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Heavens! The sleepy double-kingdom of Great Bitten is under attack!

This Gamer Guide will teach you the basics of adventuring. Read, digest and then start kicking butt.

HEARTS

They’re pretty important. You’ll lose them when you take damage, and when you run out you’ll die… and then just awaken at the last checkpoint you passed. Turns out death isn’t that serious, really.

SIDE MISSIONS

Talk to the villagers of Great Bitten and they’ll entrust you with important missions that they’re too lazy to do themselves. Completing missions can net you more gold and gear.

CHECKPOINTS

These huge silver circles provide two important functions. They’ll let you switch classes if your team requires a sudden change in strategy, and they’re also the spot you revive at when you die.

AWESOME SAUCE MODE

In Awesome Sauce Mode you’re faster, better, stronger! Activate with the R button when your Awesome Sauce Meter is full. You can replenish the Awesome Sauce Meter by beating up enemies, or by drinking Awesome Sauce potions you find laying around.

CAKE

Nom nom nom. Scoffing cake will replenish your hearts. You won’t be able to attack until you’ve finished chowing down. What happens if you eat a slice when your hearts are full? Well…

GETTING FAT

Big is beautiful. And stronger. Eating when your hearts are full will turn you into a plus-size warrior. Press the F button to unleash your fists and the D button to belly bounce baddies. Unleash a mighty butt-slam by pressing the F button in the air.

ENEMIES

Let them taste your blade. Or hammer. Or spell. Or mackerel. Whatever really, just make sure they taste it! Slaying enemies will get you gold and occasionally cake.

ELITE ENEMIES

If they’ve got a name, they’re bad news. Named enemies are tougher and more dangerous, so approach with caution.

CHICKENING OUT

If you remain idle too long in a multiplayer game your character will be turned into a chicken. This will let the rest of your team carry on without you. You can use the S button to get back in the game, but you’ll need to wait until a checkpoint before you respawn. If for some reason you want to chicken out – to go and fix a snack, maybe – just hold one of the directional buttons until the spell takes effect.

You can create up to four different adventurers.

Customise your hair, complexion, accessories and other physical features, give your hero an attitude and decide whether they’ll be a bold and brave dude or an equally bold and equally brave dudette.

Spend the crowns you collect through the story and in Grindhouse missions to unlock extra customisation options.

If you’re not bothered about looks – or don’t trust your own fashion sense – press the D button to randomise your features.

Looking fabulous? Then it’s time to choose a class if you haven’t already done so, and then it’s off to adventure.

If you’re going on a quest, ya gotta have class.

All the classic RPG classes are here: warrior, mage, archer and engineer.

And you’re not tied down to only one – you can switch your class at any checkpoint in the game.

WARRIOR

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Hoo-ah! Tremble in fear, nerds!

Tap the F button to swing your blade, and hold it down to charge a powerful spin attack. Tap the D button for a defensive shield bash, and hold it down to prepare a devastating shield charge. While in Targeting Mode your shield will block some attacks (but only from the front, OK?).

ARCHER

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Grasp your trusty yew and catgut (or whatever they make bows out of).

Pepper your foes with arrows by tapping the F button, or charge up and let fly a volley by holding it down. For short-range defence, tap the D button to jab with your dagger or hold the D button to charge up a strong strike.

MAGE

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Physical combat is for chumps. Magic is where it’s at.

For a long range magic blast hit the F button. A short range defensive spell can be unleashed with the D button. Both of these spells can be charged up by holding their respective buttons.

ENGINEER

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Victory through science! And if that doesn’t work, through giant hammers!

Bring the hammer down with the F button and hold down the button for a huge swing attack. Keep enemies at bay by throwing short-fused bombs with the D button, or press and hold to throw a cluster at once.

Engineers can also use their mechanical mastery to disarm mines. Press the A button inside their radius, but hurry before they explode!

Adventurers care about two things: excitement and BOOTY.

Press the touch pad to bring up your inventory. Here you can select your weapons and gear. You’ll find new items out in the field – many have special properties, like different types of damage resistance.

You can level up your gear by spending gold at the vendors in Great Bitten. Get gold by smashing enemies, smashing boxes, smashing barrels… look, if it smashes, go on and smash it.

You can collect gear for all four classes – gear for a different class to your current one will be added to your inventory, ready to use when you switch. Already got a particular item? Snag it anyway – it’ll automatically be converted to more treasure. Gear is shared among your team – so there’s no need to snatch it first.

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Press the S button on the title screen to begin setting up your quest.

You can select My Game to set up an adventure of your own and – if you like – let other players join you online. You’ll need a PlayStation Network account and PlayStation Plus for this.

If you’d like to join someone else’s game then, you guessed it, Join Game is the option for you. You can either play with your PlayStation Network friends, or select Play with Strangers.

If you’d like to play a game with someone sat right next to you, just get them to sign in to your PS4 by pressing the P button on their DUALSHOCK 4 wireless controller. You’ll notice that My Game has been replaced with Couch Play.

Fancy opening up your couch to the world? As long as everyone that’s signed in to your PS4 has a PlayStation Plus membership, you can pick the Who Can Join option and choose who can adventure with you. You can keep it just between friends or open it up to anybody. You can always change this setting in-game later.

Now select your difficulty level and you’re ready to go!

GRINDHOUSE

Looking for a greater challenge? Levels you’ve beaten can be replayed in the Grindhouse, but this time the stakes have been raised.

Choose to unlock either one, two or three Challenge Wheels. Each Challenge Wheel will add a modifier to your gameplay. Modifiers may present you with extra tasks to accomplish or handicaps to deal with. They could make things easier or tougher, but they’ll certainly make things more interesting…

Go on, spin the wheel.

Use these controls to defend the land. Hop to it!

Move around left stick
Primary attack F button
Secondary/defensive attack D button
Interact A button
Jump S button
Awesome Sauce Mode R button
Targeting Mode W button
Show/Hide Quest Log E button
Show/Hide Map Q button
Show/Hide Inventory touch pad
Options Menu OPTIONS button
Show Player Indicator N button
Auto-Cycle Targets B button
Change Class/Chicken out directional buttons