses for them - for example, an armor with Auto-Zombie might not be so useless against a boss that likes to use instant death moves, especially if it also comes with an elemental absorb on it so you've still got a way to heal. Or if a boss likes to use the Zombie-Regen combo and you don't have any way to block Zombie, you might have at least picked up a Regenproof armor somewhere.
I've also now implemented summoning - or at least, the basic summon / dismiss (though there are further details of how this will work, that remain to be implemented). Probably the only major battle system features that are still missing are in-battle equipment changing
and member switching. (Some specialized moves - eg. Steal, Mix (maybe) - still need to be implemented.) EDIT: Both switching and equipment changing are possible in-battle now.
Because there'll be a limit to how many abilities a character has available at a time, I don't see the need to segregate attacks into sections like "Black Magic", "White Magic", etc. However, the list will be split into two sublists (accessed by pressing left / right from the other list). The first one has Attack, Summon, all equipped attacks, and Item (in that order). The second one has (currently in this order, but I wonder if this is the optimal order) Defend, Change Weapon, Change Armor, Stall (pass turn without doing anything), Switch and Escape. In particular, I wonder if having Stall in the middle is optimal (as you can wrap around, Escape and Switch are still fairly quick to get to).
As a point of interest - just to get to this point, which is still far from done (especially in terms of the menu system, where almost nothing works so far - you can view (but not use / equip) your inventory and you can view and reorder your party, that's all), there's already 421KB of source code. o_O
And another very important feature has just been implemented - you can now save and load your game! At the moment, it's limited to a single save file, but this is purely a matter of "I haven't added a menu to select from extra ones" yet.
Counterattacks have also finally been implemented. One thing I can confirm is we won't see the behaviour from the original where counterattacks can occur mid-attack (eg. in the case of Double Hit, where an enemy would counter once after each hit, or when using a hit-all magic spell against multiple counter-capable targets, where each target would counter immediately after taking damage rather than after the whole attack finished).