The data in this hub is focused on the east Asia servers (Korea/Japan/Taiwan). As of March 2024, this site is no longer being updated.
This guide is for new players starting out the game, and has suggestions on what to focus on during the early game as you establish yourself.
Note that this is based off of the status of the east Asia servers (Korea/Japan/Taiwan). The game in this region has been running for 11+ months, and has seen numerous patches, updates, and additional features. After global launches, this guide will be adjusted to match the features/modes that global starts off with.
Don't forget to check the global website at https://ninokuni.netmarble.com/en/!
TODOs:
split guide into multiple pages
add tips for
inventory management
best ways to acquire familiars, equipment
suggested builds for each class for different tasks (story, PVE/bosses, PVP, solo and party)
training book missions (Elphina)
events
If you want to play with friends or join a specific Kingdom (guild), you will need to create your account on the same region and server as them. There are limited options to move between servers within a region (generally offered every few months for about a week) but not between regions.
Each global region has about 12 or so different servers. Server names are a combination of a regional prefix and an astrological sign. The prefixes are:
North America: Jade and Onyx
South America: Opal, Noir, and Ruby
Europe: Rose and Sage
Southeast Asia: Aqua and Sand
Note that each name in the server list is a different server. Jade Aries and Onyx Aries are two separate servers despite both being in North America and sharing the same astrological sign.
The game will automatically detect your region and offer you a list of servers in that region. If you wish to play in a different region (for example, your friends are located in a different region than you), you will need to use a VPN before loading the game/launcher for the first time so that it loads that region's list of servers. Once you have started your account on that server, you should not need to keep the VPN active.
It is unknown what Netmarble's policy is for changing servers in Global. In East Asia, they have held specific server relocation periods during which you can purchase a relocation ticket and change servers within your region. Players cannot change between regions even during this period. If you wish to join a different server outside these periods, you will need to create a new account on that server.
When you start the game, you will have the option of choosing 1 of the 5 character classes. Each class has its own distinct playstyle.
Swordsman: a well-rounded melee fighter class; ok-to-good at all things but not great at any single thing
Witch: an attack and debuff-focused melee fighter class
Destroyer: a defensive melee tank class
Rogue: a ranged buff-focused class with strong movement options
Engineer: a ranged support class with significant healing abilities
See the character classes guides for a deeper look into each class and their abilities/playstyle.
Note that once you clear the initial tutorial, you are free to swap between classes (by going to settings > account > select character), so do not feel locked in with your initial selection. Some progress is shared between all classes on your account (familiars, armor/accessories, inventory, some base stats) but other progress is handled on a per-class basis (weapons, levels, class rank bonuses, main story progress.)
Before you start the game, you'll need to customize your character. Some customizations are locked in at this point (body build, skin tone, eye color) but others can be changed later (hair color/style, face makeup, clothing) through the costume system. If you absolutely hate how your character looks, you can purchase a ticket in the shop (for 300 diamonds) that allows you to redo the character builder.
Once you complete customization, you'll start the main story. You'll get an introduction to the world, meet Cluu (your main guide), get a combat tutorial, and eventually find yourself in a weird field. Once you meet Chloe, you'll be given the opportunity to set your character's name (either autogenerated or custom). Note this name applies to your account, and can only be changed by purchasing a ticket from the shop for 300 diamonds, so make sure you're happy with it before confirming. You'll then head to Evermore to learn more about some major characters in the story, as well as how many features in this central hub will work.
Note that the game will automatically move between objectives when you start a story quest. If you don't want the game to autoplay this for you, you will need to turn off the autoplay feature - in the left hand UI, you should see a box with the current story objective (toggled by the <!> icon). If there is a sparkling background behind the objective, the game is autoplaying it for you. Tap on the objective to turn off autoplay. You may need to do this multiple times after you start additional objectives in a story quest. There is no way to completely turn this off this feature. The game will also use your autobattle settings during fights, which you can customize.
