Walkthrough Tips

Use Your Maps

Your current objective is shown by a gold star on the in-game maps, and it will guide you during the main chapters. If you ever lose your place in the game or if you want to see what’s available, simply check the World Map. The World Map will show a gold star next to the location for the current chapter. It will also have a red ! next to areas that have a Character Episode and a green ! indicating the target of an Event Quest.

Quests With a Limited Time Frame

As a general rule, there’s no time limit for quests written in red. However, the Event Quests listed below will disappear when you reach a certain point in the game, and you will not get another chance to complete them! If you’re determined to complete all of the game’s quests, make sure you do these as soon as they appear. Additionally, note that you’ll be able to gain affinity with Fractured Milla until the beginning of Chapter 11.

Limited-Time Event Quests

Characters Stories First

During debt repayment intervals, new Character Story episodes can become available. These will show up on the World Map as a red !. Although you can complete most of them at your leisure (once they appear) some are time-based and can expire. As a general rule you should complete each episode as soon as it appears, before paying back the debt and continuing the next chapter of the Main Story. A lot of the chapters have bonus scenes that require completion of a specific Character Episode. If you haven’t done that episode, not only would you miss some extra cinemas, but also many of the bonus scenes that have a chance to boost a character’s affinity.

Unleash the Cats

With all the other events going on in the game, it can be hard to remember to use the Kitty Dispatch. But keep in mind that it takes time for them to search. The sooner you send them out, the quicker they will return. There are items that can lower the cats’ return time, but the important thing is to constantly keep the kitties busy. As soon as you find a cat in an area, that area’s name will appear in the Kitty Dispatch. Immediately send your cat to the new region and it is likely to bring back a friend. The more cats you send out, the greater the odds of collecting items, plus you can retrieve more items on each errand. Many of the quest items can only be found through the Kitty Dispatch, and it is also a great method to gather materials for Custom Orders.

Building Affinity With NPCs

At the end of Chapter 15, if you’ve built enough affinity with NPC characters Bisley, Julius, and Elle, you’ll receive a unique weapon as a prize in Ludger’s mailbox at his apartment. So when making Ludger’s dialogue choices, you should generally choose the option that builds the most affinity with those three characters. However, getting the weapon from Elle requires so much affinity that it isn’t technically possible to do it on your first pass through the game; you’ll have to carry over your affinity into New Game+ and complete the game a second time to get it! Because of these, you should prioritize raising affinity with Bisley and Julius on your first pass through the game. Pay close attention to the dialogue choices and you can earn some awesome items.

Unique Affinity Items

• Elle: 8000 Affinity = Dual Blades Pollux Twins
• Bisley: 4000 Affinity = Sledgehammer Spirius Surrender
• Julius: 4000 Affinity = Dual Pistols Spirius Model-4304

Custom Orders to Look Out For

You can make powerful items through Custom Orders that are unavailable anywhere else. However, the materials for these items are difficult to find. It would take a great deal of materials to make every item for every character, so it’s a better idea to prioritize accessories and extractors that can be used by everyone in the party. Extractors are especially useful, since they allow you to learn skills and artes earlier. Note that the items you can order after completing a certain post-game condition are among the finest in the games, so you’ll definitely want to make those.

Exceptional Custom Orders

Key Debt-Repayment Milestones

If you want to repay your debts quickly, the best way to do so is to prioritize fighting Elite Monsters. Defeating even just one or two of them will provide a great deal of gald and points. Try to accept monster eradication quests in the same area as the Elite Monsters so you can do this while you’re in the area. Note that the game doesn’t force you to pay back more than you need to, but by paying relatively little extra, you can earn two very valuable rewards early in the game. The sooner you get these, the sooner you can put them to work against bosses. You can also get these items by continuing to pay your debt even after it’s cleared in Chapter 14.

Can’t-Miss Poker Prizes

After you clear Event Quest 15, Poker Face, you’ll be able to play the poker mini-game. The chips you earn in this game can be redeemed for a number of precious items that will make your life much easier. To accumulate chips, use the Gold Dice item. If you win using this, it’s possible to get 179200 chips at one go. To do so, buy chips with gald, redeem them for the Gold Dice item, and then save your game before you sit down to play.

Useful Items to Get

Tactics for Earning Titles

When you meet certain conditions, you’ll earn titles that increase the amount of Grade you get for your second playthrough. Many titles require you to take some action a certain number of times. If you have these conditions in mind as you play the game, it will be easier to get them. One to watch out for is “Complete the Game Without Using Your Transformation More than 50 Times”. This title begins keeping track at the end of Chapter 13, so you can transform as much as you want before then. In fact, you should use it very aggressively before then, so you can earn the titles that require you to use it frequently - those exist too.

How to Optimize Your Titles

Changing Party Members

During intervals, you’re free to change the three companions who battle alongside Ludger. You have eight possible choices, which is plenty to create advantageous combinations of abilities or shore up potential weaknesses. Basically, each party has a short-range fighter, a healer, and a support player. You can choose among these parties for when you want to prioritize offense versus survivability.

Balanced Party

Well-balanced on offense and defense. With a wide variety of artes between them, Jude and Milla are sufficiently powerful, and between Jude’s support and Elize’s healing the defensive side is reasonably covered. This is a good all-around party, proficient in physical attacks, magical attacks, and healing.

