Sparring & Gauntlet Modes

If offline combat is what you crave, you can set up sparring matches to your liking against A.I. opponents. This can help you get used to different new fighters, and earn gil and EXP.

Sparring Matches allow you to set up any kind of battle you like, with the team and opponents of your choosing. Many settings can be customized to your liking, so you can create the perfect environment for training, practice, and fun. You can set up 1v1s, 3v3s, or 1v3s to fit your practice needs. Work your way up from landing combos against stationary targets all the way to Crystal-ranked bots. Test out different HP Attacks and EX Skills as you unlock them to explore new possible strategies.

Gauntlet Trials are higher stake, and higher reward. After selecting your fighter and allies, you’ll plunge into an escalating gauntlet of six opposing teams. Before each fight, you can pick between several teams to fight next. You’ll see the location, the fighters on the team, and the difficulty level.

That’s where the trick is: of the teams you can challenge, some will be higher difficulty than others. If you pick a higher-difficulty team and win, the next round every team will be at least that hard. So, proceeding through gauntlet trials has a gambling element, since pushing to beat higher-difficulty teams reaps more rewards, but is, well, harder. And if you lose a match during a trial, your attempt ends—to contest again, you’ll have to start over. Within Gauntlet Mode, there are other trials besides the Basic Trial, including Story Trials for each branching path of Story Mode, a Summon Trial boss rush, and a Survival Trial to test your endurance. Each one comes with score tiers to reach and one-time rewards to unlock.

Unlock Story Trials and the Summon Trial by playing Story Mode. You can also unlock further bonus battles by finishing the pertinent branches of the story.