Elysion(NES) FAQ/Walkthrough version 1.2.2 by schultw.andrez@sbcglobal.net(anti spam spoonerism) Please do not reproduce this FAQ for profit without my prior consent. If you write a polite e-mail to me referring to me(and this FAQ) by name, then I will probably say OK. But if I ignore you that means no--and I am bad about answering e-mail. Sorry. I've written maps and sent them to GameFAQs to accompany this guide. Using them will make things a lot easier, especially when I say something like "mill around and loot a bunch." There are probably a few treasures missing, so let me know if I forget to point something out. Just be sure they're not mimics first :). Thanks to odino and Da Hui for their respective guides, and to Pluvius for his hints to Da Hui. I read it all on the NES Completion Project Board and, after a three month break, their posts combined helped encourage me to take a look at the game--and step back and see how I could look into the details. Thanks to Tenshigami for translating the game from the Japanese and to Romhacking.net for hosting the patch. ================================ OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CONTROLS 2-1. HOW YOU MOVE 2-2. ITEM MANIPULATION 2-3. HOW ENEMIES MOVE 3. STATISTICS 3-1. EXPERIENCE 3-2. ENEMIES 3-3. ITEMS AND WEIGHTS 3-4. SPELLS(WITH GENERAL USE) 4. WALKTHROUGH 4-1. STARTING OUT 4-2. QUICK PATH TO THE HERO RING 4-3. THE CASTLE DUNGEON, REVISITED 4-4. JUMPING AHEAD: SCROLL 8 4-5. DON'T SEE THE KING YET! 4-6. SEE THE KING, SEE THE WORLD 4-7. SCROLL 3 4-8. HOW TO GAMBLE AND WHAT TO BUY 4-9. CHILLIN' IN THE NORTH 4-10. TURNING THE BLUE BLACK KNIGHT BLACK AND BLUE 4-11. A WORD ON INVENTORY JUGGLING 4-12. GAINING YOUR (FAIRY) WINGS 4-13. GO EAST, YOUNG [RACE] 4-14. NOW GO EAST-ER. HOP TO IT! 4-15. SEE THE FOREST FOR THE BREEZE 4-15-1. THE SAGE 4-15-2. SCROLL 4 4-15-3. SCROLL 5 4-16. UNICORNUCOPIA 4-17. SCROLL 7, BECAUSE IT'S STILL NOT OUT OF ORDER TO COUNT OUT OF ORDER 4-18. SCROLL 6, OR A 150% GAIN ON PAPER 4-18-1. HOW MUCH IS THAT FAIRY IN THE WINDOW 4-19. SCROLL 9, BACK TO THE FOREST 4-19-1. DID YOU GET SCROLL 8? 4-20. LOOTING THE BAD GUYS, ONE LAST TIME 4-21. SCROLL 10 AND THE FINAL JEWEL 4-22. HOLY S-WORD, IT'S THE HOLY SWORD! 4-23. "WHAT?! I'M ONLY WORTH 300 EXPERIENCE?!" 4-24. OH FINALLY, A PRINCESS TO RESCUE! 4-25. THE CASTLE MAZE 4-26. BYE BYE BAAL 4-27. WHO GETS WHAT ENDING 4-28. BIG PICTURE CLASS DIFFERENCES 5. CHEATS 5-1. FIXED 5-2. VARIANT 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS ================================ 1. INTRODUCTION Elysion is a pretty good, if potentially bland, RPG, some garish background colors notwithstanding. In this turn-based overhead-view RPG(an unusual combination, but it works,) you play as a hero of one of four different races- -differentiated by favorite weapon, magic ability and strength--who needs to find ten scrolls and a holy sword and defeat the enemy Baal. You have the usual initial quest, then inns open up around the world and you can travel over a cross-shaped continent and into dungeons to seek out scrolls. You also need three special jewels to resolve your Holy Sword's power. There's nothing shocking about the plot, and you don't have much humor, either. Some of the monsters are goofy looking and never give names, but then the weapons and place names are uninspired. But the mechanics are all there. The four different classes are clearly different yet each has its own way to forge forward quickly. Minos use swords and can hack through everything to the point that you don't need the full-strength Holy Sword to win. Their magic is adequate. Aylex are primarily magic users, which allows them to duck and cast spells. Their strength is so weak that they cannot use the best non-God armor til late in the game. More specifically, around the point you find a God shield and armor. Dionea can make use of bows, but they aren't much stronger than Aylex. Vikram are like Minos but have more spell casting and less punch with weapons. There's no wrong choice, and each class gives a different ending as well as a different strategy. And Elysion is worth playing again. You can often duck monsters in places you aren't supposed to be yet to get a quick jump, and there's a Dark Knight who can wipe you out quickly but gives lumps of experience. The mazes are not too terrible, although by the end I wished a few of the dungeons with scrolls were tougher, and you even learn where to go to solve quests that give you a level. I even encountered a problem with my Aylex after playing with my Minos. The solution didn't quite sit right with me--it's counterintuitive and only vaguely hinted at, I realized once I saw what was happening. That's about it, though. I guess an NES can only fit in so much with the ROM available, and the graphics and big mazes it put in were much better than text. Some of the later player-levels are a pain to get through even if you find a convenient experience mill, and some of the dungeons are pitifully small, but once you learn to duck around and map things out, it's a really nice game. Whether you play it through yourself or use this guide in conjunction with my maps. 2. CONTROLS 2-1. HOW YOU MOVE You can move in any one of the four directions. You cannot move diagonally. Monsters don't move unless you do. So you can work a way around them by thinking. You are faster than they are, so as long as you are not in a narrow alley, it's possible to walk by them. They move semi-randomly, too, with some moving towards you more often than others. They are also slow to change direction. Some fly through walls, and they can all walk through each other. You can walk through and around half-flowers, and you have to be right up against people to talk, or chests to open them. The action menu is pretty self explanatory. You can also get enemies to move by running into a wall, and if you are paralyzed, you must try to move to break out of it. If an enemy or trapped chest hits you up, the music changes along with your status. STATUS shows your hit points, attack mode, etc. MAGIC lets you cast a spell. EQUIP lets you equip a weapon/armor/shield or use a Magic or Heal. Use [select] to remove or drop instead. READ I'm not sure...read a scroll in your possession? LOOK describes what's in front of you, also not very useful DRINK drinks from a fountain. Most heal or restore MP, but some damage HP or MP. OPEN opens a chest if it is right next to you. If that doesn't work, run into the chest and try again. It can also open a door if you have the right key equipped. TALK is like OPEN but it just talks to people. There are no sub-dialog commands. If you are SICK, you cannot attack enemies until the music changes back. If you are POISONED, you may lose 10 or 20 hit points, but you cannot die from it. IF you are OLD, your attacking ability is cut in half. 2-2. ITEM MANIPULATION You can get infinite shots for your crossbow by equipping another item and equipping back--provided you do not ever run out of shots before pulling this stunt. Actually, unequipping is enough, as is trying to equip something too heavy. The key is to leave the game scene and come back later. Of course, you can also sell a regular crossbow and buy it back. 2-3. HOW ENEMIES MOVE Enemies mostly move pretty randomly. Some can move diagonally and some can't. Some can move through walls, and wizards can jump around if you get close. But nobody moves unless you do. However, if you line up with them vertically or horizontally, they get the hint. If you make a blocked move, they will move with you. This is helpful if you are sick or old or, late in the game, recharging hit points, and you want to remove the condition--run away from them, run into a wall, and repeat. It's also good to run into walls when trying to bait monsters. In arena-like settings such as the first sage dungeon in the dark forest, it is easy to goad them and win fights. If your armor is good enough, you can just run into them and strike at them at your leisure, speeding up your emulator. 2-4. OFF SCREEN TRICKS AND SUCH The biggest trick to use is what I call the pause trick. When you fire off a spark spell, you can push (B) again to get to the spell menu right away. Usually enemies get to move in a bit, but this way they can't. The second-biggest is the off screen trick. If you enter a dungeon and return immediately, the enemies are wiped off. Similarly, if you walk so an enemy is off-screen, it disappears. Then you can try to come back and make it through again. This is handy when an enemy is blocking a narrow passage. Another big trick is to lure a dark knight to the Lyra Inn, use your magic, rest there and use your magic again. That will kill him. It costs gold, but you should have enough. 