Chapter 1: Bikanel, Bevelle and the Calm Lands

Story mode. Written for a first playthrough and kept free of spoilers — it will not tell you what happens here, only what the game is asking of you.

None of these three places is required. Go anyway. X-2 keeps a running Story Completion percentage, and every hotspot you skip in a chapter is percentage you cannot get back later. They are also short.

Bikanel Desert

Have the Letter of Introduction from Djose before you come. Without it you can walk the desert and see the camp, but nobody will let you dig.

Rikku leads you into the dunes and promptly gets lost. Fight what attacks you and keep walking; the game decides when you have walked enough. You wake up in an excavation camp with an Al Bhed Primer in your pocket and a merchant by the Save Sphere.

Head to the upper right of the camp and talk to the two Al Bhed facing each other — twice each. The person in charge rides in. Hand her the letter, then talk to the hover pilot and choose the only dig site on offer.

The dig is a timed walk. Your map shows a yellow X: walk onto it and Yuna digs up what you came for. Then go straight back to the hover. You will see white X marks too. Ignore them for now. They hold small stuff, and there is a good reason to leave the desert mostly undug until much later in the game.

The reward is a garment grid and an Elixir. Warp back to the ship from the Save Sphere.

Bevelle

A very short visit. Cross the long bridge and go through the gate toward the headquarters building; a scene plays with the man who runs the place.

Do not leave yet. Go inside, ride the lift up one level and talk to him a second time. He hands you a Tiara. Then you are done.

The Calm Lands

The plain has turned into an amusement park, run by two companies fighting for customers. A scene on arrival explains it.

Walk down to any of the attractions and talk to the two people standing by it. Pick either company and sign up from the Publicity menu — it barely matters which. From now on, pressing the promote button next to people (Square on a PlayStation pad, X on an Xbox pad) spreads the word. Do it to everyone you meet, everywhere, for the rest of the game.

At the travel agency in the middle, a man asks you to find a wife for his son. Agree. That is a second campaign that runs alongside the first, with women instead of everyone.

Six chests sit in the open: an Ether below the south ledge, Chocobo Feathers on the western edge, Potions down the slope past the northeast exit, a Phoenix Down on the gorge floor, another by the Save Sphere at the far north, and a pair of Antidotes that are easy to miss. Grab them and warp out.

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it.

Spoilers from here.

All three hotspots are optional in Chapter 1 and all three pay Story Completion: 0.8% in Bikanel, 0.6% in Bevelle, 0.2% in the Calm Lands. The scenes are chapter-locked. Beat YSLS-Zero at Kilika Temple without visiting them and that 1.6% is gone for the run. The chests are a different matter: unopened ones carry forward into later chapters until a newer chest replaces them, so nothing below is lost the instant the chapter ends — but take them now anyway.

Order does not matter, with one exception: Bikanel is pointless until you hold the Letter of Introduction from Gippal at Djose. You can visit early and see the camp, but Nhadala will not be there and you cannot dig.

Bikanel Desert

Rikku walks you into the dunes and gets lost. A few forced fights (Bolt Drake is weak to ice, Hrimthurs to gravity), then the party passes out and wakes up in Nhadala’s excavation camp. That opening counts as a scene. You get an Al Bhed Primer on waking; X-2 numbers its Primers in the order you receive them, so the numeral depends on your route.

The camp merchant by the Save Sphere sells the usual cheap restoratives plus a Fiery Gleam and a Red Ring at 3,000 gil each. Neither is urgent.

Walk to the upper right of the camp, then a little left, to the two Al Bhed facing each other. Talk to each twice. Nhadala rides in — a second scene. Give her the letter, then tell the hover pilot Western Expanse, the only site open. This is Can You Dig It?

The dig, and why you stop at one

You get 60 seconds. The map shows a yellow X — the part Nhadala wants — and scattered white X marks. Walk Yuna onto the yellow one, then head back to the hover with time to spare. Running out of time aborts the dig.

Do not dig the white X marks in Chapter 1. They pay small random items, gil and the odd fight, which is nothing you need. Excavation progress feeds the Experiment, the machine you build and fight at Djose in Chapter 5, and full Story Completion wants you to beat it at its lowest level before you finish it at its highest. Dig the required spot, leave, and do the real digging in Chapter 5.

Back at camp Nhadala hands over Still of Night, an Elixir and 100 gil.

Still of Night: auto-abilities Silence and Blind; the green gate adds Silenceproof, green-and-red Silencetouch, yellow Darkproof, yellow-and-blue Darktouch. A decent early grid for status attacks. Treat it as Chapter 1 only. It comes from this dig and nothing later is known to give it.

Bevelle

Two scenes and an accessory.

• Arrival. Yuna’s voice-over as you set down.
• Baralai. Run the highbridge and pass through the gate between central Bevelle and New Yevon headquarters.
• Tiara. Go inside headquarters, take the lift up one level and talk to Baralai again. He gives you a Tiara. The scene before it looks like an ending, which is why so many runs leave without it. Bevelle is a very different place on every later visit; take it now.

The Calm Lands

The arrival scene, where Rikku and Paine explain Open Air and Argent, is the 0.2%. Everything else here is the start of two campaigns that run until Chapter 5.

Publicity Campaign

Three attractions: Lupine Dash (southwest), Sky Slots (north) and Reptile Run (northeast). Each has two attendants — Open Air on the left, Argent on the right. Talk to either, choose Publicity Menu and sign up. The company only changes a few attraction prizes. Then promote it by pressing Square (PlayStation) or X (Xbox pad) beside Spirans everywhere you go.

You need 400 publicity points by the Chapter 5 showdown for the full percentage. You do not have to backtrack through earlier Chapter 1 locations for points, but talking to everyone as you go makes the target painless.

Marriage Campaign

At the travel agency in the middle, the man to the right of the counter wants a wife for his son. Either answer to his first question works; choose “Why not!?” to agree. You promote the son to women with the same button. Target: 70 points. It runs in parallel with Publicity.

The agency hover costs 10 credits a ride; ten rides earns the Calm Lands Discount Pass, which halves the fare. Credits cost 10 gil each.

Chests

Six. Unopened ones carry forward, but these are cheap and quick:

Warp out from the Save Sphere when you are done. Mt. Gagazet and Zanarkand are next; Kilika comes last because it ends the chapter.