KNIGHTS OF VALOR WALKTHROUGH/FAQ 1.0 FOR ARCADE BY hotsoup EMAIL: zard20@hotmail.com ICQ: 16539445 ||||||||||||||||||||| Standard Disclaimer: ||||||||||||||||||||| ******************************************************************************* This document is copyright (2001 by hotsoup). Reproduction of this document in part or in whole without the author's consent is strictly forbidden. If the reader wishes to use the FAQ for their personal and private use only, then a copy may be made. This FAQ is written strictly for evaluation and reference purposes and should never be used for commercial purposes. ******************************************************************************* Before you read on, just some clarifications... i. This is an FAQ on Knights of valor 1 (original or Plus version), NOT Knights of valor Super heroes or Knights of valor 2. So if you are looking for information on KOV1 (original), you've came to the right place. ii. I do not proclaim to be an expert in the game. Any tips or strategies I stated here are mainly due to personal preference. iii. This is NOT an expert walkthrough. If you can already complete the game solo (Zhuge Liang not counted please), I don't think you need to read this at all. iv. This walkthrough is written more for a solo game. The game gets much simpler in multi-player games that I think that a walkthrough is not really required~ v. The cheats for the game will NOT be revealed here. Personally I hate people who utilise the cheat codes and I will definitely not support the use of it. Please do not email me asking me for the cheat codes. vi. Since the game is originally in chinese, all the items have their original chinese names. However, for simplicity sake, I will rename the items in English that I feel best suits the item. vii. I am using numbers to represent the method of executing moves instead of the usual hcf, qcf etc method. Look at your numpad to know what I am trying to say. So, 6 means right, 2 means down, 8 means up, 236 means quarter circle, 28 means down-up. Get the idea? The letters (A,B) represents the attack button and the jump button of the game. (The buttons are mostly arranged in the order of attack(A), jump(B), open item menu(C), use item(D) so I think the representation is quite idiot-proof). viii. When I say "normal attacks" this just means the normal 4 hit attacks (3 hits for Zhuge Liang) that every character can do by just tapping the A button repeatedly. When I say "moves" this means the other forms of attack that the characters can do. This will include the unique 236A, 28A moves and even the 66A move that every character has. ix. At present, I did not list the various combos for each character. You can look them up from the various websites from the net. For this game, complicated combos are not really required (not even do-able in fact for most cases). Most characters just need to do the standard 4 hit attack followed by 1 or 2 more moves. x. Please email me if you find any mistakes or you think there should be anything else added to this FAQ. On the other hand, please do not email me for information which are already available here. I took the effort the type this out so you should at least read it before mailing me asking for information. |||||||||||||||| REVISION HISTORY |||||||||||||||| =============================================================================== 27-Sep-2001: Started writing this FAQ 03-Oct-2001: Finished the FAQ ver 1.0 =============================================================================== This FAQ will be updated when I think its required. Most likely, a "Frequently Asked Questions" section will be added. Presently, I think the answers to those questions are already answered below (you might have to search for them though). ||||||||||||||||| TABLE OF CONTENTS ||||||||||||||||| 1. INTRODUCTION 2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION 3. CHARACTERS 4. ITEMS 5. WALKTHROUGH 6. BOSS GUIDE 7. IMPORTANT ITEM LOCATIONS 8. HINTS AND TIPS 9. LAST WORDS ================================================================================ |||||||||||||||| 1. INTRODUCTION |||||||||||||||| This is my second walkthrough after Slashout. It has been quite a while since I last played this game. I am mainly playing KOV Super Heroes or KOV 2 (Nine Dragons) now. I am writing this FAQ based on pure memory work and so you should understand that some mistakes are bound to happen somewhere. Knights of valor (or KOV in short) is a horizontal platform beat-them-up arcade game that was released by IGS (a Taiwanese company) in 1997 (1998 for Plus version). The game itself is based on the famous chinese saga, Romance of the 3 Kingdoms (similar to the earlier game released by Capcom, Warriors of Fate). The game is very long, typically lasting for at least an hour and fifteen minutes. So, it good entertainment for value if you can play well at it. IGS never exported the game outside of Asia and Australia (I am guessing here) and this is probably why there is no English FAQ on this game before since the bulk of the players are based in Taiwan and Hongkong who probably don't like the idea of writing a long FAQ in English. ================================================================================ ||||||||||||||||||||||||| 2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ||||||||||||||||||||||||| This section is VERY IMPORTANT, expecially to newbies as it contains vital facts about the game that you need to know about even before playing the game. i. Controls ----------- A brief description of the buttons of the game: A: Attack B: Jump C: Open item menu D: Use item 2B: Squat 6C: Block (press A after blocking to counter) AB: Desperation attack, deducts health even if it does not connect with enemy. Note that a character cannot block for long (only for about a second before the block is cancelled). So it is important to learn to block at the correct time. Almost ANY form of enemy attacks can be blocked provided you are blocking in the correct direction. If the enemy attack that you are blocking lasts particularly long, you MUST counter or take damage. ii. Things shown on the playing screen: --------------------------------------- Other than the standard character's name and lifebar that is present in every action arcade game, KOV has a few other things as well: Another "power bar" is located right next to the lifebar. This bar is similar to those used in fighting games such as King of Fighters or Marvel vs Capcom etc. When the bar is charged fully, a dot will light up next to the bar indicating that you can use the character's special once or trigger beserk mode (??) once. (I know some of you must be laughing out there but please tell me if you know of a better term to describe "bao qi" in English). Note that each character has 2 specials. One is used normally while the other can only be used when the character is in berserk state. The method of charging the bar is the same as for fighting games, i.e. hitting the enemy or getting hit by the enemy. Note that doing moves that do not hit the enemy DO NOT increase the bar (unlike KOF). Also, Zhuge Liang charges his power bar twice as fast as other characters. Next comes the score. Other than for displaying purposes for ranking, score is quite an important part of the game. It is the sole decider of the character's level (more on that later). In other words, the characters gain levels when their score reaches a particular value. Every character has a different TNL ("to next level" in case you don't know). Another important fact is whenever a character reaches a score of one million, he gets an additional life. The same goes for the subsequent millions. This means that a character has the potential to gain infinite lives if he decides to keep earning score (yawn~). Getting the final blow to a stage boss gives the particular player a boost in the bonus of the stage. Next comes the level of the character. Typically this is represented by a LVxx where xx represents the actual level of the character. The level of a character can range between 0 and 24. There are many facts about levels for the characters that many people still do not know despite playing the game for a long time. Here they are: i. Your character gets stronger only every 5 levels. This means that levels 5, 10,15,20 are the only levels that are significant in the game. All the other intermediate levels are, well, for displaying purposes only. ii. After gaining 5 levels, everything on the character (except defense I think) gets a boost. The character deals more damage, his MAX hp is increased and the strength of the various items that he can use are increased as well. Note that the attack power is raised ONLY for the normal attacks (i.e. the AAAAs). The damage done by using moves or specials will not be increased at all. iii. Level 10 is a crucial level for most characters. At level 10, their attack speed increases tremendously, particularly for Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Huang Zhong, Zhuge Liang. Just compare the thrusting speeds of a level 9 and a level 10 Zhang Fei and you will know what I mean. iv. OK..some Super Heroes facts here. Whenever any attack is made after a dash attack, the attack becomes a level 0 attack. This means that a 5 hit combo such as 66A AAAA will deal lower damage than a 4 hit combo AAAA at level 20. The reason for this is that the AAAA after 66A is a level ZERO attack while the normal AAAA attack is a level 20 attack. This will explain why all the hardcore score-earning Zhuge Liangs use 66A, A, 66A, A etc to earn score while killing soldiers. If you do not understand what all the 66As mean, refer to the "clarification" part again. iii. Differences between KOV1 original and KOV1 plus version ------------------------------------------------------------ The most notable difference is that for the plus version, the three secret characters in the original version are already unlocked, so there is no hassle in trying to do any codes. The plus version features 2 new characters, the white Huang Zhong and the red Zhang Fei (actual translation should be Magic Zhang Fei but..) The cheat codes are disabled in the plus version (yay!) So cheaters should find an original KOV to play. The lame infinite heaven book trick at Zhang Liao still works though. The bonus after every stage is higher for the original version. The colour of the lifebar is different for the 2 versions (yellow and green). Different number of soldiers (not confirmed). I found that for the original version, there are more enemies to fight. To put it more correctly, at some places while playing the original version, the game lets you fight the number of soldiers that are supposed to appear only in a 3-4 