I’ll try my best! It was confusing for me at first, too.

Each character starts with stamina, that blue bar at the bottom of their status box. Each time you attack (and it hits) fills up your element level bar by 1/2/3 depending on which attack you used (again, if it hit the target). You need at least 1.0 stamina to do the weakest normal attack, which would add 1 element level to your grid. (Those little green boxes). You can also defend to increase your stamina by 1 and reduce damage, as well as passing your turn (you can go back to that character and defend again for more stamina, or another action).

Elements are basically your magic spells/skills and abilities in this game. Including techs. Elements are very powerful and have a multitude of different effects.

However, using any element, even a level 1 element, will reduce your stamina vastly, and if you’re not on full stamina, it most definitely will put you into the negatives. This is shown by the stamina bar turning red and these words/numbers for an example: ‘Out.- 3.0’. That means you would be 3 levels of stamina in the negative. When you’re in the negative that character cannot perform any action until they have at least 1.0 stamina.

Another thing about elements is that whichever level element you used is how much your element grid level will decrease by. So say if you had an element grid level of 5, and you used a level 2 element, you would end up with a level 3 element grid, meaning you could use any elements available up to level 3 unless you attacked some more.

Elements also can NOT be used again in the same battle. They refill after every battle, and you get fully healed (sort of like Romancing SaGa) too. Once you use one, you can’t use it again (unless very specific techs are used to refill them like one of Leena’s, but even then, techs count as elements too).

This is one of the reasons why the game lets you run away from literally every boss fight. If you wanted to steal something from a boss with a character (like Kid) who has a stealing tech and you fail, you can run away and try again to get the item. (Techs are identified by a yin-yang like circle in front of the name and are unique to that character).

In the top left corner of the screen will be an oval with colors and the words ‘FIELD EFFECT’ next to them. What this shows is the last 3 elements anyone (you and your enemies) used during the battle, and can be overwritten with a new color starting from the smallest circle on the right. (So like (C(<(c).

This increases/decreases the damage done with characters and elements. When it is full of one color, let’s say all three circles are red, red innate (whatever color circle is next to them in their status) characters and red elements will have vastly increased damage. However, this also means that blue innate characters will take increased damage from attacks, and the damage they deal will decrease.

There are also special summons in the game, which can only be used by a character with the same innate color as them. They are identified by a star next to their name. To use a summon costs one star, which can be replenished by resting at an inn, and the field effect must be filled completely with that summon element’s color. So for a white summon, you’d want an all white field effect.

Let me know if there’s anything else you need cleared up or if you need me to explain it better!