Final Fantasy XV tips for faster travel, easy leveling, and making money

You can’t begin a road trip without proper preparation.

Final Fantasy XV, which comes out on November 29 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, is a big game. You have a huge open world to explore filled with treasures and danger. A few simple tips, however, can give you an advantage.

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I got to spend more than 30 hours with the action role-playing game. So, I’m going to share with you the lessons and tricks I learned on my epic quest to restore the light (and all that stuff).

Keep running by jumping

First off, go into the options menu and turn on the stamina bar. This is the only way you can see how far you can sprint before your character runs out of breath and slows down.

Now that you can actually see your stamina, you can manipulate it. Like I said, you’ll start slowing down considerably once it runs out. Normally, you just stop for a few seconds and wait for it to fill up a bit. But, it also refills while you jump, and you actually keep most of your sprinting momentum when hopping.

So, if you want travel efficiently without having to rent a Chocobo (which you can’t even do for some time anyway), run until your stamina is almost depleted, then jump for a while until it refills. Sure, you’ll look silly, but it works.

Don’t hoard items

It’s not easy making money in Final Fantasy XV. Unlike most RPGs, you don’t earn gil (the game’s currency) automatically after most battles. You will, however, find a lot items that get stored in your inventory’s “treasures” category. Sell these. I know, it’s easy to hoard these items. We’re all afraid that we’re going to need them for something later. But outside of upgrading an occasional weapon (which wasn’t all that useful since you can just buy stronger gear), I never found a need for these items.

Selling them, though, can earn you a lot of gil. And if you’re really scared to purge, just keep at least one of each item with you. Sell all the extras. Don’t sell your curatives, though! You’ll need those for tough fights, and you can use them when crafting spells to make them stronger.

Rest at hotels when you have a lot of experience points

You earn experience points after fights and by doing missions, but these points don’t actually tally until you rest for the night. Now, you could just sleep in a tent. While this does give you access to stat bonuses via camp meals, you’ll just earn a normal amount of experience. On the other hand, some places give you a bonus multiplier to your experience points. An RV will give you a small boost of x1.2 while a motel gives you x1.5. These are relatively affordable, so take advantage of them when you can, even if it means spending a little extra time to travel to them.

One hotel, however, gives out a whopping x2 multiplier. This is in a beach-side port you’ll discover pretty early in your adventure. But, it costs a whopping 10,000 gil to stay the night there. You can’t afford to sleep there all the time. If you have a lot of gil, do as many missions as you can, hoard some experience points, and then watch the levels flow when you spend a night at the hotel.

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Get Ignis’s healing abilities

Outside of normal leveling, you also earn AP (ability points) to unlock bonuses, inventory slots, and new moves for your friends. You’ll want to prioritize Ignis’s branch of abilities first. He can help heal you and your party, especially with his Regroup move, which restores everyone’s health during a battle. Invest in them as soon as you can to save you the trouble of having to constantly keep everyone healthy with items.

Don’t worry about missing side-quests

At a certain point later in the game, you’ll leave the main open-world map to do more linear missions until you reach the end. But don’t worry about missing out on any side missions you haven’t done yet. You can still teleport back to the open world during this section. Even beating the game doesn’t end your adventure since you can create a save that puts you back in the open world after fighting the final boss.

Teleport often during fights

Succeeding in battles is more about knowing when to run than when to fight. You can take a lot damage quickly from just a few attacks. Your teleporting abilities can keep you safe, though. You can instantly transport to high-up points around the world during fights. Going up there restores MP (magic points) and health. You need MP to teleport, but this is a nonissue since points regenerate when you’re up there anyway. And if you don’t have a high area to teleport to, look for some rocks or something to hide behind. You also regenerate your MP and health when taking cover.

While you’re doing this, your friends will keep enemies distracted while you’re safe. Take advantage of this and teleport often.