Equipment in this game, while not wholly unique, is a little different than many JRPGs. Players equip shards in either an active or passive slot. Active shards teach skills, passive shards boost stats. Active shards can also gain levels which make them give more powerful stat boosts, and those stat boosts in turn help the spells you’re casting. In other words, they help each other out.

There are 30+ different types of shards in the world with varying stat bonuses and skills offered.

There is also a simple, but rewarding, shard crafting system which unlocks partway through the game which allows you to turn some of your basic shards into more powerful shards.

The idea is that if you play the game normally, your characters should always be improving with no grinding necessary. Of course, you CAN spend as much time as you want maxing out shards to make your characters as OP as you’d like, but it’s not necessary.