KF3:Beginner's Guide

Friends
The units you use in Kemono Friends 3 are the Friends, of course. Friends have a wide variety of stats and unique attributes, but by far the most important is their typing. Friends can have one of six types:

Each Type is weak to another type, and strong against another. The circular types (Funny, Friendly, and Relaxed) are in a closed loop, as are the hexagonal types (Lovely, Active, and Carefree). Therefore, Friends with circular types are neither strong nor weak against enemies with hexagonal types, and Friends with hexagonal types have the same relation to the circular types. However, within those loops, each type has both a strength and a weakness. For example, a Funny type Friend will be weak against a  Relaxed type Friend, and strong against a  Friendly type Friend. Additionally, a Friend's skills may be extra effective against the type they are strong against, even applying extra status effects.

Stats
In addition to typing, Friends have several unique stats that affect their performance in battle.


 * Kemostatus (けもステータス) is an aggregate number that indicates the overall strength of a Friend. While Kemostatus by itself has no bearing on combat ability, it is a useful tool in determining how powerful your Friends are or the strength of your party composition.
 * HP (たいりょく) represents how much damage a Friend can take until they are defeated and give up.
 * Attack (こうげき) affects how powerful attacks used by Friends are.
 * Defense (まもり) affects how much damage a Friend receives.
 * Evasion (かいひ) affects how likely a Friend is to dodge an attack and therefore take no damage. Unlike HP, Attack, and Defense, Evasion is represented as a percent value indicating the chances of that Friend dodging an attack.
 * Plasm (ぷらずむ) is a unique stat that affects how much of the buff from Try Flags (see here) is distributed to that particular Friend.

While Plasm is a fixed stat and Kemostatus raises as you upgrade a Friend, HP, Attack, Defense, and Evasion can be improved by doing many things, such as increasing their Wild Release Level, unlocking nodes in Labyrinth, or leveling up a Friend. Additionally, through the Labyrinth and Wild Release, you can also upgrade a secondary trait that adds a slight percent multiplier to all Order Flags of a certain type by a given Friend. You can view the damage multiplier on Order Flags via a Friend's overview, accessible via the upgrade menu and the Friend List. For more information, see the section on making your Friends stronger.

Skills
In addition to stats, Friends each have five unique skills which help them to stand out among other Friends.


 * Kemono Miracles (けものミラクル) are powerful skills that require an MP charge to use. Kemono Miracles can be upgraded up to five times and boosted by using them with their Miracle+ Flag. For an in-depth explanation, see here.
 * Beat Skills (とくいわぎ) are the skills that a Friend uses if they attack with a Beat Flag. Beat Skills often have unique benefits, such as buffing, debuffing, or applying status effects.
 * Standby Skills (たいきスキル) are used when a Friend isn't chosen to attack on a given turn. They often provide a strategic benefit, such as allowing you to perform an extra attack by having the Friend join a Chorus, buffing the party, or charging MP. Some Standby Skills are infinite use, while others can only activate a select number of times per battle.
 * Unique Traits (とくさい) are passive traits that are always active on a Friend. Unique Traits are usually buffs to either the Friend or the party. A Friend cannot use their Unique Trait until they have achieved Wild Release Level 2.
 * Miracle Traits (キセキとくさい) are different from the other skills. While most Friends have Miracle Traits, not all do, and their method of operation differs between Friends. Some are passive buffs like Unique Traits, while others can only activate so many times a battle, similar to Standby Skills. Miracle Traits tend to be the most powerful of the three passive skills, and the hardest to unlock. Unlocking a Miracle Trait requires unlocking the second Photo Pocket on a given Friend.

Combat
Combat in Kemono Friends 3 is turn-based. A typical turn in the game plays out as follows: At the beginning of (Turn 1), the player queues three moves by selecting Order Flags, which then play out in succession as soon as the player selects the third move. There is no confirmation; the selected moves are immediately used. Then, the enemy takes their turns, performing one move per enemy. At this point, the turn ends, and (Turn 2) begins with the player being presented their Order Flags for this turn. The player then queues an additional three moves, and the cycle repeats until either the player or enemy team has been wiped out.

