Snow is the third character you get to play as during the early sections of the story in Chapter 1. He’s the primary love interest of Lightning’s sister, Serah, and he leads the rebel group NORA (at least at the start of the game) who are also fighting to prevent the Purge.

He is quite often paired with another magic-focused character when he’s a member of your party, but there are a few sections in a few chapters of the game where he is unplayable and you jump between combinations of other character groups.

Strengths and Roles

Snow’s strengths within your party and the roles he excels at should come as no surprise, as they are in line with his larger physical presence and his use of his own fists as weapons. Snow’s primary role is that of the Sentinel and the game will provide an overview of how to make use of this role effectively when he joins the party.

There are a few instances where having a strong Sentinel is important, and Snow is the strongest in this role considering his high HP and his ability to access critical roles through the Crystarium, but offense is just as important as defense. This is where Snow tends to fall flat, because when it's time to lean into the attack and deal out some damage, he ends up being weaker than your other party member choices.

His secondary roles include the Commando and, to a lesser extent, the Ravager role.

Character Stats

The table below outlines the maximum level for Snow’s stats for each chapter of the game. A comparison of these stats to the other characters in the game can be found in the “Best Party” section using the link above.

	HP	Strength	Magic
Chapter 1	350	32	22
Chapter 2 (Pulse Vestige)	450	57	30
Chapter 4 (Vile Peaks)	584	72	37
Chapter 6 (Sunleth Waterscape)	758	113	58
Chapter 7 (Palumpolum)	983	152	79
Chapter 9 (Palamecia)	1,276	201	106
Chapter 10 (Fifth Ark)	1,626	261	141
Chapter 11 (Archylte Steppe)	2,037	334	184
Chapter 12 (Eden)	5,112	949	584
Chapter 13 (Orphan)	6,635	1,233	796
Maxed	9,551	1,718	1,142

Weapons

Snow uses his fists to attack but his actual weapon is his “coat emblem”. Use the link below for a full list of his weapons or use the link below that for more information about his best weapons.

Unique Abilities

Each character’s “unique ability” is also sometimes referred to as their “Full ATB” ability because it requires all six ATB gauge segments to be filled in order to use it in battle.

Each character will gain access to different abilities and spells as they progress through their crystariums, but each character has one “ultimate ability” which serves as their unique ability. Two characters can learn their ultimate ability in their Commando crystarium with Snow being one of them (and Fang being the other).

Snow’s unique ability is called Sovereign First and, like Fang’s unique ability, this attack will hit multiple enemies and, when used against a Staggered enemy, will gain a large bump in its damage multiplier. The best time to use this attack is when an enemy’s Stagger gauge is about to run out.