In Lightning Returns, you are going to need a lot of gil - and not necessarily during times and places you might expect. When New Game+ opens up, so too does a new mechanic for improving Lightning's weapons and armor. Purchasing the materials necessary for upgrading can be a huge strain on your wallet, as can a whole bunch of other things (like all the expensive equipment sold by the vendors on the final day). However, because it's possible to use the Crystal of Atonement in the Ark to begin another New Game+ on demand, you can make use of a nice little farming loop to get a ton of gil very quickly.

It so happens to involve every FF fan's favorite cactus impersonators.

Originally called the "Cactuar Farming Guide" (hence all the stupid punny imagery of Cactuars in stereotypical farming getup), this guide has since turned into one that helps players through the Last One Standing quest, which is an excellent way to get more and more stats each playthrough. Coming soon, there will also be an Expert guide posted here, which focuses on a way to get a huge amount of gil - but it's only for those who seriously know what they're doing.

The game has a lot of terms associated with it; if you don't know what something is, chances are the Glossary section has what you need. Enjoy the guide and thanks for reading!

Although you can do some of this on your first playthrough, this guide assumes that you've already successfully cleared the game once, and thus have access to Hard Mode. Although monsters are tougher on Hard, they also drop much better items - and more importantly, triple the usual amount of Gil.

Skip through all the cutscenes as quickly as possible, and you'll find yourself in Luxerion towards the end of day 1. Once again, you're fenced into this small area of the city until you complete the quest "Whither Faith", where you must present the Inquisitor with a sufficient amount of information regarding the recent murders. Once you've done this quest a few times, this should become second nature to you. Just talk to literally everyone you can, including all shopkeepers, the two people on the nearby scaffolding, and anyone named "???" in the station. (Remember that you can pause the game and select "Skip" to bypass most dialogue here.) During this time, you will also need to complete the very short quest, "Where Are You, Holmes?", for some additional necessary information.

The rewards for clearing these two quests are not bad, considering how easy they are. Completing "Whither Faith" will give Lightning 1200 gil, as well as a permanent +40 HP, and +3 to both Strength and Magic. "Where Are You, Holmes?" will give her 450 gil, +10 HP, and +1 Strength.

Don't worry about following the cultists that appear in the plaza at midnight; just go ahead to the inn and skip all the way to 6 AM. Back in the Ark, skip the scenes as usual, and talk to Hope about both main and side quests to unlock the Warp Gate. Use it, skip the scene that follows, and head to the nearby Station. Take the train to Yusnaan; once you arrive, you'll re-unlock your Teleport ability.

(Quick note here: see that locked treasure ball on the Banquet of the Lord's awning? It costs 6 EP to open, but it contains 30,000 gil once you've obtained the Locket Pendant/Necklace it normally contains. Consider opening it each run; it's a worthy addition to the usual haul!)

Teleport to the Dead Dunes. Although Cactuars appear nearly everywhere in this region, the best place to find them is easily the small area near the base of the area's central Lighthouse. Get there by heading north and slightly west from the Station. You'll eventually travel through a gate to another area with a northern ridge. Walk up onto the ridge from its eastern side and you'll find a Pilgrim's Crux at the end. Pick it up, jump off the ridge, and hug the right wall until you see the Lighthouse. (Check the map if you get lost.) You'll see a huge sandstorm shortly; get rid of it by using the Crux on the stone just to the left of the storm. Unless you really want to fight the annoying Cactair here, just run right past him; he won't bother you after that.

You're now at the base of the Dead Dunes Lighthouse! This area is where you'll be fighting Cactuars, but there's also a few other important points of interest here. The first and foremost is a man named Zanford, who gives Lightning the Last One Standing quest. If you have data for all Last Ones recorded in your Bestiary, then simply talk to him one more to complete the quest. Your reward is 18,000 gil, and a permanent +100 HP, +10 Strength, and +8 Magic. If you haven't slain all the Last Ones, don't worry - this guide covers every aspect of this quest later on.

