Final Fantasy Resonance Chapter 1 Walkthrough: Kolobos Ruins, Dr. Lazarov and Siren's Tower

The second half of Chapter 1 is where Final Fantasy Resonance stops being a tutorial. The party picks up three more Visions, its first Esper and its first proper villain, and the game hands over Chocobos, Fast Travel and an Overworld big enough to get lost in. It also kills off a character you meet for about ten minutes.

Chapter 1 Part 2 Quest Overview

This half starts the moment the party leaves the Grandshelt Inn and runs until the ship pulls out of Grandport. The events leading up to it, including the Earth Shrine and the attack on the castle, are in Final Fantasy Resonance Walkthrough: Chapter 1 Part 1.

Six fights carry a boss banner here against two in the first half, and one of them cannot be won no matter what you do to it. The chapter list and the running order sit in the Final Fantasy Resonance Walkthrough: All Chapters hub.

This is also where the game stops holding your hand on routing. Two Sanctums of Light sit off the main path, a third Vision waits behind a desert detour, and none of them are marked as required. All three are worth the ride, and the walkthrough below picks them up in the order the Overworld makes convenient.

Leaving Grandshelt, the Dream of an Idealist Quest and Fina

Leave the Inn and head back to the Commercial District. The merchants in the center of the area sell both consumables and gear, and the gil from the castle fights goes further here than it did in Mitra.

A Longsword at 650 gil is the pick for Rain and a Dodanuki at 700 gil is the pick for Lasswell. Buy Bronze Chestplates for both if you skipped them earlier. Selling obsolete weapons and armor back recoups part of the cost, which matters because the next shop worth using is a continent crossing away.

Before leaving, check the nearby corner for a Tablet Shard. These turn up in almost every zone from here on, usually lying on the ground in a corner nobody walks through, and this part of the chapter alone holds six of them.

Leave the district through the west exit into the courtyard.

A short scene puts some locals in conversation with a soldier, Lasswell pushes to check on them, and the game runs its Quest tutorial on the back of it. Side Quests come from local NPCs as you unlock new areas, and they pay out in gear and materials rather than story progress, which makes them easy to skip and expensive to skip.

Approach the group near the statue and talk to them. The two locals thank Rain, Lasswell and the squadron for holding the line during the attack, and the conversation turns to the state of the kingdom's airship fleet, which took heavy losses across the board. Rain starts working through how to put it back together, and that becomes the objective of Dream of an Idealist, which lands in the quest tracker when the dialogue ends.

That quest does not resolve in Grandshelt. The next step waits in the Village of Kol, which the walkthrough reaches shortly.

Leave the city through the courtyard's south exit.

Lasswell raises the idea of borrowing Chocobos to make the desert crossing bearable, and then Fina comes running after the party in full adventuring gear. She cannot remember a home or anyone to go back to, but she is certain she has crossed paths with Umbra and the Sworn Six of Paladia before.

Fina joins the party here. She fights as a ranged physical damage dealer, which is a gap the party has carried since the Earth Shrine, and she brings healing abilities that back up Leah rather than replacing her. Rain offers her the option of going home to whoever is waiting for her, and the problem is that she cannot remember whether anyone is.

Fast Travel unlocks at the same time. It works from the Map in the Main Menu and takes you to any location you have already visited, which turns the Overworld from a commute into a menu option.

One restriction catches people out: it cannot be used to leave a dungeon. Once you are inside the Kolobos Ruins or Siren's Tower, the only way back to a shop is the entrance you walked in through. Stock consumables before either one.

The Village of Kol, Chocobos and the Warrior of Light Vision

Follow the main path west out of Grandshelt, veer north, then west again until you reach a bridge over open water. Halfway across, a small cliff isle holds 2 x Antidote Herb, and you will want them.

The desert on the far side runs on Crawlers and Scorpions, both of which inflict Poison often enough to be a problem. Keep Fina's Esuna available rather than burning herbs on every encounter.

Keep heading west to the Village of Kol. Fina has never seen a Chocobo before and reacts accordingly. Lasswell books the party into the local Inn for the night with the plan of riding out the next morning.

Talk to the locals while you are here. A Youth near the eastern buildings mentions a monster called the Master of the Desert, which roams the sands and catches anyone travelling on foot. A Chocobo is what keeps you out of its reach, so the detour through Kol is doing more than saving walking time.

