Kupo Kupo Adventure is the brand new little 8-bit minigame included with The Rising 2023. It has you control a magic-wielding Moogle shooting your way through hordes of enemies with magic to help you. How cute! If you’re in a mood for a shakeup of different content, here’s how to beat Kupo Kupo Adventure in FFXIV.
FFXIV Kupo Kupo Adventure- Where to play
Once you’ve completed The Rising 2023 base questline, talk to Nonora over by the stage at (10.5, 8.3). She’s marked with the 10th anniversary logo over her head to make it even easier. Listen to her explanation if you please, but otherwise, agree to start playing and jump into stage one.
Mechanics Overview
In this game, you click to fire bullets across a grid and move up or down with the W/S keys. Enemies come from the left over to you one grid square at a time. If they cross over the line, they attack the Moogle you’re controlling. You have a BP number, which represents how many bullets you’re able to fire at once. Hitting blue crystals give you another BP.
You also have 100 HP and MP, along with a few spells given to you off the bat.
- Pom Fire: Deals 20 damage to a target in front of you. 30 MP, 3 turns to recast
- Pom Starstorm: Deals 10 damage to all enemies in an area centered 8 squares in front of you. 40 MP, 4 turns to recast
- Pom Cure: Restores 50 HP. 10 MP, 1 turn to recast
- Pom Ward: Erects a protective barrier around you for one turn. 30 MP, 3 turns recast
- Pom Reraise: Grants automatic revival upon KO for the duration of the effect. 50 MP, can’t be recast.
In general, focus on the offensive spells over the defensive spells. You need all the MP you can get, and Ward and Reraise take up too much MP. You should only need to use Pom Cure occasionally. It’s also better to aim your shot down or up rather than directly forward, letting it bounce around more and take out more enemies.
Stage 1
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Stage one shouldn’t give you any trouble. The enemies are weak and there are plenty of Bomb enemies appearing. Target them and let them explode. They wipe out other enemies when they do.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
Ultros and Typhon appear as the bosses, each sprouting 15 health. Each one will deal five damage to you upon attacking. You can easily wipe them out with Fire and Starstorm and then the rest of the remaining enemies and move on.
Stage 2
Screenshot by PC Invasion
This stage introduces enemies that give more trouble, along with a couple new abilities.
- Pom Esuna: Removes all detrimental effects except for Doom. This is mostly used for Poison. 20 MP, 3 turns to recast
- Pom Levitation: Grants invulnerability to floor effects for 1 turn. 20 MP, 3 turns to recast. This is to avoid the floor effects you’ll experience from now on.
I wouldn’t bother with either of these defensive abilities either for the same reason. They consume too much MP. The new enemies to deal with for stage two are:
- Cactuar: The cactuar moves up and down the grid if spaces are available, and fires needles at you every single turn. Be sure when you make your move you’re not standing in the same line as one. These are the biggest threat to you from now on.
- Alligator: Inflicts minor damage every three turns.
- Bulb: Makes a floor tile poisonous every three turns. If you move into an affected square, you take damage.
- Morbol: Afflicts a turn of bind and three turns of poison every three turns.
- Landtrap: These don’t do anything special.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
The boss is a Chichu. It poisons you every single turn until it gets closer, at which point it deals a 15 damage soundwave attack. It has 30 health. Use a Pom Fire followed by a standard attack to kill it easily.
Numbers can get overwhelming in this stage. Bombs and Pom Starstorm help a lot to clear everything out.
FFXIV Kupo Kupo Adventure: Stage 3
Screenshot by PC Invasion
This is the difficult one that may take multiple tries. You’ve a single new ability: Pom Meteor. It deals 15 damage to all enemies. 80 MP, 10 turns to recast. This is your valuable tool to kill almost every enemy on the screen at one point during the stage. Use it wisely as a last resort. Bomb enemies are still your friend as well.
- Mandragora: Same as the Bulbs from last stage.
- Diremite: Poisons you every 2 turns.
- Tonberry: These enemies don’t attack unless they’ve been damaged, at which point they keep attacking you for minor damage. If you target one, try to kill it in one hit.
- Gorgon: Inflicts Doom status effect every 2 turns, which kills you if you don’t kill it within 5 turns. Focus them down when they appear.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
The boss this time around is Odin. He deals a 40 damage slice directly to you on his second turn twice. The third time, he uses an instakill attack. He has 50 health. Needless to say, kill him quickly, or you lose the entire stage.
Screenshot by PC Invasion
And with that, you won! The little Moogle is safe and completes their journey! There’s no real reward for winning, it’s just for the fun of playing. Replay for a higher score if you’re so inclined.