Be sure to also open up all the treasure balls in this area as well. One of them requires 4 EP, but contains 20,000 gil if you've upgraded the Silver/Platinum Barrette it contained in previous playthroughs. The other, unlocked chests contain a key item and 2,500 gil (provided, again, you've previously opened it in past playthroughs to get an Angel's Headband/Halo).

Side notes:

• There's also three "Bhakti's Oil" here, which is used to complete another sidequest elsewhere. If you're just here to farm, don't worry about them.
• There are a few lizards here, as well as all around the Dunes. Swipe your weapon at them to collect their tails, as well as some items you can get appraised in Ruffian. There's an achievement, "Lizard Lariat", for hunting 30 lizards, so you may as well do that here.

On to the farming itself. Cactuars will appear pretty frequently here, and the narrower confines of this area means it's a lot easier to chase them down by getting them stuck against walls, corners, etc. for easy battles. Even on Hard difficulty, they don't put up too much of a fight, and can be slain easily with various Fire weapons/abilities. There are 30 Cactuars in total; after that, Cactuar Ω will show itself.

Decision time: you can either fight Cactuar Ω here and now, or try to get him to spawn while inside a Chaos Infusion. Get out in the open and look for one if you want to maximize the gil you earn from Cactuars; fighting their Last One in a Chaos Infusion will get you triple gil on top of all the other bonuses. It's your call on whether it's worth the time to hike all over the place to find one.

Either way, once you've made the Cactuars extinct, just Teleport to Luxerion's North Station. At any nearby vendor, you can make some additional money by selling the various drops you obtained from farming. Cactuars drop Cactuar Dolls, ATB Charge skills, Counterspell skills, Scarletite Malistones, and Soul Smeltwater. Here's a breakdown of what to do with them:

• Don't sell Cactuar Dolls, as they can be redeemed on the Dead Dunes' Canvas of Prayers for stat increases. (Also, they only sell for 10 gil.)
  
• Go ahead and sell any ATB Charge skills you don't want to synthesize later. They typically go for 200-300 gil each. Yellow Counterspell sells for around 600.
  
• Scarletite Malistones sell for 1,250 each, but be sure to use them to upgrade abilities first if desired.
  
• Soul Smeltwater sells for 750 gil each. Even though they're good crafting mats, don't be afraid to sell them if you don't need to use any. Cactuar Ω alone has been known to cough up as many as 45. Because you can't carry more than 99 of them, don't ever start a Cactuar Farming run holding more than ~50.

And that's that! Return to the Ark by resting at an Inn until 6 AM, then use the hourglass crystal to start a new playthrough. On your next trip to the Dead Dunes, check the Canvas of Prayers at the station to see if you have enough items to fufill any requests. From Day 3, this board offers several quests to turn in Cactuar Dolls and lizard tails, so it may be worth your while to occasionally not begin a new playthrough right away.

The main phase of the farming loop will yield at least 550,500 gil:

• 450,000 from Cactuars
  
• 60,000 from Cactuar Ω (x3 gil if fought in a Chaos Infusion)
  
• 20,000 from the Desert Lighthouse treasure ball (assuming treasure has been obtained 3+ times already)
  
• 18,000 from the "Last One Standing" quest, plus a permanent +100 Max HP, +10 Strength, and +8 Magic.
  
• 2,500 gil from another nearby treasure ball (assuming treasure has been obtained 3+ times already)

There are only so many monsters remaining in the dwindling world of Lightning Returns. Once you hunt them all down, the "Last One" - a much more powerful version of those fallen enemies - can appear. And speaking of appearances, the hot fuschia tone covering their entire bodies and weapons are about as distinctive as it gets. Last Ones are, appropriately, marked with an omega sign (Ω) next to their names, and are generally referred to in this guide as such (e.g., "Goblin Ω").

