Final Fantasy Type 0 HD: Beginner’s Guide to Combat, Phantoma, Characters, and More

Check this guide out to get you started in Final Fantasy Type 0 HD!

Final Fantasy Type 0 HD has a great battle system and overwhelms you with information at the beginning of the game. There are 14 playable characters, each with their own personality and weapon. There are also several systems in the game, like leveling magic in the Altocrystarium, or breeding Chocobos in the Chocobo Ranch.

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I’ll help ease you into this game by explaining the basics of everything you need to know. I’ll also provide links to more in-depth guides on some of the information explained here.

This guide will cover the basics of Final Fantasy Type 0 HD including:

  • Combat Basics – How combat works, terms, and other things you need to know.
  • Characters – All 14 playable characters and what they do.
  • Equipment and Abilities – How to select equipment and upgrade abilities.
  • Altocrystarium –  How to upgrade magic.
  • Chocobo Ranch – How to breed chocobos.
  • Places of Interest – Other important places to visit.

Combat Basics

The combat system in Final Fantasy Type 0 HD is real-time and not turn-based. This means that you don’t have to wait your turn to fight like in most traditional Final Fantasy games.

You can choose 3 people out of the 14 possible characters to fight.

  • Every character has a main attack with their weapon of choice, 2 commands, and 1 defense command.

Commands use MP, so be sure to conserve it for tough fights.

  • You can lock on to enemies to make hitting them with commands or attacks easier.
    • Helpful Tip: You can change the lock on to be toggled instead of held down.

After killing an enemy, you can harvest materials called Phantoma from them.

  • Phantoma is used to upgrade magic abilities. More on that in the Altocrystarium section.

Characters

Each character uses a particular weapon and has their own abilities. Every character can use magic, though some use it better than others.

  • Ace – Uses Playing Cards.
    • Pretty balanced.
  • Deuce – Uses a Flute.
    • Great support.
  • Trey – Uses a Bow.
    • Great long-range damage.
  • Cater – Uses a Magicite Pistol.
    • Good magic damage.
  • Cinque – Uses a Mace.
    • Strong physical attack, but slow.
  • Sice – Uses a Scythe.
    • Great area damage.
  • Seven – Uses a Whipblade.
    • Great for charging or pulling enemies.
  • Eight – Uses Knuckles.
    • Fastest attacker and shortest range.
  • Nine – Uses a Lance. Similar to Dragoon in classic Final Fantasy games.
    • Good for tanking.
  • Jack – Uses a Katana.
    • High physical attack, good for countering.
  • Queen – Uses a Longsword.
    • Great balanced/support character.
  • King – Uses dual pistols.
    • Great movement, short-range damage, and uses ammo to attack.
  • Machina – Uses Dual Rapiers
    • Very strong command called Cyclone Drive.
  • Rem – Uses Dual Daggers.
    • Great Attack, great magic, good support.

Equipment and Abilities

You can change equipment and abilities by going to the red crystals.

  • Choose Armament to change your equipment and abilities.
  • Choose Promotion to enhance abilities.

You can equip 2 accessories and a weapon.

  • The accessories can do things like increase hp, mp, attack, and more.
  • Weapon increase in damage.

As you level you get AP, which is used to upgrade abilities and unlock new ones.

Eidolons

Eidolons are summons. When you summon an Eidolon, it kills the character you are using at the time.

  • Eidolons are very strong and used for a limited time.
  • You can also level and unlock abilities for Eidolons.

Altocrystarium

You unlock the Altocrystarium during chapter 2. This allows you to upgrade magic.

  • You use Phantoma to upgrade magic.
  • The color of phantoma determines which magic you can upgrade.
    • For example: Red Phantoma is used to upgrade Fire magic.
  • You can upgrade the power, MP cost, cast time, range, and speed of attack magic.
  • Healing magic has upgrades for recovery, MP cost, and cast time.
  • Wall magic has upgrades for MP cost and resilience.
  • Use magic of the type you want to upgrade when defeating enemies.
    • For example: Use Fire magic to get more Phantoma for upgrading fire.
  • There are also different types of attack magic that change how they launch.
    • RF shoots straight, while SHG does a short-range spread.

Chocobo Ranch

You can begin breeding Chocobos in Chapter 2.

Chocobos are giant birds that you can ride in the world map, like ground mounts.

  • You get 10 normal male and female chocobos when you first go and can breed them.
  • You choose the type of chocobo for each gender and which greens to feed them.
    • You don’t have to select any greens if you don’t want to.
  • Different combinations of chocobo types and greens will result in different breeds.

Check my How to Breed and Capture Chocobos guide for more info.

Places of Interest

Central Command
  • The SPP Vendor is located here.
  • You get SPP by allowing support units to help you on missions.
  • Use the SPP on items at the vendor.
    • You unlock more items by completing certain tasks. 
    • One task could be kill 30 enemies with a certain character and you’ll unlock a new weapon to buy at the vendor.
Armory
  • Vendor for buying weapons and accessories with Gil.
  • Unlock more as you go through the game.
Crystarium
  • Encyclopedia of the game.
  • Good if you want to learn more about characters or history.
Sorcery
  • Place for turning on and off Special Orders.
  • Special Orders are challenges that come in during missions that you can choose to accept or decline.
  • Completing them gives limited time buffs, failing will kill the character you were using at the time.
Arena
  • You can do practice matches for one character at a time.
    • You still get experience and phantoma from these missions.
  • You can also do secret training that lets you level one character while you are away from the game.
    • You can still do missions from the title screen while secret training is in progress.

One more tip that will help you a lot.

  • Save every chance you get.
  • If you lose, you go back to your last saved file.

That’s everything I have for the basics in Final Fantasy Type 0 HD. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions about anything here or something I may have skipped over.

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Author
Synzer
After gaming for 25 years, Synzer leveraged his vast knowledge of RPGs and MMOs into a job as a games journalist, covering the games he loves. Five years later, he's still writing about Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, and Knights of the Old Republic. Synzer has a bachelor's degree in English and creative writing. You can see him in action on his YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/2F97BrR) and Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/synzergaming).