3. STATISTICS 3-1. EXPERIENCE See odino's FAQ for the full list. Yeah, it's a cop out. But basically, here is what you need to advance each level. You don't have to get to level 40, but it helps. *you can use the hero ring to get to level 5(1000). *500 per level up to 11, which gets pretty easy near the end. *700/800 experience for 12 and 13, which is a bit tougher, but you can whip the dark knight *1000 to get to 14-16. A bit more to do, but you are much stronger now. *1500 for 16-26. You can just kick around in the sage's dungeon in the dark forest, and if you have good armor you don't even need to drink at the pool there. Then talk to him and you get 2000 experience, not 1500. You are probably powerful enough to get up to scroll 9 now with ease. The only big fight in the middle game is for scroll 9. *2000 for 27-30. Again, if you have nothing to do with an afternoon, you can smack skeletons around to get past these. But there are easier ways, discussed in the walkthrough. You can even put off level building. *4000 for 31-33. Here you don't want to focus too hard on building up levels. You get automatic levels for winning quests. Then when you're really good, you have very powerful monsters you can beat *6000 for 34-36. At this point don't go deliberately gaining levels. You will probably have an easier time of it winning fights near the end, once you get super armor. *8000 for 37. *10000 for 38-40. You get automatic levels for: --equipping the hero ring(kicks you to level 5) --talking to the sage --talking to the lead unicorn --beating the boss for scroll 9 --talking to the sage in the scroll 10 area --beating the Dungeon Master in the scroll 10 area --dying with the Holy Sword the first time --rescuing the princess on level 2 of the Holy Sword dungeon 3-2. ENEMIES The monsters listed are for Minos/Viskam first, with the equivalent enemy for Aylex/Dionea below. Usually you just have a color change, but some of the knights grow ponytails for the "girl" races. I don't know anything concrete about attack capabilities but I would assume they vary linearly with hit points in general. monster |EXP| HP| --------------------+---+---+ red-grey slime | 7| 24| castle-1,2, #4, #5 grey-white wisp | 11| 50| castle-1 blue-white wisp | 14| 54| castle-2,3 (red/yellow) slug (red/yellow) | 8| 38| castle-2 skeleton guard | 35|108| castle-2 by red key chest (sage) barrier | 0|254| guarding scroll 8, scroll 5 lt blue slug | 10| 44| castle-3,4 goblin skeleton | 15| 56| castle-3,4 red/yellow slime | 9| 42| out(near) pink/blue smiley | 25| 72| out(near) (white/pink) dark knight |VAR|VAR| everywhere til killed for good grey 2headed | 30|100| out gold 2headed | 28| 76| out blue/grey slime | 17| 60| out whtish wisp | 26| 74| out pink/blue slime | 22| 68| out,forest (pink/red) red/yellow smiley | 28| 94| out?? (yellow/white) tree thing | 27| 74| forest, unicorns goblin tree | 29|100| forest, unicorns fireball | 33|104| forest, #4, #5 green/green wisp | 26| 74| forest, unicorns lime slime | 25| 70| forest unicorn | 27|150| forest, unicorns mimic | 40|110| #4, #5 yellow/white wisp | 42|114| #4, unicorns chicken | 50|100| mountains (white UFO) frog | 50|134| mountains (green blob) jellyfish | 58|144| mountains (can take 20 exp) medusa | 40|112| mountains octopus | 60|112| mountains (yellow ufo) fiery thing | 44|120| mountains green hackeysack | 60|146| mountains pink knight | 64|200| #7 white blobby fire | 60|144| #9, east dungeon (whitebluegrey blob) horseback | 67|166| #9 (chicken with sword--boss is also a chicken) running eyeball | 63|150| #9 (weird centipede) mobile mimic | 68|164| #9, east dungeon banshee | 82|182| #9, east dungeon, isle above whitebluepink blob | 80|180| east dungeon, isle above (whiteredorange) pink/grey wizard | 70|176| east dungeon (pharaoh) big blue knight | 85|210| east dungeon (girl knight) yellowy wizard | 84|200| east dungeon (pharaoh) blue wiz/mask | 87|210| past east, holy sword black soldier master|200|500| #10 (bright yellow w/ponytail) mimic mobile | 85|206| holy sword 1,2,3 you |VAR|VAR| holy sword 1,2,3 big blue knight |130|260| holy sword 1,2,3, castle maze (grey) phantom | 93|224| holy sword 1,2,3 blob whitegreypink | 85|200| holy sword 1,2,3 drops JET (whitebluepink) boulder |110|250| holy sword 1,2,3 fixed asterisk grey |100|230| holy sword 2,3 (blue) wizard bluepink mask|104|234| holy sword 2,3 (pink pharaoh) dallahan (frosty) |120|270| holy sword 2 (yellow/white) pink brain |120|230| castle maze (white/pink) pulsing asterisk blu|125|250| castle maze (grey) greypink mask wizard|120|230| castle maze (greypink pharaoh) white knight |135|274| baal's 1,3,5 (redhead swordswoman) barrier |120|300| baal's 1,2,3,4,5 white/yello acidblob|138|280| baal's 2 (purple/white) orange/purple knight|140|400| baal's 3 (mini witches) big wiz |145|330| baal's 4 (big hag) cane |145|VAR| baal's 4 based on bigwiz HP yellow fish |150|350| baal's 5 (purple hydra) bug |150|340| baal's 5 (crab) bug-half(from bug) |150|340| baal's 5 (crab-half) Baal(each)whiteyello|190|510| baal's 6 (bluepurple) Below is a table of monsters that get stronger as your levels do. There are two--the dark knight and your mirror image. They seem to be equally tough, so you can use yourself for experience once you get the holy sword. This table opens up a different possibility of gaining levels than before-- namely if you get the Holy Sword quickly, you can level up against yourself. You can get the three gems before the scrolls, provided you can duck. You would of course need to use spells on the variable-experience enemies early on, but you can see it is pretty worth it. Also note that the hit points max out after a certain point. LVL| Minos | Aylex | Dionea| Viskam ---+--------+-------+-------+-------- 5 | 88, 200| 68,110| 76,130|76,170 6 |108, 220| 76,120| 88,140|88,190 7 |120, 250| 84,120|104,150|104,210 8 |140, 280| 96,130|116,160|120,230 9 |164, 300|104,140|132,180|136,250 10 |188, 330|112,150|152,190|152,270 11 |208, 350|128,170|176,200|172,290 12 |232, 380|144,180|192,220|192,310 13 |262, 400|164,200|212,240|212,340 14 |288, 430|184,210|236,270|236,370 15 |316, 460|200,220|260,300|260,400 16 |348, 490|220,220|288,320|292,430 17 |380, 520|240,230|316,340|320,460 18 |412, 560|260,240|348,360|352,500 19 |448, 600|276,250|376,380|380,530 20 |480, 630|296,260|408,400|408,560 21 |510, 670|316,270|432,430|436,590 22 |510, 710|336,280|464,450|472,620 23 |510, 750|356,280|496,470|510,650 24 |510, 790|380,300|510,490|510,680 25 |510, 830|400,320|510,510|510,720 26 |510, 870|420,340|510,540|510,750 27 |510, 910|444,370|510,570|510,780 28 |510, 960|468,400|510,600|510,810 29 |510,1000|492,430|510,630|510,830 30 |510,1050|510,450|510,650|510,850 31 |510,1100|510,480|510,680|510,880 32 |510,1150|510,510|510,700|510,920 33 |510,1210|510,540|510,730|510,950 34 |510,1260|510,570|510,760|510,980 35 |510,1320|510,600|510,800|510,1020 36 |510,1380|510,640|510,830|510,1050 37 |510,1440|510,680|510,860|510,1080 38 |510,1500|510,720|510,890|510,1110 39 |510,1570|510,760|510,930|510,1150 40 |510,1650|510,800|510,960|510,1180 3-5. INNS AND ITEMS The message you get from the innkeeper varies more with your level and how many scrolls you've found than with where the inn is on the map. Lyra Inn(10 to rest) (by castle) small sword +1, needles, leather armor, heal, magic, leather shield small sword, small mace, small staff, small bow, small rod Basically what you'd expect from an inn right by the castle, where you start. A nice weapon for anyone starting out and a slight upgrade over the armor at the very start of the game. Don't buy the heal/magic potion. It's cheaper to rest and/or just use what you find in treasure chests. Hork Inn(30 to rest) (north coast) small sword+1, needles, leather shield, leather shield +1 leather armor, clothes +2, rope, cat's eye, magic, heal Another inn where it's good to rest especially if you run the gauntlet in the nearby dungeon early on. Mar Inn(30 to rest) (dark forest) small sword+1, feather sword leather+1 leather+1 cat's eye, rope, speed ring, needles, heal+2, magic+2 A good place to buy slightly improved armor and weapons if you can't find them elsewhere. Buy the cat's eye too. You can use this place to recharge your magic as you go fighting in the forest, too. Celeste Inn(40 to rest) (dark forest) weapon: small [mace, staff, bow, rod] +1 armor: leather +1, leather +2 shield: leather +1, wood amulet, heal+2, magic+2, needles There may be some nice magic items better than what you had, and if you can afford an amulet, get it. This is a nice place to go before visiting scroll 9 area. Sadly, the amulet won't do you much good here. Merlin Inn(40 to rest) (east coast) small weapons, heal+2, magic+2 leather shield+1, leather armor, needles, rope, eye Again more basic stuff here and it is not worth the trek here early on for items. However you may need to rest taking out the dungeon nearby Mineo Inn(30 to rest) (desert, SW) swords: feather +1, battle ring mail+1, ring mail+2 shield rope, cat's eye, needles speed ring, heal+2, magic+2, amulet Lots of good stuff here if you can get past a few enemies. The key is to duck. Once you've bought the best here(with cash from finding scrolls) the early part of the game is a lot easier. Mikado Inn(50 to