Obviously, once you've defeated a Last One, that means that particular genus of enemy is completely extinct, and will no longer be encountered anywhere in the world for the remainder of the current playthrough. Here's where things get interesting, though: the Last Ones always exist in the game, even before you hunt own the rest of their kind. Most of them reside in a bonus dungeon called the Ultimate Lair. If you kill them there, you will still eradicate the entire species in the wild, even if you've never fought a single one before. Of course, this can work against you - especially if you kill Cactuar Ω before fighting any/all of the regular ones.

The Ultimate Lair, however blandly-named it may be, is important for a few reasons. First, its bottom floor contains one of the game's bonus bosses, Ereshkigal, a Last One who can't be found anywhere else. Second, the Meonekton has an absurdly high population of 65,535 (FYI: likely a programming bug, as that's the highest integer which can be represented by an unsigned 16-bit number), so the Ultimate Lair is the only feasible place you're going to find Meonekton Ω.

To access this dungeon, you're going to need to collect an enormous amount of Eradia - enough to make an extra, fourteenth day - by doing as many sidequests as you can (along with the five main ones, obviously). It is not known how many sidequests you have to do, and you aren't told whether you've earned the extra day until it happens at the end of Day 12, so do as many as you can. Higher-difficulty quests count more, as well; you've got to go for quality AND quantity.

At the start of this extra day, you can beam directly into the Lair and start fighting. However, you'll need to be quick once inside: unlike anywhere else in the game, time flows even during battles, and you cannot use Chronostasis to pause time. You can skip one to three floors if you score well enough in battles, but in doing so you risk skipping Last Ones. Consult the floor list, found later on in this guide, to make sure that doesn't happen.


At the foot of the Dead Dunes Lighthouse, there's a man named Zanford. He has a very daunting task for Lightning: defeat every single Last One in existence. This ★★★-difficulty quest is the only one that you can't complete on the first playthrough, as there are some Last Ones that can be found only in the game's final dungeon, which you can't leave. Killing every Last One means accessing and fully-clearing the Ultimate Lair, including Ereshkigal, and thoroughly clearing out the Luxerion Cathedral until all three of its Last Ones are dead.

It's a tough run, no doubt. But here's the awesome catch: Zanford only checks your Bestiary for the entries themselves. You don't actually have to kill every Last One each playthrough. As long as you've killed any of them once, you don't ever need to worry about doing so again. Thus, once your Bestiary is up to snuff, you can easily complete this quest again and again every playthrough for effortless and substantial stat increases. And what a coincidence: Zanford just so happens to be at the very spot at which we're farming Cactuars.

The first time you complete this quest, you'll get 12,000 gil, +160 HP, +18 Strength, and +16 Magic, along with Fang's powerful Bladed Lance (+680 Strength and Magic). Every completion of the quest in subsequent playthroughs (which, again, is as simple as talking to Zanford twice) will get you 18,000 gil, +100 HP, +10 Strength, and +8 Magic. This is an essential addition to our farming run, as it's a way to make Lightning a bit more powerful each go.


By far the most important part of completing Last One Standing is to finish as many sidequests as you possibly can (in addition to the five main ones, obviously), so as to have enough Eradia to open the Ultimate Lair. It's not necessary to complete them all, but every little bit helps. I will not provide a walkthrough of all side-quests here, as many of them boil down to finding items and/or hunting monsters, but I can give some good tips:

• The higher a sidequest's difficulty, the more it counts towards unlocking the extra Day. Again, it isn't known exactly how much is needed; just do as many quests as possible and you should be good. Try to do at least 50 overall.
  
• Don't screw up the "Free Will" quest in Yusnaan! The first part (talk to the Diviner one day after starting the quest) is very easy on paper, but in practice it's also the part most people fail, as they end up getting occupied with other things elsewhere in the world. Doing the Death Safari and Death Game quests will help you with the final part of this quest (killing Niblet Ω), as they both throw tons of Niblets at you.
  
