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

What ebil lurks in the bearts of men?

The Shabow knows!

First we should show SHABOW who is the boss by HITTING him. It�s not nice to push people down waterfalls.
I second HIT the BRIDGE and LOOK at the SWAMP there if you can. And then try to OPEN the GRASS (or whatever this is) in the swamp area.

Then it�s time for adventure - into the cave.

Sword of Hope Post #12 – Take That, Swamp!

It’s been a while (blame Christmas), so I have a super-size update for you folks!

(shocked) The Shadow! (scared) The Shadow! (resolved) The Shadow!

So, lot of requests this time. First, we’ll check out this cul-de-sac (where, I’ll remind you, we found an Herb in the grass last time).










Unfortunately, the TREE and the GRASS both give default messages when we LOOK, HIT or OPEN them.


Let’s go HIT SHABOW.


He thinks we want to start something, but…somebody convinces him to back off. Theo? The pigeon?


Trying to OPEN SHABOW gets a nonsensical message, too. What exactly were we trying to do to him, and would it have passed Nintendo’s censorship standards?


LOOKing at the POND or SWAMP or MUDPLACE generally gives this default message.


Except on this screen, where something might be different.


This is an attempt to OPEN the SWAMP.


LOOKing at the GRASS in the swamp tells me this.




Over at the bridge, we can LOOK at it and the RIVER. Looks like there might be something here, but we don’t know what.


I get a default message if I HIT the BRIDGE.


Attempting to HIT the HOLE is harder than it looks.


And the game acknowledges that trying to OPEN a HOLE is absurd.


This is the message if I HIT the RIVER, by the way.


Here’s one more bit on that front: The TREEs that talk in this area say this.

I wander around a bit fighting APEs and CYCLOPs until I hit level 11, which nets me two new spells, neither of which I really use, though I might test them out on bosses: BLIND causes blindness, and STRIPMP reduces an enemy’s MP. Pretty much what it says on the tin.


Level 11 stats.


And I pop back to the SHAMAN for a password.


For the record, there’s a second new enemy in the swamp area: The EEL. They have high defense, and attack you by generating electricity. It takes several FIREBAL2 spells to take one out, and the rewards aren’t any better than anything else you meet around here.


This is the message you get when your gold total maxes out. I remember being irritated every time I saw it as a child.


And into the cave we go.


The SLUG boss from the well is a normal enemy here. Their normal attacks can’t really hurt Theo at this point, but don’t get cocky: It takes two LIGHTNG2 spells to kill one, and their acid attack can still kill Theo in two hits—as this one did.


In the cave you can also meet MYCONIDs, which hit hard, cast LIGHTNG, and can use spores to make you fall asleep. They’re vulnerable to FIREBAL2, though.
The cave is a serious maze, with one-way doors and sealed passages everywhere; and all the rooms look alike.


The chest in the first room is a MIMIC.


Going north one room leads to a chest with writing in it. What could this mean?


Going west from there leads to this chest, where the black marketer is hiding.


He sells the Gold Armor for most of my money. This is why I was saving up. (Note his prices for other items: I believe they’re automatically doubled from the level-dependent forest shop prices.)


New stats wearing Gold Armor.

Going north from the Marketer, we find these two pots.




The wall tells us what to expect, and the descriptions tell Theo—who apparently can see colors, even if we can’t—which pot is which.


Drinking from the R POT (the blue one) would restore my HP if I was injured at this point.


It would be rude to HIT the pots.


Going south from the Marketer is a one-way trip to here. Without a map, you see this message a lot.


This is a RALBA. They are immune to FIREBALL (but vulnerable to LIGHTNG) and like to cast RECMIN on themselves. They also enjoy casting STRIPALL and STRIPMP. (I spent a chunk of this battle asleep, but luckily for me, the MYCONID and RALBA spent all that time fighting with each other.)

Also, you can find ELMNTALs in the cave. They’re just annoying at this point, pretty much a guaranteed loss of a few HP. I tend to run from them.


Anyway, further south is another chest.


It’s very pretty.


It’s for suckers.