Scott stands to the right of that same Youth with a blue quest icon over his head. He continues Dream of an Idealist, the quest picked up back in the Grandshelt courtyard, which makes this the cheapest side content in the chapter to progress.

Enter the building beside the Youth and open the coffer in the back-right corner for 3 x Antidote Herbs.

The Inn is on the northwest side of the village. Speak to the Innkeeper and the stay costs nothing, since business is slow enough that he waves the fee.

The scene that follows is the first quiet one the game has given you. Fina asks whether Rain and Lasswell are awake, both answer on cue, and she works her way around to asking how two people who are not family end up close. Then she asks whether she could be their friend. Rain agrees without pausing to think about it, and it is the first time since the courtyard that she looks settled.

Save at the Inn's Save Point the next morning, then find the Stablehand. Knights of Grandshelt ride for free.

A glowing landmark sits just north of Kol. That is a Sanctum of Light, and it is the first of many scattered across the world.

Head inside and approach the floating crystal a short distance in. The Will of Light speaks again and asks three questions before handing over the Sanctum's Vision.

There are no wrong answers here and no hidden check behind them, so pick whichever responses read best. Every Sanctum in the game runs the same way, which makes them quick stops once you know the pattern. The reward from this one is the Warrior of Light.

Each Vision carries a Role Type in the same way party members do, and the Warrior of Light is a Sentinel, the same Role as Rain. That makes Rain the default home for it and it is the pairing the game points at.

Moving it onto Rain leaves Leah without a carrier, so pass Leah across to Fina. Fina is a Medic, the same Role as Leah, and she has been fighting without a Vision since the moment she joined. Visions can be mixed and matched however you like, but matching Roles is the simplest way to get value out of them early.

That pairing holds up for the rest of this part. Lasswell keeps Tronn, Rain takes the Warrior of Light, Fina takes Leah.

The Road to Felicitas and Where to Find Emma

Ride south from the Sanctum until a short bridge crosses a canyon. Cross it, then detour straight east to the tip of the peninsula overlooking the water. The item on the ground there is the Floral Arc, a weapon for Fina that trades raw attack for a large increase in Sanctity.

The Floral Arc is a judgement call rather than a straight upgrade. Fina loses attack power by swapping off her default weapon, and Sanctity climbs in exchange, which pushes her further toward the support half of her kit.

Back on the main path, keep going south until you reach what looks like a pool of quicksand. That is an Antlion trap, and the Chocobo is the only reason it is a non-event. Cross it mounted.

Continue south to a stone bridge running east over open water, cross to the grassy isle, and head south until a group of Goblins corners a young girl. The fight is a standard Goblin encounter. The girl is Emma, and she was picking flowers for her mother, who is out with a survey team at some nearby ruins.

She asks the party to take her home first, so follow the Overworld west to Felicitas, the mining town built into the cliff face.

Her Aunt meets them at the entrance with the news the group was hoping not to hear. The survey team never came back. Emma refuses to accept it, insists her mother is alive, and runs off toward the Kolobos Ruins on her own before anyone can stop her.

Take a lap of the town before following her. Felicitas is a small mining settlement built into the cliff, with the Inn off to the left and a shop off to the right.

A scholar named Chloe hands out the Secrets Unearthed sub-quest, and its objective also sits inside the Kolobos Ruins, so picking it up now saves an entire return trip across the island. Another Tablet Shard lies on the ground in the corner just to the right of that shop.

Leave town and head south toward the coast. A crossroads sign points the way, and from there the route runs east along the shoreline.

Cutpurse enemies patrol this stretch, and their Steal ability takes gil straight out of your pocket rather than dealing damage. Kill them quickly instead of letting the fight run long. The ruins sit down in a cavern ringed by trees, and the cluster of trees to the east holds 1 x Ether if you want it before heading in.

All Kolobos Ruins Treasure and Both Wraith Soldier Fights

Emma is already running for the entrance when you arrive. The monsters behind her turn out to be Grandshelt soldiers brought back as soulless husks, which lands badly on Rain until Lasswell pulls him out of it.

3 x Wraith Soldiers open the dungeon at Level 5 and are weak to Light. They have no drops and nothing to steal, and they are not a serious threat at this point. Fina and the Warrior of Light carry the fight on their own, and it is over in a few turns.