This is the basic, stripped-down version of a typical battle. However, both the player and enemies have a variety of tools at their disposal to influence the outcome of battle.

Order Flags, Choruses, and One More
Order Flags, selected when the player taps on a Friend, have a variety of beneficial effects. There are three types of Flag: Beat, Try, and Action. Each Flag type has a unique effect.


 * Beat Flags will use a special Beat Skill, unique to each Friend. Beat Skills have a wide range of effects. Some are simply stronger-than-usual normal attacks, while others inflict status effects or attack every enemy at once. Familiarizing yourself with what each Beat Skill does can help you plan your team's success.
 * Try Flags will build up a damage buff that will be applied the next turn. While Try Flags have no immediate effect, they can be used to make your next turn especially powerful, making them ideal for forward-thinking strategy. Try Flags come in three varieties: Low (neutral face), Medium, (smiling face), and High (winking face). The stronger the Flag, the higher the bonus applied to your next turn. Keep in mind, however, that the buff is not distributed evenly, but is instead based on the Plasm stat. Friends with higher Plasm receive more of the buff.
 * Action Flags charge the MP (Miracle Points) of the Friend that used the Flag by the specified number. Action Flags are required to use Kemono Miracles, so be sure to use them often!

Each Friend has five Flags that get added together at the start of battle, creating a pool of up to 25 Flags that can appear. The player can view how many Flags of each type are in the pool prior to battle in the party composition menu. Try to create a balance of Flags! A strategic usage of each Flag type allows the player to get the most out of their Miracles and Beats.

If you use two or more of the same type of Order Flag in a row, a Kemo Chorus occurs. Kemo Choruses have many beneficial effects. When a Kemo Chorus occurs, the One More (おかわり) meter in the top left of the screen fills up. Once this meter is full, the player can tap on the meter to be granted an additional action that turn. Up to three charges of the meter can be stored at one time, though only two charges can be used in one turn, for a maximum of five actions per turn via One More. A Kemo Chorus of two Flags will fill up the meter 1/3rd of the way, and three Flags will fill it up halfway. A Kemo Chorus made out of five Flags from using charged meter can completely fill the meter back up again! Keep in mind, however, that a Friend can only participate in a Chorus once. If you start a Beat Flag Chorus with and, then the third, fourth, or fifth participants cannot be Dhole or Meerkat. The exception is if a duplicate Friend was chosen as your Support Friend. In this case, a duplicate Dhole could join in on this Chorus - but the original Dhole would not be able to. Attempting to use another Beat Flag with the original Dhole would break the Chorus.

Kemo Choruses also have additional benefits, depending on the Flag type it is made up of. While only two Friends are required to begin a Chorus, the more Friends that participate in the Chorus, the better the benefit!


 * A Beat Chorus will apply a damage multiplier to every attack in the Chorus. Note, however, that it does not apply any special effects to healing or buffing Miracles.
 * A Try Chorus will strengthen the buff granted to Friends on the next turn.
 * An Action Chorus will grant extra MP to every Friend participating in the Chorus.

Using Order Flags, Choruses, and One More, you can gain a definitive edge in battle.

Kemono Miracles
Kemono Miracles are essentially a Friend's "super ability", roughly analogous to Noble Phantasms in F/GO or Super ATKs in Dokkan Battle. They are particularly powerful moves that can turn the tide of a battle, and using them effectively is often required to attain victory in some of the game's harder challenges. A Friend must have full MP to use their Kemono Miracle; most Friends start the battle with zero MP, and must fill it via Action Flags or certain Skills. They can then be used by tapping on the Friend's MP gauge. Kemono Miracles use whatever Order Flag that Friend currently has (unlike F/GO's Phantasms, which are always a particular type), and can be used in Kemo Choruses just like normal attacks.