Although you are free to clear main story at your own pace after the initial tutorial, it is recommended to clear at least the first 2 chapters (Southern Heartlands and Eastern Heartlands) as this will unlock a lot of useful features, including all 3 weapon and familiar slots, show you how field bosses work, etc. You should be able to level up fairly quickly by completing these quests early to give you a solid base to continue exploring the game.
Apart from learning more about the in-game lore, completing main story quests will provide numerous rewards like experience points, gold, various leveling materials, etc. It will also grant you fast travel access to field zones, letting you zip around the world quickly (for a minor fee.)
You can access the world map with the globe icon on the right-hand side of the screen. Here you'll see numerous fields you can visit. Each field has a level rating, which indicates what level the monsters are in each area. Generally, if your level matches the min monster level of a field, you should be fine. However, this is just a guideline, as your combat power is primarily dependent on the strength of your equipment, familiars, etc. and not your numerical level. Note that in most zones, monsters will not attack you unless you initiate an attack. This allows you to freely walk through zones with much higher level monsters if you simply want to explore or test whether you're strong enough to tackle that zone. However, view spots and treasure chests have minimum level requirements per zone, so may not be available to you yet.
Cross World has 5 characters (classes) that you can play as, and you are encouraged to focus on one class as your main, as the materials and time used make it prohibitive to spread out amonst all classes. However, there are still good reasons to play the other classes (your alts):
Creating alts is free, you just have to replay the main story quest up to the middle of chapter 2 to unlock all their equipment and familiar slots
If you're not sure which class you want to main, you can try them all out and see which one fits your playstyle best
Reclearing main story quests provides you with useful leveling materials. Once you've cleared main story quest in an area, your alts will have a 'skip' button for dialog and cut scenes so they can move through them quickly.
Inventory is account-wide so alts can use the same armor, accessories, familiars, and mounts that you've powered up for your main, meaning your alts can get by at low levels and with only basic 3* weapons equipped.
Any alt which is 10 or more levels below your main class will gain 8x experience when defeating monsters on the field, so they will level up quickly.
Each class has rank bonuses every 20 levels. At levels 20 and 40, this rank bonus includes +25 inventory slots, for a total of +250 inventory slots when all your classes are at level 40.
Loot drops won't drop if your character is 8+ levels higher than the monsters you are fighting, so a common way to farm lower level monster drops is to send your lower level alts against them.
Combat power is a number that generally indicates your battle strength. It is a combination of all your stats, including HP, attack, defense, crit, etc. from all your sources (equipment, familiars higgledies, etc.) There are numerous ways to boost your combat power. In the early game, you should focus on equipment and familiars.
Each class can equip several types of equipment. See the equipment guides for more detailed information about acquiring, leveling, and boosting equipment.
While weapons are specific to each class, the other equipment can be freely equipped by any class. This means that if you haven't decided on a main and are trying out several classes first, you should focus on armor and accessories that multiple classes can use; if you already know which class you want to main, building out their weapons first will give you more attack power to clear battles faster.
Weapons (3 slots total) - class dependent
Armor (4 slots total) - class independent
Body
Head
Arms
Legs
Accessories (3 slots total) - class independent
Earrings
Ring
Necklace
Equipment has a base star level between 1* and rare 4*, which indicates its base stats and potential growth. While you can increase the star level to boost the stats, you should focus on 3*, 4*, and rare 4* equipment as these have the most potential for long term use. Due to limited inventory space at the start of the game, it's better to salvage 1* and 2* equipment to get back some forging materials out of them. Later on when your inventory space isn't at a premium, you can go back and work on 1* and 2* equipment for your codex. 3* equipment is can be acquired at decent rates from forging and are not too hard to level up, so putting some effort into them is useful to get into the midgame, but don't put too much materials into upgrading their star level as these materials are acquired slowly and better spent on 4* equipment. 4* equipment should be leveled up immediately as these will eventually be used in your long term builds, but don't slot base 4* equipment over leveled up/awakened 3* equipment until their stats outperform the 3* piece.
