Chapter 5: Macalania, Gagazet 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.

Chapter 5 hands you the whole map and no deadline. Every place you have visited has one last story to tell, and each ends with a banner when you have seen it through. These three are among the gentlest. Nothing here fights back much.

Macalania Woods

Pick up two chests as you go: one a screen north of where you land, one on the shimmering path near the spring where you found a dressphere back in Chapter 1.

There is a robed woman at the spring nearest the lake. Talk to her. Then head back past the Save Sphere and east to the other spring, toward the Calm Lands. Let the scenes play. When the banner says Episode Complete, you have done it right, and you get a new garment grid.

Lake Macalania

There is a chest near the Lake Road end. Then try the travel agency door. If you looked after a certain merchant in the first two chapters, there is a small reward in the form of a scene.

Mt. Gagazet

Walk to the mountain gate when you land. Watch the argument, then go back and talk to Kimahri before you follow anyone. Then climb the Mountain Trail, on foot or by the warp point, and see it through.

When it is over, select Gagazet again to land at the summit. Climb the rocks left of the Save Sphere to the Ronso gathered by the statue and talk to the two youngest. If you helped them earlier in the game, they have a gift.

The Calm Lands

A scene plays the moment you land, and how it goes depends on how much you helped your chosen company in earlier chapters. If it does not end with a banner, play a few rounds of the attractions on the plains to push your score over the line, fly away and come back.

Then:

• Behind the travel agency, on the hill, is a chest with a lot of gil in it. Take it. A man nearby will ask you about it afterwards. Tell the truth if you would rather have a useful accessory than the money.
• The matchmaking man beside the agency counter wraps up his campaign.
• Chests sit on a low ledge north-west of the agency, in the cracked ground on the north edge, and up some rubble by the Macalania exit.
• On the road toward the mountain, past the ranch: one chest right by the path, another at a dead end down in the gorge, and four more in the cave at the gorge’s far west end. The cave’s teleport pad leads to three small rooms. Check all three; the north one holds something for Yuna’s special dressphere.

The chocobo ranch

If you have been catching chocobos, this is where that pays off. Two cheap dispatches are worth making straight away:

• Send any chocobo you can spare to Bikanel. It will not come back, but it opens a part of the desert you can ride and dig in without fights.
• Send a level 4 or 5 to Mi’ihen when you have one. It finds something.

The big prize takes much longer: sending chocobos to the Calm Lands again and again at every level until four of them reach level 5 together. Clasko then finds a way into the ground under his ranch. That dungeon is worth doing, and there is a boss at its first door that kills outright every sixth turn; carry Phoenix Downs. The Chocobo Ranch guide covers the rest.

Game Notes

Chapter 5 is the game’s epilogue in all but name, and these three stops show how it works. Nobody needs the Gullwings here. Macalania is a walk and a memory, Gagazet is an argument the Ronso were always going to have, and the Calm Lands settle a squabble you picked a side in back in Chapter 1.

The banners are the point. Each place gets one ending, and it only becomes the good one if you were paying attention three chapters ago.

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it. 4 entries below are marked where our sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

Spoilers from here.

Nothing in this area closes before the end of the game. The only deadline is the portal to the final battle, and every scene, episode and dungeon here is open until then. What can already be lost is anything that depended on earlier chapters, and this is where you find out. Read the list below before you land anywhere.

What earlier chapters decided

• O’aka’s agency scene needs O’aka hidden aboard the Celsius in Chapter 1 (“Follow That O’aka!”) and his debt cleared in Chapter 2. Miss either and the scene is gone. It is a Story Completion line, not an episode, so Mascot is safe either way.
• The Gagazet episode needs Garik stopped at the Chapter 3 blockade (“Battle Blockade”). Without it Garik refuses Kimahri, breaks the statue, and you get Episode Concluded, which costs you Mascot.
• Sacred Beast and Conflagration need the Ronso youths Lian and Ayde met in the Calm Lands in Chapter 2, advised on the Thunder Plains in Chapter 3, and their CommSphere watched in Chapter 4.
• The Calm Lands episode needs your company’s Publicity over 400. This one you can still fix: play the attractions until you pass it.
• The ranch needs Clasko brought aboard in Chapter 1 or 2 and his ranch set up with Clean Sweep. If you have no ranch, the Ruin Depths, the Amazing Chocobo and its episode are out of reach this run. (Catching a first chocobo before Chapter 3 ended was its own deadline, for Tricky Trapper and Story Completion; that one has already passed.)

Mascot wants Episode Complete in every Chapter 5 location. An Episode Concluded anywhere loses it. Treat every episode in this area as part of that count.

Macalania Woods

Snow Ring is one screen north of where you land (absorbs Ice, casts Blizzaga, Magic +10). Rune Bracer (Max MP +100%) is on the shimmering path near the spring where Tromell’s Full Throttle was in Chapter 1.

The episode is two springs. The robed woman on the left of the spring by the Lake Road exit asks what became of the Guado and leaves; that is one Story Completion line. Go back past the Save Sphere and two screens east to the spring toward the Calm Lands. Two scenes, Yuna alone at the water, the woods starting to fade: Episode Complete and Ray of Hope. If the second scene will not trigger, fly out and back in.

Lake Macalania

Elixir near the Lake Road end. Then the travel agency door: O’aka XXIII has settled in and spars with Wantz. Story Completion, if your Chapter 1 and 2 work earned it.

