Crescent Island is conveniently named because it literally looks like a crescent. Follow the ship down and to the right along a few islands, until you finally find one that looks like a crescent moon. This is where you want to land.
Crescent stuff[]
Town[]
Crescent
Welcome to Crescent. Now first of all, head into the town. You'll learn of an earthquake soon as you arrive. And that ship you just got? You know, literally a page ago? Yeah. Already. Anyways, head out the town to watch it sink, and head to the inn. None of the weapons interest you just yet, and you should have all the magic that can be sold here. There is no pub. Now, head out.
Fight at least 10 battles or so. Main reason is to fill up your bestiary, but ABP doesn't hurt. Getting to level 5 on Mystic Knight would be sweet, but not necessary. You could leave 5 or 10 ABP before Mystic Knight's level 5 or so. Once you're done, use Inn, then head to the Black Chocobo Forest.
Black Chocobo Forest[]
Well that was a short section. And here's a shorter one. Remember the ship you lost? We're getting something better. Run around, until you find a Chocobo, and interact with it. It won't fly. This is because it has swallowed crystal shards from Karnak. Uh, okay? Oh well. NEW JOBS AW YEAH
Karnak Shards pt. 2[]
Neither of these jobs are too amazing. But both are incredibly useful. Okay, so one only situationally incredibly useful, the other makes up the last of the Trinity of Badass.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Abilities | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Command/ability | Innate skills | |||
| Aim | None | |||
| Characteristics | ||||
| Level | Ability | Description | ABP | |
| 1 | Animals | Randomly brings an enemy to help the party | 15 ABP | |
| 2 | Aim | Buffed ordinary attack with more precision and power | 45 ABP | |
| 3 | Equip Bows | Allows user to wield bows in battle | 135 ABP | |
| 4 | Rapid Fire | Fires 4 attacks to random enemies (per weapon) | 405 ABP | |
Other than being part of the awesome Trinity of Badass endgame combo that will make the game a lot easier, the Ranger offers plenty of utility in that it allows a character to do full damage from the back row. So in the back row, they take less damage still, but deal as much damage as they would in the front row. That's awesome, until you learn that it costs 195 ABP just to get to that point. If you have ABP to spare and want to make a White Mage actually be useful, then sure, because everyone will master this class later on.
The Aim ability has no drawbacks in its use. When using a Ranger, just spam Aim instead of the ordinary attack. Animals is an ok ability, but it's random and probably not too useful. It's not worth spending too much time worrying about Animals, that is the Ranger's worst ability. The best ability, indisputably, is Rapid Fire. Yes, the ABP for Rapid Fire is worth it. It deals four attacks to enemies (at random) and, like Aim, comes with few drawbacks. On its own, that is "eh cool w/e" at best. But with Ninja, that is amazing. Master Ninja to get Dual-Wield, and Ranger to get Rapid Fire. Now, not only do you have 4 attacks to all enemies, you now have 8 attacks to all enemies. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah.
Ranger gets a lot of hate. I personally see it as really useful. Dealing full damage from the back row is nothing to scoff at by any means. However, the bows drop off late, which kinda sucks, and it takes tons of ABP to master. I don't have too much of an opinion on the Ranger class. I think they're neat, and useful, just nothing amazing. No negative feelings, no strong feelings. For me, it's one of the more utility-esque physical damage jobs.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Abilities | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Command/ability | Innate skills | |||
| Sing | None | |||
| Characteristics | ||||
| Level | Ability | Description | ABP | |
| 1 | Hide | Avoid enemy attacks | 25 ABP | |
| 2 | Equip Harps | Allows user to wield harps in battle | 50 ABP | |
| 3 | Sing | Sings one of the bard songs | 135 ABP | |
This sounds boring, looks boring, and honestly, is pretty boring. But it doesn't require too much commitment, luckily. Basically a Bard sings a song that will buff the party, or damage certain enemies. Songs aren't too reliable, and they sound nice on paper, but taking up an ability slot for them just isn't worth it. Generally you'll see a lot of advice suggesting you ignore this job, and I agree.
The songs in particular are basically status buffs to your whole party. But they don't offer too much worth a command slot or a job master. They basically don't do a whole lot that's worth time. With one exception. There is one song that we learn that hits the Undead, and that makes a dungeon go from decently hard to stupidly easy. In fact, during that dungeon, we can master Bard on everyone to get this job out the way for the achievement.
