Abilities are the movement skills you can equip two of at a time in the skill menu and are bound to two buttons or keys. What they are depends on your platform, so here’s a picture just pointing out what we’re talking about here.
Abilities are learned via having requisite abilities equipped during combat, with each battle win adding a hidden value to that ability’s counter toward learning a more complex ability. For instance, winning a few battles with Defend equipped will prompt you to eventually learn Counterattack after a battle.
The exact requirement values are never seen, but they are not particularly high. You may need to have an ability equipped for maybe 20 battles, at the most, to learn a new ability.
When trying to learn an ability with two requirement abilities, you do not need to have them both equipped at the same time. The hidden values for each ability are stored even when swapped out.
You want to unlock all of these not just to use them individually, but also to unlock special techniques for your weapons.
Legend of Mana Ability Unlocks
You start Legend of Mana with eight abilities to choose from, with some more obviously useful than others.
Jump — Available by default Defend — Available by default Retreat — Available by default Lunge — Available by default Crouch — Available by default Cheer — Available by default Spin — Available by default Push — Available by default Somersault — Requires Jump and Lunge Back-roll — Requires Jump and Retreat High-jump — Requires Jump and Crouch Double-jump — Requires Jump and High-jump Counterattack — Requires Defend Grapple — Requires Defend and Push Defensive Lunge — Requires Defend and Lunge Whirl — Requires Grapple and Spin Bash — Requires Push and Whirl Tackle - Requires Push and Lunge Back-flip — Requires Back-roll and High-jump Counterstrike — Requires Counterattack Moonsault — Requires High-jump and Somersault Evade — Requires Retreat and Lunge Toss — Requires Bash and Crouch Flip-kick — Requires Back-roll and Back-flip Taunt — Requires Cheer and Retreat Slide — Requires Crouch and Lunge
That’s all you really need to know about the abilities, though their true strength lies in special technique unlocks. You can read up on which abilities you need to focus on for different techs in our Legend of Mana techniques unlock guide.
