World of Final Fantasy Guide: Top Tips for making the most of Grymoire
What with Final Fantasy 15 being delayed by a little bit, World of Final Fantasy has become one of the biggest Japanese RPG releases of the back end of the year - and if you're waiting out for FF15 in November, this cute little spin-off is an ideal way to kill some of the time.
Like any RPG it has a fair amount of hidden depth, however. Sometimes that's in gameplay mechanics, while at other times that's down to things like little quality-of-life tweaks you can make in the menus to make your life easier.
We've seen pretty much everything the game has to offer at this point, so here are some of our top tips for playing World of FF now you've got your hands on it.
Always check your stack stability
One of the main mechanics of World of Final Fantasy comes in the form of stacking - the ability for the player to stack multiple mirages on top of their head to create a 'stack'. When stacked, the lead character gains the abilities and stats of those stacked on top of them.
It's easy to just focus your stack considerations on what is the most powerful, but stability is an equally important factor to consider. If you build a stack that has a naturally off stability you're asking for your stack to be toppled, which separates your characters. This can ultimately be pretty deadly, as individual characters are quite a bit weaker than a stack and an AOE attack can hit them all at once.
In order to check your stack stability, head into the menu and hit the stack setup option. Hidden away at the very bottom of the stats for each of your four possible stacks is a stability rating - it'll say something like Weak or Good and so on. Work to get the best and most stable stack you can.
In battle your stack stability is displayed with an icon above your head whenever it this threatened. Remember that there are consumable items that re-stabilize your stack if it's about to topple. It's pretty much always better to use one of these than be toppled.
Remember that you can find a list of all the mirages that can join your party & be stacked right here on the site.
Unstack when it makes sense & combo mirages in your stack
The only major advantage to being unstacked that we can see is if you need to execute a lot of commands quickly - one stacked character gets one command per turn, but an unstacked group of three get three. Three individual attacks aren't probably going to be as good as one stacked command, but for using a lot of items to heal and the like this can actually be useful. Keep that in mind, and unstack wisely.
A major mechanic in World of FF that can be easily missed is mirage combos within a stack. If you stack two mirages that share a type on top of a character's head (for instance, two fire types) your stack will become vastly powerful with that element.
This will unlock higher level spells of that type and offer huge resistance to that element - but be careful as it also comes with weaknesses much the same. A well-prepared stack with combo mirages can turn even the most difficult boss battle into a cakewalk, though.
Remember that you can find a list of all the mirages that can join your party & be stacked right here on the site.
Pressing Circle lets you skip post-battle animations
This one is life-changing in a tiny way - when you finish a battle, hit circle. Just try it.
Yep - all the post-battle animations and chatting - they all disappear. It immediately freezes that stuff and puts you on the results screenw here you see your AP and such count up instead. We're not quite sure why this is on Circle and not X (though circle makes sense in Japan, of course, where proceed and cancel are reversed) - but circle it is. Remember to hammer on it once a battle is over!
If time is of the essence for you, remember that you can find options to tweak the speed of the text and the battles in the game on the config menu. You can also fast-forward battles, massively increasing their speed, by holding R1.
Keep track of what Mirages you've caught in each area
First thing's first - don't forget that we have an extensive guide page that lists exactly how many mirages there are in the game. Our guide page tells you where to find them, how to catch them, their size, their weight, and even their full ability list. It's a useful page. And we're not just saying that because it took us a while to make.
The game does have a decent way for you to get an idea of how many mirages you've caught, however - and it's hidden away on the map. Hitting Select on PS Vita or the touchpad on PS4 will bring up the map, and pressing triangle on the map screen will bring up a bunch of info about the area you're in.
That info includes how many mirages are found in that area and in line with that how many of those mirages you've already caught. Handy!
After unlocking Champion Summons, set your Battle Music
Champion Summons are great little moments in battle for hardcore FF fans - these are the moments where classic FF heroes like Cloud, Lightning and Terra show up and do some serious damage. We've got a guide page all about how you unlock the various champion summons in WOFF elsewhere on the site.
Once you've unlocked a character's champion summon medal from the Girl's Tea Room store, you actually gain the option to use music from that champion's original FF title as your battle music - but it isn't really flagged to you.
These are cool all-new remixes for World of FF, and so definitely worth your time. To set the battle theme just head to the config menu. You'll find the option there.
Learn to love the dead ends - they have treasure
Whatever you make of the post FF10 predilection for on-screen maps that betray just how basic and linear areas in many FF games are, those maps are pretty useful for one thing - tracking down treasure.
This rule was true in the FF10 and FF13 games and it remains true here - look at the maps. If there's a dead end, there's an astronomically high chance it contains some sort of extra - it's most often treasure, but sometimes it can lead to a different enemy encounter or an NPC. Often enough, those lead to treasure.
So, yes. Dead ends - treasure! Don't miss them.
Visit the Coliseum often for lots of mirages and other loot
World of Final Fantasy is generally speaking pretty linear, and there are really only a few types of side-content.
One type that most people are likely to indulge in for sure are the quests for The Girl Who Forgot Her Name - she's how you eventually unlock proper access to each of the champion summons and get the classic FF heroes on your side in battle. However, equally important is the Coliseum - a place that is arguably WOFF's main source of side content.
The Coliseum will open up to you from Chapter 5 on - just visit the North Promenade of Nine Wood Hills and you'll be invited to battle there. The battles don't earn you EXP, but finishing each battle will give you other prizes. On top of that many mirages show up here and they are imprismable, meaning if you miss out on one in a story area you can nab them in a coliseum battle rather than by backtracking.
Because EXP isn't gained you can't grind here, so you'll want to make sure you only approach Coliseum battles when you're absolutely ready to tackle them. When you are, do - there's some great rewards available here.
Check out our other specific World of Final Fantasy Guide Pages
Okay, so, it's a shameless plug - but really, we've got some pretty good guide pages for specific areas of WOFF right here on RPG Site. Here they are:
- Want to know all about every single mirage in the game? Plus how to catch them? Here's our guide to all the mirages in the game.
- ...and here's part two of that same guide to all of WOFF's Mirages, because it's so comprehensive it got too long for a single article.
- When do you unlock Terra? How do you get Sephiroth? Here's how to get all the champion summons WOFF.
- Stuck on those damn ice sliding puzzles in Icicle Ridge? You're not alone. Here's how to smash them.
- Here's how to make sure you get the game's true ending in the postscript and unlock the post-game content.