rest) (desert, NW) feather+1 [mace,staff,bow,rod] ring+2, chain shield, shield+1 battle sword cat's eye, rope, heal+5, magic+5, jet The jet potion is a nice convenience here though you probably don't desperately need it. You are probably better off casting heals or using separate magic/heal potions as needed. The items are a bit better than the Mineo Inn, but by the time you get here, you'll probably have found better protective items. But the feather+1's are worth a look. Annin Inn(40 to rest) (desert, N) feather+1 [mace,staff,bow,rod] ring mail +2, shield scroll 6 heal+2,heal+5,magic+2,magic+5 Strictly speaking you don't need all the scrolls to complete the game, but they help you get the heal ring. So you need to drop by here. Keego Inn(300 to rest) (desert, N) war mace, miracle bow, holy rod, elf mace, faerie sword plate suit, tower shield heal+10, magic+10 fairy cage weapons that don't work: gold mace, glass bow, diamond staff, silver rod A rip off any way you slice it, this out of the way inn lets you solve the fairy subquest if you have extra gold. This subquest gives you an extra item that is sort of neat but just takes up a slot in your inventory. Still, if you want to cheat up your gold and not explicitly cheat up items, you can make the trek here to make things feel more like an adventure. Oh, all the items are 10x as expensive as they should be. Pete Inn(100 to stay) faerie sword, feather+1 special weapons plate mail+1, breast plate+ large+1 heal+10,magic+10 rope, cat's eye, needles, speed ring, amulet This inn has everything, but you don't need everything. The large+1 is nice, but there's a tower shield SW. The amulet is nice if you don't have it yet, though. 3-3. ITEMS AND WEIGHTS See odino's FAQ for the details here. The basic idea is: Everyone can use a sword. It may not be quite as damaging per weight as their class-specific weapon, except in the case of Dionea and their crossbow, which has range. You can get some pretty good swords early. Minos: Mace Aylex: Staff Dionea: Bow Viskam: Rod You can carry a lot of items pretty easily, but you may not be able to equip them all. It's ok to haul around one item without equipping it. The higher your level, the more total weight you can equip. You can equip one weapon, shield and armor, but you can equip just about anything else to use it, too. You should only have 2 of each of shields, armor and weapons--and that only if you are nearing maximum weight. 3-4. SPELLS(WITH GENERAL USE) Spell effectiveness is irrespective of class. Heal heals (11 + level) hit points. It is probably the most efficient use of spell points. The extra damage you do when healed is much greater than a few sparks. The value for spark jumps at level 28/29. Before that it is 8 + (level / 6). After it is 40+. Other offensive spells are not as efficient as spark. You are better off using it along with the pause trick. So don't bother with them. Magic items in general do cooler things. The only other spell that is worth mentioning is sleep. It can be useful at times, but unfortunately it doesn't work against the really good monsters. It does, however, work very well on you. Most of the others without quantifiable damage suffer from a sort of Sod's Law. It'd be really neat if it worked at all on the tough monsters, but it only works on the ones you could've beaten anyway. See odino's guide for etails. A few words on spark--it's great to use on the dark knight, or with a few potions to make a tough fight easier. You can also use it with a few other monsters around to pick up additional experience. Remember it only has half the screen's range when suckering monsters in, and the damage displayed is only for the last monster it touches--it may affect some monsters differently than others. You can pretty much guarantee, though, that if X sparks kill a monster once, they will always kill a monster. 4. WALKTHROUGH For the most part the walkthroughs for different races are not appreciably different. However, when one race would be better served by getting item X or using combat strategy Y, I will note that. Minos is probably the best to start with. You can hack your way through the game. But it doesn't give the super cheeriest ending. For the other races, you can just use a bit more magic and have more replenishing potions, and you have to balance that off the levels you get. Fortunately you can pick up levels pretty easily at many places in the walkthrough, though it can take time, and some quests level you up immediately. Here are a few platitudes that helped me concentrate on getting through the game quickly. Defense wins early battles but you need offense to win the game. (Take that, Vince Lombardi!) Never buy what you will find in a treasure chest. Enemies are dumb and easy to avoid. Find treasure or inns in tough places and buy it. The dark knight is actually your friend, until you kill him off for good. Find easy monsters to beat and beat them up. Find where level advancing events are, and use them to get the biggest bonus. Different classes have different easy ways to kill him. Find and use them. Looking in a mirror helps you build yourself up near the end. You don't have to get to level 40 to get to the game. An item boost is worth a few levels. 4-1. STARTING OUT Choose your race. Minos and Viskam get one background, while Aylex and Dionea get another, with brighter colors. I found Minos to be the most straightforward and practical choice, so that is the main one I will push in this walkthrough, but you may find others work well, too. The right combination of magic and fighting can pay big dividends at any stage. But you should be able to get through the game with brute force--one or the other. The castle is just above, so enter there. The first thing to do is talk to the king. Don't mess around outside. You're not strong enough yet. He will give you a mission. Talk to the queen(left of him) and the princess(right of him) if you want, then walk outside. The door that was guarded before is now open. You can go in there. There is an anteroom before you enter the dungeon. You get clothes, a leather shield, a small sword and a heal potion if you go in there. Be sure to equip them before entering the dungeon proper. 4-2. QUICK PATH TO THE HERO RING The castle dungeon is probably the most complex dungeon in the game. There are bigger ones, and there are ones with tougher monsters, but this has the most twists and turns. Many other dungeons often rely on you finding one teleport trick, and many outside areas actually have very few branches. You probably want to pick up all the treasure in your way, as you might find a neat item, but don't go out of your way. You'll have enough gold to start you. The trick to a quick start is to find the hero ring, which gets you up to level 5 when you equip it. This means, possibly, 900 free experience if you learn how to sneak around. Sneaking around will be useful later when you need to walk into an advanced dungeon, get a valuable item, and walk out, so let's get the feel of it. The key to all this is that you are much faster than your enemies, and the noncombat movement is turn-based. Enemies don't move until you do. So failing once or twice and restarting is a lot more interesting than repeated slime bashing. Speaking of slimes, they and wisps are the only really tough monsters on the first level. It's possible to build yourself up to level 2 fighting slimes exclusively. You don't have to, but it gives you more margin for error later. Slimes give 7 experience and you need 60 for level 2. That makes 9 slimes to kill. Wisps may also attack you, but you can avoid them. You probably should. They are stronger. Note the fountain also in the first room. You can stand on it and push A to regain health two points at a time. You can in fact hit A until you are fully healed. To get through level 1, go up to the next room, then up through the narrow passage and to the stairs. If an enemy is in your way, retreat so he is off the screen, then come back. This will work in general. On level 2 there is a narrow corridor to the right. Enemies can be tougher here, so run back left or climb the stairs twice to wipe out the monsters. At the end of the corridor, a skeleton is standing in apparent space. It is way too strong for you and will be for a while. Sucker it to the left, then move down, right and up around it. A treasure chest should have appeared, just above where the skeleton was. Open the chest and take the key. Ready the key. Exit to the right of the chest and follow the corridor. You'll see what seems to be an orange wall. Open it. It's actually a locked door, and your key unlocked it. Follow the passage, beating up anyone in your way--or backtrack to make them disappear. You can probably cast a heal spell if you need to. At the end of the passage, you'll see a fountain, for HP, and stairs. The stairs lead to another pair of stairs you should take. Then you go to level 4. Follow the passage and loop counterclockwise around. Again avoid the enemies by backtracking, if need be. You'll get to a room with a chest on top. Exit northwest--the chest contains a trap--and go along the top. There'll be a break below. Go into that. In the next room there will be two passages below. Take the right one and follow it to where there will be a chest in a niche. Open that chest. It is the hero ring! That gets you to level 5. It doesn't matter if you die now--dying in fact gets you to the throne room quicker. But there are ways to pile things up quickly. 