What makes it land is who they used to be. These are the squadron soldiers from the Earth Shrine, and the game makes Rain say so. Save at the Save Point afterward and head down the stairs.

The ruins hold six pickups along the main route:

• 2 x Knife of Poison, down the narrow stairwell north of the first staircase, at the end of the path hugging the wall
• Tablet Shard, behind the machines on the floor below
• Prickly Straitjacket, on the ledge in the hidden area under that staircase
• Tablet Shard, behind the collapsed column after the bridge gives way
• 3 x Antidote Herb, on the elevated platform up the stairs south of the column
• 2 x Ether, just off the path to the right before the stairs down to the Save Point

Watch for Floateye monsters while you collect them. They carry far more HP than anything else wandering the ruins, they cast Confuse on party members, and a confused healer is how a routine encounter turns into a reload. They are weak to Light, so the party that handled the Wraith Soldiers handles them without changing anything.

The metal bridge heading east gives way as the party crosses it and drops everyone to a lower level, where 4 x Enhanced Wraith Soldiers are standing between the group and the ladder out.

They sit at Level 9, carry noticeably more HP than the first set, hit harder, and are still weak to Light. The strategy does not change, only the pacing. Work one stagger meter at a time with Fina and the Warrior of Light rather than spreading damage across all four, because four of them acting every round adds up fast.

Climb the ladder when they fall. The path north loops around to the collapsed column and the platform above it, then back down and north again to the last coffer before the stairs.

Take those stairs down to the Save Point on the left. Use a Tent, save, and head north into the room ahead. The cutscene that follows is the reason the dungeon exists.

How to Beat The Hunger and The Hunger v2

The room ahead holds a bank of glowing green tanks, which is where Dr. Lazarov introduces himself as the man behind the Wraith Soldiers. He also drops two pieces of information the party needs: the Sworn Six have already moved on to the continent of Dirnado to destroy the next Crystal, and Emma's mother was one of his earliest experiments, discarded in a nearby valley when she did not meet his standards. Emma hears all of it.

The Hunger is Level 9, weak to Ice, and drops a Potion. Lazarov describes it as something for the party to play with, which turns out to be accurate about his attitude and wrong about the fight.

Spend the first round setting up rather than attacking. Lasswell uses Hone Senses for the attack boost, Leah uses Libra to pull the monster's details, and Rain uses Provoke to pull its attention onto the character with the best defensive stats. It resists most status ailments, so Ice from Lasswell and Tronn is where the damage comes from.

Its kit is Fire, which Shell softens, and physical attacks such as Slam, which Protect softens. Running both buffs costs two turns and saves considerably more than that over the course of the fight.

Gravity shows up occasionally and hits far harder than anything else it has, so keep the party healthy going into every turn rather than healing reactively. Break the stagger meter and follow it with Resonance attacks, Tronn's above all.

Killing it does not end the fight. Lazarov revives it on the spot alongside two Enhanced Wraith Soldiers, entirely to buy himself an exit, and the battle restarts without a break.

The Hunger v2 keeps the same Level 9 banner and gets notably stronger. The important change is elemental: this phase is vulnerable to Light rather than Ice, which flips your damage dealers around. Fina's Holy Ray Limit Burst hits the whole group with Light and is the single best button in the fight if you can build to it.

Clear the two Enhanced Wraith Soldiers first with Light from Rain, Fina and Leah. Keep Protect and Shell running and keep Rain on Provoke, because Fire hits considerably harder in this phase. The boss also uses Call For Help to drag more Enhanced Wraith Soldiers onto the field, and leaving them alive is how this fight gets out of hand.

Lazarov is long gone by the time it falls.

How to Unlock Cloud Strife and Terra

Emma regroups with the party and the search continues to a broken bridge over a valley, where Lasswell picks up a crystal lying near the edge. It projects an image of Emma's mother, which confirms she is dead. The party gives Emma time alone and spends it pulling the surviving survey team members out of the ruins.

Felicitas welcomes everyone back, the rescued survey team included. Rest at the Inn, save, and speak to the Female Researcher on the bridge to the right of the Inn for 1 x Mist Potion.

Two Sanctums of Light are worth clearing before Grandport, and both sit well off the route the quest marker points at.

By this stage the party has the levels to survive the trip, which was not true when you first crossed the desert. Ride rather than walk, and keep Antidote Herbs topped up for the Crawlers and Scorpions still patrolling the sand.