Does this battle look terrifying to you, too? The only reason I survived was the enemies’ tendency to attack each other rather than Theo. The SLUG was put to sleep and beaten nearly to death by the other monsters.


If you go east from the entrance and south, you get to this screen. It’s not worth it, though, as this is a MIMIC.

You need to go west and south from the jars.


There’s a mysterious door you can open. Go west.


North of here is a chest with another MIMIC.


South is the same.


You need to keep going south until you get here, the deepest part of the cave.


That gets us to a mysterious moss-covered chest.

Filled with the boss of the cave, SHABOW’s SHADOW!

The SHADOW is a straightforward fight—it doesn’t really do anything but attack. While FIREBAL2 and LIGHTNG2 work on it, BAGEFIR2 is its weakness and can end the battle in two turns. For the record, the game claimed BLIND was ineffective but the Shadow’s damage output after I cast it was significantly lower, so I don’t know. Maybe a glitch? Also, PILLAGD can reduce its attack power enough that it’s doing very little damage to you, but requires a lot of castings to be effective.




Winning gets you the MOONFRAG, which is what SHABOW wants from us.


Finally!


As we leave that room, a stranger appears.


I have no idea what that was about.

Though the presence of this stranger (assuming he wasn’t a ghost) and the black marketer are support for my theory about the economics of this game: There is an underground network of people who weren’t transformed into trees and who periodically travel to interact with each other. That’s also the best explanation for who that black marketer plans to sell any of his wares to.


Here’s the Nintendo Power map of the cave, outlining the various twists and turns.


If we go north, north, east and exit, it takes us outside via the windy hole, which isn’t so windy for the time being.


Then I take the MOONFRAG and show it to SHABOW. I get a better sword!




And I get a blue egg for a pigeon who honestly kinda creeps me out.


This is what the new items look like.


These are my stats. Only 8 XP to level up? Gotta fix that.


At level 12, Theo learns BAGEFIR3, which hits everything including him, and RAISES, which boosts his stamina.


Level 12 stats.


Current password.

It should be easy to guess where to go next. Anyone?

Sword of Hope Post #13 – Reaching Camu’s Domain

No guesses? Really?


Okay, well, then I guess I’ll kill some time grinding for our next big challenge. At level 12 with the Extra sword, I can take out an APE or CYCLOPS in a single hit most of the time, so grinding in the forest area of Shabow’s domain is fairly easy.


It also means I rapidly max out my gold again, so I spend it all on wheat, barley and herbs at the forest shop.


When I finally hit Level 13, I learn a mostly-useless spell (LIGHTNG3, the hit-everybody-including-Theo version of that spell) and a very useful spell (RECMED, the second healing spell).


Level 13 stats.


To continue the plot: Remember that mysterious trail of bubbles under the bridge?


If we go and LOOK at it now, LIZARD jumps out at us.


LIZARD can be unpleasant if the RNG doesn’t love you, because his defense is too high for Theo to deal real physical damage at this point. In my case, he never attacked me and instead spammed RAISED on himself. Either BAGEFIR2 or LIGHTNG2 can take him down in two hits.


Defeating him wins KEY C.


Here’s Nintendo Power’s artwork of that.


The descriptions of the RIVER changes after that.


Password at this point.






We can unlock the door and head for Camu’s domain.

The SHADOW from the chest is a random encounter here. BAGEFIR2 is still the way to deal with them. A useful note: Their standard attack hits everything on the screen. Which means they can be helpful when they show up with other monsters; you can leave them for last and they’ll help you kill everything else first.


Going left reveals a mysterious spring.


Going right into this dark tunnel makes Theo feel strange.


Looking at the stone cause an IMP to jump out at you.


And utterly demolish you. 49 points of damage with both its LIGHTNG4 spell and its regular attack!


Yeah, I end up back here.


Another new enemy in Camu’s domain is the ORC. They like to cast RECMIN to heal themselves, and can blow out poison likes MOTHs and FROGs. BAGEFIR2 is their weakness.


Okay, so this time we’ll skip the cave and head northwest.


Past a…hole?


There’s a second mysterious spring up here, too.