Mt. Gagazet

At the gate Garik picks a fight with Kimahri and climbs off. Go back and talk to Kimahri before following: Lian and Ayde return and report on their travels, and what they say depends on where you sent them. That is a separate line from the episode.

Follow Kimahri up the Mountain Trail (walk it for EXP, or warp). Garik and Kimahri settle it the Ronso way, Garik backs down, and the scenes at the statue end in Episode Complete and Sacred Beast.

Reselect Gagazet to land at the summit. Climb the cliffs left of the Save Sphere to the Ronso by the statue and talk to Lian or Ayde for Conflagration. The carver finishes the statue as you clear more Chapter 5 episodes; your answers to the Ronso earlier decide whether it is Yuna or Kimahri.

There are no new chests on the mountain this chapter. The eighth Cactuar Gatekeeper hides on the Prominence below the summit, but it only appears once Marnela has given you its clue in Bikanel.

The Calm Lands

The showdown scene plays on landing. With Publicity over 400, Tobli arrives and merges the two companies: Story Completion and Episode Complete. Most sources say only your own company’s score matters; one says both need 400. If no banner appears, play the attractions, leave and come back.

Afterwards each attraction keeps one attendant and the hovers run more stops. The man in green to the left of the agency shop gives the Calm Lands Free Pass if a company reached PR level 5, the Discount Pass if not.

The 50,000 gil chest is on the hill behind the agency. One source says it only appears if you saw a man hide it during Chapter 4; the rest list it with no condition. Open it, then talk to the Marriage Campaign father. He asks whether you took it:

• “Actually, I did” returns the 50,000 and pays Sword Lore (Warrior abilities on anyone).
• Lying keeps the gil and pays nothing.

Neither answer touches Story Completion. Take the Sword Lore; 50,000 gil is easy to make back here.

The Marriage Campaign closes with the man right of the agency clerk. Speed Bracer (Auto-Haste) over the threshold, an Elixir under it. Two sources put the line at 70 points, one at 30.

Chests on the plains: Cerulean Ring on a low ledge north-west of the agency, Mega Phoenix x2 in the cracked ground near Sky Slots, Turbo Ether up the rubble by the Macalania exit.

The gorge and the cave

X-Potion by the path past the ranch. Mega Phoenix x2 at the dead end down in the gorge. In the cave at the far west: NulFrost Ring in the first large chamber, NulTide Ring at the end of the leftmost path, then the teleport pad at the back: Defense Bracer left, Electrocutioner right, and Aurora Rain in the old Chamber of the Fayth to the north. With Twilight Rain from Besaid, Floral Fallal is at full strength.

The Chocobo Ranch

Three dispatches matter. The Chocobo Ranch guide covers all three in detail; here is what each opens.

• Any chocobo to Bikanel. It never returns. The Central Expanse opens: a dig site you can search on chocobo with no encounters. Do this before the Bikanel visit, it makes the Experiment digging much faster.
• A level 4 or 5 to Mi’ihen. When it returns, the Fiend Colony opens near the crashed hover on the Highroad. Inside: bomb walls (the S-, M- and L-Bombs found inside open them), the Arcane, Sword, White and Black Tomes, a Turbo Ether, three Elixirs, two Mega Phoenixes, and King VERMIN! at the end for Font of Power. Otherwise it is mostly a bestiary stop.
• The Ruin Depths. Send Bold chocobos (Kilika, the Thunder Plains and Bikanel have them) to the Calm Lands at every level from 1 to 5, three at a time, and get them back; then put four level 5s in the runner slots and send them again. The sources describe the sequence slightly differently, and every one of them says to save before talking to Clasko so you can reload a runaway. Clasko then finds a door at the back of the ranch.

Low-Heart chocobos that come back with nothing sometimes bring Mounted Assault or Strength of One.

The Ruin Depths

Five sliding doors. Open the middle one first. The Anything Eater waits there: 11,600 HP, five turns of Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga, Flare or Osmose, then a basic attack that deals the target’s max HP. Count turns and have a Phoenix Down ready for the sixth. Steal Mega-Potion; it drops Power Gloves. If it oversouls (36,980 HP) it starts dispelling buffs.

Then open the other four. The chests hold the Machina Reactor (Machina Maw past 9,999), The ABC’s of Repair, AP Egg, Pixie Dust, Mythril Bangle, Cat’s Bell, Wizard Bracelet, and two each of Shining Gem, Blessed Gem, Mega-Potion, Mega Phoenix, Turbo Ether, Stamina Spring, Mana Spring and Poison Fang.

The Amazing Chocobo is behind the last door. Clasko’s scene is Story Completion and its own Episode Complete; you also get Higher Power and Chocobo Whisperer.

The companies’ top prizes

At PR level 5 with the Calm Lands episode done, the attraction counter sells a “????” for 200,000 credits: Disaster in Bloom from Open Air, Flash of Steel from Argent. Neither counts for Story Completion. The Calm Lands campaigns guide covers the credit grind.

Game Notes

Look at what this area asks you to have done: hide a merchant in Chapter 1, pay his debt in Chapter 2, stop a Ronso in Chapter 3, watch a CommSphere in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is not new content so much as an audit of the first four.

The Ruin Depths are the exception, and the most X-2 thing in the game: a dungeon under a chocobo ranch, opened by spreadsheet, guarded by a monster that kills you on a timer, with a romance at the bottom.