player game even though you are playing solo. Perhaps IGS decided to cut the gametime when they produced the Plus version. Ability to "pull back" before level 5 for plus version. This means that when a character attacks an enemy with normal attacks, he can press A then move the stick back (meaning pushing it to the "4" position) and then push it forward again. This CANCELS (fighting game players should know what this means) the lag time after the A attack. Especially useful for Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong in the first stage. Of course this is useless for characters with a 46A move. iv. Other facts ----------------- Different characters can pick up different magical items. Some magical items can only be picked up by a few characters while some can be picked up by most characters. If you find yourself unable to pick something up, its is because of a character restriction and there is nothing you can do about it. Every character can collect up to 16 different items (8 in first menu and another 8 in the second menu). Press B while the first menu is opened to open the second menu. Items in the second menu are unique, you can only carry a maximum of one at a time. During berserk mode, every character has an additional move and the character moves much faster than before. He can do more hits with his normal attacks as well. The mode is triggered by press ABC simultaneously while having at least one special dot (remember the similarity with fighting games?) Damage done is not particularly great though. ================================================================================ ||||||||||||||| 3. CHARACTERS ||||||||||||||| In this section, I will briefly discuss the pros and cons for each character and state their movelists. I will not name the moves since it is very difficult to find a suitable translation for it and a direct word for word translation won't make much sense anyway. I will also list the items that each character can take (items that everyone can pick up won't be listed for obvious reasons.) Below is MY OWN ranking of the characters from the easiest to finish to the hardest to finish (solo of course!) so can roughly have an idea of which character to start training. Zhuge Liang--> Zhao Yun--> Guan Yu--> Zhang Fei--> Red Zhang Fei--> Zhang Liao--> White Huang Zhong-->Diao Chan--> Ma Chao--> Huang Zhong i. Guan Yu ---------- Guan Yu is a solid character to use in KOV1. He has good HP, good attack power and strongest defense (don't ask me why but I think he suffers less damage when physically attacked). He levels up rather fast (above average definitely). He can pick up most magical items as well. His weaknesses include his slow speed, hard-to-execute 236A move. Don't get me wrong here, I don't mean that 236A is difficult to execute it just seems (to me at least) that his 236A (along with Diao Chan's) are difficult to execute in this game. Pros: Good HP, strongest defense, fast attack speed, long reach, low level up requirement Cons: Slow movement speed, hard-to-execute 236A Movelist (character facing right as usual): 236A 6A Specials: 28A Beserk move: 46A Magical items that can be picked up: All except BAMBOO, POLYMORPH SCROLL, SPECIAL SWORDS, SEVEN STAR LANTERN, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIRE ARROW, DOLL, SLOW SCROLL ii. Zhang Fei ------------- The usual powerhouse that is present in every adventure arcade game. Pros: Long reach, strong attack, highest HP, low level-up requirement Cons: Slow attack(before level 10), slow moving speed, unable to use most magical items, relatively useless specials Movelist 46A 6A 82A 236A (while in air) 22A Specials: 28A Beserk move: 236A Magical items that can be picked up: GREEN SWORD iii. Zhao Yun ------------- Zhao Yun is a well balanced character although he starts out real weak but he is quite powerful towards the end. His specials are among the best (next to Zhuge Liang only). His 6A and B8A move can attack enemies that are already dead (the enemies already have no more HP but their bodies have not dropped to the ground). This means he can earn extra score by using 6A on every enemy he killed beforehand. He is average is terms of attack, defense, movement speed and levelling up (the extra score from hitting corpses makes him level up faster than normal if you do it most of the time). Pros: Good specials, good HP, can take almost any magical item Cons: Short initial reach, slow attack speed (before level 10) Movelist 28A 6A (Tap repeatedly for up to 3 hits) B8A Tap repeatedly for up to 3 hits) Specials: 82A Beserk move: 236A Magical items can be picked up: All except LIGHTING TABLET, SPECIAL SWORDS, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIRE ARROWS, SUMMON GENERAL iv. Ma Chao ----------- Ma Chao is a speed-type character. He has the greatest disadvantage of slow score gaining. He only scores 100 points per hit while every other character scores 200 points per hit. This makes levelling up and getting a life up much harder. His attack power is extremly weak as well. His only edge over most other characters is that he can pick up the special swords. Luckily, his specials are not too bad. Pros: Very fast movement speed, good HP, can pick up special swords Cons: Slow score earning, low attack power, very short reach Movelist: 82A 6A (tap repeatedly to connect with B8A move) B8A Specials: 28A Beserk move: 46A Magical items that can be picked up: SPECIAL SWORDS, POLYMORPH SCROLL, TALISMAN, DOLL, SLOW SCROLL v. Huang Zhong --------------- Another hard-to-use character. He has the unique ability to pick up the golden scorpion and become immune to poison attacks. He can also use the fire arrows that are found throughout the game. His major downsides are his low attack power and inability to use most items. Zhang Fei who can compensate his inability to use magical items with his strong physical attacks but Huang Zhong cannot. His reach and speed are about the same as Zhao Yun. Levelling up is not too hard either. Pros: Immune to poison, long range attack by using arrows, highest HP Cons: Low attack power, slow attack speed (before level 10), cannot use most magical items Movelist 236A 6A Specials: 82A Beserk move: 28A Magical items that can be picked up: BAMBOO, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIRE ARROWS vi. Zhuge Liang ---------------- Here comes the ultimate character. Use him until you can complete the game solo with a credit. After that, ditch him :p He got too many advantages that I will just chuck them in one paragraph below. Pros: Very fast movement speed, fast attack speed(even faster at level 10 and fastest at level 20), amount of hits required to charge a full power bar is half of other characters, best specials, long reach, can use almost any item, lowest requirement for levelling up, ability to earn tons of score using specials (is that enough?) Oh still one more, high "magical power" like in RPGs. This means that magical items do more damage (lasts longer etc) when used by him. Just compare the duration of wearing the invincible armor when worn by Zhuge Liang and other characters at the same level. Cons: Low HP, low attack power Movelist 46A 236A (while in air) Magical items that can be picked up: All except GOLDEN SCORPION, FIRE ARROWS vii. Diao Chan --------------- Another speed-oriented character. The difference between her and Ma Chao is that she deals much more damage than him, but she has the lowest HP among all the characters. Unfortunately (for me at least), her 236A is the same as Guan Yu's, i.e. difficult to execute. Pros: High attack power, fastest movement speed, can use most magical items, fast attack speed (regardless of reaching level 10) Cons: Lowest HP, shortest range, specials not very effective Movelist 236A 82A(this move does less damage compared to 236A) *sidenote* A lot of people prefer to use 82A instead of 236A because it is easier to execute. What they did not know is that 82A is much less damaging than 236A. This gives rise to the misconception that Diao Chan is weak in attack. In Super Heroes, this is reversed. 82A deals more damage than 236A in super heroes. 236B (not an attack move, but a rolling move to quickly evade the enemy) Specials: 28A Beserk move: 46A Items that can be picked up: All except POLYMORPH SCROLL, SPECIAL SWORDS, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIRE ARROWS, SEVEN STAR LANTERN, SUMMON GENERAL viii. Zhang liao ---------------- A good character to use especially for beginners. Has fast attack and movement speed, stong attack power as well. Can pick up the "crucial" magical items as well, although the effects of these items are significantly weaker when compared to Zhuge Liang. Pros: Fast attack speed (regardless of reaching level 10), fast movement speed, strong attack power, nice specials Cons: Below-average HP, effects of magical items are much weaker than most other characters (of same level) using them Movelist 6A (tap repeatedly up to 4 hits) 46A 236A Specials: 28A Beserk move: 82A Items that can be picked up: GREEN SWORD, YELLOW SCARF, LIGHTING TABLET, BAMBOO, SLOW SCROLL, ix. White Huang Zhong ---------------------- An improved version of the original Huang Zhong. Although he has the same amount of HP as Zhuge Liang, he more than compensates for it. He can pick up more items, shoot 3 arrows at one go (although he has a slower recovery time) and most importantly, a higher attack power than the original Huang Zhong. Pros: High attack power, immunity to poison (with golden scorpion), long range attack Cons: Slow attack speed (before level 10), low HP Movelist 6A 236A Specials: 82A Beserk move: 28A Items that can be picked up: GREEN SWORD, LIGHTING TABLET, SUMMON GENERAL, SLOW SCROLL, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIREARROWS, GENERAL SEAL x. Red (Magic) Zhang Fei ------------------------- This character is almost totally different from the original Zhang Fei. Gone are the specials! and long HP. In comes the high "magical power" and ability to use almost any item. Red Zhang Fei can pick up almost the same number of items as Zhuge Liang except for the Special Swords and slow scroll (in super heroes, he can pick up the slow scroll though). He still retains the slow speed, high attack trait as the original Zhang Fei (although their moves are different). Check out his taunt move! Pros: Can use almost any item with great effectiveness, long reach, high attack power Cons: Slow attack speed (before level 10), lowest HP (same as Diao Chan), no specials Movelist 236A 22A 46A 236A (while jumping) 46428A (taunt move) Beserk move: 236A (powered up form) (Although he has no power bar, he can go to beserk mode if another player uses the original Zhang Fei and he goes to beserk mode.) Items that can