And a Pagoda in the far north that we can circle around to reach the end of the path.


Or reach the sealed front door of the Pagoda on one side.


Damn ORCs. Hi again, adoptive-dad.

If we run through that tunnel without stopping to look for IMPs, we can reach a series of cliffs and a dead end.


Heading to the northeast, there’s an overpass that leads around a muddy cliff.


Then to a different mysterious cave.


And finally to the other end of that broken cliff.


Reaching level 14 gets me the spell of PILLAGHP, which would be useful except it only collects single-digit HP from most enemies. If you really want to deal damage or you really need healing, you have better options for both.


Following the cliff face straight west leads to a third spring.


And finally, in this hole in the middle of things, I LOOK in and find my old buddy HERB.


I’m sure that little tour was confusing, so here’s Nintendo Power’s map of the area.


Here are my Level 14 stats.


And the latest password.

What next? Try to beat the IMP, inspect fountains, LOOK around more, HIT something? Alternately, there had been a lot of interest in the Yeti quest: Should we jump straight into that?

Strange, I completely missed the last update.

Let�s see, let�s HIT the MUD. LOOK at the SPRINGS and, if you can, at the TREES there. Then LOOK at the MOON at the pagoda. I guess you should try to USE the MOON FRAGMENT there. And finally, kill the IMP.

I think I always went to Camu�s door, and then remember that I don�t have the key. I�m curious if the next chain of events is less obtuse. The only reason why I can play through the game without any problem is that I have memorized it more or less completely.
Camu�s whole area is pretty atmospheric. This is one of the cases where the black-and-white screen of the gameboy really helped. But the same can be said for the whole game. As simple as this game is, I really like the whole world. It feels so strange.

BTW, did I ever tell you that I love the artwork you are posting? Because I love the artwork you are posting. I�ve never seen any of it.

I vote for LOOKing at the fountains / springs, LOOKing at the muddy cliff and the hole and finally MURDERing the Imp!

Sword of Hope Post #14 – Sidequest

There's a fairly straightforward sequence if you've been paying attention to clues dropped earlier in the game. There are a number of payoffs in this sequence. But I'm putting the cart before the horse, really.

The designers were very good at making the world feel large and the areas feel distinct, despite the repetitive nature of many areas. Places like the cave that have warps and one-way doors feel much larger than they actually are on a map. And the starkness of the cliffs of Camu's domain really comes through.

I can only guess that it was made specifically for Nintendo Power, because I never seen it referenced anywhere else. They did a big feature spread in the magazine itself, and then dedicated a lot of space to it in the Game Boy Player's Guide, where I'm pulling the maps from.

Let's get down to business!


My first stop is the Forest Shop, since my gold is getting high again. I max out my stores of WHEAT, BARLEY and HERB, at 7 each. (This game doesn’t do its economy terribly well, honestly. The gold cap is very low and the only things you buy are the three consumables and two of the armor upgrades.)


Back in Camu’s domain, we head to the south-west spring.


The trees tell me this.


LOOK at the fountain.


LOOK at the image.


And then HIT the image, for good measure. Hmm, we must be missing something here.


At the northwest spring, the trees give a much more ominous message.

I get the same messages from LOOKing at the fountain and the image. But then, if I HIT the image…


And LAMIA jumps out at me!


LAMIA hits hard, and can sing a song to entrance Theo’s heart and steal his agility. (It works like any of the PILLAGE spells.) He’s weak to BAGEFIR2, though, and two castings can take him down.


After that, the spring just makes me uneasy.


The trees at the third (northeast) spring encourage me to look in.


This fountain behaves exactly like the fountain in the southwest, including the image dissipating if I hit it. Who is this woman, and how can I speak to her?

I’m throwing LIGHTNG2 and BAGEFIR2 spells with abandon here, so I restore my MP with an HERB. It’s not like I’m lacking in gold to replace it. Items in this game mostly improve your longevity between battles—if you need to use a consumable during a battle, you’re probably going to lose that battle.


We head down to check out the mud puddle.


When I take a LOOK, Theo carelessly falls in, and barely escapes the mud.


