Enemy Encounters

At this point, a tutorial on Paradigms will appear and you should pay close attention to it. Learning how to build Chain Gauges and create Staggers is essential for winning battles and timing your Paradigm Shifts just right can be the difference between life and death. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the system during this battle.

Now that you’re all l’Cie, you gain access to magic and a lot of new abilities, allowing for more strategies during battle. After admiring the scenery, continue down the path and your team will stop to reminisce on the vision they had the moment they turned into l’Cie.

The party will change to Lightning, Snow and Vanille while an explanation on the Crystarium will show on-screen. For now, your route through the Crystarium is fairly linear but an optimum guide can be found in the Crystarium Analysis section towards the back of the guide, should you wish to gain detailed knowledge. Customize your Paradigms if you wish but the two default ones should suffice for the moment.

Save your game if you need to then clear out the enemies on the left path. At the end is a Treasure Sphere with a Pearlwing Staff for Vanille inside. It has a higher magic stat and, since Vanille will be used primarily as a magic user, you should equip her with it.

Command Execution Tutorial: More Info

At the fork, take the right path this time down to a group of enemies. Defeat them then head up a slope on the right to grab the 7x Chipped Fangs . Carry on and jump and twirl your way to the top of the broken structure until you reach another scene.