Fair game

In our last chapter, we’ve discussed the Espers hidden within the deepest of crevasses – and mines – in Ivalice. Today’s chapter fits seamlessly in this topic, because – as you would expect – a full Bestiary is also imperative to filling up your Sky Pirate’s Den, so completionists, pay heed!

As you may have surmised from the last chapter, Espers aren’t always easy to find, but on the other hand they are quite hard to miss as their existence is hinted at continuously. The same goes for the enemies and bosses you’re like to encounter while on your journey – as most are part of that journey and often you spend so much time in certain locations, that it is hard to miss any of the local fauna – or sentient flora.¹

Even the Elementals and Entites are known around Ivalice, as locals feel compelled to warn you about one of these beings lurking about, preferring certain weather conditions – quite possibly connected to their elemental nature – over others to appear.

But a certain class of beasts is more difficult to find. Because these creatures are incredibly rare, no data has ever been recorded by any Ivalician biologist. We are, of course, speaking of… rare game.

This rare game is harder to find. No one has ever seen them – or perhaps vaguely spotted in the distance, or glanced at before running for their lives. Timid ones may only appear when more dominant creatures they normally share their habitat with have been eliminated. Or particularly vindictive ones may come seeking revenge for their fallen ilk. Even others may only prefer certain weather conditions themselves, much like the Elementals and the Entites.

The difference with this rare game is: no one knows the conditions for them to rear their heads. No one in Ivalice could tell you how and where to find these rare creatures, except for on – equally – rare occasions. This leaves you with one of several choices: either you spend ages going around Ivalice chasing windmills², just hoping for a glance of what may be a rare sighting of rare Ivalician fauna; or just this once, you do ask for directions – or at least hold our guide handy.

We would strongly suggest the latter option.

There is quite some rare game in Ivalice, and a trend has risen in Archadia among the bourgeoisie to hunt the rarest of them all. It has led to the emergence of various Hunts petitioned by Archades’s rich and famous. The Hunters who engage in these endeavours often find themselves gathering at Phon Coast, collecting and sharing information about possible sightings of their quarry – or to steal away another’s quarry, because wealthy Archadians really only care about the trophy to hang off their walls, you know… much like how Sky Pirates only care about filling up their Dens with trophies. They don’t care by whom it was delivered.

Bangaa seem to be rather adept at hunting as most of the hunters you will meet on your path – including Ba’Gamnan and his merry band of bounty hunters – are of the Bangaa race, as is the Huntmaster who resides at Phon Coast, to whom you should really talk should you want to start trophy hunting for the Archadians and complete your Bestiary to earn yourself your own personal trophy for your Den. But he’ll only listen to you after you’ve wrecked the Draklor Laboratory.

All this to say that there are two different kinds of rare game. There’s the rare game of which next to nothing is known, which you could spend ages hunting – and there’s the trophy game, of which even less is known, because what sort of sport would trophy hunting be if you acquire an itinerary towards said trophy?

Both lists of rare game will be listed below, in separate lists and with conditions required to have them appear, to make searching for this rare game easier, so you will have more time on your hands to do Sky Pirate stuff rather than contributing to Ivalician Natural Societies.

There is a total of 80 rare game – 31 are trophy game and the remaining 49 are the run-off-the-mill rare game that Archadians have no interest in. Because you will only be able to start hunting trophy game after visiting Archades and leaving its Draklor Laboratory in tatters³, we will focus first on the rare game.

Once again, you have done it! You’ve tackled the most difficult part of completing your Bestiary! As it stands, all you have to do now is go around finding all the Elementals and Entites, which are generally a bit more elusive than any of the other enemies. If you’ve caught all your Espers and done all your Hunts⁴, you should be on track.

Though, it must be noted that to achieve the award for completing your Bestiary⁵, you’ll need to have located and defeated both the Hell Wyrm in Sochen Cave Palace and Omega MK.XII within the Great Crystal, along with pretty much all the other optional bosses.

With that finished, you’re once again one step closer to completing your collection of trophies for your Sky Pirate’s Den, and well on your way to becoming an established Sky Pirate!