Year 1

3/1

Initial Areas	Materials	Monsters
Nuse Grove	Eiche Nuse Beehive	Barrel Squirrel
Roaring Craggy Path	Distill Stone Some Egg Rock Salt	Audra
Western Plains	Magic Grass Serenity Flower Star Ladybug	Blue Puni

• Do whatever during this period. Get used to the game, because it won't truly start till you get your adventurer license (on 6/1). This is basically a tutorial.
• You automatically receive the trophy, A Day in the Life. Be sure to visit the Gerhard, Pamela, and Peter. The rest of your day is decided for you.
• Snooze several times (months!) for the Bad Ending trophy. There are other ways to get the bad end, but this is by far the easiest.
• Make sure to return to Gerhard after you get back to the village to be introduced to quests. You can have your items in the Container and still fulfill requests. If you don't know what to do, just do requests. It'll get you a nice pile of cash to start with.

• Tips
  • Crafts are pretty good to synth so you can easily kill (swarms of) enemies. Even at low levels, items such as these are nice to have. But Crafts don't work for bosses; bombs and such are better.
  • Well water is just outside Totori's place. Nice for crap synthing.
  • Free fish are in barrels at the Wharf.

• Melvia
  • Go to a field and exit for a scene with Gino about going to Arland. When you get back to the village, another will come. Once you go to a field again, you'll get another scene and the Monstrous Power trophy. To the village for more scenes and Melvia in your party.
  • Roaring Craggy Path opens. With Mel, you should manage, but it's a lot harder than the first couple areas. This is where Crafts become useful.
  • Fight a bit, get a scene with Mel.
  • Whatever you're doing around 5/15, you'll be roped into town for a scene about not saving enough money. Aaaand then you go to Arland. You get the Like the Flash trophy.

6/1

The Area sections will also tell you when areas have landmarks, and how many search points some areas have -- both things you need to take care of for license points.

Glass Areas	Materials	Monsters	Note
Abandoned Mine	Fest Stim Stone Snow Stone
Buried Ruins	Phlogiston Bless Stone Bounce Stone	Wolf	First Marc recruitment event (Starting Year 1, 6/1)
Dry Sea	Rock Salt Pretty Shell Coco Fruit	Coastal Penguin Blue Puni
Golden Plains	Wheat Fuel Dirt Purple Grape Red Fruit Blue Fruit Chariot Milk		11 gather points. (Milk doesn't count.)
Hunter's Forest	Beehive Chainweb Goat Horn	Green Puni Barrel Squirrel
Natural Garden	Blue Fruit Red Fruit Purple Grape
Old Path	Med Tree Root Cotton Flower Quake Crystal
Traveler's Path	Mudhead Distill Stone Cotton Flower	Ear Puni Audra Griffon
Uni Grove	Eiche Uni Beehive	Green Puni Blue Puni

• Don't worry about my dates. Those are starting dates, never the date you have to do something. There are only a couple exceptions, and those aren't tied to a specific date. Instead, they have strict time limits after you trigger them. I will warn you.
• Before heading off to the guild, it's amusing to see what the shopkeeps have to say. Especially Hagel. At the guild, you get the Shouting Match trophy. You have to reach Diamond rank by Year 4, 6/1 (which is super easy). Once you get to the village, you're on your own!
• Be sure to do 10 quests in each rank. Easy license points you shouldn't miss!

• Alanya
  • Press start. Yes, you can zap yourself anywhere now.
  • If you haven't noticed this already, Plus owners, tap the back of your Vita. A cute feature.
  • Go in town to see that the carriage is gone. Yep, you'll have to hoof it to Arland.
  • Do whatever you like, but get them points up. Get to Iron around 9/1.
  • When I give you a general date to get a rank up, it's about the point where I got mine on my first run. I focused largely on exploring, and I also didn't do 10 requests at Glass Rank, which sped me up. Don't worry about it too much. By my schedule, you'll have Diamond with a year to spare. That spare time is valuable in its own way. I went crazy with synthesis, but I also had to prepare for some bosses I couldn't beat.
  • After 7/1, exit and reenter the Atelier for a scene with Mimi.
  • Exit and reenter again for Ceci. Synth something successfully for another with her (possibly on a level up). Only Rorona could cause such a huge explosion.
  • A few days later, go down to the town square for a Mimi event (earliest: 7/4). The next thing you need to do is get Iron rank and wait a month. When you go back to either Atelier, you'll get another scene. Eventually, you'll be able to hire her out of Arland's Adventurer Guild instead of Alanya.
  • See Mimi Events when she is traveling with you. Stick in the Alanya area with her in the party and it'll be easy to trigger many events.