I HIT the mud in revenge. The mud doesn’t care.

We head around the pagoda to have a LOOK at the MOON.


I USE the MOONFRAG, but I can’t reach the moon from here. I guess I need to get higher to reach it.


Then I hit level 15. BAGEFIR4 means I can now cast BAGEFIRE against groups effectively, without destroying Theo in the process. This will be handy against crowds of ORCs.


I hit the SHAMAN up for some healing and a password.


Level 15 stats.


Grab a new HERB, head back to Camu’s domain, and it’s time to bite the bullet and try that IMP again.


So, things to know about the IMP: He casts LIGHTNG4 and BAGEFIR4 and hits really hard—he can generally kill Theo in two hits. He is immune to BAGEFIRE. He repels FIREBALL and LIGHTNG back at you. If you’re super lucky, he’ll only steal your gold instead of hurting you. But his defense is high enough that most of your hits will only do a couple of points of damage.


He kills me half a dozen times and I decide to try something else for a while.
So I head to the other mysterious tunnel. It’s time for a sidequest!


The stone here has something shiny on it.


So, of course, the logical thing to do is HIT the rock.


Then LOOK at the shiny piece that broke off. It’s a SAPHIRE!


And here’s the YETI that made it!


The YETI is nasty, but not as much so as the IMP. His trick is blowing frigid air that hurts you (around 40 points) and reduces your agility. Fortunately, his normal attack only does around 20 damage at this point, and he’s vulnerable to all of the attack spells. (He is faster than Theo, though, even without the agility losses.) If you get lucky and the RNG mostly attacks, you can take him out with three BAGEFIR2 spells before you die.


Winning nets you the SAPHIRE.

I then teleport to Martel, and hike back through the graveyard and the well. Nothing is really threatening here, though exploding ELEMNTALs are still annoying and may actually do more damage now.


I do this because we need to get that SAPHIRE back to the swordsman’s grave.


The ghost commands us to use the jewel.


Okay.




When we do, he destroys it and gives us the Platinum Armor in thanks.


Check out my stamina now!

Fighting the Yeti and getting the armor is one of the few strictly optional things in this game. That extra 20 points of stamina is really nice, but you can grind past challenges without it.


Then we’ll heal and snag a password again.

Next time: I’ll grind however much I need to and take down the IMP. Any other requests?

I can't think of anything else to do.

Are you approaching the end-game?

Yeah... I think Lamia is supposed to be a she.

Sword of Hope Post #15 – IMP-ing Along

Not really, playtime-wise. There's still a bunch of work to finish Camu's domain, then there's the positively massive final area. (I've actually held off estimating my total number of posts for this game; it's shockingly long given its lineage.)

I suspect you're right, given both the name (and attached history) and the in-battle image of it. But the game uses "he", so I did too. Maybe it's a transgender lamia with a preferred male pronoun?

ANYWAY, the Platinum Armor is sufficient to make random encounters in Camu’s domain much less dangerous, but even halving the damage I take from the IMP’s normal attacks isn’t enough to get me past it, because I just can’t deal enough damage to it before I die. So, grinding.


Level 16 sees LIGHTNG4, so now I can cast LIGHTNG on all of my enemies.


And a small increase in stats.


A whole lot of SHADOWs, ORCs and APEs later, level 17. ARCTIC is my first spell is a new elemental family. It works like the YETI’s frigid breath, dealing damage and reducing agility. Notably, the IMP isn’t immune to it.


Level 17 stats. Of course, I still do no damage or only a couple of points of damage to SHADOWs with most of my physical hits; I just occasionally hit for 10-20, too. (I don’t think it really occurred to me how much this segment of the game forces you to use magic instead of attacking, because your attack power really doesn’t scale with enemy defense and it’s a while before you can upgrade your sword again. I wonder how much this was intentional, and how much was a screw-up in the timing of sword upgrades.)

I also use my HERBs to restore MP so I can stay out grinding longer—it’s not like I have any better use for the money I’m making, and it’s more convenient than warping to the Shaman and then walking back.


Level 17 password.


