NB: this page uses names from the English fan translation by anjiera (version 1.0)
Moya Tower
Moya Tower (モーヤの塔) is the post-game dungeon in the Nintendo DS version of the first Ni No Kuni game. It is located on the island surrounded by mist at the very south-west edge of the map. The lift the mist and access the dungeon, one must finish all of Mirant's (Horace's) Errands. His final errands unlock after finishing the game and upon completing them, he'll teach you the Evenstar spell and give you the Moya Key that you'll need to complete the dungeon.
Basic Principles[]
Moya Tower has a total of 100 floors to go through before reaching the true final boss, but each floor needs to be unlocked through Alchemy before it can be reached.
Materializing Floors[]
The Floor Synthesis screen
To unlock the floors you need to talk to the woman in the tower. You'll have access to the recipes for 5 floors at a time. For each floor you will need to assemble a fixed ingredient and two extra ingredients.
The fixed ingredients are usually unique drops from monsters, alchemy items or drops from the tower's bosses. The extra ingredients can be common enemy drops, shop items (early floors only) or field items (items found on the world map).
The quantity needed for each ingredient is based on its rarity and how far along you are on the unlocks. For the early stages you'll be able to get away with just a couple items, but by the end of it you'll need up to 15 of each ingredient to unlock a floor.
There is an option to randomly shuffle the extra ingredients for each floor, using this function is highly recommended. For more tips on unlocking the floors please refer to the section below.
When unlocking certain floors you will be given more alchemy recipes for the cauldron. When unlocking the final floor, you'll receive the blue slot equipment ‘Noblewoman's Umbrella' which increases evasion rate.
Dungeon Structure[]
Oliver in front of the tablets
The layout of each floor is generated randomly, and can contain a certain number of chests with unique items. On each floor you'll be looking for a pair of tablets. One will take you to the next floor (granted you've unlocked it through alchemy before), the other one will take you out of the dungeon. After leaving you'll be able to get back to any floor you've reached before, so it's recommended to always take the tablet up and use the Escape spell to get out if needed, rather than the tablet.
For every group of 5 floors there is a fixed set of familiars to encounter. All enemies in the tower drop items from the same set, some of which will be needed in big quantities to craft every possible item in the game.
The chests also contain items from the same set, as well as powerful healing items and some exclusive items that will be needed for floor unlocks. It's also possible to find rare equipment, marbles to increase a familiar's statistics, jewels to teach them new skills and even Rebirth Drops.
Bosses[]
Every 5 floors, you'll end up in a room with a save point and will need to go through a boss battle in order to ascend to the next set of floors. The bosses are stronger versions of the game's bosses and will respawn if you go through the floor again.
This means it's better to ensure that the next floor is unlocked before going for a boss, and don't forget to get through the door after the boss to mark the floor as completed.
Most bosses don't drop anything but some will give you ‘Moya Fragment's needed to unlock some floors, one will give an additional summon orb for Oliver and two will unlock the recipes for Jairo's and Mary's final weapons. All these drops are fixed and cannot be gotten more than once.
For information on the final boss, see the section below.
Finding alchemy ingredients[]
Enemy drops[]
Stealing vs dropping[]
The first thing to note is that Jairo's stealing ability has a very low success rate on most enemies and there does not seem to be a way to improve the success rate. The only exception to these rules are the enemies in the Moya Tower itself for which the steal success rate is close to 100%. Sadly these items are useful for synthesis but not for unlocking floors of the tower. It also does not seem that wearing a fishing pole increases Jairo's chances to grab a rare item (not confirmed). This means that relying on stealing to get the needed items for the tower would be highly inefficient.
Thankfully the enemy groups in dungeons and on the world map are fixed. This means that if you go far enough from where a group spawned and come back, you'll be able to fight the same encounter again. So, when looking for a specific drop from a monster the best strategy is to go around the dungeon trying to find a group with two or more of these monsters, and fight it repeatedly.
A good strategy is equipping Jairo with boots to make him faster and attempt to steal from the monster before Oliver one-shots the group with Quake or a Summon. This gives a little chance for Jairo's steal to be useful without spending dozens of turns failing to steal. Also note that stealing successfully still allows for the normal drops to occur. However, for some rare drops from enemies that don't appear more than once in any group, attempting to steal repeatedly could be a valid strategy.
