New Game Plus: what carries over
Same difficulty keeps levels, gear, money, hexes and Arena progress. Higher difficulty keeps only black hexes, apparel, the Hi-Pod and the bestiary.
Beating the final boss of chapter 16 does not return you to the world. The game offers New Game Plus immediately, and it does not let you finish side missions afterward — that is the single most important thing to know before you start the Basilica.
What New Game Plus is
Two modes, chosen when you start over:
- Same difficulty. You keep almost everything: levels and skills, bezels, Hunter Points and rubies, tools, white and black hexes, weapons, custom parts, accessories, apparel, other items, bestiary entries and Arena victories.
- Higher difficulty. You keep far less: black energy hexes, the Hi-Pod accessory, all apparel, and all bestiary entries. Everything else resets.
The high-difficulty route is how the difficulty ladder advances. Each clear unlocks the next tier, and the tiers run: Normal, Hard, Advanced, Professional, Masochist, Extreme, Beyond, Legendary, Ultimate, Zenith. Reaching Zenith takes nine completions.
Enemy scaling per tier
| Difficulty | HP and damage multiplier |
|---|---|
| Normal | 1.0x |
| Hard | 1.2x |
| Advanced | 1.4x |
| Professional | 1.6x |
| Masochist | 1.8x |
| Extreme | 2.1x |
| Beyond | 2.4x |
| Legendary | 2.7x |
| Ultimate | 3.0x |
| Zenith | 5.0x |
That table is the reason "just play on a harder difficulty" is not advice for a first playthrough. At Ultimate the enemies have three times the health and hit three times as hard, against a party whose gear is the same.
Before you finish the game
The order of operations matters:
- Clear every side mission you care about before beating the final boss. Chapter 16 warns you, and then it is gone. See side missions.
- Spend your Arena coins. Coin exchange stock does not carry over in the higher-difficulty route, so a full purse is wasted.
- Check the achievements you still want. Lap Two Complete needs a second full clear, and the rare completion achievements such as Stardust Hunters want a star in every rank — the achievements page has the current global rates for both.
- Save before the final fight. The game keeps 50 manual slots plus a suspend save, so there is no reason to gamble.
What carries over between laps
The same-difficulty route is effectively a victory lap: levels, weapons, parts, hexes, money and Arena progress all persist, which makes the second playthrough a much faster run and the natural place to clean up missions you missed. The higher-difficulty route resets your gear, which is why it is aimed at players who want the combat again rather than the cleanup.
A note on the story
Clearing the game ends the playthrough — the ending plays and the game does not put you back in Basel. If you want to see optional scenes, do them first. This is not a post-game with a free-roam state, and treating it like one is how people lose twenty hours of side content.
Retention lists, difficulty tiers and scaling table: community New Game Plus documentation, checked 2026-10-31.