Final Fantasy XIII’s Missions will take you on adventures to complete various hunts to track down and defeat “marks” throughout the Archylte Steppes and its surrounding regions. This is a very similar quest to the Clan Hunts from Final Fantasy XII.
Some notes to help guide you through the Missions are included below. Note that some of the hunts come from Cie’th Stones while others come from Menhirrim and are completed naturally during the course of the story.
You will be able to see all of the Cie’th Stones as you travel through different areas, but they will not be active until you have met certain prerequisites which typically involves completing certain Missions first. You don’t have to complete them all in numerical order though but it can certainly be done that way to make things easier.
Cie’th Stones will begin flashing when they become active, making them easy to spot from far away, but you can actually see them by pulling up the map of the area as well. Active Cie’th Stones will appear as a flashing icon indicating that the stone now has a new Mission to offer.
The Missions rank in difficulty from “D” being the easiest all the way up to “A”. These letter grades are fairly accurate but make no mistake that some Missions are easier and harder than the letter grade would have you believe.
You can only have one Mission active at a time. Accepting a new mission will remove the availability of the last mark you were tracking down so be careful accepting a new one if you haven’t completed the one you’re on.
It can be difficult to track down some of the marks just given how vast the expanses of the Archylte Steppe are, but there are some hints provided in the game to help you out. The mark for each Mission is denoted on the map by a bright pink star.
In certain instances, the pink star will be placed in an area of the map that the game is trying to get you to travel to first as a waypoint before the pink star will move to its actual location. This is true for Mission 03 - Massif Contamination and Mission 04 - A Hero’s Charge, as well as many others.
You can return to any of the Cie’th Stones or Menhirrim to restart the previous Missions you have attempted. Some of the trophies and achievements in Final Fantasy XIII require you to obtain a 5 Star Battle Ranking during the Hunt; restarting the Mission will allow you a second opportunity to achieve a more optimal outcome. Unfortunately you won’t receive the same rewards and will typically just receive less valuable components for subsequent attempts.
Some Cie’th Stones have special properties that occur when you successfully complete their Mission. You will come across two special types:
Completion of some of the Missions will also reward you with meaningless items such as the Analects and Hunting Ranks/Titles. Analects are additional Datalog entries that fall under the “Analects” section which are a set of ancient records involving Cocoon and Gran Pulse. A copy of the Analects can be found in the Lore section.
The Hunting Ranks are as follows:
| Hunting Rank | Mission |
|---|---|
| Good Samaritan | [01 - Pond Scum] |
| Mercifex | [03 - Massif Contamination] |
| Archaeopolitan Idol | [07 - Bituitus, the Pillager] |
| Baneslayer | [12 - Geiseric, the Profane] |
| Feathered Friend | [14 - Defender of the Flock] |
| Dismantler | [18 - So Close, Yet So Far] |
| Monumental Ally | [26 - So Shrill, the Cry] |
| Grudge Settler | [27 - Mithridates, the Lone] |
| Heartstriker | [30 - Syphax, the Insidious] |
| Adamantine Knight | [33 - A Parent’s Pledge] |
| Curse Lifter | [34 - Zenobia, the Butcher] |
| Righteous Avenger | [45 - Emergent Evolution] |
| Halcyonian Hero | [46 - On Silent Wings] |
| Guardian of Virtue | [51 - Attacus, the Soulless] |
| Needleworker | [54 - The Bigger They Are…] |
| Hand of Wrath | [59 - Two-faced Fiend] |
| Adamantine Crusader | [63 - Crushed by Doubt] |
| Deliverer of Souls | [64 - The Doomherald] |