4-3. THE CASTLE DUNGEON, REVISITED Retrace to the room with the 3 passages leading left. Take the lower one left, then go down to the next passage. Take the right branch, which will wind right, down and left. At the next fork, take the upper right branch, giving you a stair to level 3. You are in a small area here with a teleport(the hexagonal thing,) two chests, and a weird white wall. The upper chest has scroll 2. The lower has a red key, which you don't really need right now. It's useful as backup, so don't open the chest. You should still keep the red key you have, though you may wish to drop it later when inventory gets tight. You'll need the red key near the end of the game, but you can deal with that when you get there. If you want to get out, the teleport leads back to the start of the maze. You can enter it or try for scroll 8 right away, which may give you a money boost now and save time later. 4-4. JUMPING AHEAD: SCROLL 8 To bash down the white wall quickly, you need needles. But the only way to get them is to buy them at an inn, and the inns don't open til you've returned the hero ring, when guards are put outside the castle. However, there's another way. Hit the white wall with your sword. It may do 1 damage. Keep hitting til it falls, probably about 200 times. With an emulator you can hold down a speed up key and keep attacking. Take the stairs, follow the passage to the room, get the scroll in the top center, and return. Not only does this save time, but it gives you a way to pile up early gold for resting in inns etc. You will have to wait til you achieve level 16 to have the king let you back in the castle if you don't get this now. But if you wait til then, it will be even easier. You may wish to do some minor looting there, but it is probably not worth the bother. Cash isn't really necessary, and the items aren't anything special. 4-5. DON'T SEE THE KING YET! You may wish to loot the castle dungeon for a while now. The enemies will be a lot easier to beat up. You can smack down the goblin that guards where the red key chest -was- with some blast spells, and you can loop around the area to pick up gold and items to sell. You can probably make a few levels pretty easily, too, as you find slightly improved items. But first, let's get scroll 1. From the start, look in the side room for 20 gold, then return to the fountain room. Take the upper right passage and follow where it leads--right, up, and back left to where you see a chest in a corner. Grab it. That is scroll 1. Go up the stairs and now you will want to go left to one room for gold, then back right and south to another room with gold. The left passage has a lower branch with a boobytrapped gold coffer. Then there are stairs at the end of things. You can take them and wander around the scrolling level 3 for a bit, or you can take the passage right of the fountain to hit a teleport to level 4. There are a few treasure chests there you can clean up. Now that you're a lot better, you don't need to be careful about a chest with a trap. 4-6. SEE THE KING, SEE THE WORLD You could avoid seeing the king while you build yourself up for a bit in the outside world, but eventually you need to talk to him to visit inns. Before you talk to him, the castle dungeon is still open, which means you can heal for free in the dungeon(vs. 10 gold in the inn.) While gold in the wilderness is scarce, it's not impossible to get to. And if you need more gold, you can gamble. So, go see the king. You'll get a title screen and a quest. See the queen, who gives you $100 for scrolls 1 and 2 and, if you have it, $1000 for scroll 8. Talk to the princess, who gives you some gold, too($200,) warning you not to gamble(she is dead wrong!) You may have to talk to her a couple times to get this, especially if you did not talk to her to start. You can now access inns, which give you hints if you stop there. You won't really need them too often if you do things right. You should visit the inn outside the castle and see if you have any items that can improve you, for starters. Also, you may wish to gamble a bit. I'll describe the best way to do this later, but for now you can stay close, crushing enemies as they come by. Avoid the tall pale blue guy. He's a wimpy color, but one hit from him can do you in. There's a chest just east of the castle area that should have a good weapon(feather, 12) to make it easier to kill enemies. 4-7. SCROLL 3 This is just a fetch quest. But you need to be able to manage the terrain. Scroll 3 is in a chest just north of the Holy Sword cave. When you exit the castle area, you need to go southeast along the coastline. There'll be a couple paths up east of a lake, and the nest one will be between two mountain ranges. Take it and you'll see a cave to the east. It's the Holy Sword cave. You can't do anything there until you have the three jewels. But there is a dead end above it with a hidden chest. Wrap NW and clockwise and go south at the next clearing, and you'll find a chest tucked in there. Open it for scroll 3. Now retrace your steps, talk to the queen, and you have 1000 gold! 4-8. HOW TO GAMBLE AND WHAT TO BUY We interrupt this fantasy RPG to inject some cold hard calculation into your adventure. This real-world equation stuff is good for you, son. Heroes need it, to plan ahead. You can build up money this way if you have enough of a kitty to start things out. Plus, even if you mess up, you can just reset the game and try again. High-low is a game that is ridiculously in your favor, if it is truly random. Let's assume that if someone draws card X, you still can too, and that the game is random. If not, your probability of winning is better by a factor of 1/51. Card 8: p(8) = 1/13. choose either, p(win) = 6/13 Card 7: p(7) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 7/13 Card 6: p(6) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 8/13 Card 5: p(5) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 9/13 Card 4: p(4) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 10/13 Card 3: p(3) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 11/13 Card 2: p(2) = 1/13. choose high, p(win) = 12/13 Card 9: p(9) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 7/13 Card 10: p(10) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 8/13 Card J: p(J) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 9/13 Card Q: p(Q) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 10/13 Card K: p(K) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 11/13 Card A: p(A) = 1/13. choose low, p(win) = 12/13 Sum all these probabilities to get 120/169 = win probability = 71%. Now, since you can redouble your bet(we'll ignore the "same" option as the probability of winning 4x your money is 4/51 or 4/52, well under 1/4). expected value per turn(play once) = -100 + (200 * 71%) = $42 per turn EV(2) = (-100 + (200 * 71%)^2) / 2 = $50.83 per turn, 50% chance of win EV(3) = (-100 + (142%)^3) / 3 = $62.10 per turn, 35% chance of win EV(4) = (-100 + (142%)^4) / 4 = $76.68 per turn, 25% chance of win EV(5) = (-100 + (142%)^5) / 5 = $95.51 per turn EV(6) = (-100 + (142%)^6) / 6 = $120.04 per turn Wow! This looks really good! While eventually you'll lose if you keep redoubling, 1) there are save states to see ahead and 2) you can strike a nice balance if you cut and run at the right time. But here is the catch. The game starts to cheat around the 4th turn or so. You'll find yourself repeatedly drawing 2's when the game's card is a 3, or getting the same card a lot. If you have save states, you can try each of low, high and same to see which wins--same wins most of the time, leaving me to wonder how pre-ordained the result is. Still, if you don't get greedy, you'll do okay. With a starting kitty of at least $1400 from all the items you found and the gold from the queen, you should be able to win a few 3-in-a-rows and be pretty comfortable. The probability you'll lose money before you win with best playis very low, .65^8 = 3%. In which case you just reset the game. So, in the course of just wandering around, you can make a few hundred each time you come back. The goal is to get to $10000 at least. You want to be able to buy a speed ring, though it is possible to be able to sneak one in the desert area. 4-9. CHILLIN' IN THE NORTH For the next bit we're going to zigzag around a bit, avoiding monsters. You're faster than they are. You're going to get some items which will help on the way. Some of your races won't be