Tons of new Illuminus info!

This week's issue of Famitsu has opened the floodgates on new information on the upcoming PSU expansion, Ambition of the Illuminus. With all of the new information and images that have surfaced, be warned, there are spoilers all over the place. So, if you'd prefer not to see any of the new weapons, enemies, areas, etc. we'll be treated to later this year, do not click either of the above links or the "read more" link below. On the other hand, if you don't mind taking a peek at what's to come, click away!

Battle System Overhaul

• Just Attack: This special attack is exclusive to striking weapons. If timed correctly, you can unleash the Just Attack on the second or third hit of a combo for extra power and new sound and visual effects.
• Just Counter: This move allows you to turn a guard or evasion into an immediate attack, if you time your button press correctly.
• Striking weapon PP recovery bonus: Striking weapons will now recover a little more PP by using normal attacks. If you land a critical hit, you will regain a larger amount of PP.
• Monster AI upgrades: Monster AI will see an improvement by the time the expansion comes around. They will no longer just chase players across maps, but will instead actually use knowledge of their own attacks and abilities to their advantage.
• Elemental stats will be adjusted. No real details have been given yet, but we could see adjustments to attributes that would make even low elemental weapons and line shields useful.
• Weapon grinding: The no-break-grind system will be implemented. In this system, you no longer have to worry about completely destroying a weapon on the chance that it fails a grind. Instead, a failed grind will reset its stats to their original numbers and decrease the total number of grinds that particular weapon can have.
• Photon Art disks: Instead of erasing a PA to make room for a new one, you can now convert it into a disk format to keep and relearn later.
• New battle types: We already knew about these, but now we know what the requirements for each are. Acrofighter requires that you have lv.3 Hunter and lv.5 Ranger; Acrotecher requires lv.3 Hunter and lv.5 Force.

New Fields

• Il Carbo Base: This map takes place inside an AMF base on Moatoob.
• Saguraki Conservation District: A cherry tree-lined mountainous trail on Neudaiz.
• AMF Central HQ: Missions here take place inside the AMF HQ on Parum.
• Habilao Restricted District: A strange mushroom forest with extremely high photon concentrations.
• Caves: PSO fans will remember this place...
• Mine: Straight from PSO. No word just yet on how this (or the above) will work into the story.

New Enemies
Over 30 new enemies will appear in the expansion including Alteratsu Goug, SEED-Ardite and SEED-Arguine.
New Weapons
Numerous new weapons of all types will be added, many of which take their designs from various PSO weapons such as the Van-brella and Madam-brella, both of which are shotguns derived from PSO's Madam's Umbrella.

New Costumes
All 12 classes from PSO will be covered when it comes to costumes in the expansion with the PSO Replica series. Aside from that, however, many original designs will be available including the organic male SPF Set and the CAST female Valatenes Set.

New SUV Weapons

• Gigas Faust: A "rocket punch" attack that hits in a straight line in front of your character.
• Lapia Fluge: Instead of unleashing a massive attack, CASTs can now heal, revive and cleanse party members within the radius of this support SUV.

New Photon Arts

• Vishi Grudda - Photon Whip
• Chikkyo-renji - Slicer
• Renga Chujin-shou - Twin Dagger
• Chuei Jitotsu-shin - Twin Claw

Check out the two posts above for discussion, pictures and further details. Extra special thanks to Lyrise for help with translating and clarifying portions of this information.