As with other games, you’ll be doing some exploring on various locations during your playthrough. You’ll also encounter monsters, obstacles to clear, and other points of interest worth checking out. Learn more about the map features, fast travel, gathering spots, encounters, and more in our dedicated Exploration guide.
Open the local map by pressing the down button. While in a town or city, you can also select the destination to fast-travel. While exploring, you’ll also have access to a mini-map in the lower-right corner of the screen.
To access the map of Fiore (overworld), press the Up button or exit through any of the exit points on the map. Fortunately, the map doesn’t just help you find your bearings. Important icons such as quests markers will be visible from both the local and overworld map.
These are fixed, glowing spots in a town or city, as well as in the field where you can pick up free materials. The items you can get from the same gathering spot will be the same and they’ll be restocked upon your return once you leave the area and travel to another location. This makes it easy to farm common materials that you can get from gathering spots.
While on the field, you’ll encounter wandering monsters or enemies. Getting in contact with them will start the battle. To start the battle with an advantage, get to the right distance then press the attack button to attack the monster. This can be done regardless of the character you’re controlling. Thankfully, there’s no disadvantage that will befall your team if ever a monster gets the first move on you. Monsters will chase you but they can be quite easy to avoid or escape from.
While on the field, you may find certain paths blocked by boulders or fallen trees. These will appear also with a “no entry” icon when viewed in your minimap or local map. Entering a battle while near that obstacle will give you a chance to permanently destroy it through the Over Damage mechanic. You have to deal the required minimum amount of damage to clear that obstacle. This damage will be displayed when you stand near the obstacle before triggering the battle.
You have a higher chance of achieving overdamage through the use of Magic Chain attacks that ends up with a Finisher or Extreme Magic. To save time, it’s recommended to save your game and have a full Fairy Gauge before entering a battle near the obstacle. So just in case you fail to reach the damage quota, you can just reload the game and try again.
The total damage calculated in a Magic Chain includes all enemies in the field and your characters’ individual damage output. To get the most amount of damage, engage an enemy with a large group and use an ATK Buff to all your allies (like Wendy’s Ile Arms skill) before performing a Magic Chain. This is particularly useful to trigger Over Damage on certain obstacles that require a very steep damage total.
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