be picked up: All except SLOW SCROLL, GOLDEN SCORPION, FIREARROWS, SUMMON GENERAL ================================================================================ |||||||||| 4. ITEMS |||||||||| In this section, I will briefly describe all the items found in this game and their effects. i. NORMAL ITEMS --------------- There are 7 normal items found in the game. There are 3 levels of effectiveness for all normal items (except poison dart which only has 2). The level of these items increases with the character's level. All the different characters start with different levels of items usage. For example, Zhang Liao starts with a level 3 in arrows but level 1 in poison dart wheras Huang Zhong starts with level 2 in poison dart but level 1 in arrows. Note that carrying a Fire Tablet immediately boosts the level of arrows, bombs and iron lilly to level 3. The numbers in brackets in the list that follows represents the maximum number that you can store in your inventory. Arrows (max 9) -------------- Nothing spectacular. You won't be collecting this unless you got too much inventory space. LEVEL 1: Shoots an arrow out that kills weak enemies in one shot LEVEL 2: Same as level 1 except 3 arrows are fired LEVEL 3: Same as level 2 except the 3 arrows have fire on them, increasing their damage. Beads (max 9) ------------- Another flying projectile. The difference is that it is much more damaging than arrows and it can penetrate through an enemy (possible to hit 2 enemies on a straight line). You can even use it to start your combos on bosses. Most people don't know this but this item deals exceptional damage to Zhang Liao. So if you are having problem with him, try throwing 9 of these at him. LEVEL 1-3: Increased damage (anyone can confirm?) Poison Gas (max 6) ------------------ Drop this in front of a boss while he is standing and he will be stunned for a few valuable seconds, allowing you a free combo on him. LEVEL 1: Drops one bottle of gas LEVEL 2: Drops two bottles of gas LEVEL 3: Drops three bottles of gas Poison Dart (max 6) ------------------- Basically same effect as poison gas except that it's a flying projectile with speed between arrows and beads. LEVEL 1: Shoots one dart LEVEL 2: Shoots three darts Flying Discs (max 6) -------------------- Your character shoots out a few discs that not only damages an enemy but also allows you to further do combos on him (air combos only!) The effect of using this item won't be seen truly effective until you use it in Super Heroes. This item also grants the user a few moments of invincibility while its been shot! LEVEL 1: Shoots out a few discs LEVEL 2: Shoots out more discs LEVEL 3: Shoots out even more discs Bombs (max 6) ------------- Self-explanatory. The main uses of this item is to kill animals fast and to fight Zuo Ci (for characters who cannot use the TALISMAN). LEVEL 1: Bomb bounces once LEVEL 2: Bomb bounces twice LEVEL 3: Bomb bounces thrice Iron Lilly (max 6) ------------------ This item when used, takes a few seconds to explode. The resulting projectiles usually kills any enemy with one shot (except bosses of course). LEVEL 1: Resulting projectiles shoots in 2 directions LEVEL 2: Resulting projectiles shoots in 6 directions LEVEL 3: Resulting projectiles shoots in 8 directions, together with an explosion in the middle which also damages the enemy. ii. MAGICAL ITEMS ------------------ Magical items cannot be used be everyone. Refer to the earlier section to see who can use what. All magical items can only be carried up to a maximum of 6 (although there wont be more than 6 found in the game except for ARMOR). Comparing the effectiveness of magical items are not as clear-cut as for normal items so I won't list any levels for them. Just remember, the higher the character's level, the more effective the item will be (exceptions are GREEN SWORD AND FAIRY PEN). I have listed which items should be used on which bosses as well (decided on whether the boss is vulnerable to the element or not). HOURGLASS --------- This item restores the amount of time left in a scene to 99 (for original version) or 28 (for PLUS version). Usable by anyone. GREEN SWORD ----------- This is a physical attack on one or more enemies on screen. You must tap A repeatedly for more hits. After the tapping, you can even follow up with an air combo as if the boss is hit by a flying disc! Best used on: Zhang Liao, Lu Meng LIGHTING TABLET --------------- Lighting damage on all enemies on screen. The higher the level, the more streaks of lighting will appear and range of attack will be higher. More damage as well, duh. Best used on: Boss on horse (forgot their names), Wei Yan YELLOW SCARF ------------ Ice damage on all enemies on screen. Damage and range increases with level. Best used together with POLYMORPH SCROLL since it will enable a 2-hit ice attack! Best used on: Samoko, Huang Gai, Sima Yi BAMBOO ------ Don't really know how to describe the effect. Black holes appear on the ground after the BAMBOO is dropped which suck all the enemies into a void, killing them instantly (except bosses). The higher the level, the more holes are generated (assumption). Best used on: Xu Zhu FAIRY PEN --------- This pen has 8 different effects. They are: fire, ice, lighting, rock, immobilize, snake, scorpion, polymorph. The most useless magical item IMHO since it does a pathetic amount of damage (except for rock) and chances of immobilize and polymorph occuring are rather rare. Best used on: Everyone or no one, depending on how you see it. POLYMORPH SCROLL ----------------- Like the name suggests, this item instantly polymorphs all enemies on the screen into harmless little animals. Best used with YELLOW SCARF. When playing Ma Chao solo, you should save it for Sima Yi or Cao Cao. Duration increases with level. TALISMAN -------- This item creates 2 floating "flames" which surround the user. One "flame" is fire-elemental while the other is ice-elemental. The only use for it is to fight Zuo Ci. Duration increaes with level. ARMOR ----- This item grants the user invincibility status for a fixed duration depending on the character's level. Everyone can use it, and it lasts the longest when Zhuge Liang or Red Zhang Fei is using it. iii. UNIQUE MAGICAL ITEMS ------------------------- These items are stored in the second inventory page. A maximum of only 1 of each can be carried at one time. Not all are directly usuable, some have enhancing abilities (such as GENERAL SEAL or GOLDEN SCORPION). FIRE TABLET ----------- This item increases the level of arrows, bombs and iron lilly to level 3 regardless of the character's level. Has a total of 10 charges. Usable by everyone. SUMMON GENERAL -------------- This item summons a computer-controlled Wei Yan to fight for your cause. Useful in fighting Xia Hou Yuan and Lu Xun. Only usable by Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu and White Huang Zhong. GENERAL SEAL ------------- This item increases the duration of the SUMMON GENERAL AND SLOW SCROLL. Usable by all characters who can use either SUMMON GENERAL OR SLOW SCROLL. SLOW SCROLL ----------- This item causes any enemy movement to be in slow motion, from their attacks to their falling. Useful in fighting Diao Chan. Usable by Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Diao Chan, Zhang Liao, White Huang Zhong. NAMELESS FLAME -------------- This item grants the user to immunity from ice damage while touching the ice door at stage 3. It also grants the user a higher resistance to ice damage (eg Lu Bu's and Sima Yi's attacks). Usable by everyone. DOLL ----- This item immobilizes every enemy on the screen. Usable by Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Diao Chan, Red Zhang Fei. JADE ---- This item allows the user to enter the explosion room at stage 6. This is a requirement to get the EXPLOSION SWORD. Usable by everyone. MEDAL ----- This item allows the user to recruit the Zhang Liao for use. Totally useless in the Plus version since Zhang Liao is already available. Quite useless in the original version (if you don't know the code for Zhang Liao) as well since you can only use him from stage 4 onwards AND you have to die and continue as Zhang Liao if you want to use him. Usable only by Guan Yu. YELLOW WINE ----------- This item replenishes the user's power bar to the max, gives the user 3 power dots and transforms the user to beserk mode. Cool. Usable by everyone except Red Zhang Fei who has no specials. WHITE WINE ---------- Same as YELLOW WINE, except that only Zhang Fei and both Huang Zhongs (while carrying the GOLDEN SCORPION) can use it. All other characters will be in dizzy state after using it. LIGHTING HAMMER --------------- Increases the effect of LIGHTING TABLET and also allows the user to enter the alternate route in the last stage. Usable by everyone. GOLDEN SCORPION --------------- Grants Huang Zhong immunity to poison attacks and allows him to use WHITE WINE. FIRE ARROWS ----------- Enhanced arrows that can penetrate enemies and kill them in one shot. Huang Zhong's only. HEAVENLY BOOKS -------------- There are 5 types of HEAVENLY BOOKS in the game. They are the FIREBOOK, LIGHTING BOOK, WATER BOOK, WIND BOOK AND STONE BOOK. Note than when a character uses it, his face portrait will be shown on the screen. At this time, all other characters in the game can press ABC to join in using the book, resulting in an increased effect of the book. All the book except LIGHTING BOOK requires continuous tapping of the A button to increase its effect. All characters can take and use the books. FIRE BOOK- best used on Zuo Ci LIGHTING BOOK-best used on Wei Yan and horses WATER BOOK- best used on Huang Gai and Samoko WIND BOOK- best used on Lu Meng and Lu Xun STONE BOOK- Effective against all (but better to use on Sima Yi since he is resistant to almost anything). WHITE BOOK ---------- This is a healing book. When your character's health to down to 1/8 of the maximum, use it to heal your character to 50% health. If the character's health is not 1/8, your character will throw the book out (careful not to throw out to unreachable areas!) Press AB to decrease your health if you really feel you have to use the book. All characters can use the book. SEVEN STAR LANTERN ------------------ This cool item works the same way as the WHITE BOOK, except that it heals the user to 100% health! However, only Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun and Red Zhang Fei can use it. SPECIAL SWORDS -------------- All special swords can only be used by Zhuge Liang and Ma Chao. a. FIRE SWORD ------------- Sword with fire elemental damage. Enemies fall after taking a single hit so its not really effective against bosses that are not vulnerable to fire damage. Requires 9 attempts of trying to pick it up (which