The first sits on the far northwest side of the desert, just past the Cavern of Swords. Step into the cavern on the way for a Tablet Shard.

Answer the Will of Light's three questions and Cloud Strife joins the roster. Pick him up now rather than circling back later, because the story area the party reaches shortly after Grandport leans on exactly what he brings, and arriving there without him makes a long fight considerably longer.

For the second, fast travel back to Felicitas, mount up and ride the main path south to the southernmost point of the island, out on the tip of a raised peninsula.

Three more questions, this time drawn from Terra's past, and Terra is yours. That gives the party five Visions between four characters, which is the first point in the game where you have a real choice about who carries what.

Grandport: Every Shop Upgrade and the Captain's Problem

Head north from Felicitas and back across the long stone bridge. Once you are in the desert again, run northwest to the short bridge over the river, then straight west into Grandport.

Fina spends the arrival cutscene taking in the architecture and wondering aloud whether she has ever seen anywhere like it, which is the running theme with her. Lasswell suggests finding someone willing to lend the party a ship.

The port city is the best shopping stop in the chapter, so clear it properly before chasing the objective. The Inn sits behind the flyer board near where you arrive, and the board itself is worth a look.Running north and then west finds a Soldier with an exclamation mark who mentions an ogre holed up in a desert cave to the northeast, which is not something to act on yet.

Further west, an outcrop tucked behind a building hides a coffer with 2 x Smoke Bombs. Circle back down the other side of town to a second Soldier carrying a sub-quest marker, who hands over The Weight of Mercy. That one sends you back to Felicitas, so take it before sailing or leave it behind entirely.

At the merchants, two Knight's Jackets or two Surcoats cover Rain and Lasswell with a boost to both attack and defense, and a Spirit Veil lifts every one of Fina's stats. The weapons merchant has upgrades for all three, though the budget rarely stretches to everything at once.

From the shops, go south down the steps and take the narrow catwalk along the left side of the central canal. The coffer at the end holds 2 x Lightning Scroll I, which will matter inside the next dungeon.

Head west to the port and speak to the Captain standing by his ship. He is not sailing anywhere. The waters between here and Dirnado are too rough to cross, and the reason they are usually calm is a woman named Siren, who sings to settle them. She has not sung in some time and nobody in the port knows why.

Rain has no appetite for waiting, so the detour becomes the main quest. Siren's tower stands north of town on the edge of a cliff. Leave Grandport and follow the main path north to reach it.

How to Beat Gilgamesh and Clear Siren's Tower

Rain tries to force the tower doors and gets nowhere. Fina says she can hear Siren's voice, asks to be let in, and the doors open on their own.

Save at the Save Point on the left and follow the main path inside. The coffer at the top of the stairs near the central pool holds 1 x Ether. Random encounters start immediately and run on Aqua Elementals, Sahagins and Sharks, all of which fold to Thunder. The Lightning Scrolls from the Grandport canal are worth spending here.

Take the spiral staircase up, follow the path right, and open the coffer by the next staircase for 2 x Ether.

Before climbing any further, walk out toward the outer edge of the tower. A semi-hidden path runs right from there and then down a staircase into a section of the lower floor that was unreachable on the way in. The coffer at the end holds 1 x Monk's Prayer Beads, an accessory that protects the wearer from Charm.

That accessory is the single most useful item in the dungeon, and the fight at the top of the tower is built around the status it blocks. Do not leave the tower without it.

Up the next stairwell, grab the Tablet Shard near the right edge before the fork, then head north. The coffer straight ahead holds the Genji Gloves, and a voice declares them forfeit before you can do anything with them.

Gilgamesh is a scripted encounter with no elemental weaknesses and no vulnerabilities, so Libra tells you nothing useful. Hit him until the script moves. He spends his own turns casting Libra on your party and learning that Lasswell likes cute animals. Below half health he announces a move he has been practicing, which turns out to be Steal, and he takes the Genji Gloves and flees with them.

He takes the fall out of the tower with no dignity whatsoever, and Rain points out that fighters like him tend to be stronger than they look, which reads as a promise rather than an observation.

Run up the stairs and out to the outer rim, then left to the end for 1 x Magicite Shard. Backtrack toward the green portal on the next level, but before using it, take the lift on the right down to the hidden level Gilgamesh exited through. The coffer there holds the Sakura Fubuki, a weapon for Lasswell.

