There has to be something here I can hit...Let's Play The Sword of Hope

Welcome to the sixth installment of Beowulf’s Game Boy Youth, an ongoing series of games I thought were awesome when I was a kid and still think need love now.

The Sword of Hope, released in Japan as Selection: Erabareshi Mono (something like “Selection: The Chosen One”) was developed by Kemco and published by Seika Corporation. It’s a hybrid of a first-person RPG and a Shadowgate-style adventure game, which means you get a mix of puzzles that involve interacting with the environment, and classic rpg wandering monsters.

Oh, and because it’s a fairly early Game Boy title, there are passwords instead of a battery save.

The sequel is a better-balanced, more standard RPG that removes a bunch of the puzzle elements, and has the distinction of being the very last original Game Boy cart I bought. (I am probably not going to LP it.)

The manual is rather sparse on art, but Nintendo Power gave this game a lot of love, including my “splash panel” above and (what appears to be) custom artwork of a bunch of items. Oh, and also some very nice maps, which I’ll be revealing as we go on.

Because of the adventure game nature of this, and the fact that I want to differentiate my LP this game from the one in the LP Archives, I’m going to be doing this Kahran-style: I’ll show you some of what we have to work with and what our options are, but I’ll be relying on you, Talking Time, to tell me where to go and what to you from an adventure game perspective. (For the combat parts, I’ll be making update posts and detailing enemies and spells, but I’m not going to ask for much input or any “challenge run” suggestions. I’m not Guild, y’know.)

To start us off, these are the most important parts of the instruction manual.









So keep in mind as we explore that Prince Theo has all of these options at his disposal, plus certain spells and any items we pick up.

Sword of Hope Post #1 – Exploring The Forest


Let’s get this legend started!












The manual, Nintendo Power and the opening crawl all give us the salient details of the story: An evil dragon was sealed into a painted by the Sword of Hope, but he was still able to use mind control to turn the king evil. Everything went to shit, the people got transformed into trees, and the last good knight had to rescue the fated Prince and spirit him away. The three magicians have dividend up and sealed off the kingdom until Prince Theo is old enough to fix everything.


Which is now.












After that impressive text dump, we’re free to explore, looking around and fighting monsters.


For instance, using LOOK in the first room gives me options as to what I can look at:




This is what happens when I look at IN ROOM.

And when I look at OLD MAN.


The old man offers us more advice.


This is what the POWER command gives me at the game’s start.


These are my starting items.


Using the MAGITEXT shows me what spells I’ve learned, but there’s nothing on the list so far.


Directly east, in the old man’s hut, is the MILL ROOM.


South takes me to his front door.


East of there is a crossroads where Theo thinks he hears a voice.


Further east at the crossroads is the Shaman’s House. He will heal you (for a modest donation) and will give you passwords.


South of the crossroads, we can go east or west.


To the west is the gate to Martel’s domain. There are three such gates, and we’ll need keys to pass them, as we were told before.


Going east leads us to several more segments of forest.


Which includes the Forest Shop.


If that seemed confusing, this is our map so far. (Edited slightly from the Nintendo Power Game Boy Player’s Guide.) Remember, we can LOOK, OPEN, or HIT things on most of these screens. Where should we explore? Who should we talk to? What do you want to try?

How can there still be any story left in that small cartridge after all this text?

Seriously though, that actually sounds like an interesting story. I especially like the idea of the voodoo painting!

I am looking forward to this LP. Sword of Hope is a game I remember reading about but never actually playing.

Oh, and I want Theo to look at the MILL ROOM!

I was just coming in here to suggest that. And maybe Theo can USE that thing in the middle of it, too.

Oh god, this game.

The Goonies II RPG? I can dig it.

Hit all of the things. If you later get a hammer, you may need to re-hit all of the things.

Can you HIT the OLD MAN. I request that you HIT the OLD MAN. He seems like he deserves it.

This is the first RPG I have ever played. I only started to find it interesting after I had learned to read, but then it was one of my favorite games. Back then I didn�t realize how "special" the german translation was. For example, the herbs got translated to "Droge", the german word for drug.

TALK to everyone, including the trees. And afterwards, HIT everyone.

Yes. Do this.

Sword of Hope Post #3 – The Mill Room

Tunlan, they crammed a frightening amount of text onto this small cart, as I keep discovering when I attempt to knit screenshots together. They made up the space by re-using as lot of artwork, as we’ll see later.


The Mill Room Has two things we can LOOK at, the WALL and the STONMILL.


First, we’ll LOOK at the WALL.


First, we’ll LOOK at the STONMILL.


I can attempt to HIT both things. I get this same generic message in both cases.


Attempting to OPEN the WALL gives me this message, which is also generic.


And OPENing the STONMILL indicates it’s not going anywhere.

(Soren, the USE command in this game only allows me to use objects in my inventory. And since I can’t lift the extremely heavy STONMILL, it’s not a valid candidate. Sorry!)


