This is Final Fantasy so unless you’ve already watched the opening cutscene you should look away from this guide and watch it. The first battle will start shortly but it’s very easy.
Once your first battle begins, you’ll be offered a tutorial for combat. If you didn’t take the tutorial, the short version is that you have an ATB bar that will fill up and you’ll be able to choose actions. Choose which actions you’d like to execute. When you run out of space on your action bar and try to add another action OR if you hit the Y/T button after you’re done choosing, you will execute these moves when you are ready. If you have actions chosen which cover 5 sections of ATB bar, your actions won’t actually execute until the bar his filled up 5 sections. However, if those sections are full, your actions will execute as soon as you specify that you are done.
With that in mind, combat begins. If you are in doubt or afraid you will die, hit the Auto-Battle button which is the default position of your cursor if you haven’t changed it. This battle is quite easy. Lightning has both offensive attacks and healing magic so if you continue to hit auto-battle, she will fight and heal as appropriate. If you are interested in handling the battle yourself, Lightning has three abilities.
'''Lightning Strike''' takes up three sections of ATB a piece, dealing two hits for roughly 900 points of damage apiece. This comes to about 3600 damage if you execute it twice per turn. '''Snipe''' on the other hand, requires only 1 ATB section but only does 450 points of damage each. That’s roughly 2700 points of damage per turn. Lastly is the '''Ulir’s Shield''' ability which takes up your entire ATB bar but heals Lightning for a large amount and adds a few beneficial status effects for good measure.
You may have to use '''Ulir’s shield''' once or twice during the course of this battle but as long as you use it when you hit about half health, you should have no problem with this battle. After you defeat the ''Chaos Bahamut'', you’ll see another cutscene and then the words ''“Cinematic Action”'' will appear in the top left of the screen. Basically, that’s just fancy talk for Quick Time Event.
You’ll only ever see actions about one third of the way up the screen and, if there are multiple actions, they will appear from left to right. Your first action will be to push the left stick up as noted by the arrows and the motion of the stick that appear on the screen. Also notice the circle that appears around this that slowly disappears. This is your timer. You must execute the action before that runs out. Usually there is no large penalty for missing an action but there are bonuses for getting them all right such as extra items or additional damage to an enemy.
For this sequence, you will have to push ''up on the LS'' as previously mentioned, then shortly after you will have to push ''A/X'' depending on your console.
After a little more watching, you’ll come to another Cinematic Action where you will have to push ''X/S'' repeatedly (as denoted by the downward arrows above the button). Keep hitting the button until the white circle turns into a red to green circle. Hit the button until this gauge fills.
Watch more and you’ll be presented with the third type of Cinematic Action which is actually a choice. Depending on which button you press, Lightning will either execute a melee attack or a magic attack. Usually, to make a choice you have to hit either ''X/S'' or ''B/O'' to choose.
After you make your first choice, you’ll be greeted with a second choice after which will begin a regular Cinematic action. Complete the appropriate response (depending on your choice). You will have to choose another option, either ruinga or graviga. Then you will have to press the ''A/X'', ''LS right'', ''B/O'', and then ''A/X''.
Not long after you finish that, you will enter another battle but it’s rather similar to the previous battle. You still have a magic attack, a shot attack, and a healing ability. They have been renamed but they all operate the same. You’ll get to watch more shiny videos after you defeat him a second time and then the game will truly get under way.