Then I bite the bullet again. It still takes a couple of tries.


Many castings of ARCTIC and RECMED later (it took four ARCTIC spells to take him out), I finally beat the IMP. There was great rejoicing.


He flees, leaving behind a stolen note.


Apparently this Mudman fellow is hot for Camu, but he’s really ugly. Did we mention he was ugly? Because he’s really ugly.


Under other circumstances, I’d say, “Hey, where do we go now?” but this seems pretty obvious. As a reward for defeating the IMP, the game just flat-out tells you where to go.


I warp to Shabow’s place, then jump off the waterfall into the swamp.


Remember this spot in the swamp with the mysterious ripple?


MUDMAN reflects FIREBALL and BAGEFIRE spells, but is vulnerable to LIGHTNG. His physical attack isn’t really a threat to me at this point, but his XPLOSION2 spell…well, let’s just say I couldn’t handle two of those. Three castings of LIGHTNG2 will take him out.


Beating him gets me the RING.


I go back to the Shaman for healing and the latest password, having gotten past those two nasty fights.

What should I do with this RING?

I guess you can use the ring to talk to the Lady(ies?) in the lakes.

BTW, can you refight the Mimics in the well? The chests are still there, but I don�t know if that means you can refight them. If possible, do so. I think they get upgraded to D-Mimics and later M-Mimics as you level up (or continue with the game maybe).

Sword of Hope Post #16 – The Ladies of the Lake

I have no idea if the Mimics upgrade! Let’s go take a look. While we’re heading over, I’ll note a few things.


If you go back to the altar and cast Grace again, it’ll give you a clue as to what to do next.


The ELEMNTAL’s explosion damage definitely seems to be based either on your level or total HP, because it’s more than doubled since I first started encountering them.


I knew that the mimic chests regenerated; you don’t even need to restart from a password for that to happen.


What I didn’t know what that Felix is totally right: They upgrade according to your level! This M MIMIC isn’t really a threat right now, though, because I’m wearing Platinum Armor. He can’t really hurt me. Should it come up, M MIMICs are weak to LIGHTNG and vulnerable to most attack spells.


Next, we’re going back to the springs.


Using the RING at the southwest spring summons a sprite.


I suspect this particular sprite has some issues with the concept of “altruism”.


She’ll ask a series of questions. (I’m showing off the “optimal” sequence here. All of the other sequences either end with her calling you narrow-minded and leaving, or calling you a stuck-up liar and making you fight a LAMIA.)


It’s not terribly intuitive which answer is correct—in theory you’re trying to be modest, but that would imply you should answer “no” to the first one, which is wrong.




I’m guessing something was lost in the translation.


And this is just a “fuck you” sort of question where you just have to guess.


Theo is just too cool! You have no choice but to be as altruistic as possible!


The FAIRYLMP isn’t critical to beating the game, but makes reaching an optional part of the final dungeon possible.

We already know the northwest spring is a LAMIA, so we’ll head for the northeast one.


The same sequence occurs.


Only this time, the woman is Camu! I’m not sure why Camu thought turning into a unicorn and hiding in her pagoda was a good way to get away from MUDMAN. It doesn’t seem like a good plan.


Password after getting the FAIRYLMP and talking to Camu.

Where should I look for a unicorn horn? Obviously, MUDMAN didn’t have it. It’s one of the remaining “hanging threads” from a previous update.

Sword of Hope Post #17 – The Vampire and Camu’s Pagoda

No guesses? Aw, man.


Okay, so what we do is hit up Martel’s domain again. There was a reason we didn’t want to hang around in the graveyard.


Because a vampire might appear! This actually freaked me out as a kid—I didn’t realize that the vampire’s appearance was spiked to later in the game, and thought it could jump out at you randomly and kill you long before you were ready to fight it, so I always zoomed through the graveyard as fast as I could.

(This may have been inspired by my other adventure game experiences, most notably with the Apple II game Tass Times in Tonetown, in which the villain will just sometimes appear and randomly kill you. How was I to know that wasn’t common?)


In this case, if we LOOK at the GRAVE on that screen, the vampire who might appear, does!