You will want one weapon in each element (fire, water, wood, light, and dark.) This allows you to always choose an attack element that is favored in a fight against monsters and bosses. Attacking with a favored element increases damage and critical hit rate. There are currently no monsters or bosses which are null element; only other players are null element. At the very start of the game, even at 1* weapon can be useful to slot if it's the only weapon you have in that element, however they should all get replaced by 3* fairly quickly, and eventually 4* weapons.
The other two weapons in your deck can be any element - you should select these two based on what has good stats as well as what passive skills you want in your build.
Notable weapons:
Normal 4* fire weapons/Guardian series
The Guardian series of weapons is favored for both PVE and PVP play, as its base skill increases the power of your normal attacks.
Rare 4* light weapons/Chronos series
The Chronos series of weapons is favored for both PVE and PVP play, as its base skill increases the speed (and animation speed) of your attacks.
Rare 4* dark weapons/Genocide series
The Genocide series of weapons is favored for PVP play, as its base skill increases damage dealt to other players.
Armor is more straightforward - you can equip 4 different types of armor, each which boosts different defensive abilities like HP, defense, or dodge rate.
Notable armor:
4* glove: Zest glove
The zest gloves boost experience from defeating monsters, so is perfect when you are grinding for exp.
4* boots: Bounty boots
The bounty boots boost gold drops from defeating monsters, and you will definitely want lots of gold in order to level up familiars, equipment, and a wide range of other systems.
Rare 4* helmet: Overlord Helm
The overlord helm is favored for PVP play, as its base skill reduces damage from other players' familiars.
Rare 4* body armor: Imperial Coat
The imperial coat is favored for PVP play, as its base skill reduces damage from other players.
Accessories are a little harder to earn in the early game, as most are drops or rewards from boss fights or boss modes. While the general advice of focusing on 3* or higher equipment remains the same, it will probably take more time to acquire 4* accessories. Additionally, since there are so many more late-game viable accessories than other types of equipment, you will probably want to save any grade-up materials for 4* or rare 4* accessories only.
Familiars are similar to the system from Ni no Kuni 1 (Dark Djinn/White Witch), although they are generally acquired through egg hatching, the gacha system, or as quest rewards, and not through collecting on the field. You can equip up to 3 at a time: they provide base stats, a passive skill, and an active skill. See the familiars guide for more details on acquiring, leveling, and boosting familiars.
As with equipment, familiars have base star rankings between 1* and rare 4*, and you should focus on 3* and higher familiars. However, familiars have their own inventory with lots of space, so you can hold onto 1* and 2* familiars for awakenings to fill out your codex, and awaken them whenever you have the gold to spare.
Each familiar has an element, so work best in a build also focused on that element. However, you may also wish to choose a familiar (or two) based on a skill (active or passive) that your build needs, like healing or improved defense in PVP mode.
Having a healing familiar in your build will reduce the number of HP potions you use, and provide a safety buffer. Every element has at least one 4* familiar with an active heal ability, although some familiars have a single strong heal while others provide a smaller sustained heal over a short period of time. Familiars can only heal you (they will not heal members of your party.)
Fire: Shrimpaler; when added to gacha, Lahva provides a heal after its undying buff runs out
Water: Splisher; when added to gacha, Sepia
Wood: Disbeleaf; when Genie event is available, Tokotoko
Light: Thumbelemur
Dark: Penguicorn; when Halloween event is availble, Bougie
Several familiars have abilities specifically targeted to PVP modes:
Light event 4* Minor Byrde: decreases damage taken from other players in battlefield modes; can stun other players
Dark rare 4* Sling: increases damage dealt to other players
Dark rare 4* Rimu: decreases damage taken from other players; can seal other players' familiars for a short time
Several familiars have abilities specifically targeted against large boss enemies:
Dark 4* Black Ox: Reduces damage from boss monsters
Combat power is boosted through a lot of different systems in the game. Equipment and familiars are the simplest way, so should be your initial focus. However, once you've established a good base, you can look into many of the other game systems.
