Beyond the Labyrinth combat takes rock, paper, scissors to a new level

Mysterious tri-Ace RPG Beyond the Labyrinth sports an intriguing battle system, with a strong tactical bent.

Siliconera reports that there are three kinds of elemental attack in the game, and some enemies are weak against one type but strong against another. Seems pretty straight forward, but if you use the correspondingly powerful element against enemies, they have a chance to heal themselves on the next turn.

To overcome this, players have to think about how to time their attacks; combat is in real time, but the stronger the attack you use, the longer it takes you to recover. By selecting targets carefully, and chaining together strong and weak attacks, players can keep enemies off-balance and stop them from recovering.

Beyond the Labyrinth has been largely under wraps until recently, and is due on 3DS in Japan on January 19. You can watch a couple of videos of the system in action through the link above.