able to use their items yet, but that's okay. If you have an Aylex, beat up blue knights til you're at level 8, because there's a limit on what you can put in your inventory. Go north along the shoreline and enter the dungeon there at the north edge. Head west, then at the T, go west again. Go NW, then at the next T(there's a circle around the boulder on the way) go west and SW. The Mineo Inn has some good items. Buy the best armor, shield and sword there(battle, ring +2, shield.) You may not be able to equip them all just now, but they'll be useful when you gain a few levels. Equip the armor first, then the shield, if you can't ready everything at once. Now return and go east. At the end of the passage you have a speed ring. Take it. It will make you faster. So what if you get killed here--you got what you wanted. You aren't strong enough to go into any dungeons, but you can avoid the enemies enough to get the item you want. 4-10. TURNING THE BLUE BLACK KNIGHT BLACK AND BLUE Well, you probably want to build yourself up first--go to the south coast, then NE through the trees when you see the cave to the NW. There's +1 leather in the top bit of the dead-end here. You can get a +1 leather shield in the Mar Inn in the cave below. The light blue knight is daunting, but there are ways to knock him out. Specifically, if you are good at magic, you can use magic until you yourself are blue all over(figuratively.) He will never get close, and you can use your speed to keep your distance. You can have some extra magic potion(s) to recharge. The cash spent is well worth it, because after all, it is easy to get back gambling at the inn. You may wish to skip to sections 12 and 13 before tackling him fully. Those give you some nice items. But it's possible to beat him with save states and/or a lot of healing and retreating to an inn. You can also play it safe and go ahead to 4-15-1 to beat up skeletons in relative safety to gain levels, then beat the big blue guy. But the blue guy is a big bopper because he gives you 300 experience. So if you stumble around beating him up, you can get a level for beating him 2-3 times. If you find a safe way to beat him or if you use save states, then, you will improve quickly. The risk is that if you die, you're bumped back down to the minimum experience needed for your current level. There are two places to look for him: underground, in the Dark Forest dungeon, and overground. The first has tougher auxiliary monsters and is closer to a healing inn, and the second has more treacherous terrain. I'd go with the first, because it will also get you accustomed to the next bit you have to do. In general there are lots of ways to improve levels quickly enough that you can automatically heal up without having to use potions, but fighting the blue guy is quickest. Fighting the fixed trees that disappear and reapper west of the Inn of Mar is slower but surer. When you get to level ~11 you can probably just attack him and heal continuously for quick victories. However, once you get to level 15, he will die and leave a Black Ticket. You are forced to take it. And you need it for something late in the game, so sadly it will take up an inventory slot. Along the way the king may call you back to the castle. It's not critical, but the item(fairy wings) is nice. 4-11. A WORD ON INVENTORY JUGGLING You don't have a lot of neat items left, but in general you will want to save slots for particularly good items. Even if you do not use the items, they are good to sell. To make the game easier, you will eventually need to buy a fairy for $10000 and you'll probably eventually get sick of gambling. The game doesn't let you drop critical items, so you may wish to drop/use/sell potions or items you don't need any more before getting that next game- critical item. 4-12. GAINING YOUR (FAIRY) WINGS Fairy wings are a great item. They let you return home quickly--handy for, say, going into a dead end in an advanced dungeon, finding an item, and escaping scot-free with a bunch of monsters surrounding you. Advanced items are really key to winning quickly because if you accelerate them, you can whomp on enemies that still supposed to be difficult while they can't damage you. The only disadvantage is if you get a very strong item too soon, you may not have the strength to wear it. Combine the fairy wings with some emergency potions to restore hit points, and if you know where to go, a foray to the right dungeon can improve you a lot more than several minutes of bashing around in a dungeon, with a lot less risk. 4-13. GO EAST, YOUNG [RACE] This part is not necessary but it can help you get a good item. From the castle, go south along the shoreline then up past the cave. Turn east when you can. Past the glade, you will see a cave. There is a really cool item in the center of the first big room you get to. Or there should be. It's random what it is, but it's very good. Equip it, then leave. 4-14. NOW GO EAST-ER. HOP TO IT! This might be the most contentious of your item grabs. It's probably best done with a Minos who can carry the extra weight. You can go all the way to the east and sneak in an item there. There's a treasure chest west of the Merlin Inn, though it's blocked by a tree from the Merlin Inn itself. That chest seems to hold a +1 of whatever class-specific weapon there is. It's not a game-changer, and it may not even be as good as a battle sword, but it's nice. In the final dungeon, you must avoid enemies, but if you take the south stairs at the fork, then go up, then go up the next stairs to the east and go a bit south and east. Grab the plate armor and leave. It will be hard for enemies to damage you. 4-15. SEE THE FOREST FOR THE BREEZE Okay. So now you can go back to the dark forest on the south coast. Stop off at the Mar Inn to heal and then go west, past the 3 trees. The path will turn up. Follow it. You'll see a dungeon. Enter it. 4-15-1. THE SAGE You can try and kill the skeletons here--they are not too bad. The basic idea is to enter the east portal as you start, then enter the portal in the NW corner, visit the sage, and get out. But before teleporting! The NW portal sends you to a guy who gives you *another* level. With a healing fountain in the NE of the 2nd room and Skeletons worth 35 a clip, you can make up a level pretty easily, since levels are <1000. That means <28 kills in a room crawling with skeletons. Why not stay and kill more and get another level? If you don't get bored, I recommend pumping up to 13000 experience. That's when you have a bit of a bump in experience before the next level--2000 EXP. You can use this strategy other places. The next jump is from 26 to 27(1500 to 2000) and then 30 to 31(2000 to 4000) and after that, you should be able to run through the game just begging levels-up. So with 13000 experience, visit the above mentioned sage and get another level. Hit the hexagonal teleport and get the chest in the east of the big room. Then hit the east teleport to get to the next room and clean out the chest to the north. Note the fountian in the 2nd room TAKES AWAY 20 hit points, so avoid it. The monsters are the same either place. The exit teleport is in the southeast of the first room. You can visit the sage's room and teleport out that way if you get really lost. You may wish to go back to the Mar Inn and heal now. Buy needles if you haven't already. It's time to get 2 scrolls. Also, if you haven't got the fairy wings yet, you might want to do so. A shortcut to get back to the castle to get the wings is to un-equip everything and let monsters kill you. This does not drain experience if the sage just gave you a level. 4-15-2. SCROLL 4 North-by-northwest of the sage is another cave. It holds a scroll. Go around the N-shape to the top and follow the passage til it goes down. Go left, then up, then down at the T. Folow that, and go right at the next T. Bingo! Scroll 4! It is hidden slightly to the left in the dead end, so you may have to run up and down a bit to find it. There are other places where you can find good items. It's not terribly worth going through the maze to find them, as they're low-magic stuff, and the fights don't build you up too quickly either. I marked the squares that poison you on the map. So if you see any chest where I didn't mark it, it's probably a mimic. 