Arriving in the Archylte Steppe after working your way through Chapters 1 to 10 provides a refreshing reprieve from the linearity and is the first section of the game where the feeling is a bit more open world.
It’s a fantastic place to explore, but you’re going to find that traveling from one section of the Archylte Steppe to another, or even between the offshoot areas like the Vallis Media, Yaschas Massif and the Haerii Archaeopolis, can be quite a chore.
Thankfully, by completing just a few of the Missions, you can gain access to Chocobos as a form of travel. You will have to complete the following Missions at a minimum:
Mission 01: Pond Scum
Ectopudding located in the Central Expanse of the Archylte Steppe.
Mission 02: Goodwill Hunting
Uridimmu located in the Central Expanse of the Archylte Steppe.
Mission 03: Massif Contamination
Ugallu located in the Tsubaddran Highlands of the Yaschas Massif.
Mission 05: Joyless Reunion
Edimmu located in the Tsumitran Basin of the Yaschas Massif.
Mission 07: Bituitus, the Pillager
Bituitus located in the Paddraean Archaeopolis of the Yaschas Massif.
Mission 12: Geiseric, the Profane
Geiseric located in the Western Benchland of the Archylte Steppe.
Mission 13: Eternity Unpromised
Goblin Chieftain located in the Northern Highplain of the Archylte Steppe.
Mission 14: Defender of the Flock
Sahagin located located in the Font of Namva area of the Archylte Steppe.
Following the completion of Mission 14, Chocobos will be accessible and rideable through various areas of the Archylte Steppe. Just approach a Chocobo and press the Button to ride it. Note that in addition to being able to travel faster, you can still open up Treasure Spheres and activate Save Stations while riding.
The game provides a brief explanation of how morale works. In summary, three feather icons will appear in the bottom left side of the screen while you’re riding a Chocobo. Hitting an enemy will cause the Chocobo to lose one morale (which will slowly regenerate after enough time). Losing all of its Morale will cause the Chocobo to flee.
Note that hitting some enemies, like the giant Oretoises wandering around, will cause the Chocobo to lose all of its morale instantly.
While traveling through the Archylte Steppe, an exclamation point icon may appear above your Chocobo’s head indicating that it senses there is some treasure nearby. Each time you leave and re-enter the Archylte Steppe (or if you save your game and reload it) the treasure spots may be reactivated with more treasure!
There are two hints that the bird will give you to help you locate the treasure. The first is that it will face its head in the direction of the treasure if you stop moving. The second is that the exclamation icon will bounce faster as you get closer and closer to the treasure. Note that the treasure is always located in a spot with brown grass that can be dug up as shown in the screenshot below:
Each treasure you dig up will be a random item out of the following chart:
Treasure | Odds |
---|---|
Millerite | 12.84% |
Rhodochrosite | 12.84% |
Cobaltite | 12.65% |
Chocobo Plume | 10.19% |
Chocobo Tail Feather | 9.94% |
Gold Dust | 9.52% |
Dawnlight Dew | 8.40% |
Dusklight Dew | 7.55% |
Gold Nugget | 6.32% |
Moogle Puppet | 5.00% |
Plush Puppet | 4.75% |
More importantly though is that there is certain guaranteed treasure that you can obtain once you have successfully dug up enough treasure. One of these treasures, the Ribbon, is incredibly valuable and obtaining it by spending some time digging in the Archylte Steppe is definitely worth it:
Treasure | Number of Digs |
---|---|
Gold Nugget | 1 |
Tetradic Crown | 5 |
Tetradic Tiara | 10 |
Tetradic Crown | 10 |
Entite Ring | 15 |
Ribbon | 20 |