Skills: There are both active and passive skills, which provide an extremely broad set of abilities, although only passive skills are reflected in your raw combat power. Find a build that suits your playstyle.
Mounts: mounts not only provide a faster way to travel on the field, but a modest combat boost. You select one mount as your primary and gain all of its stat boosts; any other mounts you own will contribute 30% of their stats to your combat power.
Titles: earning titles for completing various tasks will provide very small combat power boosts, but will add up over time. You can also equip a title to display over your name for fun.
Achivements: there is a long, ongoing list of achievements that, like titles, will provide small combat power boosts that add up over time
Collector books: as you obtain equipment, familiars, skills, monster souls, field drops, etc., you will fill out your collector books, which provide small but cumulative combat power boosts.
Heart constellations: the heart constellations are a set of skill trees that boost various stats as you fill them out.
Tetroblock puzzles: tetroblock puzzles are boards that you fill with tetroblock pieces. Each type of piece provides a specific boost (i.e. squares provide attack power, T pieces boost HP) and completing a puzzle provides an additional bonus.
Lucky higgledies: certain upgrade processes have a chance to fail; these will provide lucky clovers as consolation. Lucky clovers can be given to your higgledies for small combat power boosts.
[Probably not available at global launch] Higgledie Company lets you recruit higgledies to provide a variety of passive combat boosts. Leveling up/training the higgledies provide even more boosts.
Kingdom Training: This is a daily PVP mode (vs an AI opponent); whether you win or lose, you increase your kingdom training rank, which provides boosts.
If you want to level up quickly, you should look at the Chaos Dungeons. The first Chaos Dungeon is available in the Eastern Heartlands when you reach level 25.
Unlike field zones, monsters in chaos dungeon zones will attack your character the moment you get close. They also respawn very quickly. This means it's easy for you to get overwhelmed, but once your power level is comfortable, it provides fast respawns so you can defeat monsters more quickly for exp and gold gains. Farming in a party can help if you aren't strong enough to tackle on a zone by yourself; you'll also gain a modest boost to gold and item drop rates when in a party.
Chaos dungeons not only provide a way to quickly level up and earn gold, but useful drops for boosting your equipment (gemstones and leveling materials), and magic pages that you can use to learn or upgrade certain skills. Using pink sweet drinks will boost drop rates, and green energy drinks will boost drop rates, gold, and experience, so saving these for Chaos Dungeons is one of the most effective ways to use them.
Once you clear main story quest chapter 1 and an Evermore reputation quest that introduces you to a knight named Christine, you will be able to create or join a Kingdom (guild). If you don't want to join a kingdom immediately, you can also temporarily enter the server's Academy Kingdom, which provides access to some general kingdom benefits without committing to joining a group of other players.
Kingdoms provide a variety of benefits to its members, depending on how its maintainers have set things up:
Kingdom buffs: Kingdoms can provide a set of passive buffs to all members. As the kingdom levels up and more people contribute, more buffs with stronger effects can be set. You can also use the Kingdom's theater to provide yourself with temporary buffs; these buffs get stronger as the kingdom is able to level them up.
Kingdom requests: There are both individual and kingdom-wide requests that can be fulfilled each week. Individual requests provide kingdom currency. The more kingdom-wide requests are fulfilled, the more rewards get added to the Kingdom's Raffle, where all members have a chance at the rewards.
Kingdom shop: The kingdom has a shop with many useful items, such as exp, leveling materials, unique mounts, etc.
Kingdom restaurant: The kingdom restaurant lets you cook certain dishes; consuming these dishes provides short term buffs in battles.
Kingdom-based fights and dungeons: There are several fights and dungeons only accessed through a kingdom, and are designed to be tackled by many kingdom members at once, providing useful rewards for both direct participants and all kingdom members.
Kingdom vs Kingdom fights: There are several PVP modes of fighting between whole kingdoms that provide significant rewards to the victors.
Kingdoms level up as players donate materials to it (gold, obsidian, prisms), which gives access to more items in the shop, better buffs, etc. - so be sure to donate if you participate in your Kingdom regularly.