Table of materials obtainable only through enemy drop[]
| Material | Common drop from: | Rare drop from: |
|---|---|---|
| Blue Bark | Hog-Goblin (Mount Dekarock) | Lightshade (Mount Dekarock) Hip-Hooray (Northeastern Sea) Crowhawk (Southern Mediirus) Green Buncher (Mieruda Desert) |
| Flame Prism | Little Bighorn, Small Fry (Mount Dekarock) Turbandit (Bikini Bay) Oroboros (Morel Forest) |
Sunshine (Mieruda Desert) Impaler (Northeastern Sea) Worker Bumbler (Morel Forest) |
| Mist Feather | Airhead (Southwestern Sea) Grandsun (Caraway Island) |
Flapper (Northeastern Sea) Covetsprout (Caraway Island) |
| Obsidian | Ruffian (Mount Dekarock) Jabber (Morel Forest) |
Chubbel, Masterstache (Mount Dekarock) Clubber Cub (Southern Mediirus) Gabrawl (Northeastern Sea) Floret, Relixx (Bikini Bay) |
| Power Stone | Rhinosaur (Basiluna Plains) Mishell (Catnap Sewers) |
Ruff (Basiluna Plains) Flipper (Catnap Sewers) Sillymander, Teeny Bopper (Whispering Waterfalls) |
| Smooth Leather | Inphant (Basiluna Plains) | Kurtey (Basiluna Plains) Rabbot (Catnap Sewers) Whirlybud, Whippersnapper (Whispering Waterfalls) |
| Snowflake | Plessie (Southwestern Sea) | Patty (Southwestern Sea) Messy Plessie, Splasher (Northeastern Sea) Whambat, Sperrale (Caraway Island) |
| Splash Stone | Danglerfish (Catnap Sewers) Baatender (Basiluna Plains) |
Taddlywink (Catnap Sewers) Gaboss, Splisher (Whispering Waterfalls) |
| Storm Seeds | Pom Pom (Morel Forest) | Ferrale (Bikini Bay) Bubbud (Southern Mediirus) Lobsciss (Mount Dekarock) Beachhead (Northeastern Sea) Naja, Bonehead (Mieruda Desert) |
| Sturdy Bone | Sore Boar (Morel Forest) Wolgur (Southern Mediirus) Cobalt Wolgur, Shrimpaler (Mount Dekarock) Alpaca (Mieruda Desert) |
n/a |
| White Pipe | Baddy-Daddy (Castle Arcano) Wayward Sun (Castle Arcano) |
n/a |
| Drill Screw* | Tin-Man (Rekka) Inamorata (Ghost Valley) |
n/a |
| Iron Gear* | Bighorn, Zombo (Ghost Valley) Jackrabbot (Rekka) Hot Cog (Kayan Island) |
Sprog Cog, Pinion (Rekka) |
\* Drill Screw and Iron Gear can also be found as field items but have been included because the spawn rate seems extremely low
Field Items[]
Tips for collecting field items[]
Past the first dozens of floors you'll no longer be able to use simple shop items and will need either field items or drops from enemies. As seen before, farming drop items is highly inefficient, even on very early game enemies, so the field items will be your most valuable asset on the unlocking task.
Field items are fixed and always appear at the same spots on the map even. They have a chance to respawn every time you take off and land again, making farming for them way easier. Some of them however are a bit harder to respawn so for these you can just fly back and forth between a few spawn points. You'll need a *lot* of these items by the end.
The easier ones to farm for are the flowers, Wildflowers and Faith Flower spawn close to each other on Caraway Island while Spray Flowers and Down Flowers appear on the Rekka continent. The Poison Bloom spot below Catnap Kingdom also respawns very easily, you can even land at the spot, go to the right and fight a group of Baatender and Rhinosaurs or Inphants in hopes of dropping one of the other material that can be used to unlock the floors. Similarly, the Gorus groups that spawn near the Faith and Wildflowers spot on Caraway Island can drop some useful material.