Having gotten past the YETI, the IMP and the MUDMAN, the VAMPIRE isn’t actually much of a challenge…well, if you know his weakness.


See, he’s immune to pretty much everything and has 150 hit points. What you need to do in this battle is use the RUBY on him—six hits will take him down. (If you never upgraded the CHARM, it works too, but does less damage.)


The VAMPIRE is otherwise unthreatening because his only two attacks are to bite you (which sucks away massive amounts of agility, guaranteeing you’ll never act first against him), or do a normal attack (which deals single-digit damage through my Platinum armor).


I gain a level from beating him, which gives me the XPLOSION spell. This hits everything (including Theo, of course) with a massive explosion. It’s not terribly useful as-is.


The VAMPIRE has Camu’s unicorn horn. (I guess the MUDMAN gave it to him or something? Ugly monsters all know each other, obviously. We probably should have been talking to the trees more often.)


Afterwards, the description of the area changes.


Level 18 stats.

Without further ado, let’s go rescue Camu.


I head back to the pagoda.


And apparently you unlock doors with a unicorn horn by thrusting! (Also, apparently the proofreader was asleep the day they did this sequence.)


On the first floor, there’s a chest, and a beautiful description of the windows.


The chest is empty, but contains an odd clue.

This is a new enemy in the pagoda, the BOGLE. They can cast FIREBAL2 and FIREBAL4, but are otherwise about on par with ORCs. (Also, they take full damage from BAGEFIRE and less from LIGHTNG and ARCTIC.) A couple of castings of BAGEFIR4 is great for clearing out groups like this.


The path through the pagoda takes us up to the second floor.


There’s another chest here, but this one is a mimic. (Actually, an M MIMIC.)


We have the same roundabout to reach the third floor.


There’s another chest there. This one we can open for the SPORE, an item that can be used in battle to attempt to put enemies to sleep.




This woman looks familiar. She must be the sprite.


Oh, wait, it’s Camu! Turns out she’s very, very thankful, and has a problematically-translated clue about Theo’s mother that we’ll need to remember quite a while from now.


She upgrades my sword, but she doesn’t have the Sword of Hope. That’s not good.


And apparently she has a cranky pigeon with a heart of gold. Might as well talk to him and try to fill out our egg collection. (…I suddenly realized that male pronouns are used for all of the egg-laying pigeons. Hmm.)


We LOOK at the pigeon.


I know where this is going. HIT him!


This last part actually stymied me a bit as a kid, but because of a glitch, it wasn’t actually important. You need to OPEN the pigeon to get the red egg. Apparently you threaten to open him up and eat him or something.

There’s one more staircase behind Camu.


It leads to the top of the pagoda.


We can reach the moon from here.






So as requested earlier, I USE the MOONFRAG. The moon becomes full!


Then I try to HIT the MOON.


It doesn’t go well.

I like the sequence in Camu’s domain—it’s nice that it’s different from the first two areas and requires some backtracking and problem-solving. Granted, the IMP is a really annoying roadblock, but this breaks the game out of the “dungeon area with a boss” motif of Martel and Shabow’s domains.


Here’s our current stats.


Here’s the full Nintendo Power map of the pagoda.

Well, now we’re out of wizards and domains, but we still don’t have the Sword of Hope. Is the land of Riccar doomed? Where should I look next?

I don�t remember what "use the charm on site" was translated to, but I always thought it was about using the ring at the lakes. At least I think so. Speaking of lakes, I have no idea what "are treasure chests more than mimics" means. I guess they lost the word "worth" somewhere? But eh, fits the rest of the quiz, I guess.

Well, I think it�s time for a round of Talk To Everyone, including the treant. I�m curious if anyone has something new to say.
I�m not sure if this is enough to advance the plot, but if it is get a password afterwards (really, this is important, get one) and talk to Camu again. As we will see, she is not particularly clever.

Go back to where you started and use the eggs somehow...?

If you can, talk to the swordsman's ghost.