4-15-3. SCROLL 5 Go west from the forest til the path turns south. Then it turns SW. Go SE at the trees. Along the NE bank you have a cave just above a sage. The cave contains scroll 5. It is not very hard, either. In fact, it is probably even easier. The tough part has is getting here and finding it. Go up at the entrance. There's good treasure to the left, then go right and avoid that chest unless you don't mind poison/old/etc. N-E-N to the corner and now W and S at the first chance. Another chest! Then follow the south passage, W, N and use the nettles to break the door down. The chest for the scroll will appear as you get to the top. Now you can leave, though there is treasure to the left--a side room S, then at the left edge, S E to a chest(exploding,) or N E. 4-16. UNICORNUCOPIA You need a few free slots in your inventory for this, and you'll probably want a few more for the neat items you'll find, so you may wish to use fairy wings and come back. From the scroll-5 dungeon, go south until you can't, then go west. There'll be a mini zigzag between-forest passage and you'll wind up by a lighter forest. There is treasure here, but you can't take it til you've met the head unicorn. Follow the first passage to a diagonal T. NE and you have a 4-way branch ahead. NW then the path curves NE. NW again. You should get to a wall in the north. There'll be two passages to the left. Take the lower one. You may wish to fight your way to the next level here, as the unicorn gives you a level-up. He also allows you to loot the forest on the way out. Be sure to get Leib and the Horn in the twin chests on the way out first. Take the fairy wings home. Now your inventory is crowded, but you can sell the horn for 5000 gold(not that you need THAT, either) then use Leib to free up a spot. Common sense would dictate you need to go back to the Holy Sword dungeon, but you don't. Here is how to go back to Holy Sword anyway... Take it. Enter the dungeon. TALK to the sword icon and then USE Leib. 4-17. SCROLL 7, BECAUSE IT'S STILL NOT OUT OF ORDER TO COUNT OUT OF ORDER Go northeast along the coast til you see an inn and a dungeon. Enter that dungeon. You'll emerge in a desert on the other side. It may actually be a mountain according to the game script. Push west and/or north whenever you can. West takes priority. Heal here after fighting monsters. They're beatable but not if you fight too many in a row. Eventually you'll hit a dungeon. Go N E and at the fork, S. Talk to Yardelmar and heal him. Don't worry that you don't have medicine. Get Magni and Scroll 7. You can leave now, or you can go to the arena and beat up a bunch of enemies. That will get a few levels, but actually it'd be easier to go to the sage's in the forest. I'd advise getting at least to 32000, or level 31. By that time you can probably heal yourself as you beat up the knights. They are worth 64 experience and 1 level is 2000, so that means, beat up 32 of them. Da Hui's FAQ says the fountain eventually dries up, but you won't need it if you have a few heal potions. It's almost worth retreating to an inn to buy more--I don't know if that recharges the fountain. Here is what to do. Defeat the pink knight. Enter the portal. I went to the right and kept looking for portals on the bottom and found one pretty quickly that led to the arena. All others lead to the dungeon entry. Okay, you can now return to see the king, or you can take a side quest. Be sure you've got 10000+ gold or the patience to gamble, though. 4-18. SCROLL 6, OR A 150% GAIN ON PAPER Go back east and muddle through the paths. You will hit the Mikado Inn. It has Chain and a +1 shield. Buy them. You can buy your class-specific item, too, for a nice bonus over the battle sword. Do so. It's not a huge upgrade, but it's nice. Go back west and take the east path at the first T(the immediate east goes to a dead end.) There's some treasure there that may be nice. Then go back south and take the southeast branch at the next opening. At the crossroads, south. Then pretty much straight east(1 icon up or down to avoid a rock) gets you to the Annin Inn. Enter it and buy scroll 6 for $400. Just two to go! 4-18-1. HOW MUCH IS THAT FAIRY IN THE WINDOW This side quest is here for the sake of completeness, but it's not necessary for the game. In fact your cash is better spent on the very best weapons in the NE inn in the mountains/desert. Even that is tenuous, as it's not hard to make your weapon the very best. The Mikado Inn is on a path to the NE but the really good stuff is back to the Annin Inn, if you have $10000+. The path is not hard as any dead ends are quickly retraced upon. But you can just leave for the castle now, if you want. Head south-southeast til a narrow path opens to the east--you may hit a dead end if you hook east too soon, so then retrace and go south. Rough instructions are to go NE/NW etc til you loop around. Head east then southeast. Go around one boulder(around 2 leads to a treasure loop) then SE again and follow the path. The Keego Inn is at the end. Now you can gamble a WHOLE lot to get your very best weapon. You can also buy the fairy cage. Once you get to the Keego Inn, buy the fairy. Now take wings home. There are some great items here but it's not worth saving up for them or gambling to win them. You can find them other places. Watch out, though. The gold mace, glass bow, diamond staff and silver rod are useless. War, miracle, holy, and elf items are the best. Faerie is also pretty good. 4-19. SCROLL 9, BACK TO THE FOREST Back in the forest, go west, then turn north when you see the 2 red trees. Turn west when you can. There'll be an inn there, the Celeste Inn. It's good for resting, but the items are somewhat lame. Except the amulet, which odino says doubles magic resistance(empirically, it works, though I haven't found evidence.) You'll also have a cave to the SW. Enter it. You have a long winding passage here. Go down at the first T, then at the 2nd, then at the 3rd past the sage. The 4th leads to a dead end with treasure in the lower chamber of the dead end. This treasure is likely very good. You don't need to count the T's where you go down--just back up after the dead end. You can retreat and go north at the next part to take on the boss that will get you scroll 9. But first, loot the treasure around. There will be 1) better items or 2) heal/magic +2/+5 which will be worthwhile. There also may be breast plate in the NW--I found it twice working through each class. If you have a Dionea, check out a chest on the bottom which may have a holy bow. That is an awesome weapon. It will win the boss fight easily. I think the weapon at the bottom(2nd niche from the right) you get depends on the class, so definitely look there before the big fight. The bosss is in the northwest of the big area. You'll recognize him--he's a golden horse in a field of grey ones. You'll want to level up against the enemies around you. If you can get to level 26(24000 exp,) that is ideal--the enemies will weaken you, but you should be able to heal yourself enough. They are worth 60 experience. So it piles up pretty quickly. Talk to the boss to get the encounter started. He is no pushover. There is some risk he will hit you for 100 points, so I recommend having a lot of heal spells in your bag in case that happens. As mentioned above, level 26 is good. Also, while it's fun to hit the opponents around you with sparks to pick up a little extra experience, defense is once again what you should focus on. One interesting trick is to get to almost the next level, then wallop him. Get scroll 9. Search around a bit more if you want. There are some really good items in the dead ends that don't show up til you get close to them. You will probably find better weapons and armor than what you have. 4-19-1. DID YOU GET SCROLL 8? Just checking. It should be a snap by now. It's behind the wall you couldn't tackle, before. 4-20. LOOTING THE BAD GUYS, ONE LAST TIME Push east to the peninsula at the east edge. This means, take a long detour S then a bit E then N past the forest dungeon. If you got the fairy, you can stop by, go to where you got scroll 9, go to the NE, and use the fairy on the water. She will give you an ocarina, which will show you another fairy. Then follow her to open a chest you couldn't have opened earlier. It gives you a crystal ball, which is cool but useless. Otherwise, go east, and a bit north. Enter the eastern dungeon below the town. Until you get armor or are able to wear it, don't fight anyone here. Go to the center room and head south, then climb that stair and the stair to the east. Head east then a bit south and a chest will appear. It holds plate mail +2. Get it. You may again not be able to equip it, but hang onto it til you do. Go south, climb up the stair, and go to the NW corner of the small room for a Large+1 shield. Now retreat to where you got the armor and go to the left. Go outside, and below the center mountain you have a plate suit. Get it. Drop what you can't use. You may still need to whiz by monsters, but this is a good place to save, or to build up. The sage in the dark forest is great for this, and you can probably rip the scroll 9 area to shreds by now, too. You can also use the next area for this, but the inn where you rest after zapping enemies is much more expensive. So you have to gamble more. Go back to the 1st floor and take the east passage. Go up the SE stairs in the 2nd room, then N W in the 3rd and take the stairs up to the top. Go to the SE of this big room and take the stairs down. There are two more stairs--just follow the passage. Then you are in a room with a teleport. Go to the southeast to find a War. Then take the teleport and you are in a big room with stairs that lead out and a passage to the east that leads to a new place. A tower shield is in the very southwest of this area, but it's the place to the east that holds the final small dungeon you really need to tackle, and you don't want to try too hard to get the strength for all items--you'll find a god armor/shield later. You can pick up a few levels beating up the wizards, who are easy marks if you don't get diagonal to them. I would get to level 33, 44000 experience, so you can wear all the armor you found. Enemies are worth about 100 experience each. You may be able to make do with less, especially if your Dionea has a bow, but it is stretching it for the mirror combat I mention later. 