Detention Club's battles take place in strictly one vs one turn based RPG fashion.

These fights are intentionally brutal and punishing, especially early on and new players may feel overwhelmed by how underpowered their character starts out.

Bear in mind that to progress in the story, the player must simply 'survive' these fights, rather than 'win' them.

If you approach each battle with this mindset, you will meet with far more success than trying to go toe-to-toe with stronger enemies.

Below I will outline some basic gameplay tips that will stand you in good stead for
progressing the game.

Yes... sorry, I know you have heard it a million and one times, but just a reminder here to take the opportunity to save in between fights.

Detention Club can throw some nasty curveballs at you as well as put you in a life/death choice situation once per battle.

Saving is very important in this game, so don't forget to do it.

You will need an item to do so, but they are cheap and easy to come by so do not become a dunce by neglecting your saving duties.

Using the Question command will automatically ensure you get vital bonus experience at the end of the fight.

The ideal time to use this command is in the very first turn so you do not forget it or spurn your opportunity to use it later if you need to heal yourself, for instance.

This command is not only important for obtaining much needed EXP, but it also reveals snippets
of the overall plot and gives insight into various character relations.

The Recovery command is useful for not only restoring half of your character's NRG (required for most battle actions) but it also doubles up as your Guard/Defense command used in more traditional RPGs that cuts incoming damage in half.

A lot of your success will be determined by how well you time this command.

It's ideal application would be when you are low on NRG AND you expect a powerful upcoming attack from your foe.

Think of these fights as timed fights... you simply need to survive a certain number of rounds to progress the story.

With this in mind, you may simply be tempted to guard up every turn and throw recovery items the whole time to weather the storm, however...

This is very bad practice and while it may get you through the first fight or two it will find you out in the end!

In Detention Club, EXP is awarded depending on how much you have damaged your enemy.

Meaning that adopting an exclusively zero offensive strategy will yield no EXP and thus
you will never become stronger.

Striking a good balance between attack and defense in this game will be paramount to your
overall success.

There are many nasty status ailments the girls of Detention Club can pepper you with and
each will have it's own remedy.

Since they like to use these attacks more than once per battle, it's worth getting them
patched up as soon as you are inflicted.

Curing a status ailment with an item will then give you immunity for that status for the
remainder of the battle and soften any future blows taken in that particular battle.

Remember, better early than never.

With these basic tips in mind, you should now be able to hold your own in a scrap and once you get past the first few fights and the game's mechanics are more familiar to you, you might feel like you can become the ♥♥♥♥-of-the-school yourself.