Table of materials found on the field[]
Note: Field items that can be purchased from shops have not been included in the table. Some of the enemies that can drop the items have also been added to the table. These are always common drops except for Poison Bloom and Twinkling Morel which are always rare drops.
| Material | Location: | Also obtainable from: |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Keystone | Wishing Islands, Palette Archipelago | Moya Tower chests and enemies |
| Ancient Leaf | Wishing Islands, Kayan Island | Tokotoko, Electrixx (Dragon's Den) |
| Black Steel | Southern Mediirus, Entomologist Enclave, Seal Island | Shubbel, Clinketyclank V2 (Coconanda Cavern) |
| Cool Rock | Shivering Isle, Horripilatia | Kozak, Clinketyclank (Ghost Valley) |
| Dandy's Pipe | Misty Isle, Tropical Archipelago | Spinion, Iron-Man (Nachelnacht) |
| Down Flower | Rekka, Tropical Archipelago | Bougie, Wisp, Girlfiend (Ghost Valley) |
| Dragon Fossil | Aye-Aye Isle, Duckbill Island | Turburn (Glacier Grotto), Deep Fry (Corpse Lake) |
| Drill Screw | Isle of Wishes (very rare) | Tin-Man (Rekka), Inamorata (Ghost Valley) |
| Faith Flower | Caraway Island | Hooray (Southwestern Sea) |
| Heavy Bell | Aye-Aye Isle | Lubber Club (Dragon's Den), Spike Tyke (Kayan Island) |
| Ice Flower | Shivering Isle, Freezy Island | Sasquash (Pirate Hideout) |
| Iron Diamond | Wishing Islands, Palette Archipelago |
Moya Tower chests and enemies |
| Iron Gear | Feather Island (very rare) | Bighorn, Zombo (Ghost Valley), Jackrabbot (Rekka) |
| Jade Sphere | Palette Archipelago | Psychophant (Dragon's Den), Big Bopper (Dragon's Den) |
| Memory Moustache | Wishing Islands, Palette Archipelago | Moya Tower chests and enemies |
| Poison Bloom | Northern Mediirus | Flipp (Catnap Sewers), Sleepeafowl (Basiluna Plains) |
| Saint's Eye | Tropical Archipelago, Palette Archipelago |
Moya Tower chests and enemies |
| Smelling Salts | Southern Mediirus | n/a |
| Spray Flower | Rekka, Wishing Islands | Sunshade (Ghost Valley) |
| Twinkling Morel | Kayan Island, Duckbill Island | Burly Hurly, Chloroboros (Dragon's Den) |
| Wildflower | Caraway Island, Feather Island | Tyke (Caraway Island) |
Map of the field items location[]
Final boss[]
The boss has two phases. The recommended setup is Oliver (at least level 80), Tundragorer and any other Imagen you like, I used Hurlabaloo. To get a Tundragorer you'll need to evolve the Mandragorer you get as a reward for completing the Coliseum. Its final evolution happens at level 61.
Equip Oliver with God Mark and Sky Necklace, Tundragorer with the Noblewoman Umbrella and equipment to boost its HP. Equip your last team member with anything you want to make it hit stronger or resist more damage.
First Phase[]
The boss will always do a simple physical attack on the first turn, then for the next 6 turns he will use a magical attack of each type (that all leave 3 safe spots on the fields). After that he'll do a magic attack that confuses everyone on the field. Thankfully this attack seems to have a very low success rate. Once he's done with that, he'll do it all over again in the same order, which means you can learn his attacks and easily avoid all damage for this phase.
There's no real strategy except avoiding his attacks, boosting your team with tundragorer and hitting him hard till he drops. For maximum damage, use Evenstar with Oliver, restoring his MP as needed with your other team members. Since you can avoid all damage, taking your time and being more conservative with everyone's MP is also a valid option.
Sadly the power level you gain from avoiding everything does not transfer for phase 2, so use power attacks freely in this step.
Second Phase[]
During the second phase he'll use the same attacks but in a random order. He may well use the same magic 3 times in a row or decide to only do physical attacks for a while.
Since there's no way to predict the attacks he will use, you can just stay in the same position all the time. I put Oliver and Tundragorer on the left and right of the back row. Place your last character in a spot where it is always safe from any elemental weakness, for instance I put my Hurlabaloo in the very center of the board to always avoid the fire attack.
The strategy is the following: make sure Oliver's Ward is always active, boost him with Tundragorer and hit the boss with Evenstar. Tundragorer can use Healing Aura every turn and the last team member will restore MP as needed and attack the rest of the time.
If you're high level enough there's no real risk to die unless Tundragorer is hit with confusion at a bad time or you forget to put Ward up again. If things go wrong just bring someone else from the reserve and try to get things back up and running again. It's the last battle so there's no need to be conservative with your high level items.
After beating the boss, you will receive the final wand in the game as well the Astra spell. You can also go back to the casino and receive your hard-earned Black Ticket.