While no two Kemono Miracles are technically the same, they tend to fall in one of a handful of categories:
 * Single-Target Miracles, which deal an extreme amount of damage to one enemy. These may or may not have a secondary effect/s, such as debuffing the target or buffing the Friend. These are extremely important for dealing with bosses, which generally have surpassingly high HP that is troublesome to deplete with normal attacks. Examples include Lion and Jaguar.
 * Area-of-Effect (AoE) Miracles, which deal a fairly high amount of damage to every enemy, and can also have additional effects. These are helpful for quickly clearing troublesome trash waves, or taking out adds in a boss wave. Examples include Greater Lophorina and Blackbuck.
 * CC Miracles, which deal relatively low damage (typically only slightly stronger than a normal attack, and sometimes even less), but have a high chance to inflict a debuff or status effect on one or all enemies. These can buy you valuable time if an enemy is ready to use a threatening Miracle. Examples include Sheep and Shoebill.
 * Buff Miracles, which give buffs and/or beneficial status effects to one or more teammate/s. While most buff miracles boost Attack, there are a handful that reduce incoming damage or boost Evasion, among other benefits. Attack-buffing Miracles are typically used in conjunction with single-target Miracles to deal tremendous damage to bosses. Examples include Silver Fox and Southern Sea Otter.
 * Healing Miracles, which restore HP to teammates, sometimes with additional benefits. These can be key to completing particularly protracted stages or boss fights. Examples include Fennec Fox and Plains Zebra.

It is important to have a balance of Miracles that work well with each-other. A team full of buff Miracles will flounder against bosses without a single-target Miracle to take advantage of the extra damage, but a team of single-target Miracles won't be able to reach their full damage potential without at least one buff.

Additionally, all Miracles have a "Miracle+ Flag"; when used with a particular kind of Order Flag, they will be more powerful than normal. These must be unlocked before they can be used, by upgrading that Friend's Miracle Level to 5 and then completing the EX chapter of their Friend Story.

Kemono Miracles aren't exclusive to the player, however. Friends in Strength Contests have access to Kemono Miracles, and the player should be wary of being on the receiving end of one. While tough bosses may have enough HP to survive a Miracle, a Friend on the player's side of things typically lacks the HP to withstand even a weak one. Even further, some Celliens enemies also have access to Miracles. Typically, Celliens with a black color such as Fang Cells will have access to Miracles, and so will boss Celliens. Celliens charge MP not through Action Flags but through being attacked and making actions. Because Boss Celliens usually get more moves and take more damage to defeat, they will oftentimes be able to attack you with a Miracle before you are able to defeat them. Luckily, Cellien Miracles are not as powerful as Miracles used by Friends. However, they can still turn the tide of battle and leave the state of combat at your disadvantage. The player can mitigate the effect of Cellien Miracles by using Friends that have type advantage to the boss; thus reducing the amount of damage your team will take. Some Cellien Miracles, however, can inflict devastating status effects like Sleep, Stun, or Exhaustion. In these cases, the player's carefully planned strategy might fall apart as Try boosts, buffs, and built up Miracles go to complete waste. Never underestimate a Cellien Miracle.

Captain Skills

 * Flag Swap
 * More Plasm
 * Attack Up
 * Cleanse
 * Enemy Attack Debuff
 * Heal
 * Revive
 * Extra Move

How to use Photos
Photos are an important part of strengthening Friends. Photos may provide HP, Attack, and/or Defense stats to the Friend with the photo equipped. These stats are increased by leveling up the Photo. Many photos have secondary effects which trigger under specific conditions or are always active, such as providing Healing under a certain threshold, increasing Threat, providing resistance or immunity to status effects, or increasing attack strength. Photos are equipped in the Photo Pocket. Friends start with one slot in their Photo Pocket, and gain additional slots when Large Augites (Purple Gems) are used to upgrade that Friend's Photo Pocket. The Photo Pocket maxes out at 8 slots, except in cases where the Friend has a Party Dress, which raises the limit to 12 slots. Past the 4th Slot, instead of being able to equip more Photos, a multiplier is applied to the raw stats on the Photos in the slots. The first multiplier (slots 5-8) is 1.25x and the second multiplier (slots 9-12) is 1.5x. Duplicate Photos can't be equipped on the same Friend, but duplicates of the same Photo can be equipped to multiple Friends on the team.

