Tips
Beginner tips the game skips
Numbers on the equipment screen
Levels raise attack and defense, and both are visible at the bottom of the equipment screen. Red books raise attack. Blue books raise defense. Four Brave Hearts raise a health rank. Four Wise Hearts raise a magic rank. Weapons of the same tier share a base value in IGN's writeup. IGN quotes 25 for an ordinary weapon and 50 for a refined one. Fextralife's attack column uses different figures, so those two scales are not mixed on the weapon pages.
You can smack projectiles out of the air. Holy Light adds a parry. Potions refill when you rest at a Mirror of Life. Tarot cards can be swapped at any time. Works of Mercy, tracked on a card, grant a blessing when you finish the task.
Death and the genre question
Dying returns you to the last Mirror of Life you activated, and ordinary enemies come back. Bosses stay dead. The sources do not say whether you drop experience or money, so this page does not guess. The game is a 2D action-exploration title. It is not a roguelike. Runs do not wipe the map.
What I ran into
The death question is the one I checked twice, because it is easy to invent a soulslike penalty. The mirror is the respawn. The penalty beyond that is unpublished, and the sentence stops.
Questions
What happens if you die?
You revive at the last Mirror of Life you used. Regular enemies respawn. Bosses do not. Experience loss is not confirmed.
Do attack and defense matter?
Yes. Levels, red books, blue books, and relics all feed them. Same-tier weapons share a base value in IGN's guide.