will damage the character unless he is using ARMOR) in order to finally use it. Kills normal soldiers and animals with one hit. Best used on Xia Hou Yuan, Lu Bu and Zuo Ci. b. ICE SWORD ------------ Ice elemental sword that is useful against Huang Gai and Samoko. Like the FIRE SWORD, it requires 9 pickings as well. If an enemy is only "partially frozen" by the first hit, he can be attacked again by doing a jumping attack. Against Cao Cao and the horse-riding boss in the last stage, this can be done infinitely. c. LIGHTING SWORD ----------------- Useful against Wei Yan, horses. It will also kill the annoying metal soldiers in one hit. User must be at least a certain level (around level 15 I believe) to use it without being shocked by electricity (no damage taken though). No "uncursing" of the sword is required. d. EXPLOSION SWORD ------------------ The least useful sword in this game. Useful only against Meng Yu, who is a wimp anyway. Kills most kinds of soldiers with one hit. Has the same properties as the LIGHTING SWORD (i.e. no uncursing required, user must be a certain level). ================================================================================ ||||||||||||||| 5. WALKTHROUGH ||||||||||||||| Finally, the walkthrough. Here I will briefly cover how I played the game (solo mainly). There will be no individual character walkthrough (I am not that hardworking). The walkthrough will be applicable for all characters (since its going to be quite general in terms of detail). The walkthrough will be rather brief, I will just mainly highlight ONLY the important items to get, secret rooms etc. I've also subdivided the stages into various "scenes" so you can follow it a bit better. For the bosses, refer to the next section. i. STAGE 1 ========== Scene 1 (Outside ship A) ------- IMPT ITEMS: GREEN SWORD When your character just lands onto the boat, quickly block the arrows coming straight at you. Kill all the soldiers and hit the 2 statues (10 times) in the middle of the boat. The lower statue will yield a GREEN SWORD. If you destroyed both statues, you can pick to go into the cabin (Scene 2) or proceed outside (Scene 6). I recommend going outside if playing solo. In multiplaying, going into the cabin is a better choice. Scene 2 (Cabin 1) ------- Nothing special. Kill all the soldiers and proceed right to Scene 3. Scene 3 (Cabin 2) ------- There is a crack on the upper right corner of the screen. When 2 or more characters are standing on the crack, everyone will drop to the room below. Proceed to Scene 4 if you fell through the crack and Scene 5 if you did not. Scene 4 (Secret Room) ------- IMPT ITEMS: FIRE BOOK Some goodies in this room. Kill all the soldiers and remember to grab the book, 20000 points and a drumstick. Take the staircase up to Scene 7. Scene 5 (Cabin 3) ------- Nothing special. Just kill everyone and go right to scene 9. Scene 6 (Long corridor along ship A) ------- Lots of soldiers, enter the first room you see to go to Scene 7. After the first room, you will see an enemy pushing a barrel. Leaving him alone until the barrel explodes will grant you entry to Scene 8. Travelling to the very end leads to Scene 9. Scene 7 (Room with animal tamers) ------- Lots of enemies here. Remember to knock the enemy who is sleeping (top left corner of screen) for a bun. Leave the room to second part of Scene 6. Scene 8 (Room with panthers) ------- Lots of panthers here. No food or other important items here. Leave the room to go back to Scene 6. Scene 9 (Back of ship A) (or is it the front of the ship?) ------- Just more soldiers here. Hit the central steering device before killing all the soldiers. After the "GO" sign appears, hit the device again until it points upwards and when your character is near the upper exit, you will be taken to Scene 10. If you exit by the lower exit, go to Scene 11. Scene 10 (Corridor of ship B) -------- Nothing much here. Just some normal items and more soldiers to fight. Continue on to Scene 11. Scene 11 (Front or Back? of ship B) -------- IMPT ITEMS: ARMOR, (DOLL and SLOW SCROLL from boss) There is a bun in the barrel at the lower part of the screen. A crate containing an ARMOR is found to the top left. After killing all the soldiers, the boss Sun Ji will appear. Refer to next section for details. ii. STAGE 2 =========== Scene 1 (Mountain Pass 1) ------- Straightforward. Go right until you reach the screen where you decide whether to enter the cave (Scene 2) or not (Scene 6). Scene 2 (Cave 1) ------- This scene can be divided into 3 sections (everytime a "GO" sign appears it means a current section has ended). The top right corner of the 2nd scene has a secret entrance that leads to an inner cave (Scene 3). If you choose not to enter Scene 3, clearing the 3rd section of the scene leads to Scene 6. Scene 3 (Panther Cave) ------- IMPT ITEMS: ARMOR Lots of panthers in this cave. I suggest luring them out of their slumber one at a time. The top chest contains an ARMOR. However the chest is trapped and the trap will be triggered when character stand very close to the chest. So, you should only open the chest after all the panthers are defeated. There is a secret exit towards the upper right of the cave (Scene 4). Taking the normal right exit leads to section 3 of Scene 2. Scene 4 (Scorpion Cave) ------- IMPT ITEMS: GOLDEN SCORPION, TALISMAN, ARMOR This scene can be divided into 2 sections. The first scene features lots of Ninjas and scorpions. There is a giant scorpion at the upper right of this section. Kill it and the GOLDEN SCORPION will be there for the taking. Note that ONLY Huang Zhong can take it. While heading to the second section, arrows will come flying from the front and back. Just stay at the bottom of the screen and block BEHIND and you should be fine. Look out for the poison gas emitted by the holes on the ground. If Zhuge Liang is in the party (meaning a solo Zhuge Liang is not counted), when he hits the upper right chest (containing a TALISMAN) of the section, he will say something like "look out for more secret passages). Upon saying that, the poison gas at the upper right of the section will disappear and you can enter the FIRESWORD ROOM (Scene 5). If Zhuge Liang is not in the party, but Huang Zhong (with the GOLDEN SCORPION) is, the FIRESWORD ROOM can also be entered after all the ninjas are defeated. To summarise, to enter the FIRESWORD ROOM, you need to have either a. Zhuge Liang in a 2-4 player game OR b. Huang Zhong with GOLDEN SCORPION (works for solo as well). If you did not enter the FIRESWORD ROOM, go to Scene 6. Note that one of the ninjas here holds an ARMOR. Scene 5 (FIRESWORD ROOM) ------- IMPT ITEMS: FIRE SWORD, FIRE ARROWS, FIRE TABLET, NAMELESS FLAME Upon entering the room, quickly run towards the top right of the screen and touch the last fire pillar that is still burning. If successful, you can get the NAMELESS FLAME. The other chests in the room contain the other items listed on top. Note that the FIRE SWORD needs to be picked up 9 times before it can be used. For a level 5 Zhuge Liang, he needs only to use an ARMOR. For Ma Chao (level 5 or not), he needs to use 2 ARMORS. Scene 6 (Mountain Pass 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: LIGHTING TABLET, HOURGLASS from boss This is a large open area. Defeat all the enemies and the boss shows up. He won't begin attacking though. Meanwhile, quickly destroy all the catapults first before killing off the enemies (which will trigger his attack). See the next section for details. After defeating the boss, 4 types of enemies will appear as you proceed to the elevator. QUICKLY kill them all (specials recommended) and the next elevator that arrives will have a crate which contains 4 animals for you to kill. Killing each animal heals your health. Note that the rabbit heals the most health. After that, board the elevator to Scene 7. Scene 7 (Elevator 1) ------- You get to pick to go left (Scene 8) or right (Scene 14) after the elevator reaches the top. Going to Scene 14 is much more rewarding. Scene 8 (Mountain Pass 3) ------- IMPT ITEMS: BAMBOO This area is quite dangerous as it will have infinite metal soldiers and archers appearing after you kill off the initial soldiers. You can earn some score if you want here. Proceed left to Scene 9. Scene 9 (Elevator 2) ------- Another choice here. Go left for Scene 10 or right for Scene 13. Scene 10 (Mountain Pass 4) -------- Nothing much. After killing all the soldiers you can choose to enter the cave (Scene 11) or not (Scene 12). Scene 11 (Bear Cave) -------- Just a few bears and an animal tamer here for you to kill. The lower right chest contains a much needed drumstick though. Exit the cave and go left to Scene 12. Scene 12 (Elevator 4) -------- The final elevator. No choice this time. Go right to Scene 18. Scene 13 (Mountain Pass 5) -------- Dangerous area with lots of panthers, eagles and animal tamers. Knocking one of the 2 initial tamers yields a bun. Go right to Scene 12. Scene 14 (Mountain Pass 6) -------- Yet another dangerous area. Go right to trigger the rock falling trap and then quickly run back to the left of the screen. Use any long range attacks (normal items included) you got to kill the ninjas. Two buns will be there for the taking if you managed to kill the appropiate amount of enemies. After the trap has been triggered for a certain amount of time, the falling rocks will cease and you can continue to the next section of the scene. *side note* Of course you can waste time by not triggering the trap and staying left all the while to kill ninjas. This won't work forever though, the trap will trigger by itself after some time. The next section is dangerous as well with infinite archers coming from the back. Just dispatch the enemies carefully. The upper right crate has a tiger in it. Exit to the right to Scene 15. Scene 15 (Elevator 3) -------- Go left to Scene 13 and right to Scene 16. Scene 16 (Mountain Pass 7) -------- IMPT ITEMS: MEDAL Important scene here. If you want to get the ICE SWORD (along with lots of other goodies), you MUST at least go through this scene. At the second section, there is a metal soldier (Wang Ping) drinking some wine. LEAVE HIM ALONE and kill off the remaining soldiers. After that, a dialogue should appear. Pick the SECOND choice and he will open the cave entrance for you. He will also open the ICE SWORD PATH at stage 3 if you pick this answer. Picking the other choices either leaves him running away or a fight. After the cave entrance is opened, you can attack and kill him (this will NOT affect the ICE SWORD ROUTE) and get the MEDAL. Take note of the time remaining though. If you entered the cave he opened, go to Scene 17. Otherwise, proceed right to Scene 12. Scene 17 (Secret Cave) -------- IMPT