Every menu screen, HUD element, and interface feature explained. Stop getting lost in Hollow Realization's menus.
Main Menu Overview
Pressing the menu button brings up a full-screen menu with several sections. Here is what each one does:
• Equipment -- Change weapons, armor pieces, and accessories for both your character and your active party members. Always keep your allies geared up too -- they are much more effective with better equipment.
• Skills -- View your skill trees, spend SP to unlock new nodes, and assign sword skills, battle skills, and passive abilities to your active palettes. Each weapon type has its own tree.
• Items -- Your inventory. Organized into categories: Consumables (potions, food), Materials (drops for crafting/upgrading), Equipment (weapons and armor you are not wearing), Key Items (story items), and Treasure (sellable loot).
• Quests -- Shows your active quests and objectives. Main story quests are prominently marked, while side quests from NPCs and the quest board are listed separately.
• Party -- Manage your active party composition. You can have up to three AI allies with you. This is also where you set tactical commands like All-Out Assault, Defensive, or Support.
• Map -- Displays the world map. Fast travel to any activated teleport stone from here. You can also see quest markers and area information.
• Records -- Tracks your play time, enemy kill counts, discovered items, bestiary information, and trophy/achievement progress.
• Options -- Game settings including camera controls, display options, audio levels, and control mapping.
Combat HUD Elements
During combat, several UI elements appear on screen. Knowing what each one does is essential:
• HP Bar (bottom center) -- Your current health. Green is healthy, yellow means caution, red is danger. If this hits zero, you are knocked out.
• SP Bar -- Below your HP bar, blue/purple. This is your Skill Points gauge, consumed by sword skills. SP regenerates slowly over time and faster when you land normal attacks or perform Switch.
• Party Member Bars (left side) -- Shows the HP of each ally in your active party. If an ally's bar empties, they are knocked out and need revival. Keep an eye on your healer's HP especially.
• Enemy HP/Risk Display (top center) -- The health bar of whatever enemy you are targeting, with a Risk gauge beneath it. The red arrow marker indicates which enemy has your attention.
• Mini-Map (top right corner) -- Shows your position, nearby enemies (red dots), friendly NPCs (blue dots), quest objectives (gold markers), and teleport stones. The N indicator always points north.
• Skill Palette (bottom right) -- Your four equipped sword skills and battle skills, shown as icons mapped to your action buttons. Cooldowns are indicated by a darkened overlay.
• Chain Counter -- Appears during Sword Skill Connect chains, showing your current combo count. Higher chains equal bigger damage multipliers.
• Damage Numbers -- Pop up when you hit enemies or take damage. White is normal damage, yellow/orange is critical hits, blue is resisted, red is damage taken.
• Status Effect Icons -- Appear near your HP bar when you are afflicted with poison, stun, paralysis, or other status ailments. Keep an eye out for the poison icon specifically, as it ticks damage over time and can kill you if ignored.
Player Tip: You can customize the HUD layout in Options > Display Settings. If the mini-map or skill palette is blocking your view of important action, move it. I moved my damage numbers slightly to the right so they do not obscure my character during combat.
The Skill Tree System Explained
Each weapon type has its own branching skill tree. As you fight with a weapon equipped, you gain Weapon Proficiency with that weapon, which unlocks access to higher-tier nodes. You also earn Skill Points (SP) from leveling up and from certain story milestones.
How Skill Nodes Work
• Green nodes are passive stat boosts -- things like +STR, +DEX, +AGI, or HP/SP increases.
• Orange nodes unlock new sword skills (the special attacks you use in combat).
• Blue nodes unlock battle skills (support abilities, buffs, healing moves).
• Yellow nodes are key abilities that often have level or proficiency requirements beyond just SP cost.
• Grey/locked nodes are not yet available because you have not reached them on the tree or lack the required proficiency level.
Important: While you can reset your SP allocation later in the game for a Col (currency) fee, it is better to focus on a single weapon tree early on rather than spreading points thin across multiple weapons. A deep investment in one weapon is much more powerful than shallow investments in several.