Status Effects

[K7A]

I just finished the game for the first time a few moments ago, and I'm fairly surprised I made it all the way through without ever understanding a good portion of the gameplay mechanics. Maybe it's been answered somewhere, but I looked for quite a while and never found any explanation of the status effects, some of which are fairly mysterious. Things like poison and confusion are pretty straightforward for anyone who's played traditional RPGs, but there are a few I never quite figured out for sure, namely:

-Dizzy
-Lost
-Scared
-Numb (same as paralyzed?)
-Distracted
-Unconscious (Thought I understood this as "death" attacks, but I equipped a charm to block it and was still insta-killed by those particularly nasty spiders.)

Anyone know the details on these?

I've got to say I'll definitely have to start a new game to try the other characters and pick up the quests I missed (broke?) sometime. This was a good one.

[Cassiopeia]

All status effects always influence the characters' stats and fighting abilities. Some, as you said, are quite obvious, but some changes you don't see, yet they are there. Some are bad, some are quite harmless.
Since I'm not a game cracker I can't tell exactly what they all do, but the names certainly give a good idea.
Dizzy for instance will probably make the character miss a hit more often. If this is rather a spell casting character it won't make much difference though.
When they're scared they might not hit as hard or loose some speed.
Some statuses will immobilize the fighters, like numb, paraliyzed or lost. It's not the same though. Some statuses wear off faster than others. With one of them you might still be able to counter hits (if equipped with an appropriate item), but not with others. Lost for instance makes them totally useless. And the immobilizing status will also affect other statuses. Your RES or DEF might drop dangerously for instance. I think it's "Lost" where you can kill a foe much more easily (or be wiped out yourself if it's inflicted on you).
A piece of equipment, that counters "Unconscious", will not completely prevent you from dying. You can still be killed by hits or badly damaging spells. But there are some spells that will inflict "Unconscious" right away, without dealing a lot of damage in HP. Your charas have spells like that too, and there are also some weapons. When you notice in a fight that a foe, that has maybe 2000HP, dies, although your weapon has only dealt 300 HP damage, you've inflicted "Unconscious". Some foes are susceptible to it, some aren't.
And when your character wears an item that prevents it, they can't die instantly, when a foe casts such a spell.

Hope that helps.

[K7A]

Yes, very helpful. Thanks.

I understand that charms that prevent unconsciousness only protect against the instant-unconsciousness attacks (it would be a bit too easy if you couldn't die at all :P) but I'm certain I had a character get insta-killed by a low damage attack while wearing one of these. Maybe there's certain things it just doesn't work on.

I still am a bit mystified why there wasn't a page somewhere among the other tutorial pieces in the beginning that tells you about these. The biggest problem is that some of these status, though they have a common theme, can mean totally different things depending on which game you're playing. Just seems like a no-brainer that you'd explain these things somewhere in the tutorial or readme. Just a few words would do the job for most of these I think.

At least it's not as bad as an experience I had with Final Fantasy IX though. I made it though the whole game without ever seeing "Zombie" status until the very final boss. Characters mysteriously turned green and couldn't be healed or revived by any conventions means. I Immediately assumed I was just supposed to finish the fight before this wiped out my party. Frustration ensued as what I was trying to do was pretty much an MLG grade task. I finally found a guide that explained what was going on, used a cure-zombie item for the only time in the whole game, and that pretty much solved the problem. After that I actually remembered it quite fondly as the only really challenging last boss ever in a Final Fantasy game.

I'm always up for a challenge but I'd prefer enemies to not be able to cast Confuse on the actual player, lol. Anyway thanks for all the info.