Ride the lift back up, save and Tent at the Save Point beside the portal, then take it to the top.

How to Beat Siren and Unlock Your First Esper

Siren has taken the form of a statue at the top of the tower. Fina steps forward and speaks to it directly, asking for help, and Siren answers the whole group rather than just her.

Her position is that the threat hanging over the world is beyond this party and that they should turn around now. Rain and the others refuse on the spot, and she agrees to find out which of them is right.

Equip the Monk's Prayer Beads before the fight starts.

Siren is Level 11 with 20,000 HP, weak to Thunder, resistant to Water, and drops a Magicite Shard. She shrugs off close to every status ailment, so bring Thunder and nothing clever: Warrior of Light, Tronn and Cloud all carry it.

Start on her stagger meter immediately and have Fina keep Shell on the party. Water and Flash Flood hit one character hard, and El Nino washes the whole group for serious damage. Later in the fight she adds an attack that inflicts Charm, which works like Confuse and turns a party member on their own side. The Prayer Beads negate it on the wearer, and Esuna clears it on everyone else.

Drain the stagger, then dump your biggest Thunder attacks and Resonances into her, Cloud's first. Repeat the cycle until she falls. Twenty thousand HP takes a while at this level, so the fight is less about a trick and more about keeping Shell up and never running dry on MP.

Siren then reveals that she is an Esper, one of many in the world, and that Fina has the ability to summon them. She joins as your first summon. Espers go on the Summon option in the battle menu and only one can be active at a time. They are worth holding for encounters that are going badly rather than spending on random monsters, because a single Esper turn can swing a fight that is already slipping.

Fina then wonders aloud how best to use what she can do, and a dialogue choice follows. All three answers give her a permanent buff, so the only question is which stat you want on her:

• "Right, we'll need to rely on your strength now more than ever, Fina." gives +10 MP
• "Yeah, but not everything in fighting is about being on the offense. I'll leave the defense to you, Fina." gives +3 Stamina
• "Don't sell yourself short. We're a team - you're already doing an amazing job, Fina." gives +3 Spirit

Head back down the tower and fast travel to Grandport, where a moogle ambushes the party. The Moogle of Light was sent by the Will of Light to strengthen your Visions, and he does it with Magicite. Feeding him Magicite unlocks new tiers of Vision abilities, and the better the Magicite, the higher the tier. It comes in three sizes, from Magicite Shards up through Magicites to Magicite Crystals, and drops from quests, coffers, and unique enemies. He parks himself as a vendor from here on.

Magicite is worth collecting from the moment he shows up, because Vision tiers are the main way the party keeps pace with the next continent.

Before boarding, pick up Rear Support, Ahoy! from Zile at the docks and grab the Tablet Shard by the barrels on the right side of the southernmost dock. Approach the Captain on the dock furthest south when you are ready to leave.

The King and Charlotte turn up to see the party off and hand the mission over to Rain outright. Emma then chases the ship down the pier shouting that she wants to become a knight of Grandshelt and protect the people she loves, which lands harder than it should given what happened to her mother. Chapter 1 ends as the ship sails.

Dirnado, Lid's airship and the Wind Shrine are covered in Final Fantasy Resonance Walkthrough: Chapter 2.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Part 2

Skipping the Monk's Prayer Beads. That coffer sits off the main route behind a semi-hidden path on the tower's outer edge, and it is the difference between managing Siren's Charm attack and watching Rain hit Fina with it.

Fighting The Hunger v2 with Ice. The first phase is weak to Ice and the second is vulnerable to Light instead. Players who set up for phase one and never re-read the fight spend the whole second half doing reduced damage.

Leaving Call For Help minions alive. The Hunger v2 keeps summoning Enhanced Wraith Soldiers. Each one left standing is another source of damage during a phase that already hits harder than the first.

Riding into the Antlion trap on foot. The quicksand south of the canyon bridge is an encounter, not scenery, and the Chocobo is what makes it a non-issue.

Expecting Fast Travel to pull you out of a dungeon. It only moves you between locations you have already visited, and dungeons are excluded. Carry enough Ethers into Kolobos Ruins and Siren's Tower to finish them.

Spending everything in the Commercial District. Grandport sells Knight's Jackets, Surcoats and the Spirit Veil, all of which outclass what Grandshelt has on the shelf.