Final Fantasy Resonance tips and tricks: what to do once the basics click

Once the rules from the first hours have sunk in, a handful of habits make Final Fantasy Resonance a lot smoother, and most of them come down to getting more out of Mastery.

AP and ability slots

Every character has eight ability slots and a pool of AP, and every slot starts empty. Someone who never opens the Equipment and Abilities menu fights with only what the Vision they’re wearing gives them. Most of the party is sitting on about 108 AP by the time Chapter 3 arrives, and Mastery adds 8 more at rank 4 and again at rank 9.

One detail saves AP. Abilities belonging to the Vision you’re wearing work without being equipped, and at rank 9 the Spirit of that Vision switches on every Mastery ability it has. Tronn’s Half MP Cost takes 50 AP when you slot it under another Vision, and it’s free while Tronn is the one you’re wearing. Check that before you fill a slot with something your current Vision already covers.

Learned abilities stay with a character when you swap Visions or bench them, so rotating costs nothing. Half MP Cost (50) and Pass the Torch (30) fit inside 108 AP with 28 left over.

Extra actions

Extra actions are the strongest thing in the game, and every good one sits at a high rank. Arms Akimbo costs 40 MP and lets a character act twice in a turn, whatever the action. The others are narrower, and that’s where the stacking comes from.

Stack them. Arms Akimbo with Double Action gives a physical attacker four attacks in a turn, and Arms Akimbo with Dualcast gives a mage four spells. Half MP Cost is what lets you afford it. Nichol reaches four actions of his own with Arms Akimbo on top of his Formation turns, and that’s his whole trick among the party members.

It’s a long climb. Rank 9 takes 4,975 MRP on Firion, 4,945 on Squall, 5,075 on Shantotto and 4,695 on Tronn, so a bit of MRP farming pays off before you start. Those four also top my Vision ranking for exactly this reason.

MP passives

A handful of passives pay MP back the moment you do something you were going to do anyway. Rain takes most of the hits, so Restore MP when Taking Damage and Fill LB when Taking Damage suit him well.

Limit Burst gauge

Limit Bursts appear in the skill menu with an LB tag where an MP cost would be, and a full gauge is all you need to use one. Don’t wait for hits to fill it.

A few do something specific. Recuperate LB refills 30 percent of the gauge after a Limit Burst, LB Charge Opener gives you a head start on the first turn, and Observe and Charge LB builds the gauge from actions that don’t deal damage. LB Triple Charge triples how fast it fills, and LB Charge on Heal means a healer keeps up on Limit Bursts. Fina’s Radiant Restoration, learned at level 25, revives every fallen ally, which makes a full gauge on her worth protecting.

Stagger boosters

Stagger is where the extra actions come from, and plenty of passives lean on it.

• Stagger Power +20 percent (Tronn, rank 7) lifts every hit you make.
• Power Stagger (Clive, rank 5) adds 35 percent physical damage against staggered enemies.
• Bonus Phase Stagger Boost (Lightning, rank 5) adds 40 percent stagger power during the Bonus Phase.
• Bonus Damage (Noctis, rank 7) adds 40 percent damage in the Bonus Phase.
• Pilebunker (Aileen, rank 9) raises the stagger power of single-target physical attacks while your Limit gauge is full.
• Fulminating Strike, a Firion skill, boosts stagger power by 50 percent for three turns, so it makes a good opener.
• Nichol’s Assail gives the whole party 30 percent more stagger power.

Stealing

Zidane’s Steal arrives at rank 1, so you can start straight away, and Libra shows what an enemy carries before you waste a turn. The rare steals are the good ones. Cactuars carry a Magicite Shard and Gigantuars carry Magicite, and Zidane’s Rare Hunter, which you unlock through Awakening, guarantees the rare item whenever a steal succeeds.

Magicite is what you spend at the Moogle of Light: a Shard for the first star, Magicite for the second and a Cryst for the third. The Merchant Ship sells a Magicite Cryst for 50,000 gil from Chapter 7.

Espers

Fina calls Espers. They stay for a few turns, then hit the enemy with a finisher and depart. There are nine of them. Siren joins after the Chapter 1 boss, and NPCs with an exclamation mark above their heads hint at where the rest are hiding, which the game pins to your map. Siren stays for three turns and costs 50 MP, so keep that in reserve for a boss. Summon cutscenes can be skipped.

Status effects

Poison chips away at an enemy every turn and Slow hands you the first move. Try them on tougher enemies before you commit to pure damage. Libra shows what an enemy resists. On your own side, Terra’s last Awakening gives her Ribbon, which keeps statuses off the wearer, and Leah’s Auto-Cure Ailments at rank 9 clears them for you.

Surviving one-hit kills

Grit (Warrior of Light, rank 9) and the Chocobo Down Charm both leave a character on 1 HP, once per battle, after damage that would have killed them. The charm sits in a chest behind the Citrine Pot in the Mobliz Shipyard. They answer attacks that deal a flat amount, like the Cactuar’s 1,000 Needles.

Small time savers

• Battle speed has three settings, and you can change it in the middle of a fight.
• Set Text Speed to Instant under Options, on the Gameplay tab.
• Reload your last save if a boss catches you without the right element.
• Tents heal anywhere on the world map, and some dungeon save points offer Teleport between the entrance and the deepest point.

None of this is urgent. Pick whichever one fits your party’s next problem.