Final Fantasy 16 (XVI) The Crystals' Curse Walkthrough

The Crystals’ Curse is the 26th main story quest in Final Fantasy 16 (XVI). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the The Crystals’ Curse main scenario chapter.

Starting Location: Drake’s Head
Requirement: Complete Righting Wrongs
Reward: None
Quest Info: The Mothercrystals are a curse, and curses are meant to be broken. Committed to the path that lies before them, Clive, Jill, and Cid make for the Holy Capital of Oriflamme where they seek to take their first step to true freedom.

Objectives:

Proceed through the Glass Gate
Slay the imperial cannonier
Proceed through the mines
Slay the Akashic dragon
Enter the inner sanctum
Vanquish Typhon

Proceed through the Glass Gate

At Drake’s Head, you’ll be sneaking in through the glass gate into the mines. Follow the linear path ahead until you reach some enemies. In this first section, you’ll largely be fighting the same Imperial soldiers you’ve fought prior, nothing out of the ordinary. When you’ve dealt with the first group, break through the boards blocking the way to continue.

The second room will have another group of similar enemies, deal with them in the same manner.

Slay the imperial cannonier

After all the fodder is cleaned up, a new enemy called an Imperial Cannonier will appear, the first boss for this main quest. Their basic attacks are pretty similar to the Imperial Champion you faced prior, though they are holding a large cannon instead of a hammer. Most of their normal attacks involve swinging the cannon slowly, once or twice at a time. The more dangerous normal attack to watch out for is when they start shooting a flame from the cannon while walking towards you. If you spot this coming early the best way to avoid is circling around them to the right while dodging, but if not you can just back away.

The main named attack they’ll do in this first part is Black Powder, where they’ll stick the cannon on the ground and shoot, causing rocks to blast out of the ground where the lit up sections are.

After dealing the full health bar of damage, they’ll regain their health and become “Akashic”. The enemy is now powered up and has some new attacks, along with variations of their prior ones. For example, they will do more swings of normal attacks, and Black Powder will cause more damage spots on the ground. They’ll gain some new named attacks too, like Rocketeer, where they will blast back and forth across the arena a number of times trying to hit you.

The other new named attack to watch out for is Hard Launch which they likely won’t do until after the halfway point on the health bar. In this attack they’ll launch in the air, trying to land on top of you, so dodge out from under them.

After they’re defeated you’ll be awarded with the accessory The Favor of Inferno (Ignition) which would be recommended to equip if you’re using the Ignition ability now.

Proceed through the mines

When the Cannonier is defeated, interact with the elevator you’re pointed directly toward to proceed farther into the mines.

You can then keep following the linear path through the mines for a while. You’ll run into more Akashic enemies, though the normal red bar enemies don’t get much stronger when Akashic so you can just deal with them as normal. There are some pickups for materials spread around, but nothing overly important yet. When you reach the large tunnel with rail cards you need to head to the right to proceed, then go through a large gate. After defeating an Akashic Champion (who gains no new abilities over the version you fought before) you need to head through some boards and reach a dead end. Here you are meant to interact with the grate on the left to proceed, but first, make sure you pick up the chest on the right for the Coral Sword which will be better than the one you currently have equipped.

Break through the grate with Cid’s help, then drop into the next area which is just outside the inner sanctum. Follow the path down the stairs, and you will have a couple of combat encounters. The first are just normal specter and wraith-type enemies, then the second encounter with some along with a Lich. Try to take out the weak enemies first so you don’t need to focus on other enemies while dealing with the Lich. You can then continue down the next area towards the gate.

Slay the Akashic dragon

For the second boss in this main quest, you are fighting an Akashic Dragon. This fight operates pretty similar to the Garuda and Infernal Eikon ones you fought already, where you will want to basically stand directly in front of it. Most of its basic attacks are similar stomps or swipes with its wings, which means they either miss you entirely or are easy to dodge. It is also somewhat helpful to avoid locking on when on the ground, as there are a number of lock-on points including its head, torso, and feet, and being able to quickly switch where you are targetting on the ground is very helpful.