Leveling and Upgrading Photos
Photos can be leveled up by consuming other Photos to increase the stats provided by the Photo. When leveling up a Photo, every 10 Photos consumed in one batch will provide a large XP boost to the total XP that will be gained when consuming the selected Photos, meaning it's most efficient to consume in batches of 10. Japari Bun Photos obtained from PvP and Cellien Cleanup banners are ideal for leveling up Photos, but if a player rolls the free Captain Points banner daily, using unwanted 1, 2, and 3 star Photo duplicates is also an option. Photos are upgraded by consuming duplicates of the same Photo. Photos can be upgraded four times (represented by the Diamond shaped stars), meaning a player needs five copies of a Photo in all to fully upgrade it. Upgrading a Photo increases its level cap by 5, up to a maximum of 20 extra levels. Fully upgraded Photos have alternate art and their secondary effect becomes stronger or improved. Additionally, fully upgrading a Photo unlocks a poster of that Photo for the Treehouse, and maxing out the level of the fully upgraded Photo unlocks the poster of the upgraded Photo's art.

Upgrade Menu
The Upgrade Menu is used for strengthening Friends. It has 6 tabs which correspond to different aspects of the friend. On this screen, Japari Buns can be used to increase the Friend's level, granting them increases to HP, Attack, and Defense. The Friend gains 1.5x XP from buns of the same type as them as well as the All category buns (Brown, Yellow, Rainbow). There is a chance for a small or large boost of extra XP when consuming Buns, and events for increased chance for this extra XP are common. When a Friend is 6 Stars and reaches level 90, the player can use a Four Gods' Orb to raise the level cap by 3. When the Friend is level 93 and level 96, this can be done again, allowing a Friend to reach a max level of 99. Wild Release provides large bonuses to a Friend's stats, such as HP, Attack, and Defense, but also the bonus damage for Action!, Try!!, and Beat!!! Flags as well as Evasion. It also unlocks the Friend's Unique Trait at Level 1, and alternate Icons at Levels 2, 3, and 4. Friends have four Wild Release levels, except for Friends who have been featured in Wild Release 5 Events which are able to increase to Wild Release 5 using a special item and SR Upgrade Materials. Upgrading Wild release requires three types of items. Type-specific Ramune bottles, upgrade materials, and SR/SSR Ramunes. There are three kinds of Ramunes: small, medium, and large. There are 16 types of upgrade materials that come in Common, Uncommon, Rare, and SR rarity. On this screen, the amount of Small Augites (Triangle Shape) for the Friend can be seen. This screen allows for the Friend's star count to be raised, adding 10 to their level cap and unlocking a new outfit. It costs 30 Augites to increase a Friend to 3 Stars, 60 to increase a Friend to 4 Stars, 120 to increase a Friend to 5 Stars, and 240 to increase a Friend to 6 Stars. These unlock the Tracksuit, Park Staff, Café Uniform, and Personal Fashion, respectively. If a Friend is already at 6 Stars and more Small Augites for that Friend are obtained, this screen allows for converting them back into blank (Green) augites at a 1:1 ratio. On this screen, Memory Stones, Bentos, and upgrade materials can be consumed to increase the level of the Friend's Miracle. Upgrading Miracles is somewhat costly, especially a Level 5 Upgrade which costs 300,000 gold. Even long-time players run out of gold because of this. Upgrading a Friend's Miracle requires having a sufficient Friendship level with them, meaning that a Level 3 Miracle requires Friendship level 3, and so on. The max level for a Miracle is 5. Leveling a Miracle up to Level 5 unlocks the Friend's Miracle+ Flag, which functions like a Level 6 to the Miracle. Miracle+ Flags can be any of the Order Flag types. If a Friend's Miracle+ flag is Try!!, using their Miracle with a Try!! flag in battle will make it stronger/more effective than the Level 5 version, and the same applies for Beat!!! and Action! Miracle+ flags. On this screen, the amount of Large Augites (Square Shape) for the Friend can be seen. This screen allows for the Friend's Photo Pocket slots to be increased, allowing for equipping additional Photos. Most Friends' Photo Pocket maxes out at 8, but Friends with Party Dresses max out at 12. Large Augites mainly come from obtaining dupes of the Friend from the gacha, but there are blank Augites (spiky purple diamonds) that can be exchanged for a Friend's Large Augites. For most Friends, unlocking the second slot of the Photo Pocket unlocks their Miracle Trait, a powerful passive skill which provides a sizable damage boost, and usually other effects like status effect resistances. The amount of Large Augites needed depends on the number of base stars the Friend has. 2 Star friends need 10 Augites per slot, 3 Star friends need 5 Augites per slot, and 4 Star friends need 1 Augite per slot. Every Photo Pocket upgrade past the 4th Slot provides a special Gacha ticket (small quest booklet to the top right of the Friend). This Gacha ticket is used on a banner which is only visible when the ticket is owned. This special banner has a 20% chance for a 4 Star Friend from the Permanent pool, and an 80% chance for a 4 Star Photo from the Permanent pool. Once the Friend's Photo Pocket reaches max level, the screen changes to allow converting the Friend's Large Augites back into Blank ones at a ratio of 1:60 Blanks. On this screen the number of Japari Bun Mix can be viewed. Every player gets one of these for free, but additional ones are restricted to real world money shop packs. This raises the Friend's max Friendship level from Level 6 to Level 7. Maxing out Level 6 of Friendship unlocks the Café Uniform Poster for the Treehouse. Maxing out Level 7 of Friendship unlocks the Tracksuit Poster for the Treehouse.
 * Level (レベル)
 * Wild Release (野生解放)
 * Stars/Kemo Class (けも級)
 * Miracle (ミラクル)
 * Photo Pocket (フォトポク)
 * Friendship (なかよし)

