Limit Breaks are special skills unique to each character (and sometimes episode). They are powerful moves designed to turn the tides in battle when used by the player.
At the start of each episode, the Limit Break is fully uncharged. It charges when the player takes damage, indicated by the yellow bar filling up from dark yellow to bright yellow. Mousing over the Limit Break bar (or pressing R on a game controller) will show how much more health has to be lost in order to charge the Limit Break: if it says “Ready in 8 hp”, you will have to take 8 more damage in order to use the Limit Break.
An uncharged Limit Break. | A partially-charged Limit Break. | A fully-charged Limit Break. |
Once used, Limit Breaks will have to be charged again. In almost all cases, Limit Breaks require health equal to your maximum HP divided by 3 (rounded down) in order to fully charge. If you have 28 hp, your Limit Break will be ready in ⌊(28/3)⌋ = ⌊9.333…⌋ = 9 hp. This means that leveling up and increasing your health via items like Dramatic Exit will increase the amount of health you'll need to lose to use your Limit Break.
Once it's ready to use, a large message stating “LIMIT BREAK” will show up in the middle of the screen with an alert letting you know that it's ready to be used. This message will always show up once the Limit Break is charged on your turn.
Clicking on the Limit Break bar (or pressing R then A on your controller) will activate the Limit Break and the skill described in the Limit Break.
The effect of Limit Breaks vary, from giving you more dice to repeating your next action to simply doing heavy damage to the enemy. It's not often meant to be saved because enemies will usually deal enough damage to charge your limit in one or two turns, but proper use of the Limit Break will help you win many of your fights.
Certain effects can prevent you from using your Limit Break.
Some enemies, like Loud Bird and Banshee, can use equipment that inflicts Silence on you, preventing you from using your Limit Break unless you place two dice on your character skill to break the silence.
In Parallel Universe episodes (the 5th episode for each character), the Silence? status causes your Limit Break to be less powerful instead of being fully disabled.
Additionally, in the Reunion DLC, the Swoop will fully reset your Limit Break to its fully uncharged state if used with a 3.