ITEMS: SUMMON GENERAL, YELLOW WINE, POLYMORPH SCROLL, LIGHTING TABLET A cave filled with goodies. Be careful of the panthers though. Scene 18 (Mountain Pass 8) -------- IMPT ITEMS: GENERAL SEAL If you have Huang Zhong in the party (White Huang Zhong NOT counted) an event will occur. Fa Zheng will tell the party to wait till he signals for them to move. Obey him and the Huang Zhong, Xia Hou Yuan event can occur later. If not, just quickly dash forward and the archers will retreat. Lots of metal soldiers will appear later, finish them off and move to the next section to fight the stage boss Xia Hou Yuan. iii. STAGE 3 ============ Scene 1 (Forest 1) ------- Lots of high-HP enemies here. You might want to pick up the rocks to use on them. At the end of the screen , you can pick to go up (Scene 2) or down (Scene 5). Scene 2 (Clearing with bridge 1) ------- Lots of bears this time round. A rabbit will appear at the next section after you defeated all the enemies. Make sure you kill it for some healing. Exit to the right to Scene 3. Scene 3 (Forest 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: SLOW SCROLL This is a long scene. Section 1: Lots of panthers here. The sign at the upper part of the screen can be hit and it leads to the secret entrance to Scene 4. Knock the animal tamer sleeping at the right of this scene for a SLOW SCROLL. Section 2: More soldiers here. You can move downwards to Scene 11. Section 3: After finishing the soldiers, a boss (Meng Huo) will appear. After defeating him, exit to the right to Scene 12. Scene 4 (Forest Clearing 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW WINE Lots of bears to kill here as well. Take note of an animal tamer running across from right to left after 3 (1-2 player game) or 2 (3-4 player game) bears are defeated. Just attack him to stop his escape and you can knock a YELLOW WINE out from him. There is a drumstick at the bottom right container as well. Scene 5 (Forest Clearing with bridge 2) ------- This is the entrance to the ICE SWORD PATH. You will see the metal soldier from stage 2 again (Scene 16) at the bottom of the screen. If you picked the correct choice at stage 2, he will open the path for you which leads to the ICE SWORD PATH (Scene 6) after you defeated all the ninjas in the first section. If you did not pick the 2nd choice at stage 2 (or you chose not to go to Scene 16 in stage 2), Scene 6 will not be available. Instead, you have to make your way across the bridge to the right of this scene. The right exit leads to Scene 3 section 1. Scene 6 (ICE SWORD PATH 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: HOURGLASS At the beginning of the scene, you will be blocked by some barricades in front with infinite soldiers coming from behind and 2 catapults behind the barricades. Quickly destroy the barricades and make you way to the right to destroy the catapults. Once again, another place of infinite soldiers for score earning if you leave one catapult alone. The next section is at a bridge. Kill the eagles quickly and the dynamite soldiers. After that, stay on the LOWEST PART OF THE BRIDGE to avoid being hit by the incoming arrows. Wait for the falling rocks to finish falling and then make your way to the next section. Metal soldiers and horses await you here. Destroy the drum for a HOURGLASS. After dispatching them, exit to the top to scene 7. Scene 7 (ICE SWORD PATH 2) ------- Finish off the soldiers at the start of the screen. Be careful not to get sucked into the right exit of the screen which leads to Scene 12. Jump diagonally onto the rocks and move to the left of the screen. Time your jumps so that the fireballs from the catapults won't hit you. The first cave opening leads to Scene 8 and the second opening (right in front of the catapults) leads to Scene 9. The last section of this scene occurs on a bridge again. Knock one of the enemies on the right for a big bun. The upper exit leads to Scene 11. Scene 8 (Secret room 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: SEVEN STAR LANTERN, GREEN SWORD, ARMOR This room has lots of goodies and lots of healing items as well. Scene 9 (Secret room 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW SCARF, FAIRY PEN, ARMOR One of the 2 initial ninjas is holding an ARMOR. The chests in this room contains a YELLOW SCARF, FAIRY PEN and a drumstick. The door to the left leads to the ICE SWORD ROOM (Scene 10). If your character is holding the NAMELESS FLAME, he can hit the door until it opens without taking damage. If not, you have to use other ways to opening the door (e.g using ARMOR, pressing AB, using specials etc). Another way of hitting the door is to throw out the GENERAL SEAL near the door, then pick it up again. When a character is picking up something, he is invulnerable at that moment (unlike KOV2). When picking up the SEAL, you will press the A button (hitting the door) but you will also squat to pick the item (making you invulnerable). Hope this is clear enough. Scene 10 (ICE SWORD ROOM) -------- IMPT ITEMS: ICE SWORD, LIGHTING BOOK There are 4 fire-breathing statues here. The top one contains a LIGHTING BOOK, and the third one (counting from top) holds the ICE SWORD. Take note NOT to destroy the 2nd and 4th statue before destroying the other statues first or else you can say goodbye to the goodies. Like the FIRE SWORD, the ICE SWORD requires 9 picking attempts and the NAMELESS FLAME is not useful here. Use the ARMOR. After getting all the goodies, exit all the way left to Scene 9, then Scene 7 then Scene 11. Scene 11 (Forest Clearing 2) -------- Nothing much here. Kill off the scorpions and soldiers. In solo play, one of the scorpions holds a bun. Exit to the upper part to the 3rd section of Scene 3. Scene 12 (Entrance to City) -------- IMPT ITEMS: TALISMAN Nothing much to say here. The lower right enemy holds a bun and a barrel to the upper right holds a FIRE TABLET. Make your way past the barricades and before killing off the enemies, try to destroy the carts coming out from the city. The first 3 carts yield nothing but the 4th to 7th carts yield a BEAD, POISON GAS, BOMB AND TALISMAN( in that order). Fight the boss Xia Hou Dun at the end. Enter the city afterwards (Scene 13). Scene 13 (Inside City) -------- Finally the last part of this stage. Lots of enemies at the starting section. You can hit some of the torches for some ARROWS and BOMBS. The centre torch holds a LIGHTING TABLET but it must be hit 3 times. The torch is trapped and will cause a falling rock to land on you when you hit it. Just hit it once and move out and repeat. If your character is not level 10 and slow in attack, just use dash attack (66A) on the torch. The upper right torch can be destroyed and leads the a secret room (Scene 14). The second section of this scene is filled with traps. One of the ninjas holds a bun. Proceed carefully to the end to meet the stage boss Zhang Liao. After defeating him, if Guan Yu is holding on to a MEDAL from stage 2, a short dialogue will start. Choose the 3rd one to get him to join you. Scene 14 (Secret Room 3) -------- IMPT ITEMS: WHITE BOOK, FAIRY PEN Beware of the scorpions here. The big crate at the top holds the WHITE BOOK and the smaller crates at the bottom holds a bun and FLYING DISC. Exit to the left to the 2nd section of Scene 13. iv. STAGE 4 =========== Scene 1 (Forest path) ------- This is a rather long scene but with almost nothing worth mentioning. The only thing worth mentioning is that a rabbit will appear next to the barricades just before the last part of the scene. Just remember to kill it for some healing. Proceed on to Scene 2. Scene 2 (Room 1) ------- Kill all the snakes in this room first. Do not hit the animal tamer at the top right of the screen. He will drop a/some drumstick(s). The number he drops will be equal to the number of players playing. Proceed on to the next scene. Scene 3 (Outer corridor of city 1) ------- Nothing special here. Just kill all enemies to proceed to the next scene. Scene 4 (Room 2) ------- This is where the branching occurs. When you enter the room, quickly hit the candles beside the door at the top of the screen. You MUST hit the left one first, then the right one. If successful, the door will open and you can go to fight a sub-boss (Scene 5). If you exit through the normal exit at the right of the room, go to Scene 9. Scene 5 (Room 3) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW SCARF, FIRE ARROWS A treasure room. The ninjas and scorpions in this room shouldn't be too much of a problem. Proceed right to Scene 6. Scene 6 (Outer corridor of city 2) ------- This is exactly the same as Scene 3 except that the soldiers that appear here are different from Scene 3. Proceed on to Scene 7. One of the soldiers here holds a bun (3-4 players only). Scene 7 (Room 3) ------- IMPT ITEMS: WATER BOOK (2 or more players present), WIND BOOK, DOLL All the items are dropped from the boss. You will fight Diao Chan in this room. Refer to the next section for details. The wall at the top of this room can be broken and you can enter the secret room (Scene 8) from the resulting hole. The other exit to the right leads to Scene 9. Scene 8 (Eagle room) ------- IMPT ITEMS: HOURGLASS, LIGHTING HAMMER Lots of eagles (and a few snakes) in this room so watch out. For some characters, it might be a good idea to use the WIND BOOK here. Go back to Scene 7 after looting the place. Scene 9 (On top of the City) ------- IMPT ITEMS: BAMBOO (from boss) One of the soldiers here holds a bun. Just defeat every enemy and the stage boss (Lu Meng) will appear. v. STAGE 5 ========== Scene 1 (Burning Forest) ------- This is a long Scene with 2 secret room entrances. Section 1: Nothing special, just defeat all the sailors to proceed on. Section 2: Many more enemies will appear from both sides of the screen. There are 2 secret room entrances to the upper part of this section. They are located just side by side to one another. Refer to Scene 2 and 3 for more details. Section 3: Bulls make their one and only appearance in this scene. Beware of their charging attacks. After reaching the end of the scene, the boss, Samoko will appear. After defeating him (or not), continue on to Scene 6. Scene 2 (Secret room 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: POLYMORPH SCROLL The chests in this room holds a POLYMORPH SCROLL and a drumstick. Proceed back to Scene 1 section 2 after defeating all the enemies. Scene 3 (Secret room 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW SCARF, ARMOR Lots of panthers in this clearing. After defeating the panthers, you can exit from the way you came (go back to Scene 1 section 2) or you can exit through a secret exit to the upper part of the screen (Scene 4). I recommend going to Scene 4 for more items and