The first hour of FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE rewards a short, fixed sequence: choose a difficulty, open the chapter 1 chests, keep two Visions equipped, rent the chocobo and learn the stagger loop on the two easiest bosses. Work through these ten steps in order and the rest of the game opens up ahead of you instead of behind you.

The FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE things to do first, in order

  1. Choose a difficulty. Normal is the balance the game was built around. If a single boss turns into a wall later, you can drop to Casual from Options at any time and lose nothing, so do not burn a fight on it.
  2. Open every chest in chapter 1. The Grandshelt Castle, Earth Shrine, Mitra and Felicitas chests hand out Flame, Ice and Lightning Scrolls. The game is telling you which boss comes next and what it fears — read the scroll before the fight, not after.
  3. Equip Leah and Tronn in the Town of Mitra and keep them on your two heroes. Mastery Points only come from fighting with a Vision equipped, so a Vision on the bench earns nothing.
  4. Rent the chocobo at the Village of Kol. It speeds up every later trip across the islands, and it is the condition for the Kweh! trophy.
  5. Learn the stagger loop on the first bosses. Belmodar, level 4, weak to Fire and Dark, and Hell's Rider, level 6, are the two cheapest lessons in the game.
  6. Clear the four chapter 1 Sanctums. The Sanctums of Clive, Terra, Warrior of Light and Cloud each hold three questions with no wrong answer, and every answer hands over the Vision.
  7. Check a boss's weakness before you fight it, using the scrolls from step 2 or Libra if you have it equipped.
  8. Listen to the townspeople. A rumour about an esper marks that esper's dwelling on the world map. The first one you can pick up is Ramuh on Dirnado, from chapter 2.
  9. Save on the field map before you leave a town. You can save at any time out there, and the Options tab has an Autosave switch.
  10. Check the quest board before you travel. NPCs with the quest symbol hand out side quests, and Track Quest keeps the next objective on screen with a marker on the map.

Every step above happens inside the first chapter, and the exact objectives that drive them are on the chapter 1 walkthrough page.

Get the free Visions early

The four chapter 1 Sanctums are the cheapest Vision income in the game: three questions each, no wrong answers, and no combat. Sixteen Sanctums exist across the whole story, one per mainline Final Fantasy, and each one gives a Vision plus the Mastery Points to start ranking it up. The full list of the 26 Visions and every place they come from is on the visions list page.

What you can postpone

Three things are not worth chasing early: the Colosseum does not open until chapter 4, the Legendary Arms trials want level 50 and level 75, and the endgame bosses run from level 45 to 99 and are built for a cleared save. Side quests, espers and Tablet Shards never expire, so they can wait until the story slows down.