On my way out, I’ll stop to HIT the old man. Yes, you can HIT and OPEN things that would seem very odd targets for doing so. (I actually decided to do this and screenshot it before people started suggesting it. I think we’re all a bit too violent here.)


“You’re not my real dad!”


In the forest screen between the old man’s house and the shaman’s house, Theo LOOKs at the trees.


They have a lot to say. We should probably listen to other trees, as well.


Attempting to HIT the trees gets this message, though.

This was exactly the sort of audience response I was hoping for! What next? (I’ll insert discussions of monster encounters between exploration posts.)

Explore those two question marks!

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Sword of Hope! Besides, its not like we didn't have enough games where that exact wall would be the most important thing in the game or something.

Too bad you can't hit the trees. Since they complain that they don't know how much time has passed I was going to suggest you chop them down, count the rings and then tell them...

I suggest you LOOK AT the Grass and find out what you can buy in the Forest Shop (I guess TALK TO the shopkeeper?).

Theo doesn�t want to hit the trees? Interesting, I didn�t new that. Ok, than I second TALKINGto the SHOPKEEPER and then HITTING HER. And explore a bit in both directions with the question marks.

Silly people, there is no TALK command.

USE the SHOPKEEPER.

My mistake! Seconded, then.

Sword of Hope Post #2 – Battles In The Forest

We’re going to do a brief interlude today to talk a little bit about the battle system, then tomorrow we can mess with the poor shopkeeper and explore some more.


Dots in the navigation panel indicate enemies. They move in real-time of their own accord; some you can avoid, some will block your path, and some will enter the area you’re in and spring on you.


This is a moth, one of the most basic enemies. He gives a good indication of how this game can go.


He has a special attack. If you’re poisoned, it takes effect at the end of the round, and only lasts for that battle.


If it does affect you, it will hurt you, decrease your attack power, and decrease your defense power; all of this can turn a one-hit enemy into a many-rounds encounter.


When coupled with the fact that Moths are good at dodging, of course.


Poison wears off randomly, usually after one round.


Experience and gold drops are randomized within a range for each enemy. I believe Moths give 1-2 XP and 0-2 Gold.

Up to three enemies can appear in any battle, additional enemies can join a battle in progress, and enemies will sometime fight each other. We will see all of these things later.


The other enemy you’ll meet in the forest is the skeleton, who is slightly stronger and tougher but doesn’t blow poison, so he’s actually more pleasant to fight. The rewards for beating them are slightly better, too.




Theo learns spells as he levels up. The spells follow a general path of alternating useless and useful versions. FIREBALL shoots a ball of fire at a random target, which can include Theo. If the RNG isn’t on your side, that can ruin your whole day. When we learn FIREBAL2, it won’t have the chance of hitting Theo.


Also, our stats improve. (This is set; there’s no randomness to level-ups.)


It’s fairly easy to get killed at low levels, especially when gold drops are low enough that getting healed (5 Gold at level 1) is still unpleasantly expensive.


But that’s okay, because dying just returns you to the Old Man with 20 HP, 20 MP and all of your gold and items intact. In later parts of the game, dying can be frustrating because you lose travelling progress, then need to pay the Shaman to heal you the rest of the way.

I’m going to grind a bit in the forest. As we’ll see next time, there are useful things to buy.

Sword of Hope Post #4 – The Rest of the Forest

Okay, so, we have a few things to do.

First, let’s check out that grass.


…Eww.

Next, we’ll do some exploration.


Going west reveals another gate, this one leading to Shabow’s domain.


Going far north leads to the third gate, to Camu’s domain.


However, circling to the northeast leads to the Square, with a great tree standing in the middle of it.


This is our updated map, with all the areas we can reach at the moment.


Finally, we’ve got the forest shop.




Looking around tells me the place is well-stocked.


The shopkeeper has four things specifically for sale: Three consumables, and Silver Armor.


LOOKing at GDS4SALE tells me what the consumables do.


For those of you who were hoping for an in-depth economic analysis of this game, the best I’ve ever been able to come up with is an underground resistance group / black market that we only have the smallest of dealings with. On the surface, it looks like there are a grand total of ten non-tree people in this world, most of whom are split off from each other by these gates. How could this forest shop survive if the old man and the shaman are the only people who ever buy from her? (For that matter, you’d think Theo would either be intimately familiar with this woman by now, or would have been kept so sheltered by the old man for 16 years that the very idea of a new people would blow his tiny little mind.)

More’s my point, the shop mistress needs to be getting goods from somewhere and selling them to someone. Given that she sells wheat, barley and herbs, she’s probably growing them herself; and she only has the one suit of silver armor, so that could be from a pre-darkness time. If she’s only supplying these wares to two men who live across the forest, there’s no point in bandying around with currency, because there’s nothing she could buy with it. The three of them would be presumably bartering, but then, it would also make much more sense for the three of them to live together and raise Theo together to be efficient with heating, defense against monsters, and the like.