• Requests fulfilled on the Canvas of Prayers do not count towards opening the Lair, but do check them when you can; often, you'll find you've completed many of them by accident, and every little stat boost helps.
  
• Pick up every single shiny thing you find anywhere in the world. If it isn't something that can be sold, odds are it's an item needed for some sort of quest.
  
• Keep track of time, as a lot of quests are time-sensitive. Not all are as strict as Free Will, but many of them require you to return one day later (often repeatedly), so start as early as possible.

While you're doing quests, be sure to keep fighting monsters. Every Last One you kill in the field is one you won't have to fight when you're pressed for time in the Ultimate Lair. Brush up on your skills and adjust your Schemata for maximum efficiency; your battle scores in the Lair will determine how many floors you can skip each time.


Three Last Ones exist only inside the Luxerion Cathedral. Once you make it there, I recommend rushing straight to Fang and then backtracking once she's with you, enlisting her help in battle until Arcangeli Ω shows his ugly pink mug. She can't help you with the others, though; remember that Sugriva Ω won't appear until after you've saved Vanille (as you have to fight two of them to get to her). Chimera Ω likely won't appear until long after you've collected the Ultima Weapon and Shield, so go ahead and clear the cathedral's four optional sections before trying to draw him out in one of the bigger rooms.

Below is a table of all Last Ones you'll need to complete the Last One Standing quest.


Special notes:

• No, Meonekton's population count is not a typo; there really are that many. Save yourself a year of grinding and just kill Meonekton Ω on the Ultimate Lair's 16th floor. You'll have to go to the Lair anyway (for Ereshkigal), but consider Meonekton Ω a mandatory fight there as well.
  
• There are a few enemies that cannot become extinct, such as certain mechanical enemies (Flanitor, Desdemona, and Gertrude), or Chaos-born enemies (Anubys, Set). If you're unsure, just check your Bestiary; these monsters don't have a "Distribution" section in their data.
  
• Three Last Ones drop weapons instead of accessories: Reaver Ω (Flesh Render), Skeleton Ω (Bonecracker), and Cyclops Ω (Destroyer). All of these are very nice additions to your arsenal, especially Flesh Render, and should be obtained as soon as you can. (And yes, they're all a bright fuchsia, just like their wielders.)
  
• Sugriva Ω, Neela Ω, and Wendigo Ω are all enemies encountered together in the Luxerion Cathedral on the Final Day. You won't be able to fight Sugriva Ω until after the cutscene in the Cathedral's Soulsong chamber.
  
• Although Aeronite, the game's other bonus boss, is considered a Last One, you do not need to defeat him to complete Last Man Standing.

For convenience, here's a list of enemies in the Ultimate Lair, sorted by floor:

1. Hoplite Ω
   
2. Niblet Ω
   
3. Zaltys Ω
   
4. Gaunt Ω
   
5. Gremlin Ω
   
6. Dreadnought Ω
   
7. Gorgonopsid Ω
   
8. Goblot Ω
   
9. Gurangatch Ω
   
10. Ectopudding Ω
    
11. Miniflan Ω
    
12. Aster Protoflorian Ω
    
13. Schrodinger Ω
    
14. Goblin Ω
    
15. Reaver Ω
    
16. Meonekton Ω
    
17. Cactuar Ω
    
18. Triffid Ω
    
19. Cyclops Ω
    
20. Skeleton Ω
    
21. Desert Sahagin Ω
    
22. Earth Eater Ω
    
23. Skata'ne Ω
    
24. Hanuman Ω
    
25. Zomok Ω
    
26. Dryad Ω
    
27. Rafflesia Ω
    
28. Chocobo Eater Ω
    
29. (none; has chest containing X-Potion)
    
30. (none; has chest containing Refresher)
    
31. (none; has chest containing Phoenix Down)
    
32. (none; has chest containing Ether)
    
33. Ereshkigal

Bored of the cactuar farming? Looking for a challenge that will test the limits of your abilities and make you a crazy amount of gil? Look no further. If you're up for it, there's a way to run through the game that will make you very, very rich.

