Final Fantasy XIII: The Zodiac Age is a nuanced Final Fantasy with plenty to keep an eye on. Whether you’re looking to earn additional gil or collecting special weapons for your party members, you’ve always got something to do. Battles can be complicated on their own, especially when you add special abilities known as Quickenings into the mix. If you time things just right, you can pull off multiple Quickenings in one battle, then meld them together into Concurrences later on after that. It’s an impressive display if you can pull it off, but first you’ll need to know a little bit more about how things work. Here’s a quick guide to using Quickenings and how they can be used along with other abilities to make Concurrences.
What Are Quickenings?
Quickenings are, like Final Fantasy’s Limit Breaks, powerful attacks that don’t cost you any MP, but can unleash a torrent of damage on your opponents. Instead of MP, you need to concern yourself with the Mist Gauge you have onscreen. Each character has three different Quickenings, so you’ve got quite a few different moves to work with. Each move can be powered up later on by activating nodes on the License Board to do so.
Each character has a different themed Quickening. Here’s a list of each potential party member’s abilities:
Vaan
- Red Spiral
- White Whorl
- Pyroclasm
Balthier
- Fires of War
- Tides of Fate
- Element of Treachery
Fran
- Feral Strike
- Whip Kick
- Shatterheart
Basch
- Fulminating Darkness
- Ruin Impudent
- Flame Purge
Ashe
- Northswain’s Glow
- Heaven’s Wrath
- Maelstrom’s Bolt
Penelo
- Intercession
- Evanescence
- Resplendence
Each Quickening move corresponds to the bar known as the Mist Gauge on your screen. Eventually you can chain together quickenings together in succession, which will make your Mist Gauge grow. Unleashing Quickenings one right after another can result in a Concurrence, which is something you definitely want to have happen.
What Are Concurrences?
Concurrences can be the result of a chain of Quickenings unleashed one after the other. Sometimes they’re enough to finish off a powerful boss, depending on how much energy you’ve saved up during the remainder of the battle.
Depending on the number and level of Quickenings, you’ll get a different type of Concurrence. They’re all important and powerful abilities to use in the heat of difficult battles, however, so if you have an opportunity to use them, you’ll certainly want to.
When you combine Quickenings and Concurrences with the various Gambits you can set up for battle, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age eventually becomes much less of a frustrating beast for newcomers and more of a game where finesse is the key to victory.
It may be a very different set of abilities and attacks than you’re used to from other RPGs, but you may quickly find that you like this system even better given the freedom it affords you.