Labyrinth
Labyrinth is divided into six parts corresponding to the six types. Labyrinth provides permanent stat bonuses for all Friends of the type being upgraded. Types of bonuses include HP, Attack, Defense, Evasion, and Action!, Try!!, and Beat!!! Flag damage bonuses, To upgrade the Labyrinth, two types of items are needed for the two types of Nodes. Star-shaped Nodes require Experience Ores of the correct type. Each Star on a Friend of the corresponding type grants the player one Experience Ore (i.e. Obtaining a 4 Star friend from the Gacha gives four Experience Ores of the corresponding type, and upgrading a Friend's stars by one grants one Experience Ore). Circle-shaped nodes require Labyrinth Maps, which come in four rarities, and are purchased using Starglass which is obtained from the Shiserval Dojo. All Nodes give the same stat bonuses, but Nodes further from the center cost more Experience Ores and Labyrinth Maps of higher rarities in larger quantities. There are two special Photos only obtainable from Labyrinth which do nothing unless all copies are obtained and then combined to create the upgraded Photo. There are also Nodes which give Riukiu Fashion Medals and Stylish Medals.

Shiserval Dojo
Daily score attack mode that gives rewards used to upgrade Labyrinth as well as special outfits and furniture. Unlocks after clearing Main Story Chapter 3-12. See Shiserval Dojo.

Arai-san's Captain Diary
Unlocks after completing Main Story Chapter 3-12.

Growth Quests
Daily quests that drop the type-specific materials needed for strengthening Friends. See Growth Quests

Invitations
Gacha.

Strength Contests (PvP)
Strength Contests are a PvP mode unlocked after completing Main Story Chapter 2-12 which allows the player to gain PvP Medals for use in the shop and Kirakira. This mode is not Live PvP, but rather the player is matched up against other players' teams that are controlled by AI. PvP is divided into seasons, with a max rank of 30. When a season ends, rank is reset and players start around 10-15 based on their rank at the end of the previous season. PvP uses a Stamina system, which has a max of 9 and regenerates at a rate of 1 per hour. There's a button which toggles the use of stamina at normal or 3x rate, which provides 3x normal rewards (merely more time efficient). Ranking up in PvP awards PvP medals and 3 Kirakira. Each PvP season has different Terrain. Players can choose between Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty opponents, which are (loosely) determined by Kemostatus relative to the player. The current PvP Terrain is Default, Nighttime.