enemies to fight. Scene 4 (Forest Clearing 1) ------- Section 1: There is yet another secret room (Scene 5) that can be accessed by going towards the upper part of this section. Section 2: More enemies to fight as usual. The crate contains a drumstick. Move further right to meet the same boss as Scene 1. After defeating him (or not), continue on to Scene 6. Scene 5 (Forest Clearing 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: TALISMAN Just a few bears here. Take care of them and get the stuff from the chests. Exit back to Scene 4. Scene 6 (BA ZHEN TU) ------- 4 metal soldiers greet you here. Remember not to hold right when entering this scene. Afterwards, you have to deal with 4 more panthers. Move on to the next scene. Scene 7 (ILLUSION DIMENSION) ------- IMPT ITEMS: FIREBOOK, LIGHTING BOOK, STONE BOOK, LIGHTING SWORD, JADE (All from Lu Bu) Usage of magical items/weapons is sealed here. If you wish to change your swords, you must do it before entering this scene. You have to break the 5 formations here before a certain time limit here if you want to fight Lu Bu. The way to break each formation is to kill the CORRECT soldier of a particular formation before he disappears. The way to identify the correct soldier is to watch how he enters the scene. The correct soldier will ALWAYS JUMP into the screen while the other 4 soldiers won't. The exception is the 4th (sailor) formation. For this formation, the correct soldier will DASH into the screen instead of jumping. Now that you know how to identify which soldier to kill, the next thing to know is how to kill them quickly (not a simple job in a solo game if you are NOT using Zhuge Liang). 1st formation: The soldiers here are weak to any element and have low HP as well. Using a few level 3 ARROWS or beads on the correct soldier plus a little slashing should do the trick. 2nd formation: Same as the previous one. 3rd formation: This could be hardest formation to break yet. The female soldier is weak to ice and the quickest way is to use the ICE SWORD. If not, you have to use a combination of special, level 3 IRON LILLY, slashing and BEADS on her. 4th formation: The soldier here is weak to fire. With the FIRE SWORD, this should not be a problem. If not, use BOMBS on the sailor (if you have them), or you can use the same tactics used in the 3rd formation. 5th formation: BEADS and IRON LILLY works best on metal soldiers. Use up all your remaining beads and one IRON LILLY should do the trick. Use another special for 100% success. If you successfully cleared the 5 formations in time, Lu Bu will appear. Refer to the next section for details. Continue to the next scene. Scene 8 (BA ZHEN TU 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: LIGHTING BOOK (Zuo Ci), TALISMAN (Lu Xun) Note that usage of magical items/weapons is still sealed here. This scene is rather hard to describe. There are 4 traps here, symbolised by Spring (lighting), Summer (fire), Autumn (Wind) and Winter (Ice) in that order. Note that if any of the traps are activated, you can jump onto the slabs at the upper left or right to avoid taking damage. At the start, 4 soldiers will appear. If you kill them fast enough, the Spring trap will NOT be triggered. Next comes the Summer trap. This time you have to take care of 4 sailors with much higher HP than the previous batch of soldiers, making it harder NOT to activate the trap. Also, if this trap is activated, the previous boss Samoko will make his re-appearance if you did not manage to KO him beforehand. The next 2 traps are basically similar to the first one. Just kill all the soldiers quickly (if not just jump onto the slabs) to avoid taking damage. After all that, the seal of magical items will be removed and Lu Xun makes his appearance again. After dealing with him, you have to defeat Zuo Ci to end this stage. vi. STAGE 6 =========== Scene 1 (Winter Road) ------- Nothing unusual here. Defeat all enemies here and just before leaving this scene, the sign outside a house on the upper part of the last section can be broken. This enables you to enter the house (Scene 2). The right exit leads to Scene 3. Scene 2 (House) ------- IMPT ITEMS: LIGHTING TABLET, POLYMORPH SCROLL Some goodies for the taking. Exit back to Scene 1 then Scene 3. Scene 3 (Plains) ------- You have to fight quite a few batches of soldiers to reach the boss, Xu Zhu. After defeating him, there is a branching of the stage. If you did not go through Scene 16 of stage 2 (i.e. meet the Metal soldier) or you met him but attacked him, the door to the city will be open and it leads to Scene 4. If you picked the second choice in Stage 2, he will be at the elevator which leads you directly to the stage boss Huang Gai (Scene 7). Scene 4 (Inside the City 1) ------- Just some simple traps to avoid (the traps do little damage anyway) and some enemies to fight. Take the staircase at the end of the Scene to Scene 5. Scene 5 (Inside the City 2) ------- More simple traps to avoid. But there is a secret room that can be accessed here. Before you can access the room, you must hit 2 switches on the wall to the left of the screen. You will see 2 bricks sticking out of the wall, hit them. After finishing all the enemies, if your character is carrying the JADE (dropped by Lu Bu), you can enter the secret room (Scene 6) which holds the last of the 4 SPECIAL SWORDS. After that, a boss (Meng Yu) will appear. Defeat him to end proceed to the next scene (Scene 7). Scene 6 (Secret room) ------- IMPT ITEMS: EXPLOSION SWORD, ARMOR, WATER BOOK *sidenote* Not too sure about the items here since its been a while since I accessed this room. Can anyone email me if there is anything wrong? Just some ninjas to take care of. You really cannot miss all the goodies if you made it this far. Scene 7 (Top of city) ------- If you came here via Scene 3, you will be at the front of the screen. If you came here via Scene 5, you will be at the back of the screen (not that it matters much anyway). Defeat all the enemies and the stage boss Huang Gai will appear. vii. STAGE 7 (Final Stage) ============ Scene 1 (Along River) ------- IMPT ITEMS: ROCK BOOK (FROM BOSS) This is a long scene with many branches. The first boat at the top of the screen can be entered (Scene 2). If you have the LIGHTING HAMMER, you can pass through the electrical barrer directly opposite of the boat which leads to a totally different route to meet the final boss (Scene 7). If you choose to proceed as normal along Scene 1, you will have to fight another sub-boss similar to the one in stage 2 (the one riding on a horse) as well as Wei Yan. The second boat which comes along can be entered as well (Scene 3). Note that you can enter the second boat during the boss fight or after the boss is defeated. Proceed on to the next scene (Scene 4). Scene 2 (Inside Boat 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: LIGHTING TABLET (2 PLAYERS OR MORE) Nothing much to say here. Scene 3 (Inside Boat 2) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW SCARF (SOLO PLAY) OR ROCK BOOK (2 PLAYERS OR MORE), ARMOR Another treasure room similar to scene 2. Scene 4 (Inside fortress) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW WINE (FROM BOSS) Plenty of soldiers to take care of before you fight another sub boss Wei Yan at the end of this Scene. Note that if you take too long to finish him, he will escape to Scene 5 and you will have to fight him again. There is no difference as to where you finish him, the things that he drops are the same and there are no items to take in Scene 5. In short, finish him here to save time, finish him in Scene 5 if you are trying to earn more score. If you managed to defeat him here, go to Scene 6. If not, go to Scene 5. Scene 5 (Shallow water) ------- IMPT ITEMS: YELLOW WINE (FROM BOSS) Again lots of soldiers to fight before you meet Wei Yan again. This time he will fight to the end. Scene 6 (Final Battle) -------- IMPT ITEMS: DOLL, FAIRY PEN (FROM BOSS) This is it, the final battle. Note that the soldiers' AI is particularly high here and watch your health carefully. Beware of the infinite archers shooting fire arrows behind you. You have to fight 2 bosses (Sima Yi and Cao Cao) consecutively (thank god its not together). Once you beaten Cao Cao, sit back to watch the crappy ending! Scene 7 (Mountain Route 1) ------- Note that the items listed on this path are based on SOLO PLAY. I have never taken this path in a multi-player game. Going through this path to Scene 6 has the advantage of not fighting the 2 sub bosses in this stage. However, those 2 bosses drop pretty good items so take your pick. I recommend that you take this route only if your character cannot perform any lighting elemental attack (be it specials, items, swords). The first cave to the upper part of the screen can be entered (Scene 8). After coming out from there, you have to fight your way through lots of soldiers to proceed on to the next scene (Scene 9). Be very careful here since the AI is noticibly higher here than the previous stages. Scene 8 (Cave 1) ------- IMPT ITEMS: GREEN SWORD Just some weak enemies to be dispatched of. Unfortunately the GREEN SWORD is not effective against the last 2 remaining bosses that you have to fight later. Scene 9 (Mountain Route 2) ------- This scene is even more dangerous than Scene 7 with more powerful enemies and more traps as well. There are 2 more caves that can be accessed from here (Scene 10 and 11). At the very end of the scene (approaching the bridge), there is a green creature that can be killed to yield some healing. Time your walk to avoid the poison gas that are emitted in front of the 2nd cave to enter Scene 11. After you clear this scene, you will go straight to Scene 6 (final battle). Scene 10 (Cave 2) -------- IMPT ITEMS: FIRE BOOK Take care of the ninjas here. A much needed drumstick is here along with a FIRE BOOK. The book is pretty ineffective against the last 2 bosses as well. Scene 11 (Cave 3) -------- IMPT ITEMS: GREEN SWORD Another GREEN SWORD for the taking. Open the chests only after you killed all the enemies here to avoid the traps. END OF WALKTHROUGH ================================================================================ |||||||||||||||||| 6. BOSS STRATEGIES |||||||||||||||||| In this section, I will briefly cover how I deal with all the bosses in this game. Of course everyone has their own strategies and I recommend that you refer to this section only if you have consistant problems dealing with some of the bosses in the game. I will also highlight a little of character-specific strategies for some of the harder bosses in the game. The bosses will be lised in chronological order in the game. The items (magical only) that can be knocked from them are in brackets and the items (magical only also) they drop after their defeat are also listed. Sun Ji ------ Vulnerable to: None Items: DOLL (1) Drops: SLOW SCROLL She is pretty though for a stage 1 boss. Characters with slow attacks (e.g. Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong etc) will find her exceptionally tough due to her quicker attacks. What I suggest is to use all your specials on her. Do not attempt to attack her face to face as most of the time, her attacks will be quicker than yours. The best time to attack is to wait till she does her spinning move (looks like a desperation move). There is a pretty decent chance that she will do that when she gets up on the ground. Stay close to her when she is on the ground, but NOT in the same horizontal line as her in case she does her invincible charging move. Poison does not work well on her, don't waste them on her. Do a first hit on her by positioning yourself correctly behind her when she drops from the roof to get things going. You should knock a DOLL from her if your character can pick it up. Horse 1 (Sorry I forgot their names) ------- Vulnerable to: Lighting Items: LIGHTING TABLET (2) Drops: WHITE WINE, HOURGLASS He is weak against lighting so Zhuge Liang will have a simple task of defeating him (4 specials and he should be almost dead). For other characters, just use your normal attacks on him and block immediately afterwards in case he does his charging attack right after you finished your attack (this rarely occurs though). Ma Chao will have an especially tough time fighting him. He must stand ABOVE him for all 4 hits to connect and he does a pathetic amount of damage to him also. You should knock him twice to get the LIGHTING TABLET if your character can pick it up. Xia Hou Yuan ------------ Vulnerable to: Lighting, FIRE SWORD Items: GENERAL SEAL (1) Drops: None One of the toughest boss in the game. He has the 2 devastating moves; the uppercut move and the sweeping move. Avoid/block these at all costs (press AB if you have to). To make things much easier, just before fighting him, kill all the 4 soldiers first. After that, SLOWLY walk towards him until you can see one (or two?) of the flag poles. Then, have your character do the following moves to lure him out. Guan Yu: Beserk move 46A Original/ Red Zhang Fei: Normal attack Zhao Yun: Special Ma Chao: Same as Guan Yu Original/White Huang Zhong : 6A Zhuge Liang: 46A Zhang Liao: Special Diao Chan: Poison Gas (might need to stand even closer) If successful, he will come after you and you get to fight him one on one. In a multi-player game, the luring is much easier since one player can stand at the extreme left of the screen to pull the screen while the other player provokes him. Anyway, once he is out, use all your poison items on him and do as much damage as you can while he is stunned. For eg, Zhao Yun should do a AAAA 82A combo on him. Ma Chao (who is in beserk mode if you followed my method above) should do his max special on him which should hit 2 times if you stand close enough (use the DOLL from Sun Ji!). For characters with SUMMON GENERAL, you should knock the GENERAL SEAL from him and then use the SUMMON GENERAL. In this way, Wei Yan should do a reasonable amount of damage to him. If you are running out of time, use the HOURGLASS you picked up from the previous boss. Lastly, if you are using original Huang Zhong, and you want to trigger the event, you CANNOT do the luring method. You must walk straight towards him. The only good thing is that Huang Zhong will knife Xia Hou Yuan for a good amount of damage (for one hit anyway). Personally, I rather lure him out to fight one on one. Once you are out of poison items, avoid him and wait for him to do his uppercut move. After that, move to attack him from his back. With luck, this will work on him. Using FLYING DISCS on him and further attacking him is a good choice too. Meng Huo -------- Vulnerable to: None Items: None Drops: None One of the easiest bosses in the game. The only thing to take note is his shouting / screaming move which will make all players dizzy and cause a few carts to rush out from the left side of the screen to knock the players down. The only way to avoid this move is to JUMP when you see him glowing. He will usually run to the right upper part of the screen to do the move so be prepared. Fighting with him on the right side of the screen is dangerous since you will be knocked by the carts even if you jump to avoid the shouting move (you have to jump to avoid being stunned and when you land, the carts hit you). Fight him at the left side of the screen if you can. Xia Hou Dun ----------- Vulnerable to: Lighting Items: None Drops: TALISMAN He is simple enough even if you don't do the "trapping soldiers" trick. With the trick, he is a total pushover. Anyway, here goes the trick: Just in front of the city gates before fighting him, there are 4 wooden barricades, 2 to the top and bottom. Destroy both at the bottom and the RIGHT one at the top. After that, make sure you pull the screen to the highest by standing to the uppermost after he appears. Do not leave that position until you see the incoming soldiers being trapped by the one remaining barricade. You really won't have any problems fighting him one on one. If you do, you might want to consider retiring.. Zhang Liao ---------- Vulnerable to: BEADS, GREEN SWORD Items: None Drops: SUMMON GENERAL One real tough cookie if the soldiers are not trapped. Here is the method: After you came out of the secret room with the WHITE BOOK, kill the ninja and grab the bun. After that, 2 more dynamite soldiers should appear. Do not rush to the right to defeat them. Instead, move back to the left of the screen and let the incoming traps kill them. The important thing here is to make sure you leave enough space for you to move back UP again towards the secret room. After that, move to the uppermost part of the screen (same as for Xia Hou Dun) to pull the screen up. Then, move slowly down and move along the wall, taking care not to pull the screen down again. As you proceed towards the right, you should see one soldier being trapped as he drops from the top. During the boss fight, try not to fight at the left of the screen in case you accidentally kill the soldier, thus ending the trick. With the trick the fight is made much easier, even though not as easy as the previous one. Learn to recognise his combos and only attack him after he finishes his combo (which usually ends with his special). When he shouts, just simply move to a different horizontal line (i.e. just simply move up or down) to avoid the traps. The best times to attack him are: i. when he ends his combo with his normal special and ii. when he shouts for the traps. Note that his fire arrow do A LOT of damage compared to yours. You can also do a first hit on him by standing to the extreme right of the screen since he always does the tornedo move towards the left when he appears (different from Super Heroes version). Diao Chan --------- Vulnerable to: None Items: None Drops: WATER BOOK (2 or more players), WIND BOOK, DOLL A tough boss due to 2 main factors: i. her fast recovery time making the 4th hit of some characters (Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong etc) normal attacks impossible to connect. ii. She is easily knocked back which again affects the 4th hit of some characters (this time due to reach, not due to speed of attack). The second problem can be solved by fighting her while she is backfacing a corner. However, she is very simple to fight in a multi-player game. In a multi-player game, she will always go after the 1st player (don't ask me why, I don't know). So, the other players (level 10 or more for most characters) can just simply jab her to death. Press A.A.A.A..on her and she will not counter attack unless the 1st player is doing it. In solo play, there is no easy way out. For Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong in particular, just attack 3 times instead of the usual 4 and then quickly move away from her. For other characters, just try to get her to the corner and do the usual combos on her. Zhuge Liang in beserk mode can defeat her easily in this way. Lu Meng ------- Vulnerable to: GREEN SWORD, FLYING DISCS Items: BAMBOO (3) Drops: None Another speedy boss next to Diao Chan. It will be hard to hit him especially if you are still new to the game and cannot predict (to a certain degree anyway) his movements. Use all your remaining GREEN SWORD(S) on him if you still have some leftover from Zhang Liao. The HOURGLASS from the Eagle room might come in handy if you find that time is running out (unlikely to be the case if you use GREEN SWORD and FLYING DISCS on him though). Remember to knock the BAMBOO from him to use on Xu Zhu if your character can pick it up. Best time to attack him is when he lands after he does his "fireball" move. Samoko ------ Vulnerable to: Ice attacks Items: FIRE TABLET (1) Drops: None If you have the ICE SWORD, he will be a total pushover. If not, he is still rather simple to fight. His physical attacks are rather slow and easily to avoid. Just watch for his "screaming" attack which you must JUMP to avoid. He will retreat when his HP drops to half a bar. To defeat him during the first encounter, just use the POLYMORPH SCROLL and YELLOW SCARF combo when his HP is about 60% (a level 15 Zhuge Liang or Red Zhang Fei or level 20 Zhao Yun can defeat him this way). Lu Bu ----- Vulnerable to: Fire attacks Items: None Drops: LIGHTING SWORD, LIGHTING BOOK, FIRE BOOK, ROCK BOOK, JADE It is harder to make him appear than to fight him (except Zhuge Liang anyway). He will always teleport in front of you (to let you attack). For characters with shorter reach, the above trick won't work so well so just keep moving around and approach him from a different horizontal line. You might want to use a few poison items if your HP is running low. When he does his special lighting attack whereby he points a finger at you and laughs, just keep on running to avoid the lighting. Take care not to run into other players' area. More experienced players will run at the last moment when the lighting is just about to strike (about 3 secs after he starts laughing). Lu Xun ------ Vulnerable to: None Items: None Drops: TALISMAN The hardest boss in this stage IMHO. His attacks do a lot of damage especially the Z slash. The battle area is small and the soldiers have abnormally high AI. If you still have the GENERAL SUMMON, now will be a good time to use it. He is pretty quick as well, usually jumping from one end of the screen to the other. Luckily his HP is rather low. No real strategies for him, just keep moving and hope to attack him from behind while he is executing some moves of his. The WIND BOOK does a