I find Bards to be boring, to be honest. Nothing about the Bard class is interesting or fun. There's the whole, "You spoony bard!" joke that came from FFIV, but meh. I don't enjoy using this job or the idea of it. Again, that doesn't mean you can't, so feel free to use this job if it's interesting. It is only 210 ABP, which ain't too bad considering.
Sidequestin'[]
Istory[]
Istory...actually you don't even need to do much here
Sweet. We can fly! Now, go up and left, northwest until you're near the edge of a continent with a town. This town is Istory. As far as defense goes, the chances are you can't afford the three resistance rings. They're useful as hell, but you don't need them too badly yet. Get any new spells you don't have. Anyways, got to the pen full of sheep. The one at the top left, which is stationanry, go behind it and interract, and it will ick you to a place with a bard. Talk to him for a free song, then go around and outside.
Head to the forest nearby. Now, here we're going to do fighting. I know what you're thinking, "where have I heard that before?" This time you're not doing needless grinding for the sake of it, don't worry.
 |
HP | MP | Deadly attacks | Steal | Morph | Drops | Weakness | Resistance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,000 | 300 | Thundara | Hi Potion | None | Ramuh (summon) | None | Lightning (absorbs) | Easy | |
|
Ramuh is a normal encounter, but not a normal enemy. Keep fighting until you encounter him. This boss is incredibly easy and you should have no trouble with it. It can be defeated with your main party, mostly by just spamming high level magic, summons, spellblades and hitting it. It's not a challenging boss at all, there's not much strategy involved. Watch it for Thundara, its biggest damage dealer. If you're low level; bring a Time Mage, or a Time Magic-knowing character. Ramuh is incredibly slow, and Haste and Slow can capitalise on that. That will make it easier if it's giving you a hard time. When you beat Ramuh, you now have a new Summon, the lightning summon Ramuh. It's an item you have to use to get the summon, though. |
|||||||||
| MP cost | Type | Learned by | Effect | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Summon (level 2) | Defeating Ramuh in a forest outside Istory/castle section in the Interdimensional Rift | Judgement Bolt - deals Lightning damage to all enemies | |||||
|
Judgement Bolt? Judgement Bolt?! WRAAHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO FEEEEAR MY LIGHT OF JUDG-oh, it's Ramuh, not Kefka. BOO. Ahem. Ramuh, like the other level 2 summons, is an elemental summon that is great in the first few levels, but will ultimately be replaced by Thundaga. He exists to complete the elemental summon trio. Ramuh is found in a normal random encounter either in a forest near Istory, or (apparently?) fought in the castle section of the Interdimensional Rift. He's a really easy boss and isn't too much trouble to deal with, you shouldn't have much of a problem. You're not really going out of your way to get this ok summon. |
||||||||
Jachol[]
Jachol
The town of Jachol, folks. Head to the southern part of the continent to get here. Unfortunately, the Black Chocobo can only land a distance away from it. Oh well. On your way around to the town, which should be to the left, enter the cave.
Head down and left, hit the skull switch. Now head further down until you get a row of switches. Whichever does not disappear, hit that one. Now head up and to the right. A chest that appears empty actually has a switch in it, which you should flip, and head through the door on the right. Through here, three treasures, Shuriken and Blitz Whip particularly are sweet. Head left for the first two, and right and up to get the Blitz Whip. Don't bother heading up. It leads to nowhere...at the moment it does, anyway. Oh, and if you encounter Skull Eaters, and have no Ninja to toss something useless, just run for now.
And now, we can go to Jachol! Pub and play Piano, Inn, etc. Two Coral Swords, a Trident (you're about to get a class that uses it), and you're done for Weapons. Get two Ninja Suits, equip on Red Mage and Monk, sell useless stuff. Now get any Magic you don't have and walk around back to your Chocobo. One more town before story continues.
Lix[]
rightLix on the World Map. I thought I'd show this instead of the town itself, so you know where to go. Aren't I nice?
And now, go to the town of Lix. It's a town surrounded by mountains and forest, up near the top of the world map. The theme here may be semifamiliar, it's Bartz' theme. It's pretty sweet.
If you don't have Esuna, get it from the Magic shop. You can head to Bartz' old house, interact with the pink music box, and watch a scene, then talk to the bard in your house to learn the Alluring Air song. In fact, interacting with seeral of the townsfolk plays scenes. As for the shops, tons of Ninja weapons which won't come in handy straight away, but will be very useful later, are nice pickups. Two of the blades and three/five of the scrolls works nice. There is no new armor.
Alright, now you're done, let's continue with the story!