It has a number of ranged attacks, most not named. The one to watch out for that is unique is where it will launch a laser into the ground, which then causes fire to shoot out that will damage you. Make sure to move away from the area on the ground to avoid it.

After dealing about a third of its health bar (likely after the first stagger phase) it will fly into the air and perform an attack called Cauterize. This can be quite annoying, especially in NG+ where it can one-shot you depending on your health if you get hit. The dragon will fly towards you while breathing fire onto the ground, moving back and forth along the arena. You need to watch where it is breathing while it moves, and run toward it and time your run so that it passes by on the opposite side of the path.

After it finishes it will land again, and go back to its normal attacks. After it only has about a third health remaining (after the second stagger) it will perform its other named attack, Dragon Dance. It will hover in the air above you and do a series of attacks. First, it will shoot a series of fireballs toward you, which you can avoid by dodging them individually.

The second attack, it will shoot the laser along the ground horizontally and vertically, which you should avoid by moving to the corner relative to where it shoots.

The final part of the attack, it will lunge at you from across the area, which you need to dodge quite late to avoid correctly. After this is finished it will be stunned on the ground for a moment, allowing you to get in damage and finish it off.

Enter the inner sanctum

With the dragon defeated, head through the gate ahead into the inner sanctum. There are pickups along the path for potions and a chest with materials, but they are all directly beside the stairs and not out of the way.

Vanquish Typhon

After some scenes, you will be in an unfamiliar place, with Typhon stuck to the wall. At the start of this section, you will face a number of waves of fodder enemies. Take this out as you can, Ignition helps here to clean them up quickly if you had it equipped. After the first wave there will be damaging areas on the ground you need to avoid while taking out the enemies.

After the third wave of enemies, there will be a scene and you will be facing Typhon as Ifrit. You will immediately notice that Ifrit doesn’t control as they did during the Garuda fight. Their real combat is much faster and responsive, nearly as quick as Clive is normal, so use that knowledge in this fight. One of the biggest things to be aware of here is the Backdraft combo that is pointed out in the tutorial info. Hitting a second time after the normal magic burst finish performs a highly damaging attack, and is the main way you can push damage quickly in this fight. Also keep in mind the dash on which you need to use to avoid some attacks, as well as help close distance to the boss.

Now the fight itself, most of Typhon’s normal attacks are fairly slow. It uses a number of slow arm swipes telegraphed obviously with its hands, leaving plenty of opening after for damage. The main named attack to watch for (that the game prompts you on) is Unending Clamor, where they project a large damage field on the ground you need to get out of using the dash on .

After the first health bar, there will be a scene and you will be fighting a new powered-up version of Typhon, who will use extended versions of the prior attacks, along with a number of new ones. They’ll immediately start off this section of the fight by shooting a set of lasers at you, which you should dodge to the side while closing the distance to them.

They’re likely to then use Unending Clamor immediately, though this time with three damage spots on the ground. You can still avoid this by using the dash and moving directly towards the boss out of the circles. Up close, they’ll then likely start using normal melee attacks, now typically extended 1 or 2 swings instead of only 1 swing at a time.

The most mechanic-heavy new attack they’ll do is called Demon Wall. During this attack, they’ll warp far away from you, and start sending a series of black walls towards you which will heavily damage you if they hit you. To avoid them you need to stand in the open gap between the two walls, which will move across the arena so you need to dash between them, most easily done with . The first gap will be immediately in front of Typhon, followed by right, left, right, then back to the middle. Don’t worry about trying to get near them during this attack, just focus on avoiding the walls.

After this is done they’ll likely warp back to you, and you can continue fighting as normal. The final new named attack they can perform is called Catacecaumene, where they will warp away and shoot into the ground, after which a number of pills of damage will appear from circles on the ground for a short period. Focusing on avoiding these while they do whatever next attack (potentially Unending Clamor) then resume attacking once there are no more damage pillars.

Continue fighting until they are at about 10% health, and a Cinematic section will be triggered. To end the fight, there will be an Evasion, followed by a Clash, then a second Evasion, then finally a second Clash.