Physical Attack Party

A team of the game’s most powerful attackers. Between Alvin and Gaius you’ll be able to shatter both regular blocks and Iron Guards. This party has Leia to provide healing, but you can swap her out for Jude for even greater physical offense.

Survivor Party

A party designed to weather enemy attacks. Elize is on full-time healing duty, Leia can provide healing as well as support, and by linking with Muzét you can use Support Warp for improved evasion. This party is designed to back up Ludger as he fights with his dual pistols from afar.

Magical Attack Party

A party focused on powerful magic. It has access to wide-area spells in a variety of elemental types, making it useful for large parties of foes. Ludger can turn to both Rowen and Muzét for defensive support while striking at foes from afar.

Best Meals for Boss Fights

Eat foods that boost your Attack and Defense before fighting bosses. Before you reach the boss, use foods that restore HP and TP and fight lesser foes so you can face the boss at full health while saving all your recovery items for the fight itself. During normal exploration, stay full with other foods like those that boost EXP—titles are awarded for eating regularly.

AI Settings for Allies

You can use the Strategy menu to set general guidelines for how your allies behave. This allows you to designate them into specific roles, like healer or link partner.

You can also set them to not use artes when they’re using too many. You may also want to set them to not use artes of certain damage types and artes with knockback effects for the sake of your weakness-exploiting combos. If there’s an arte you want them to use frequently, set a shortcut so you can order them to use it whenever you like. This is particularly useful for wide-area attacks, healing spells, and artes that you want them to use during your combos.

Example AI Configuration

This strategy is designed for Ludger to link with Leia, while Jude provides combat support and Elize focuses on healing. Leia has been set not to use TP so that Ludger can use her TP through TP Sharing. Jude has been set not to link so that Elize will link with him and he’ll have access to HP/TP recovery through Teepo Drain as he fights aggressively. (When AI partners link, the one who initiates the link becomes the support partner.) Everyone has been set to not use Linked Artes so Ludger can use them himself. Since Leia has skills that affect item use, she was assigned to be the priority item user in the party.

Stealing Items from Bosses

Leia’s Item Steal support ability allows her to steal precious items from a small handful of bosses. The odds of successfully stealing these items are 5%, so make sure to learn and set her Steal Plus skill, which boosts the odds by 30%. Note that all of these items can be made as Custom Orders, so if you don’t manage to steal them, it doesn’t mean you won’t ever be able to get them.

Items to Steal from Bosses

Exploiting Power Charge

Bosses typically have high Iron Stance values, and even when you can land a combo against them, they may counterattack rapidly, making them difficult to defeat with normal combos. The best tactic is weakness-exploiting combos, which immediately shatter Iron Stances and can’t be counterattacked.

A great way to trigger weakness-exploiting combos against foes is by using the three Power Charge skills. If you have all three active, guarding for 4.5 seconds will gain you the following benefits: +3 AC, 25% TP Cost Reduction, the ability to attack as if the attack was from a damage type the foe was weak to, and the ability to stagger your foe. Note that it doesn’t need to be 4.5 consecutive seconds; you can guard, take an action other than attacking, and then continue where you left off.

Every character can learn the Power Charge skills from leveling up, so make sure to set them to whoever you’re controlling.

Skills for Guarding

Usage

Guard: You need to guard continuously to trigger Power Charge. Guard for roughly 1 second at a time.

Move: After every second spent guarding, use a quick-step, jump, or free run away—any action but an attack (that would reset your guard timer).

Guard Again: After repeating for another 3.5 seconds, Power Charge 3 triggers! If your guard is broken at this point, the effect won’t be reset.

Fight in the Air When Transformed

Transformation is your chance to overpower your foes, and you want to avoid taking damage while transformed to maintain it for as long as possible. A great way to do so is to use the Kresnik 2 skill, which reduces the speed at which your chromatus gauge empties by half when fighting in mid-air. Continuously chaining Dark Projection into a mid-air Azure Edge will allow you to dish out damage while extending the length of your transformation. However, you have to be careful of counterattacks from Iron Stance foes. To finish with your mystic arte, watch for when your gauge is down to about 1/8 full, then knock down your foe with a combo or back-step away and use the easy-to-hit-with Grand Cleaver.

Best Transformation Timing

Exploiting Enemy Weaknesses

To maximize your weakness-exploiting combos, you have to rapidly use a series of artes of different damage types. We recommend having Ludger do this, using his Weapon Swap ability to gain access to the following easy-to-chain artes of every elemental damage type. It’s important to avoid knocking your foes away so you can keep the combo going.

Ludger’s Easy Artes for Combos

Farming for Gold and EXP

The rare monster Bacura is rich in EXP and Element Ore, while the Gald Freak provides large amount of gald, so if you spot these foes, you’ll definitely want to beat them. Each foe only appears in certain preset areas, and may only appear in certain parts of that area. For example, in the Sillea Tundra the Gold Bacura appears in the south, while the Gald Freak appears in the north. Whenever you enter one of these areas, there’s a chance the foe may appear, so if you’re eager to fight one, you can enter and leave an area repeatedly.

LOCATIONS Rare Foes Appear (Both Dimensions)