• Exploration Miscellanea
  • Be sure to visit the Buried Ruins for the first Marc scene... and don't forget to return to the area for gathering. A Bounce Stone is important to have. It's a fairly useless item, actually, but you need one for later!
  • Explore (probably a second time; I never got it to trigger after my first outing as an adventurer), then return to Alanya for Rorona's Recipes.
  • While you're exploring that second time, you should find an Eiche. Mel will help you with that.
  • Visit the shopkeeps in Arland while you're up there. Tiffani has recipes. You can update your rank with Cordelia (henceforth, Cory) too.
  • Make a good Globe or Bomb (I had a Globe) before heading past Arland to take out the Griffon. You will not do this any other way (for now, anyway). This will probably net you Iron by the time you get up there.

• Tips
  • Money trick! Buy the Port Outfits from Hagel, then sell for a profit.
  • Friendship: It increases on the world map as you travel, and that's the wisest way to get it up. Friendship will raise through this method till it hits 60, then it will stop. So use everyone, at least temporarily. Also, keep Mimi around in your final party to make it easier to get her to level 50.
  • It isn't terribly important to get Mimi in your party ASAP. I suggest dealing with Gino first; get him to level 15, maybe slightly above, before dropping him from your party forever. And seriously, forever. Not a single battle more till it's ending time. See Gino Events for the reason why.
  • Ceci is in Gerhard's place. You can buy recipes from her and Pamela. Obviously you have to choose what is level appropriate.
  • Do whatever the license part of the menu tells you. This will involve making a bunch of equipment with Hagel, synthing all the items out of your recipe books, exploring, finding all gather points in certain areas, fighting bosses, and doing quests. It's pointless to get all 4000 points, and I strongly suggest against torturing yourself to get them all. This guide thus does not help you with that.
  • The highest rank you need to hit for all ends (and trophies) is Cobalt. Coincidentally, no new areas will open up after that. If you like optional bosses, Galaxy, the highest rank, is your goal.
  • Since many of you are trophy hunters, here's what you need to do: get all important events and ends. No, you don't need to synth everything (though you likely will, or close to it), nor do you need to fight all bosses, find all monsters, etc. For those of you who played Rorona, this game is actually easier to Platinum.

9/1

Iron Areas	Materials	Monsters	Note
Calamitous Mountain	Distill Stone Stench Stone Blue Sand	Scissor Bug Audra	Second Marc recruitment event. Chest is a bomb. Cross bridge for landmark.
Fragrant Plains	Magic Grass Serenity Flower Fresh Mint
Nabel Lake	Pretty Shell Swirly Shell Mermaid Tear	Coastal Penguin
Sandy Wind Plains	Edge Aloe Fest Phlogiston	Salamandra Wolf
Silent Path	Tar Fruit Chainweb Beast Stone
Vanishing Path	Magic Grass Winding Grass Strawberry Bug	Ear Puni Green Puni

• Arland
  • Hopefully you should rank up around here. You'll gain access to Rorona's workshop. Talk to Cory again for requests and to meet Filly.
  • It is absolutely okay to be behind my schedule in ranking up. But there are a few scenes tied to rank that you may not see immediately as a result. Don't panic. You will see them when you catch up.
  • After you've completed some requests from Filly, you'll get a scene.
  • See Filly and Tiffani Events for a trophy. It boils down to this: you need to do 75 requests from Filly and see a particular event (which has a strict time limit). Try to scoop up all the requests without a deadline. I've heard that it only matters who you turn the requests in to, so if you have a lot from Gerhard, turn them in to Filly and that'll count for your 75. I don't guarantee this, and I don't even remember where I read it. But it wouldn't hurt to try.
  • Talk to Hagel. He introduces weapon synthing after a couple events. This is slightly different from Rorona; now the Ingots/Cloths are separate items instead of effects. You'll get the Smith's Friend recipe. Ingots can't have particlar traits, and cloths can't have others. Accessories (which you make in the workshop) have unique traits as well. You can't play with traits much for now, but when you can... try to get Convert Damage on your weapons. (Not yet -- you'll only heal 1 HP.) Anything involving elemental damage is alright early game, but will become useless later.
  • Enter the Atelier (possibly after 9/15) for a Cory scene.
  • Go to Calamitous Mountain for another Marc event. The chest will blow up in your face, so don't bite. After, go to Cory. Several days later, Marc will visit you at either Atelier, and you'll be able to hire him out of Arland.

• Alanya
  • The carriage will be fixed after you hit Iron. You may need to enter and exit for the scene to pop up. A Ceci scene about Totori being gone for a long time has priority.
  • In Gerhard's bar, a scene between Ceci and Mel will trigger.
  • With Pamela, there will be a scene about her shop in Arland.
  • Eventually, Marc will pop up in the Square with the carriage. Give him what he demands (throw 'em in your basket) and the carriage will go faster. Kick him out of the party if it doesn't trigger. Also, I know nobody likes Marc, but having friendship with him is what allows this event to happen, as well as the next like it in Year 4. He's beneficial.