As time passes in Nova Chrysalia, enemies will become stronger. However, the gil they drop will also increase:


And don't forget: fighting enemies in Chaos Infusions will make them even stronger, and yield even MORE gil (x3.0).

The object of this expert-level playthrough is to kill as many Last Ones in as many Chaos Infusions as possible, on the last possible day. This will pit you against some truly dangerous and formidable foes, but the reward will be just as monstrous.

[This walkthrough will be kept fairly light, as it's assumed by now that you know the game's general ins and outs. Parts of this walkthrough are, as of right now, untested and subject to heavy revision. The majority of it should still work, however, and it presents a fairly optimal run.]


As you might expect, this is the challenge's setup phase. Here, you'll do all the main story quests (and, of course, as many sidequests as you possibly can, to ensure you unlock the extra day). As a fun subversion of the usual farming, here you'll be killing everything except Cactuars - they give way too much gil later on for you to kill them now. Obviously, don't kill any Last Ones just yet, either.

On Day 9, unlock all the highway doors by completing the three "Roadworks" quests that appear on any of the Canvases of Prayers. The first one can be done simply by manually going up to the doors and activating them, but for the others you'll need to have found some items:

• Key to the Green Gate: in front of ruined building on Aryas Hill Ruin in the Wildlands.
  
• Key to the Sand Gate: found by Zanford at the base of the Dead Dunes Lighthouse.
  
• The Bandits' Bloodseal: found in the Dead Dunes' Holy Sanctuary.
  
• The Oath of the Merchants' Guild: in the Underground Route in Yusnaan.

Here, you can go ahead and start killing off any Last Ones listed as "small" size in the Bestiary. Cactuars are still an exception here - hold off on killing any of them. See Day 13's walkthrough for a list of everyone to leave alive until then.

I also recommend killing Chaos Aeronite before Day 13. Between 6:00 and 18:00, there should be a huge Infusion by the North Gate's teleport stone. Go ahead and fight him in there; it's a difficult enough battle as is, and you're going to need to use this Infusion again when it reappears on Day 13.


This is the big one. Are you ready?

You're going to want to do ALL of the following before noon. Use Chronostasis often (remember that you'll get at least 1 EP from every battle you win in Chaos Infusions), and make regular saves in multiple slots.

6 AM - noon:

• Teleport to Yusnaan and use Chronostasis.
  
• Yusnaan: Kill Schrodinger Ω in an Infusion in the industrial district. The warehouse is a good place to look.
  
• Yusnaan: There should be an Infusion near the Lower City area. Kill Skata'ne there and run to the highway. If Chronostasis isn't currently active, recast it - the many Infusions here will help keep your EP topped up.
  
• Highway to Dead Dunes: Kill Zaltys Ω, Gurangatch Ω, Cyclops Ω, and Earth Eater Ω while traveling to the Dunes. Both the Infusions and monsters will be very easy to find here, but watch out; these can be VERY tough fights. Save beforehand to avoid skipping an hour from lost fights.
  
• Dead Dunes: Kill Desert Sahagin Ω in an Infusion in the Giant's Sandbox. Again, neither the monster nor infusion should be hard to miss.
  
• Dead Dunes: Go to the base of the lighthouse and kill all 30 regular Cactuars here - leave the Last One alive for now.
  
• Dead Dunes: Kill Skeleton Ω in any Shrine of the Tablet. (Don't worry about getting him in an Infusion here; it may not be possible for this one.) Keep Chronostasis up at all times and get to the other highway ASAP.
  
• Highway to Wildlands: Once again, there are tons of Infusions here. Kill Astor Protoflorian Ω and Chocobo Eater Ω along the way. The latter can be a nasty fight; save beforehand.
  
