The members of your party can now develop their powers, learn new abilities, or improve attributes such as Strength, Magic, and HP. The Crystarium is your characters’ and monsters’ growth chart, with which you can buy various upgrade nodes.

When it comes to Noel and Serah, you can purchase nodes by expending CP, which are obtained by winning battles. CP cost is small at the start - only 100CP per node. But as you progress over the Crystarium, the cost for purchasing nodes increases every so often to a staggering amount of 3000+CP per node. Each node awards you a bonus to HP and/or STR and/or MAG. If your chosen role reaches an appropriate level upon purchasing a node, that role will also learn an ability.

Both Serah and Noel learn only a limited amount of skills per role. And certain abilities on Serah’s roles may not be on Noel’s roles at all. This makes them unique and will dramatically alter your Paradigms depending on what abilities they have unlocked.

Whenever you want to level up using the Crystarium, you need to choose a role you want to develop. Serah’s roles are COM level 2, RAV level 1, and SEN level 2. Choose to develop COM for 100CP - the next node will light up and you get a small bonus to HP and ATK, and COM is now lv3. The cost for the next node increases to 120CP, and the next node is bigger than the one we just purchased.

Choose to develop RAV by one level to level 2 - expend 120CP and receive a small bonus to HP, as well as learn a new ability for RAV. However, there’s an additional bonus of +2 to MAG because you leveled up a role on a bigger node.

Basically, depending on the role you level up when reaching bigger nodes, you receive a small bonus afterwards. There is a total of 197 bigger nodes in the entire Crystarium.

• COM gives you an additional +2 to ATK

• RAV gives you an additional +2 to MAG

• SEN gives you an additional +6 to HP

• SAB gives you an additional +2 to ATK (even levels) OR +2 to MAG (odd levels)

• SYN gives you additional +6 to HP (even levels) OR +2 to MAG (odd levels)

• MED gives you additional +6 to HP

Level MED/SEN on small nodes only. Also use small nodes to set up the following possibilities for the large nodes.

When to use a large node in order of precedence:

As Serah¶

• To level RAV

• To level SAB if current SAB level is even

• To level SYN if current SYN level is even

• To level COM (if none of the above are possible)

As Noel¶

• To level COM

• To level SAB if current SAB level is odd

• To level SYN if current SYN level is even

• To level RAV (if none of the above are possible)

Next, once you’ve completed a section of the Crystarium grid, it levels up and you’re offered up to six of the following bonuses (you can choose only one):

• Additional bar to ATB (up to twice)

• Special battle ability (after purchasing both ATB bars)

• +20 capacity to equipping accessories (up to twice)

• +10 capacity to equipping accessories (after purchasing both +20 capacities)

• Unlock MED role

• Unlock SAB role

• Unlock SYN role

• COM Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• COM Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

• RAV Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• RAV Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

• SEN Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• SEN Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

• SAB Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• SAB Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

• SYN Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• SYN Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

• MED Bonus Boost (making it more effective)

• MED Bonus Boost II (making it even more effective)

However, to level up monsters, you need to feed them various monster materials, obtained from battles and other means. Each time you use a required amount of items to purchase a node, monster’s HP, STR and MAG will increase. Also, each item bears a small additional boost to certain stat - that can be STR, MAG, HP or all three at once. Monster materials have grades, and the required grade of material increases as you level up monsters in the Crystarium.

Once you’re completed a section of the Crystarium grid for a monster, it levels up and you’re offered one of the following bonuses:

Additional bar to ATB (up to twice)

Monster’s role level up 1 (making it more effective)

Monster’s role level up 2 (making it even more effective)

Serah and Noel can reach lv99 in any of the six roles they have available. But monsters are a different story - not all of them can reach lv99, and they only have one role at any given time. For example, Pulsework Soldier’s role will always be SEN.

Abilities can only be used when in the corresponding role, but attribute bonuses like +4 to MAG apply across all roles.

You can find a more in depth and optimal Crystarium path in the relevant section of the guide.