Sword of Hope Post #18 – The Sword of Hope, called Wish

But that clue would come far too late to be useful. No, it refers to something you do in the endgame, and I’ll show it off when I get there.

I always thought it was along the lines of “Is there any value to pursuing treasure at all, or is it all just fake?” Because if you say they’re all fake, there’s no point in her giving you something. But I may be overthinking it.

Well, why don’t we start with Treant?


Turns out, restoring the moon has caused him to bear fruit. Kinky.


Smells tasty.


If we HIT him, he’ll give us one. TRTFRUIT is a great item, because it full restores your HP and MP, in or out of battle. The only downside is you can only carry one, but you can come back and replace it if you use it.


If we go back and visit Martel, he talks about the wizards’ abilities (which we should have guessed—if they could defeat the darkness, they’d have done it years ago) and says “darkness” a lot.


When we hit the alter and check with the Great Scoutmaster of All Good Scouts, we’re told to go home and visit dad. (I feel like I’ve seen theories that the voice at the altar is Theo’s mom, which would really fit here.)


Polinyak isn’t able to help any more, but he isn’t able to ascend to heaven, either.


Shabow is encouraging, but unhelpful.


Fine! Fine! I’ll go see my adoptive father! You’d think all those times I visited (…because I had died) while fighting monsters to save Camu would have been good enough!

You got the correct solution here.




The Probite sword we started with and have been upgrading was the Sword of Hope the whole time!

Remember when I mentioned having trouble getting the red egg? You don’t actually need it—apparently there’s a missing plot flag. If you show up here after talking to Camu but without the R EGG, the game pretends you have it and the old man upgrades your sword regardless.

This also makes the Adage sword completely pointless. Given the difficulty in physically damaging monsters in Camu’s domain, I have to wonder if the intent was for you to get it earlier, rather than have it immediately (and I mean that—I fought a couple of battles between upgrades, but they were totally unnecessary) with the Wish sword.


Stats with the Wish. In addition to the upgrade in Dexterity, the Wish hits all enemies when you attack with it, which makes grinding significantly easier.


Into the final dungeon!


This seems like a good place for the last of the Nintendo Power artwork, as the magazine coverage ends here. There are still more maps to come, though.


Now, we can move the millstone and head into the underground.


Ominous!

The first segment is a maze of rooms that look like this. Most paths you can take will result in your getting warped into the same room again.


There are new and returning enemies down here. MYCONIDs are easy; you can one-shot them with the Wish sword.


CENTPEDEs are tougher but still perfectly handle-able, though they can bite you and inflict poison, which is irritating.


DRUIDs are deadly. They can (as seen here) appear in groups, and they cast PILLAGMP, PILLAGHP, LIGHTNG2 and BAGEFIR2, the latter of which can kill Theo in two shots. I didn’t even get a chance to act in this battle.


You just need to head east to escape the “maze”.


That leads to this room with three doors we can’t open.


If you LOOK at the doors, you get various messages about mumbling.


And if I HIT a door, it gives this message.


(None of them will OPEN.)

What do I do here?

Talking to Camu after advancing the plot doesn’t change what she says at all—I’m wondering if there was a glitch in your copy of the game that isn’t present here.


Anyway, after the DRUIDs kill me and I don’t find any glitches with Camu, I grind the rest of a level in Camu’s domain and learn ARCTIC2, which is stronger than the first version of the spell.




Then I get a password.

I bet you can figure out what to do about mumbling doors! We have everything we need to pass.

Strange, I remember that I avoided Camu after getting the Sword of Hope, because she would change it back to Adage. Maybe that happens if you use the R-password and talk to her? Or my memory finally failed me.

The druids are jerks. Aren�t they immune against nearly every spell, and also pretty robust against the swords? I think I always ran away when I met them. Facing other monsters was, as a result, always welcomed. Especially the Myconids.

I know how to proceed, so I will wait for someone else to take a guess. But I suggest that you OPEN the CHEST in the second room.

I don't really know why a FAIRYLAMP would make a non-talker talk, but I say try it out anyway!

Ha. Total guess, but ... I guess I've played enough games to know how these things work? :P

Remind me again of what our current inventory is?