4-21. SCROLL 10 AND THE FINAL JEWEL You can make the next dungeon very easy indeed by buying +10 magics in the pete inn. It's worth the time to try and gamble. You can either run and heal, or you can fire off sparks. He has 500 hit points, so at 10 damage per spark, you will need 400 spell points. Budget accordingly. Of course you can swing at him the last few times, but watch it--he does lots of damage. With a Minos the fight should be no problem. You'll have more strength and the best armor. But with other guys, it is tougher. Even with a level 28 viskam, who can wield everything. This last scroll dungeon is a breeze. Take the south path at the T and hold "down" as you go through the small entrance. Talk to the guy(level up!) and get scroll #10. Use the black ticket in the NE part of the level(W-N-E) and you may have to retreat and return to see him, but he will be there. You can go back to the castle now and get the heal ring, then beat up the enemy, but it is better to just take him out right away. Once you knock him out, you get Norn. You'll also get another automatic level. You've done all you can here, so let's use fairy wings and go back to the castle. 4-22. HOLY S-WORD, IT'S THE HOLY SWORD! Talk to the queen, king and princess. She gives you a heal ring which you should equip. It will give you energy back. Now go to the cave of the Holy Sword and use Norn. Then look at the altar and it will give you Star. Don't go down the stairs just yet. Instead, un-equip your armor and go outside. Run into the first monster you see. It'll slowly drain your HP despite the ring. When it kills you, re-equip immediately. Be sure to cast a heal spell too so that it doesn't kill you for real this time. What does this do? It changes your star from wimpy offense(1) to really tough(100). There's no clue for this. You just get a level-up when it happens. You could've waited to do this for later, but it might get you killed for real and kick you back pretty far, even with the level-up bonus. The only other thing to do before this is to make sure you have as many inventory spots as possible open. Random monsters drop jet potions here, which heal your HP and MP totally. It's useful to have a backup or two. You can use them pretty liberally. You also need needles. Well, not strictly, but the barriers will be a bore to break down otherwise. Also, I recommend getting to level 29. Use the east isle for that--enemies are plentiful and you can handle them. Spark will be very valuable. Re-enter the dungeon, then go down the stairs that replaced the altar. 4-23. "WHAT?! I'M ONLY WORTH 300 EXPERIENCE?!" Note magic is more valuable now since you can heal yourself running into walls without enemies around. Or you can run into walls while avoiding them to win a big fight. Detour south before the mirror and go SW til the passage hooks back west. Then go south, then east. Get the treasure--it is a God Shield. It weighs less than what you have, which you should drop to keep a jet potion slot. You won't need gold any more. You need: Star, speed ring, heal ring, cat's eye, armor, shield, needles, amulet(optional but nice), 1 key(the latest--others can be dropped. Keep the red if you have it) and fairy wings. That leaves 8 slots--more than enough. If you still have the red key, return to the start. If not, go south through 2 rooms to get the red key and retreat. This is a big and repetitive dungeon but it is not impossible. You can pick enemies off here as your heal ring recharges you. But the big enemy is yourself, in the mirror. You'll want to avoid him/you for now. There's another one later that is more lucrative, but you'll have God Armor by then. So the fight will be easier. Stay as far south as possible as you walk past the mirror. Then turn south, equip the red key, and open the door. Walk south to the stairs. You may wish to fight blobs for jet potions before you ascend--level 2 doesn't seem to have them. Experience for you, here, depends on class. Viskam = 850 4-24. OH FINALLY, A PRINCESS TO RESCUE! You can unequip and drop the Red Key, which you don't need any more. This frees up an inventory space. You need to beat Dullahan, too, to get a new key. He's the big dude. Go SW and then follow the path E S. Beat up all comers. Go past the mirror(duck below) to avoid yourself, and then go south to one room then west. The god plate is in the bottom-ish area of this big room, 3 of you above the bottom. Equip it, and now you can beat up everyone except your mirror image easily. And your image will fall to constant sparks, but there's a better way. You can max out your experience with a neat trick. Your image isn't good at attacking after you hit him, so you can hit and flee, etc., until he is out of commission. You can get to level 40 this way at up to 1500 experience a pop. 62000 is probably enough, though. With the heal ring, running into walls heals you, and there are a lot of them here, so you are safe from enemies--the occasional wizard notwithstanding. He can't drain you that much if you have an amulet. The tiny enemies do no damage, but watch for the big knights. You can also run left of the mirror and back right to destroy the very harmless boulders for 110 exp each. You can even zap the mirror with enough sparks(80 or so. Use your level up or jet recharges.) It's only 140 experience, though. Back in the main area, go east from the SW cloverleaf of rooms, (detour another doorway east for gold) then south 2 doorways, east all the way and up. Talk to the princess. That gets you a level. Drop the blue key and take the silver key from the chest. Go back to the SW of this patchwork of rooms. Go west along the southernmost bit of the hall to avoid the boulder. Though you may want to get the God Plate first as you/he can do quite a bit of damage, and you will need to run away and recharge if he does manage to hit you. If you put off getting the princess, you need only get 90000 experience. You don't need all the levels, though. I would recommend a few jet potions from level 1 and a full complement of magic points--no need for them til the final room. From the mirror hall, S to a room, E to another room, S(you have to fight through the boulder but it won't do much damage) and U. Another mirror image of you, but it's best you just go to the next room, up a room, right through the passage(right at the T) and then down twice. Use the silver key to get out. Again, no way to avoid the boulder as it rolls past. Step on the portal and you are at the last castle. 4-25. THE CASTLE MAZE This is not too bad. Go: L U R U L(to the narrow pass to the left) U(at the t) R U R(past the T) U R D R U and DL through the courtyard, then U R U and the path winds L U to a 4 way intersection. R U and then the entrance is UL. Avoid monsters when you can. You should be able to zigzag around even mages. Don't worry about keeping at maximum hit points but cast heal if it gets low. 4-26. BYE BYE BAAL This part is pretty straightforward. Go to the NE--avoid the monsters if you need to recharge. You can outrun them and come back, and the barrier will still have the same damage. In fact, they are so slow and aimless you can run around and come back. Then equip and fire the needles to shoot down the bottom of the 4 barriers. Enter the portal. Then in the next room get the NW portal. It is small and easy. In this room you should use the needle to get to a SE portal. It may disappear if you have to fight, so go off the screen and back on, and it will reappear. You can still enter it anyway, but if you want to be sure, there you go. Then in the next room, recharge and thrash the wizard/staff or hag/staff. This is a tricky fight and I think it deserves some detailing. Basically when you kill the wizard/hag it leaves a staff. You get 3 chances to hit the staff. And if you've used speedup to get through the game, turn it off now. Because this isn't like other fights--it is in real time. The best way to see if the staff disappears is to step behind it and hack away. Magic doesn't work on it either. If you fail to defeat the staff, the wizard/hag reclaims its hit points. Now you technically do not need your hero sword for this. Other items work too. MaxDamage for Minos = 165 + 75(heavy mace) Aylex: 