Reading the clues in Classic mode, column by column

The grid at a glance

Each guess adds a row at the top of the grid: the portrait and name of the character you proposed, then six cells compared with today's answer. The most recent row is outlined in thin gold. On mobile, the grid scrolls sideways.

• Green: the value is exactly the answer's. A small ✓ appears in the corner of the cell.
• Orange: a partial match, only possible for Affiliation and Combat. Look for the ◐ symbol.
• Red: the value does not match.

Above the grid, the "Last try" line shows six small diamonds, one lit for each green cell in your latest guess. It is a handy summary, but it does not replace reading the cells one by one. Green on Category and Gender is worth far less than a single green on Zone.

Category: two big families and three small ones

Category places each character in one of five families: Human, Nevron, Gestral, Axon or Creature. They are far from equal in size:

Nevrons (13) and humans (11) alone make up two thirds of the mode's 35 characters: a green on either value already cuts the list to about a third. The other families are small and easy to remember:

• Human: the expedition's heroes, a few people of Lumière and a handful of major story characters.
• Gestral: Monoco, the merchant Noco and the chief, Golgra.
• Axon: Visages, the Mask Keeper, Sirène and The Reacher.
• Creature: Esquie, François, Osquio and the Ultimate Sakapatate.

Role: the cell that sorts the bosses

Classic mode uses four roles: Playable, NPC, Boss and Optional Boss. The "Mob" role only exists in Complete mode, since Classic leaves ordinary enemies out, as well as the chromatic variants.

"Mandatory" bosses (the Boss role) are the ones the main quest puts in your path; every other boss in the game, including those from the "Thank You" update, is optional. The two roles weigh about the same and together cover more than two thirds of the mode, so a green on either is valuable.

A classic trap: do not go by a character's fame. Clea, a major figure of the story, is an optional boss, whereas the Ultimate Sakapatate or François, who block a mandatory step of the main quest, are bosses.

Gender: three values almost level

Gender is Male, Female or Unknown. "Unknown" covers the characters the game classes as neuter: nearly all Nevrons, but also Visages and the Ultimate Sakapatate, 40% of the mode in all. The three values split the mode into similar shares: whatever colour you get, the Gender cell always rules out a good part of the candidates. A green "Unknown" points to a Nevron without proving it.

Affiliation: taming the orange

Affiliation is a list, and that is where orange comes in. There are eight values: Expedition 33, Lumière, Gestrals, Axons, Nevrons, Dessendre Family, Expedition Zero and Unaffiliated. Most characters have only one, but the expedition members and a few others combine two or three.

The colour rule is strict:

• Green if both lists are identical, order aside.
• Orange if they share at least one value without being identical.
• Red if they share nothing.

So orange does not mean "nearly". It means "at least one value in common, but not the same list". The answer may have more affiliations than your guess, fewer, or different extra ones. If you guessed Gustave (Expedition 33 and Lumière) and got orange, the answer could be another expedition member who is not from Lumière, or someone from Lumière who never joined the expedition. To settle it, follow up with a character who has only one of the two values: the cell will turn plainly green or red.

Combat: the same trap, only more frequent

Combat works exactly like Affiliation: a list of styles (Sword, Magic, Ice, Flight…) with the same green, orange and red rule. The two most common styles are "Chroma", found on 8 characters, and "Brute Force" (6).

That frequency creates a trap. "Chroma" is the style shared by the Axons, Renoir, the Paintress, Simon and Clair Obscur: if your guess carries it, an orange Combat very often just means "the answer uses Chroma too" and nothing more. To get more out of it, look at the other style of your guess: if it is rare, the orange becomes far more telling.

Zone: where the character first appears

Zone shows where the character appears for the first time in the game, cutscenes included. It only knows green and red. The mode has 21 zones, from Lumière to the Endless Tower, and their names follow the game's official localisation. The guide to the areas of the Continent covers them all, with the number of characters who make their entrance in each.

Two practical notes. First, the zone of first appearance is not necessarily where you fought the character most. Second, most zones hold a single character of the mode: a green cell on one of them all but gives you the answer, whereas a green on Lumière, the busiest zone, still leaves several candidates.

An annotated game

Here is a real game replayed with the actual grid. The answer was Glissando, a boss from Sirène.

First guess. Renoir, one of the two best openers according to our first-guess analysis, returns a single green, on Role. In plain words: the answer is a story boss, but neither human nor male; it has no tie to the Dessendre family or Expedition Zero, uses neither a sword nor Chroma, and does not first appear on the Dark Shores. Six bosses fit those conditions.

Second guess. Rather than naming one of them at random, test a zone. Tisseur, an optional boss from Sirène, cannot be the answer, but it checks the Nevron category and the Sirène zone in one go. Result: Category, Gender, Affiliation and Zone turn green, Role and Combat stay red. The answer is therefore a Nevron boss from Sirène that fights with neither webs nor magic. Only one character fits every condition.

Third guess. All that is left is to type it in. Three guesses, without a single blind stab.

The method in short

1. Open with a guess that splits the list, not with your favourite character. Widespread but not overwhelming values (human, male, boss, Chroma) sort better than rare ones.
2. Turn every colour into a constraint: green = value required, red = value excluded, orange = at least one value shared.
3. Combine the constraints from all your guesses, not just the latest one. The combination is what narrows the list.
4. Use the suggestion list: under each name it shows the category and role, which lets you rule out incompatible characters very quickly.
5. When few candidates remain, play one that fits: it can win on the spot.

Traps to avoid

• Looking for a mob or a chromatic variant in Classic mode: neither the Lancelier nor Chromatic Goblu is in it, they are kept for Complete mode.
• Mixing up bosses and optional bosses: the main quest decides, not the character's fame.
• Over-reading an orange Combat after a guess that carries "Chroma": it is the most common style in the mode.
• Forgetting that nearly all Nevrons have the "Unknown" gender: a green there points to a Nevron without proving it.

To revise every character's clues, the character codex lists them all. And to practise without pressure, the free mode on the Classic page gives you as many games as you like.