• Wildlands: Kill Hanuman Ω and Triffid Ω in two chaos infusions in and around the Rocky Crag area.
  
• Wildlands: There should be a Chaos Infusion near the City of Ruins chaos infusion. Kill Reaver Ω there.

Before 4 PM:

• Wildlands: There should still be a Chaos Infusion in the Jagd Woods; kill Dryad Ω in it.
  
• Wildlands: Find a Chaos Infusion on the Eremite Plains and kill Ectopudding Ω there. Take the other highway.
  
• Highway to Luxerion: Kill Zomok Ω and Dreadnought Ω in the many Infusions here. Compared to the other highway fights, these aren't as bad, but don't let either one catch you off-guard.

6 PM - midnight:

• Luxerion: Find a Chaos Infusion in the Graveyard, and kill Gaunt Ω in it.
  
• Luxerion: Kill Gorgonopsid Ω in a chaos infusion somewhere in the city where monsters spawn. Warp to Ruffian.
  
• Dead Dunes: Kill Cactuar Ω in an Infusion in Atomos's Sands. Hopefully you have practice finding this one!

Midnight to 6 AM:

• Teleport to the Ultimate Lair. Time is of the essence now, as it's not going to stop here even during fights. Ideally, though, all that's left is Meonekton Ω (floor 16) and Ereshkigal (floor 33).

Remember to defeat Arcangeli Ω, Sugriva Ω, and Chimera Ω in the Luxerion Cathedral. After that, though, that's it! Bhunivelze+ doesn't drop any gil (though you might want to try to waste him anyway for Elementaga, or Double Deity if it's your lucky day). If the fight proves too tough, the Crystal of Atonement will appear right before the door to Cosmogenesis, allowing you to finish your run and begin anew. Either way: congratulations! You've faced the toughest foes the game has to offer and came out on top. Hopefully now you're rich enough to upgrade your favorite equipment. If not, start this run again and try to beat all your battle scores!

Lightning is returned here every day at 6 AM sharp to offer up the Eradia she collected. Time doesn't pass here. On New Game+, this place contains the Crystal of Atonement, which can start another playthrough on demand.

An encyclopedia of all the monsters Lightning has slain in her current (and past) adventures, displaying their HP, elemental affinities/weakness, and other helpful tips for bringing them down. It also gives you a rough idea of how many monsters of a certain type remain in the current playthrough, under "Distribution". If a monster is listed as Common, it means there are still at least a handful of them left in the world. If a monster is listed as Rare, that means there are very few (possibly even just one) left, and Extinct means you've killed them all, including the Last One.

A Cactuar with an afro, near the Dead Dunes lighthouse. Cactair has only 200 HP, but he also only takes a single hit point of damage from all attacks, making him a potentially very annoying enemy. Even worse, defeating him is necessary to complete both the game (as he drops the Fragment of Kindness for Sazh's quest), and the Last One Standing quest. When you're farming Cactuars after that, you can just bypass him on the way to the base of the Lighthouse.

The iconic, cactus-impersonating Final Fantasy enemy. Quite evasive, even when you're just trying to initiate a battle with them, but they're most vulnerable in the narrow confines near the base of the Lighthouse, where they also spawn highly frequently. By the time the events of Lightning Returns, there are 30 of them left in Nova Crysalia; after killing Cactuar Ω, they're extinct for the remainder of the playthrough. Each Cactuar drops 5,000 gil (15,000 in Hard Mode), and Cactuar Ω drops 20,000/60,000. They're accessible right after the prologue missions in Luxerion, making them prime targets for gil farming.

These huge, dark spheres of checker-patterned energy erupt naturally throughout the world. When you fight a monster in a Chaos Infusion, they're tougher than normal (+50% to all stats), they constantly regenerate health, and debuffs inflicted upon them don't last long. However, they also drop more items, and yield more gil and EP.

