Leveling up inVisions of Manacan take a good long while. The experience point curve is fairly steep; if you’re more than a level or two above the competition, you may find yourself requiring dozens of battles to get further ahead. Even if your only goal is to keep up, it can appear glacial.

Valorflies

Specially-colored butterfliescome in both a leveling variety and a money-boosting variety. The ones we’re looking for arepurplish pink butterflies known as Valorflies.

Here’s the thing:scout around before you use oneso that it doesn’t go to waste. Enemy placements in Visions of Mana are often rather far apart, soyou’ll be spending at least half the time a Valorfly is in effect just finding foes.

The Aery Passage in Visions of Mana

If you’ve determined a good route between multiple groups, however, you may reap these rewards in full.

Curious Cookies

Curious, indeed.Having a character eat a Curious Cookie will temporarily boost their EXP gain by ten percent, which might not seem too striking. But it does, of course, add up.

The best time to pop one iswhen a Nemesis or boss monster is nearly defeated. If you have plenty of Curious Cookies at your disposal, feel free to splurge whenever, but if you have only a few, reserve them for these special occasions.

Val and Hinna near the exit from the Fire Village in Visions of Mana

In addition to Curious Cookies, there areMiracle Cookies. These are buffed-up versions of the original recipe whichaward 15 percent EXP gain while action.

You’ll find cookies in treasure chests.

Nemeses

Named monsters with a special battle theme,known as Nemeses, pepper the landscape in various locations. You’ll always know you’re near one because there’s aforeboding theme kicking up. Even if you haven’t seen them yet, you’ll know.

Not only do Nemeses provideunique rewards,butthey can be a great source of EXPas well. The only reason to shy away from a Nemesis is when it’sfar higher in level than you are, as is the case with a Chobin Hood variety in the Aery Passage.

The Rabite nemesis damages val in battle in Visions of Mana

Bosses

If all else fails, you can be reasonably assured thatyou’ll gain a level from a boss battle. At minimum, you should see a huge chunk of your current EXP bar fill up before the results screen has ended.

Of course, there are a limited number of bossesin Visions of Mana, butthey will always push you pretty close to where you need to be in level.

The Mantis Ant prepares to land on the party in Visions of Mana

For instance, if you’re around level six heading into theMantis Antboss, expect to belevel sevenwhen it’s over. The enemies up ahead? Around level seven.

As it happens, there are a handful of ways to hasten the grind. In our journey thus far, Visions of Mana’s leveling tips are relatively clear-cut; that is to say, very little is hidden beyond plain sight. Nevertheless, it pays to have the upper hand from the get-go.