Chapter 1 to 10

Follow the light at the end of the tunnel, my son

Chapter 11

After the game's briefed you about Cie'th Stones and practically forced you to do the first four, jump off the cliff and follow the path to find Stones 5 through 7, then do 8 on your way back to Central.

Back in Central, the linearity continues for a bit, as your marks conveniently lead you to the next Stone. Once you've finished Stone 14, you'll have a chocobo of your very own, in which case you should praise the sun and cry in joy as you never have to walk in Central ever again. Ride your trusty steed to Stones 15 and 16, which you coincidentally need a chocobo in order to reach *hint hint*

Thus ends the open-world gameplay for now, as it's time to resume the story. After doing Stone 17 to the west of where Stone 11 was, enter the cave near it and follow the linear path once again, doing Stones 18 through 28 along the way.

Chapter 12 and 13

Follow the light at the end of the tunnel, my son... oh, and beat the game. Yes, I'm serious.

Post-game, AKA and now the real game (and the fun) begins

You may remember the Juggernaut locked behind a gate in Mah'habara, who most likely kicked your butt on your first time through the cave. Well, get some payback and do Stone 29. While you're there, backtrack instead of warping, and ride Atomos again to unlock a new area you'll come back to in a few minutes.

Go back to Central, mount your trusty steed and head North-East to the area full of scalies. Prove that chicken can fly by jumping up the cliff and follow the path to Stone 30. Once you're done with it and Stone 31, go back to Base Camp and walk like a birdless pleb on the path back to Central. Do Stone 32 along the way, then head back to the Archeopolis and have fun for quite some time until you've done Stones 33 all the way to 50, at which point you may be wondering where Titan's final Trial is. Well, now's the time to use any one of those hitherto inactive Stones you found on your way to the final Trials.

Ahh, back to Central at long last... at least for a little while. You can find Stone 52 in the south-west, Stone 53 back in Mah'habara, Stone 54 near Stone 17 in Central, and finally Stone 55 all the way back in Oerba. Enough back and forth for now, go back to Central!

On your way to the Archeopolis, you may have noticed this game's own version of Stonehenge, which I like to call the Achievements Circle. Reap your much-deserved rewards and be afraid at the now abundance of big scary (or rather, even scarier) dudes roaming about the plains.

For your last two Stones, go to Sulyya, and then to Oerba for the very last time (unless you decide to warp back to Chapter 12 to do some probably much needed Adamantoise farming, that is, in which case you might as well since the Stone is right next to the warp)

And this is it, you've purified all the Stones and laid those poor Cie'th to rest, and gotten plenty of achievements in the process... but wait, there's more in the way of optional content! By now, you should have dug up a treasure or ten while sitting on your trusty KFC bucket. Well, dig up enough of 'em to get a shiny achievement, and a mostly useless reward! Afterwards, the only thing the game still has to offer is... beating a Long Gui! Doing so will reward you with yet another shiny achievement, as well as almost thrice the amount of CP an Adamantoise provides, as well as five times the chances of dropping a Trap, and even a small chance of dropping Dark Matter! So if you can kill 'em consistently and haven't maxed your crystarium yet, do so or...

The Future

Move on to FFXIII-2! That's right, this is the next guide I'm gonna work on, and this time I expect it'll be a real guide, and not this minuscule thing you could probably fit on a mobile screen. But either way, this is where I shall end it, so I hope the guide helped, that you'll have fun with the game, and I certainly appreciate the support I've received thus far!