Three for the Slash! Thrust! Burn!:Game mechanics

Title screen
The options on the title screen are:


 * はじめから - Start a new game
 * つづきから - Continue from an auto-saved game (only available if save file exists)
 * ふつうにつづきから - Normal load
 * ぬるめでつづきから - Load game with decreased difficulty (only available after game over)
 * おわる - Quit

The decreased difficulty effect stacks so if you keep dying and pick that option, the game will get progressively easier.

Main interface
The center horizontal strip of the screen shows the next 7 tiles in front of you (with 1~6 explicitly marked out).

At the upper center of the strip is an indicator of your overall progress through the level, where the starting point is "hajime", and ending point is "owari".

At any given time, you can have up to 5 cards in your hand, displayed on the right side of the screen. If you have five cards in hand and land on a space that would give a card or you complete an encounter while still having five cards in hand, you are instead given some gold.

The bottom of the screen shows your party members, including low HP status warnings.

The cards
Cards in your hand serve two types of purposes:
 * 1) Provide passive effect (which is active as long as the card remains in your hand)
 * 2) Allow you to force a "dice roll" result (which uses up the card in your hand)

Card power triggered in move phase:


 * Summon Luck . Triggers randomly after movement - if triggered, creates a buddha statue on an empty map tile that will disappears after one turn. The buddha statue gives lots of gold if you land on it.
 * Summon Misfortune . Triggers randomly after movement - if triggered, creates a super-trap that disappears after one turn. The super trap deals 40 damage to your entire party.
 * Auto-Heal . Triggers after every move. Heals each party member by 2 HP. If you have multiple cards, the effect stacks up.
 * Discount . I'm not sure if this is their effect but this card actives when you enter a shop anc seems to give a 10% discont on all items.

Card power triggered in combat phase:


 * Power Up . Give +2 power up to your pg stats for each card of this kind in your hand.
 * Special attack . For each one of these cards you have in hand, one special attack will be added for each main character. Bodyguards will also gain abilities, but not one for every card.

Note: the effect of the cards are not related to their values.

Camp mode
On the main interface, the "rest" button will bring you to "camp" mode, where you can see the stats of your characters, the amount of gold you have "mochikin", as well as use medicine items to recover HP. The "go" button with the text "iku" in the background will lead you back to the movement screen.

The items have the following effects:
 * 1) Seirogan           -  Heals 20 HP for one character
 * 2) Good Medicine  -  Heals 20 HP for all party members
 * 3) Katsukontou      -  Heals 40 HP for one character
 * 4) Fukakuhiroku     -  Heals 40 HP for all party members.

Movement
To move on the map, you may either spend one of the cards in your hand, or draw a random card from the deck ("yamafuda") and use it immediately. The value of the card determines how many tiles you move forward (between 1~6). Each tile may be the following:
 * Empty
 * Reward - gives you card or money
 * Traps - deals damage or makes you lose money
 * Enemies - enter battle mode
 * Shops - provide various services

Combat
In this phase, after all the bonus from colored card in your hand are applied, you have to choose a card from your hand or a random card. Before choosing a card, you will be told which value the card you use or get needs to be in order to take your turn before the enemy, if you get or use a lower numbered card, the enemy will take its turn first. The higher the value of the card, the higher your bonus to your attack, defense, intelligence and speed. You will receive no bonus if the card has a 1, +2 if you get a 2, +4 is you get a 3, +6 is you get a 4, +8 if you get a 5 and you will double your stat values for that turn if the card is a 6.