As you enter the massive world of Valisthea in Final Fantasy 16, you may be wondering where exactly you should start in terms of getting your feet on the ground, and being ready to tackle the many challenges the game has to offer while following Clive’s incredible story. We’ve put together a list of what we think are the most useful gameplay tips to get you started on your adventures.
1. Story-Focused Versus Action-Focused Mode
While you start Final Fantasy 16 off with one general difficulty setting, there are still ways to adjust it based on the type of experience you’re looking for. You’ll be given the option to choose whether you want a “story-focused” experience, or an “action-focused” one.
Story-focused means that the overall difficulty of battle content will be scaled back, resulting in enemies with less HP that do less damage than normal, allowing you to pass fights relatively easily and enjoy the storyline first and foremost. In contrast, action-focused mode will keep enemies at a relatively normal difficulty, if the gameplay is what you’re set on and you want more of a challenge throughout the story.
Also, don’t be worried if you choose one of these modes and eventually decide you’re not satisfied with it. You can change from one to the other at any time via the System tab in the Main Menu as seen above. Side scroll to Game Settings, and the Gameplay option will allow you to toggle to either mode you wish.
2. Use Those Timely Accessories You’re Given
Along with being able to switch between story and action-focused settings, the game also provides the player with a set of “timely accessories”. These are incredibly helpful not just early on but throughout the story, as they can turn the tide with some of the most challenging content in the game.
Essentially they further adjust your combat experience via certain gameplay features, from dodging, to healing, to pulling off combos more easily. The five accessories include:
- Ring of Timely Healing – Clive will automatically use a potion to heal himself when his HP reaches a certain threshold. Standard potions are prioritized over High Potions.
- Ring of Timely Assistance – Your loyal dog Torgal will automatically attack and use his skills on his own, and also auto-combo attacks with Clive when able.
- Ring of Timely Evasion – Completely evade eligible attacks automatically.
- Ring of Timely Strikes – Clive’s combo attacks are executed with just the square button.
- Ring of Timely Focus – Time slows down before any incoming evadable attack, allowing Clive to dodge more easily. This effect doesn’t work if the Ring of Timely Evasion is already equipped.
3. How to Stock Up Potions Quickly
As you adventure through each new area of Final Fantasy 16, you’ll undoubtedly notice shards of light that beam up from the ground, which signal items you can pick up. One of the more common things to find are potions, and it turns out these shards of light can be a handy way to stock up on potions quickly and easily.
Every time you re-enter an explorable area of the game, the light shards in that area will respawn, and they will always have the same items in the same spots. For example, as seen above, near the very entrance to Caer Norvent Glorieuse Gate, there is a High Potion light shard location for you to take advantage of. Simply go over and pick up the potion, leave the area, come back and it will be there once again.
Repeat this as many times as you want. While it may take a bit of time, it can certainly be a good way to save some gil in the long run, especially earlier on when your funds are limited.
4. Sell Those Valuables To Boost Your Gil Funds
As you acquire more and more items throughout your travels in Valisthea, you’ll notice at times that you get items such as Gil Bugs and Goblin Coins. These are unique items that don’t have a purpose outside of literally just being sold for extra gil, denoted by the yellow phrase at the bottom of their description.
As you pick these up, don’t forget to trade them in for funds, which you need to start building as soon as possible for other purposes like new gear, crafting, etc. You can also take a look at our guide for how to earn money fast in the game.
5. Be Cautious About Selling Weapons & Gear
While it’s safe to sell the more basic weapons and gear you get at the beginning of the game, it’s important to know ahead of time that as you progress, you’ll want to start saving some of those blades and armor for crafting purposes.
Blackthorne at the Hideaway will start providing recipes for better and better gear, some of which will require a base weapon to build upon, often ones you’ve already gotten one way or another. This includes the legendary pieces he’ll start offering later on.
You’ll save yourself a decent amount of gil and/or time having to re-acquire those base weapons by just holding on to them, and waiting until he asks you to hand one over. After all, you don’t get more than a couple thousand gil on average for selling sub-par weapons anyway. You’re better off going and completing a Notorious Hunt for five times that amount.