As a mobile MMO, Cross Worlds has a variety of quests that reset daily or weekly. Completing them each time period will slowly build up a variety of useful materials for boosting your character. Don't get burned out on these, though - they repeat, so find the right pace that works for you.
Daily to-do's: There is a list of daily to-do's, such as clearing the training dungeons, leveling up a piece of equipment or a familiar, etc. Each task is worth a certain number of points. Earning certain amounts of points will provide you with rewards, up to 100. There are more points available each day though, so you don't have to complete every task to get all the rewards.
Training dungeons: there are 2 training dungeons that can be challenged once daily for free (additional runs require spending diamonds) and provide materials to level up equipment and familiars; the gold dungeon can only be run once per day. Occasionally there is an event that allows you to either enter the dungeon more often or provides 2x the rewards.
Kingdom training: this PVP mode (1:1 with an AI opponent) can be challenged 3 times daily for free (additional runs require spending diamonds). Despite the name, it is not part of the Kingdom (guild) system.
Familiar gifts: Each day, your familiars will want to give you gifts! Head into your forest to collect them.
Familiar Adventure: You earn free tickets daily to enter this mode with teams of familiars; the amount increases as you level up your progress in the mode. Additional tickets may be purchased with diamonds or earned through rewards.
Familiar Arena: this PVP mode (1:1 with teams of familiars) can be challenged as long as you have tickets, which you earn at the rate of 1 per 4 hours (max 5 tickets.) Additional tickets require spending diamonds.
Swift Solutions and Conquest Quests: You can accept Swift Solutions quests from Bert, and Conquest Quests from Sanson, both in Evermore. You can tackle 5 Swift Solutions quests free daily; additional quests can be bought with Swift Solutions tickets. Conquest Quests are similar but the limit is 3 free per day, refreshed with Conquest Quest tickets.
Dimensional Border: You earn one free ticket per day (max 7) to challenge these small dungeons with a large boss at the end. You can also choose to bank the tickets and run it a bunch of times at once.
Field bosses and World bosses: These large bosses spawn several times a day at set intervals.
Farming in your familiar forest lets you grow/harvest crops and earn points towards items you can use in customizing your familiar forest. Crops take 20 hours to ripen, although you can speed up this process through gardening liquids.
Weekly to-do's: Like daily to-do's, but tasks that may take a little longer to finish, like completing 10 Swift Solution quests or taming 3 familiars. Like daily to-do's, there are more tasks than point rewards, so feel free to skip out on weekly quests you don't like or have the time for.
Bounty quests: You can accept up to 5 bounty quests a week from Jackson in Evermore, requiring you to help defeat the various Field Bosses.
Kingdom quests: You can accept 2-4 kingdom quests depending on your kingdom's level; these are basic tasks that reward you with kingdom currencies. Your kingdom as a whole also has several tasks (more at higher kingdom levels) where contributions combined from all kingdom members (such as defeating X number of fire monsters, or using the Alchemy Pot Y times) can earn useful rewards that go into the kingdom's Raffle.
Kingdom battle modes: Most kingdom battle modes (kingdom defense, kingdom dungeon) reset their progress weekly
As a free-to-play MMO, Cross World offers a large variety of packs, passes, and other items in its shop available with paid currency. Whether you purchase any of the packs is up to you and your budget. However, there are several notable deals involving in-game currency worth buying from the shop.
Daily login pass (10 gold): This is the free tier of daily login pass and provides a small, useful reward each day for 14 days. The reward on the 14th day is a chest with a random 4* piece of equipment in it. Especially early on, this 4* equipment can get you up and running quickly.
Return on Investment Diamond Packs: There are occasionally "return on investment diamond packs" that are purchased with diamonds, but provide either the same amount (or more!) diamonds back to you over the course of 7 days. That means that if you have enough diamonds to buy the pack, it is absolutely worth it (since you'll recoup your investment and get some other good items with it, such as accessories, sweet drinks, food buffs, and more.)