A device that appears in the Ark from day 2, provided Lightning has successfully cleared the game in a previous playthrough. This device can begin a New Game+ instantly, with all the benefits that brings (see "New Game+" for more info).

The sprawling desert area of the game; it used to be the Archylte Steppe (and its surrounding areas) from Final Fantasy XIII, as evidenced by the remains of the deceased fal'Cie Atomos and Titan. Cactuars spawn in this area, especially near the base of the central Lighthouse.

Lighting collects this from main quests and sidequests to extend the world's remaining time. Collecting enough opens the Ultimate Lair.

One of two bonus bosses in the game, and a Last One which Lightning needs to defeat in order to complete the Last One Standing quest. It has formidable attacks and a huge amount of HP, but is susceptible to Poison (especially after being staggered three times) and other debuffs. Save before fighting him, and bring your best items to the battle.

The currency of this and all other Final Fantasy games. Enemies in Hard Mode drop three times as much gil when defeated.

A difficulty level only accessible after succesfully beating the game and starting up a New Game+. Enemies have 350% health and 250% stats compared to Normal mode, and you only gain half as much EP for powering some of Lightning's most useful abilities. However, you also gain access to exclusive enemy drops, as well as triple the usual amount of gil. Several shops will also offer garbs that cannot be obtained on any other difficulty.

See [Nova Chrysalia].

An enemy designated with an omega (Ω) sign in their names and colored an extremely bright fuchsia. They're more powerful than the others, but yield better loot. Because they are the last of their kind, killing them makes them completely extinct in the dwindling world of Nova Chrysalia, and they won't appear again until the next playthrough. Having every Last One in the Bestiary will allow Lightning to complete the Last One Standing quest. The Ultimate Lair, opened through gathering a massive amount of Eradia, contains nothing but Last Ones.

A quest given by Zanford, a researcher found near the base of the Lighthouse in the Dead Dunes. He tasks Lightning with a quest to kill every Last One, recording their information in the bestiary for him to look at. Becuase some Last Ones can only be found in the game's final dungeon, far past a point where Lightning can return to the Dunes, this quest can only be completed in New Game+. However, once she's done it, the quest can be very easily started and finished each playthrough for +100 Max HP, +10 Strength, and +8 Magic each time.

The centerpiece of the Dead Dunes, this tall structure can be seen from virtually anywhere in the area. Although it cannot be entered or climbed, the base of the Lighthouse is a place where Cactuars spawn very frequently.

The area where Lightning begins each playthrough (not counting the tutorial area on the very first playthrough). Before she can do anything else, Lightning has to gather information about the recent murders in the city ("Whither Faith"), and can optionally also solve a very easy quest escorting a guard to his friend ("Where Are You, Holmes?").

See [Nova Chrysalia].

Another playthrough of the game, unlocked by either successfully beating the game or by running out of time. All of Lightning's stats, gil, items, equipment (minus Ultima Weapon/Shield), and Bestiary data carry over into this new playthrough. If NG+ was unlocked by beating the game, several additional bonus elements appear, including Hard Mode, the ability to upgrade equipment, and the Crystal of Atonement in the Ark.

The game's world/setting, split into four areas and connected by both abandoned highways and two active monorail circuits. The monorails can be used at any time, while the highways - teeming with powerful monsters and many Chaos Infusions - can only be opened on Day 9 or later. This guide mainly focuses on the Dead Dunes area.

A special cross, used for (among other things) dispelling the sandstorm blocking access to the Lighthouse. There are several, but the easiest one to find is on the ridge leading there in the southwestern region of the Dead Dunes.

A mysterious 33-floor dungeon where most of the Last Ones reside. It's opened after Day 12, if Lightning collected enough Eradia through quests to give the world a fourteenth day. Going all the way through it is necessary, as the boss of the dungeon is Ereshkigal, a Last One that cannot be found anywhere else. Time passes during battles here, and can't be paused with Chronostasis.

See [Last One Standing].