Forward Escape the Fold: Phade Guide (Tips & Tricks)

Disclaimer This guide will include spoilers on items and powers that must be unlocked

I wanted to make a small guide (more like tips and tricks) for one of the hardest characters to get your mind around Phade. Phade is the third character you will unlock in the game and starts the game with Winged Shoes, which allows her to move horizontally. She also starts with a curse that makes all items in shops cost 8 more gold. This curse doesn’t hurt you too much later on but can stunt your growth early.

Pay attention to the transition screen to see when shops are coming up. With items costing more it pays to know when you want to save.

Don’t waste money on potions. Normally a heal for 1 gold is good, but with Phade it cost a minimum of 9. Normally it isn’t worth the gold. You should also skip taverns and alchemy shops in villages as they mostly contain potions.

Skulls are obtained by moving your character onto a monster. Phade works really well with this mechanic as she can get loot and attack monsters on the same level. Skulls can be used to buy items in dead chest (noramly one item is around 20 skulls) Use her healing and movement options to get more skulls and obtain some powerful items early.

Phade’s difficulty comes from her unique way of moving around the map and creates a lot more decision making into knowing where to move and when.

Just because you can move doesn’t mean you should. You don’t have to use all your movement if the reward isn’t worth the damage don’t take it. If the reward is blocked by a monster and your low on health just skip the reward. Staying healthy and minimizing damage is important for winning.

Save potions and swords. Try to get potions last this allows you to take more damage and heal up afterwards. For swords wait to move up then grab it so that more monsters become visible.

(Moving to the right and getting the gold/chest will make you take 5 damage but then you can move to the potion to heal it back!)

Stay to the side. Try not to move into the middle if possible as it limits the amount of loot you can pick up.

Take your time, unlike other characters you can react to upcoming cards and choose other paths taking 4 damage to move rightis better than being forced up taking 8!

I will go into items more while taking about the powers, but there are some generalized items that are always nice to have

Focus items that deal damage. Think of items like axe, golden hammer, poison scythe, and steam sword. anything that hits the entire board and weakens the monsters. The more you kill the more loot you can gather.

Get stealth. Stealth is good on most characters but for phade it helps even more. You can use it to slip between monsters to grab more loot without having to take damage.

Get items that give a befit to starting an attack. you want to attack monsters, so getting extra rewards can’t hurt!

Look for items that reduce the cost of gold to minimize your starting curse

Phade has a great selection of powers that helps her clear the floor and remove monsters.

Absorption

Absorption lets you play aggressive early on. Attack more monsters while they are still low and heal with skill if you get low. On later floors I tend to use it to heal if I am low or lower damage if I am forced to move onto a monster.

Don’t be stingy. Unless you have a good way to obtain stealth your power will at most hit 2-3 enemies. Take what you can. Deal 6 heal 6 is better than nothing

Death!

At first glance, Death! may seem like a worse absorption that hurts you instead of healing you, but it works better in the late game when you have more items and monsters have more HP.

Works well with items that make you immune to poison or gain an advantage when poison is lost.
Medical plant can help early on but look for antidote or pumpkin for a long term solution.

Poison will never kill you. It can take you to 1 hp but cannot do anything after that. (won’t damage armor or take you below 1 hp) Use your skill to keep your armor high while damaging your hp.

Return!

Return is a really unique power that is different from Phade’s other two options. This power lets Phade play more stealth and really focus on grabbing every bit of loot. It gives even more movement options than before. Use it to back track for items missed or if the route you are taking looks less desirable with new information.

Use the stealth to grab items behind big monsters!

Or to go back for heals after a boss (if they are on the side)

Return! is also the cheapest power so it works well with items that activate with your power use.
On activation effects will target the screen before you move back. This is good for electric axe as you will deal damage then move back.

If you cover an item by going back you will uncover it once you move off the space.

Look out for the item power ring. Using your power twice will allow for more back tracking, but will basically kill the stealth effect of the active.

Thank you for reading my guide on phade. This was made with patch 1.0.2 and some things may change in the future.

I had a lot of fun testing out different interactions and really digging deep into this character. If i missed anything please let me know. and I would be interested in making more guides in the future if you find this helpful.