80 + 50(elf staff) Dionea: 96 + 45(faerie sword) Viskam: 118 + 75(holy rod) Now the HP for the staff = 512 - X, where X = # of hit points beyond 0 that you dropped the wizard/hag to. For the Aylex, the maximum is 381, leaving you 3 times to do 381 damage of 390 at best. While your sword usually gives the maximum amount, there is no assurance of this, and 8/130 of the time it wouldn't kill the enemy anyway. For a Minos, you can get by with a heavy mace. Or in fact the uncharged Holy Sword(495 damage possible on the staff.) The Minos will probably need just 2 hits to knock off the staff with a charged holy sword. The Viskam does not need much to win eventually. But with the holy rod, you have 193*3=579 total points possible, and it is straightforward. The Dionea is better off with the Faerie Sword at 141 damage, but even that can take quite a while--with maximum damage at 564 for 4 hits(1 to kill the wizard, 3 for the staff) you have a 52/141 chance on the final hack. The wizard doesn't do much damage, but if you have the wrong weapon, it will drain you eventually. With the right weapons, Aylex = 180 per = 540 for 3 hits potentially, easy knockout Dionea = 196 per, again easy knockout Viskam = 218 per, see above Step on the portal to get to the next level. Kill the crabs here to get a silver and pink key. This is trickier than it looks, as they do good damage and give the key randomly. Make sure nobody is in the corridor below when you unlock the silver door. There. Run to the top of the room and down if you're not sure. For the pink key, I think you need to kill a beetly guy while you still have the silver key equipped. Go W N E and open the door. Again retreat and enter til the corridor is reasonably unblocked. Recharge your HP if need be. Double back a few times if need be to fumigate, so to speak. In the NE you have two walls to break with needles, so you may need double the patience. But once you have, equip your item and run at the center guy. Hack him to shreds and the other two will die. It should be pretty simple. He may cast sleep at you, but you can use a jet potion to heal/wait it out, and you can also cast spells while sleeping or use jet potions. I recommend heal over sparks. There's 3 damage per hit and 512 total hit points. That means 170 spells, or 1360 magic points. That's quite a few jet potions, so you're best off casting until the tune changes from "sleep" and watching when your hit points go below 100. A few hacks are all that's needed. Here is where the horn or crystal ball may come in handy to seal the deal, but you should be able to spread your spells out. 4-27. WHO GETS WHAT ENDING Now on winning the fight you get the soulstone. Equip it, and you get a class- specific item. The minos gets a golden hoe and spends his time farming and rebuilding the kingdom. The aylex gets goddess wings and flies to the clouds to become a goddess, after a young girl helps her. The dionea gets the red yarn and marries Yardelmar. The viskam gets the pendant, is coronated and marries the princess. 4-28. BIG PICTURE CLASS DIFFERENCES Minos can bash through the game. You can't use the rest-at-the-inn trick so conveniently due to the low magic. But you can whip middling smaller monsters much easier, and you can build up strong armor very quickly, even running to get the plate/plate+2 early on to be virtually invincible, if you know where it is. Then you can hack through the dark knight. You can even muck up what to do with the holy sword. Recommended for the first time through the game. Aylex is the toughest to win with, though it can cast a lot of spells at the dark knight early on to build experience. It's hard even to get heavy items, too, much less equip them. So you have to build up more before making a trip for the bigger armor in the desert. Dionea is nice due to shortcuts with the bow and being able to recycle arrows. It has good spellcasting too and that can combine to slaughter dark knights. Though you have to kill more of them because they are worth less experience. Viskam start slowly with HP/magic and don't have Dionea's range attack potential, but they get strong at melee quickly enough to be useful. 5. CHEATS Some hex values move around, but the important ones remain constant. This makes for some vagary with enemies, but your stats are fixed. 5-1. FIXED 0x098 = health. 0x04=dying, 0x08=hit, 0x10 = poisoned, 0x20 = old, 0x40 = sick, 0x80=sleep. 0x01, 0x02 don't do anything. You can't freeze this at 0x00 without annoying delays each time you're hit. Conditions can last up to 256 moves. 3 moves ~= 1 icon. 0x69c = class 0=minos 1=aylex 2=dionea 3=viskam (background/icon reloads on screen refresh) 0x69d = level - 1 0x69e = current HP 0x69f = current magic 0x6a0-2 = experience, decimal-ized, low first i.e. 65 43 21 = 214,365 EXP levels are automatically adjusted up with this 0x6a5-7 = gold, decimal-ized, low first Items are stored from 6a8 to 6b9 inclusive by index. You can have a maximum of 18. The game automatically sorts them by (# & 0x7f) if you go to the inventory screen. The high bit(0x80) is for if the item is equipped. Here is what each item signifies. ff = no item 00 = small mace 01 = small +1 02 = feather 03 = feather +1 04 = heavy 05 = war 06 = gold 07 = small bow 08 = small +1 09 = feather 0a = feather +1 0b = long 0c = miracle 0d = glass 0e = small staff 0f = small +1 10 = feather 11 = feather +1 12 = iron 13 = elf 14 = diamond 15 = small 16 = small +1 17 = feather 18 = feather +1 19 = star 1a = holy 1b = silver 1c = small 1d = small +1 1e = feather 1f = feather +1 20 = battle 21 = faerie 22 = crystal 23 = star [sword] [before action described above] 24 = star [sword] [after action] 25 = needle 26 = clothes [armor] 27 = clothes +1 28 = clothes +2 29 = leather 2a = leather +1 2b = leather +2 2c = ring 2d = ring +1 2e = ring +2 2f = chain 30 = chain +1 31 = chain +2 32 = breast plate 33 = breast plate +1 34 = breast plate +(2 should be fixed in translation patch .92) 35 = plate mail 36 = plate mail +1 37 = plate mail +2 38 = plate suit 39 = god plate 3a = leather (shield) 3b = leather +1 3c = wood 3d = wood +1 3e = shield 3f = shield +1 40 = shield +2 41 = large 42 = large +1 43 = tower 44 = god 45 = scroll 1 46 = scroll 2 47 = scroll 3 48 = scroll 4 49 = scroll 5 4a = scroll 6 4b = scroll 7 4c = scroll 8 4d = scroll 9 4e = scroll 10 4f = heal +1 50 = heal +2 51 = heal +5 52 = heal +10 53 = magic +1 54 = magic +2 55 = magic +5 56 = magic +10 57 = jet 58 = hero ring 59 = speed ring 5a = heal ring 5b = gold(for display purposes only) 5c = cat's eye 5d = ocarina 5e = horn 5f = red key 60 = blue key 61 = silver key 62 = pink key 63 = amulet 64 = crystal ball 65 = rope 66 = ingot 67 = gemstone 68 = soulstone 69 = Leib 6a = Magni 6b = Norn 6c = black ticket 6d = fairy 6e = fairy wing 6f = pendant 70 = gold hoe 71 = red yarn 72 = goddess wing 73-7e = nonsense items, so don't add them 5-2. VARIANT If you wish to leave open an inventory slot without needles, you can use your cheat GUI to record the values in the Ram. Then hit a wall with your weapon til you do 1 damage. See what has decreased by 1. Keep doing this til there's just one byte value. Reset it to 1 and watch the wall crumble. The wall's "hit points" aren't always in the same place. That's because it may be listed as monster #1, ..., #8. 54d, 56d, ..., 62d are where enemy damage is stored in general. You can knock out a lot of tough enemies this way, setting them to 00. Next hit will kill them. Yes, walls are included as enemies in this definition. These values are equal to 2* the hit points remaining. So if you freeze them at zero you'll be unable to win. End of FAQ Proper ================================ 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS 0.5.0: sent to GameFAQs 10/03/2008, halfway done 1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 10/31/2008, complete for Minos 1.1.0: sent to GameFAQs 11/03/2008, proofread for all four classes 1.2.0: sent to GameFAQs 11/03/2008, with item and monster info 1.2.1: sent to GameFAQs 11/08/2008, with info for both terrains 1.2.2: sent to GameFAQs 11/09/2008, with variable experience added Thanks to GameFAQs for being, well, THERE. Thanks to the NES completion project in general, and as mentioned above, odino, Da Hui, and Pluvius for their particular insights. Thanks to odino and Da Hui for explicitly letting me use information from their FAQs and odino for ideas for additional sections to my guide. Thanks to Tenshigami for translating the game from the Japanese and to Romhacking.net for hosting translation patches for games like this and blasting them and others to the world. Also thanks to Tenshigami for taking a second look at a small typo I found Thanks to the usual GameFAQs gang, current and emeritus. They know who they are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done. Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog, Lagoona, Da Hui and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him to be part of mine.