Also be sure to check in with both Charon and Blackthorne often at the Hideaway. As you progress the story, they’ll frequently have new items available for purchase/crafting.
6. Should You Craft or Just Reinforce Gear?
On the same tangent of crafting weapons and armor, it’s also important to know sooner rather than later about whether it’s better to craft gear from scratch or focus on reinforcing existing pieces.
Upon unlocking Blackthorne the blacksmith at the Hideaway, you’ll have access to both crafting and reinforcing weapons and armor. Most of the ones available in the game have three tiers of upgrade, including:
- ‘Base Weapon/Item Level’
- ‘Weapon/Item +1’
- Weapon/Item +2′
Examples of this can be seen in the image above. Now the question remains of whether you should craft these items from scratch, or opt to reinforce instead. Essentially, to save gil and mostly a lot of time, reinforcing is the better option. When crafting, you’ll sometimes need several different materials of varying amounts, which you’ll have to grind from different enemies in different areas.
Conversely, if you simply go to Charon and buy a base weapon/armor piece from her, then take it to Blackthorne for upgrading, he’ll ask for far fewer of those same raw materials. Overall, to make efficient use of your time and funds, methods like these are proven to work better in your favor.
7. Get Into the Habit of Saving Often
While previous Final Fantasy titles may have limited the ability to save progress, FF16 gives you total liberty to save anytime and anywhere you want, which can be especially handy when approaching serious challenges like a Chronolith Trial, a Notorious Hunt, or a serious checkpoint in the story.
You can do a manual save, with generous auto-saves as backup, and also warp back to obelisks if need be. The latter will also fully replenish your potions.
8. Practice Dodging
As you engage in more and more battles with different enemies, you’ll notice that the main method of avoiding damage is, quite simply, dodging. It’s a fixture of the gameplay, and it’s something you’ll need to practice until it’s second nature, especially if you’re looking to take on the most challenging battle content in the game.
Given Clive’s unique abilities, when you dodge an incoming attack you get a quick burst of movement that covers quite a bit of ground, and you’re granted a brief window of invincibility that can be crucial in key moments of a fight.
Also, if you’re able to dodge at the last second, you’ll gain a Precision Dodge bonus, which allows you to then chain a Precision Counter right after. Once you get the hang of it, this will contribute a lot of extra damage against difficult enemies.
9. There Are Two Different Kinds of Sidequests
If you’re the kind of player that likes to take on as many sidequests as possible, then you should definitely know that there are actually two different kinds of sidequests found in FF16. Given that the difference itself is rather subtle at the glance, this is something many players can overlook.
Regular sidequests, which provide regular-tier rewards upon completion, are denoted on the map and over the heads of NPCs by a green bubble with an exclamation mark. This makes up the majority of the sidequests found throughout the game, so you’ll be seeing that symbol the most.
However, there is another sub-set of sidequests that are denoted by a similar green bubble, this time with a plus mark instead. These provide far more significant rewards in the form of permanent upgrades for Clive, from being able to ride a chocobo, to potion inventory increases, to new recipes from Blackthorne. As such, you’ll want to do these quests as soon as you get them.
10. Unlock Obelisks As Soon As Possible
The world map of Valisthea is so massive, that while riding a chocobo is certainly quicker in getting from one place to another, the best way to travel in the game is undeniably the Obelisk fast travel points. With these you can literally zoom from one corner of the map to the other if need be. Also, should you fall in battle, you can be warped back to the nearest Obelisk which will also replenish your spent potions, as mentioned earlier.
As far as unlocking all of the Obelisks, the majority of them are done via main story progression, and a select few require simply finding your way on foot to them.
The quicker you unlock them, the easier it’ll be to get around, especially when some quests require you to hop around from place to place. There are 28 Obelisks in all to unlock, so make sure you don’t miss one.
That concludes our guide for things to do first in Final Fantasy 16. We hope you find this helpful when beginning your adventure with Clive, and let us know what you like most about the game so far.
Be sure to check out all of our other guides, such as our Final Fantasy 16 Trophy List & Guide.
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