Because this isn’t the case, we need to conclude someone else is buying her goods, and presumably someone else is exchanging currency with the old man and the shaman. My guess is that some percentage of the population escaped being turned into trees, and hide in scattered houses and dens to avoid the notice of powerful monsters. Periodically, they travel through the forest (which is larger than we see) to and sell goods at the forest shop, seek solace from the shaman, have the old man use his millstone to grind their grain, etc. This would explain how Theo made it to near-adulthood without knowing that the kingdom had been turned into trees but also without freaking out to learn there were more people.

Anyway, back to the game: I then go and run around the forest fighting monsters (and almost getting killed again) to raise the 50 Gold for that Silver Armor. Despite the fact that in the real world silver is a soft metal that isn’t useful for armor, this game follows RPG conventions and makes it better than the copper I started with.




I gain a level along the way.


STRIPALL reduces enemy stats. It’s situationally useful.


And this is what a critical hit in a multi-enemy battle looks like. The moths here actually poisoned the skeleton in addition to Theo.


When I return to buy it, the shopkeeper has something to say. A free prize? How nice.


And now I can LOOK at the back door.




Then she hooks me up with this new armor.


As thanks, let’s see what happens if I HIT the shop mistress.


Ouch! She hits back and we totally lose HP!

(I can’t USE the shopkeeper—again, that’s only for items I can pick up and carry—but I suspect from this reaction that it wouldn’t go well.)


This is what my stats look like with the new armor—better weapons and armor directly increase your stats in this game.


Look, Talking Time, a chest! What shall I do with it?

(Next post probably early next week. Feel free to pile on suggestions before then.)

Open it. Obviously.

> OPEN CHEST seems to be the obvious option.

Also, in the square,

> LOOK TREE
> USE TREE
> HIT TREE

in that order.

I always liked to think that the shopkeeper was a badass. No matter how strong you are, she always can defend herself. And "You hit it, but are beaten back three times." Good to know that not everything is the fault of the translaters.

Lets see, you should definitely OPEN the CHEST. You might also want to LOOK at the GRASS two steps to the right of the door to Martels domain. And then LOOK at the TREE before you OPEN him.

Don't Open the chest yet! It's an obvious mimic! Hit it a few times first so it will learn its place!

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of the possible economy of the game. Maybe the whole thing is some kind of Truman Show setup where everyone is just messing with Theo?

And the text in this game is awesome! ("Sniff!")

"By the way, let's change the subject" - I am pretty sure those two cancel each other out somehow.

Also: STRIPALL. Perfect name.

Anyway, I am going with OPEN chest.

Sword of Hope Post #5 – Chests and Trees


Recentteen14 makes a good point: Mimics are, in fact, a big problem in this game. Let’s show this one who’s boss.




We HIT the chest. What a great idea! Instead of hurting my hand, I magically get healed!


Then we OPEN the chest.

The spell of Grace basically allows us to pray. It can only be used on the map screen, not in battle, so I’ll take suggestions for when to cast it. It’s used to solve at least one puzzle.


Nintendo Power had (as far as I can tell) original artwork in their coverage of the game—it’s certainly not from the bare-bones manual, and I don’t think there was official artwork.




On our way out, I gain a level and learn a new spell.


FIREBAL2 is the useful version of FIREBALL, as it has no chance of hitting Theo.


FelixSH wants us to look at a very specific spot on the grass.


Got herb!


While I’m in this area, I stop at the Shaman for healing. I won’t need a big chunk of money for a while, now that I have the Silver Armor, so I can afford to pay him a few coins. (It was only recently that I figured out what his magic word meant. I apparently was not a very bright child.)


Now, let’s check out that big tree.


Looks like a tree.


Attempting to OPEN him makes him attack me!


TREANT is the game’s first boss, who will kill you if you come straight here, but is a pushover if you have silver armor and FIREBAL2.


I try STRIPALL first, but he reflects it and all of Theo’s stats decrease instead.

He can use PILLAGD and PILLAGAS, spells that Theo will eventually learn. They steal an opponent’s Dexterity, and Agility and Stamina, respectively; and temporarily add them to the caster’s total.


Two FIREBAL2s are all I need to take him down, though. (My physical attacks become useless after the stat declines from my spell and his.)




Afterwards, he surrenders and gives me the key to Martel’s domain.


Nintendo Power had a shot of him, as well.


And the fancy key we retrieve from him.


If we LOOK at him afterwards, he describes his change of heart, which has made him popular with the other trees.


If we HIT him afterwards, he’ll beg for mercy. (If we had HIT him instead of OPENing him, it would have also started the battle.)

Presumably the next stop is Martel’s domain, but if there are other things you’d like to do in the forest first, let me know!

I remember not having fireball 2 when I attacked Treant and hoping for the best with fireball 1. It works out surprisingly often, but is definitely a crapshot. Last time I haven�t even bought the new armor. It helped that the tree mainly decreased my stats, instead of attacking me. I guess trees are not particularly bright.

Let�s visit Martel. It�s time to HIT another NPC.

I must not be a very bright adult, 'cause I don't get it.

Read it backwards.

"KEMCOSEIKA"?

I'm still with Yimothy.