Picnic
The Picnic is a feature that is unlocked after completing Main Story Chapter 1-1. There are five slots in the Picnic for Friends to be put in that allow them to passively gain Small Augites. Slot 3 is unlocked after completing Main Story Chapter 1-3, slot 4 is unlocked after 1-6, and slot 5 is unlocked after 2-6. The Picnic has a bar which must be filled with food that can be purchased in the menu used to fill it at a rate of 15 minutes per 100 Gold. The bar has a max capacity of 8 hours of time, however it can be overfilled as much as 4 extra hours. Until the remaining time falls below 8 hours, the bar can't be filled further. Filling the bar to just under 8 hours of time and then using a Bread (4 hours) to fill the bar up to 12 hours allows maximum time without needing to come back to fill the bar again. While the bar is filled, Friends in the Picnic are able to gain Small Augites at a rate of 1 every 8 hours. Small Augites can then be used to increase their star count. The Picnic also has two slots, one for a toy and one for a scenery. All players are given the Balloon toy for free which gives 1 Rainbow Japari Bun every 8 hours, with a small chance for 50. Other toys and scenery are only purchasable with real world money in the shop, but provide alternative animations and settings. All paid sceneries provide 1,000 Gold per 8 hours with small chance for 50,000 Gold, except for the PPP Live Stage which provides 1 Furniture Medal every 48 hours. Passports provide benefits to the Picnic's payouts. The cheapest Passport makes one of the five Picnic slots pay out 2 Small Augites every 8 hours, the intermediate Passport provides two slots that pay out 2 Small Augites every 8 hours, and the most expensive Passport gives three slots that pay out 2 Small Augites every 8 hours. All passports also double the payouts of toys and scenery.

Treehouse
The Treehouse is a feature that allows players to place furniture and decorate a treehouse as well as put 4 Friends in it and observe them. Players can visit Treehouses of other players to see their Friends and use one of four Stamp reactions. A weekly quest involves giving 15 reactions to other Treehouses in exchange for 5 Furniture Medals. Friends in the Treehouse gain a % bonus to gained Friendship points. Owning a Passport applies a 1.5x multiplier to this % bonus. Furniture can be obtained from the Limited Gacha each month and from the Furniture Medal Shop. Posters can be obtained from fully upgrading and max leveling Photos as well as from Friends reaching Friendship Level 6 and 7. A special Camera furniture is granted to all players which allows for a first person view from where it's placed. Friends can be heard talking once the Camera has been used in the current Treehouse session. Every 8 hours, the Treehouse generates a Battery, a special item which is required to attempt some Special Quests. The Treehouse can only hold 3 batteries at a time. Three types of stones can be used (mainly obtained from the Limited Furniture Gacha, but also from some event stages) to reduce the timer of the Treehouse to obtain additional batteries instantly.

Setting Supports and Assistants
The Assistant is the Friend which greets the player each day when they log in for the first time to receive their login rewards. This can either be set as one Friend or set to pick randomly from all Friends the player has obtained. In most content, players must choose a Support Friend from another player to use. The Support Menu allows the player to set which of their Friends will be shown to other players to choose, as well as setting which Photos they have equipped (important for events which have Photos that give a bonus to event currency drops). The first slot is the All tab, which is the default on the Support page (and the tab players usually select their support Friend from, so it's best to set this as a strong Friend people will want to use/give Event currency boosting Photos to). The other six slots correspond to the six types which are the other six tabs on the Support page. When a player's Support Friend is used, they receive Captain Points (usable on the Captain Point item Gacha). On the JSRT Home Screen, the number of players who used your support and how many captain points you earned is shown briefly since you last visited the screen.