decent amount of damage to him but its hard to hit him in solo play. Zuo Ci ------ Vulnerable to: Fire attacks Items: None Drops: LIGHTING BOOK This boss can be very easy or very hard depending on your character and whether you fought Lu Bu or not. If you fought Lu Bu, you can use the LIGHTING BOOK and FIRE BOOK on him. Characters with TALISMAN can use them ALL on him (no real other uses for the TALISMAN except to fight him, seriously speaking). Try to "aim" so that the fire part hits him instead of the ice part. After that, he should be almost dead. Characters without TALISMAN will have to make do with bombs and specials. Huang Zhong and Zhang Fei can use one of their wines here. The WIND BOOK can be used on him as well if you still have it. Xu Zhu ------ Vulnerable to: BAMBOO Items: None Drops: None This boss is rather tough to fight with his wide range (literally) attacks and the heavy damage that comes with them. Most of his attacks are either the same or more damaging than Cao Cao's (except Cao Cao's special attacks of course). Poison attacks work best on him. Not only it stuns him for a rather long period of time, the poison itself damages him significantly as well (for a normal item's point of view anyway). The BAMBOO damages him by a lot so you should definitely use it on him. Never stand in the same horizontal line as him as he will most likely do his charging or spinning move if you do. Huang Gai --------- Vulnerable to: Ice attacks Items: None Drops: None Compared to Xu Zhu, he is much more easier to handle. You get to fight him one on one as well if you do not move too far right after he appears. After you eliminate the first batch of soldiers, there should be no more soldiers appearing if you stay towards the left side of the screen. After that, everything should be straightforward. If you reached him by beating Meng Yu, then there is no way to fight him one on one (too bad). Horse 2 ------- Vulnerable to: Lighting Items: None Drops: ROCK BOOK Basically the same as the one in stage 2. The important difference is that this horse tends to do his charging attack much more frequently than the previous one. Thus it is very important to block after doing the 4 hit combos. With the ICE or LIGHTING swords, he should be a piece of cake. Wei Yan ------- Vulnerable to: Lighting Items: None Drops: YELLOW WINE Just use up all your LIGHTING TABLETS or LIGHTING BOOK and he should be finished. If you do not have any lighting attacks, you really should not take this route to fight him at all since he is not that easy to handle and your specials are better saved for Sima Yi and Cao Cao. He blocks rather frequently as well. Fighting him in the first area is more difficult since its more conjested and the soldiers can easily backstab you. Sima Yi ------- Vulnerable to: YELLOW SCARF Items: None Drops: DOLL, FAIRY PEN Perhaps even harder than Cao Cao. I shall go through in detail how I fought him. Firstly, I threw 6 cans (ONE AT A TIME) of poison gas on him. With luck, most of the cans should do 3X poison damage on him. This will cut his health to one bar (mabbe a little more depending on how much of the poison cans actually connect with 3 hits each). Note that he will do his "explosion attack" very often after his health is down to one bar or less. With Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun or Red Zhang Fei, the standard drill is to use the POLYMORPH SCROLL and YELLOW SCARF combo after I am done with the poison gas. Ma Chao should use POLYMORPH SCROLL and then do squatting attacks on him (note that Ma Chao's squat attack is his most powerful form of attack or than specials). Guan Yu, Zhang Liao and Diao Chan should just use up all of their YELLOW SCARFS to counter Sima Yi's "explosion attack". Huang Zhong and Zhang Fei, with 2x wines (YELLOW AND WHITE) can just blast him away with their specials. The ROCK BOOK is pretty effective against him as well although it might be hard to hit him with only one person tapping the A button. Other than using items, you can simply jump in towards him to attack him while he is finishing his "explosion" attack. Timing of the jump is critical and might require some practice to do it right. Note that for most characters, using their normal specials is already good enough (in some cases even better) to handle him. There is no need to press ABC and waste a power dot and do the maximum specials. For eg, Zhuge Liang's lighting special is more effective than his water special towards Sima Yi. Cao Cao ------- Vulnerable to: None. Most magical items do "average" amount of damage to him. Items: None Drops: Nothing Wow this is a one to one fight (for solo anyway) and so it won't really be too hard. Ma Chao and Zhuge Liang can handle him without losing one drop of blood using the ICE SWORD infinity trick. For other characters, he is not too hard for a last boss. His only strong points are i. ability to teleport around, ii. ability to kill with one hit with his special, iii. ability to heal himself 3 times for half a bar each time. That's all. Hey but you should have 6x ARMOR (too bad the maximum that can be carried is 6) here right? At level 20, the ARMOR should last for quite some time for you to pound on him. Needless to say, use everything you have on him, HEAVEN BOOKS, specials etc. When he puts his sword on the ground and starts laughing, he is about to do his specials. Quickly do one of the following: i. Use any HEAVEN BOOKS, ARMOR ii. Use any magical item (NOT FAIRY PEN), minus ARMOR (solo play only unless you want to get your friend killed) iii. Press AB lots of times iv. Use your specials (make sure your specials last long enough, highly NOT recommended for Ma Chao) v. Run to the other end of the screen (again, solo play only unless all the players know seemingly which direction to run) vi. Block! With luck, you can block his specials. I have succeeded before, not highly successful though. Try not to do this unless you got lives to spare. ================================================================================ ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 7. IMPORTANT ITEM LOCATIONS ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| For all the people who just wants to know where to get what, I have listed down the locations of all the magical and unique magical items you can find in the game. Refer to the walkthrough if you cannot understand the locations that I listed. Magical Items ------------- i. HOURGLASS -- 1. After defeating Horse 1 at stage 2 2. In the drum at end of Ice Sword Route 1 at stage 3 3. In the crate in the Eagles Room at stage 4 ii. GREEN SWORD -- 1. Lower statue at the beginning of stage 1 2. First secret room of Ice Sword Route of stage 3 3. First cave of the mountain route of stage 7 4. Last cave of the mountain route of stage 7 iii. LIGHTING TABLET -- 1. Knock from Horse 1 at stage 2 2. Cave which Wang Ping (the metal soldier) opens for you at stage 2 3. Central torch just before the secret room before fighting Zhang Liao 4. Inside a house at the first scene of stage 6 5. Inside the first boat of stage 7 (multiplayer only) iv. YELLOW SCARF - 1. Just outside the ICE SWORD room in stage 3 2. Secret room which is accessed by hitting the 2 candles in stage 4 3. Forest clearing with a lot of panthers in stage 5 4. Inside the 2nd boat of stage 7 (solo only) v. BAMBOO - 1. Inside a crate at the scene by going left at the first elevator 2. Knock Lu Meng 3 times vi. FAIRY PEN - 1. Just outside the ICE SWORD room in stage 3 2. Secret room just before fighting Zhang Liao in stage 3 3. Dropped from Sima Yi vii. POLYMORPH SCROLL - 1. Cave which Wang Ping (the metal soldier) opens for you at stage 2 2. First secret room at first scene of stage 5 3. Inside a house at the first scene of stage 6 viii. TALISMAN - 1. The last chest in the scorpion cave (the same chest which Zhuge Liang must open to get the FIRE SWORD) 2. Destroy the 7th cart just before fighting Xia Hou Dun 3. Dropped by Xia Hou Dun 4. Inside a chest at a forest clearing with bears at stage 5 5. Dropped by Lu Xun ix. ARMOR - 1. Inside a crate at the last scene of 1st stage 2. Inside the trapped chest at panther cave of 2nd stage 3. On one of the ninjas at the last section of scorpion cave 4. Inside a chest in the first secret room of the Ice Sword Route 5. On one of the ninjas just in front of the ICE DOOR 6. Inside a barrel at the forest clearing with panthers at stage 5 7. Inside a chest in the EXPLOSION SWORD room at stage 6 8. Inside a chest in the second boat at stage 7 9. Dropped by Sima Yi Unique Magical Items -------------------- i. FIRE TABLET - 1. FIRE SWORD Cave 2. Inside a barrel at stage 3 before fighting Xia Hou Dun 3. Knocked from Samoko ii. SUMMON GENERAL - 1. Cave which Wang Ping (the metal soldier) opens for you at stage 2 2. Dropped by Zhang Liao iii. GENERAL SEAL - 1. Knocked from Xia Hou Yuan iv. SLOW SCROLL - 1. Dropped from Sun Ji 2. Knocked from an animal tamer who is sleeping at Scene 3 Stage3 v. NAMELESS FLAME - 1. Being scorched by the last fire pillar at FIRE SWORD Cave vi. DOLL - 1. Knocked from Sun Ji 2. Dropped by Diao Chan 3. Dropped by Sima Yi vii. JADE - 1. Dropped by Lu Bu viii. MEDAL - 1. Dropped by Wang Ping (the metal soldier) at stage 2 ix. YELLOW WINE - 1. Cave which Wang Ping (the metal soldier) opens for you at stage 2 2. Knocked from an animal tamer at Scene 4 Stage 3 3. Dropped by Wei Yan x. WHITE WINE - 1. Dropped by Horse 1 xi. LIGHTING HAMMER - 1. Inside a crate at Eagle Room at stage 4 xii. GOLDEN SCORPION - 1. Kill the large scorpion moving about in the scorpion cave in stage 2 xiii. FIRE ARROWS - 1. Inside a chest at FIRE SWORD cave 2. Secret room which is accessed by hitting the 2 candles in stage 4 xiv. FIRE BOOK - 1. Inside a chest in a secret room at stage 1 (multi-player only) 2. Dropped by Lu Bu 3. Inside a chest in the 2nd cave in the mountain route in stage 7 xv. LIGHTING BOOK - 1. Destroy the top statue at the ICE SWORD Room 2. Dropped by Lu Bu 3. Dropped by Zuo Ci xvi. WATER BOOK - 1. Dropped by Diao Chan (multi-player only) 2. Inside a chest at EXPLOSION SWORD room (?) xvii. WIND BOOK - 1. Dropped by Diao Chan xviii. STONE BOOK - 1. Dropped by Lu Bu 2. Dropped by Horse 2 3. Inside a chest in the second boat at stage 7 (multi- player) xix. WHITE BOOK - 1. Inside a crate at the secret room before fighting Zhang Liao (I think the 2nd cave of the mountain route of stage 7 holds another one in a multi-player game, but its not confirmed). xx. SEVEN STAR LANTERN - 1. First secret room of Ice Sword Route of stage 3 ================================================================================ ||||||||||||||||| 8. HINTS AND TIPS ||||||||||||||||| i. The universal tip of this game is to kill all enemies (except bosses) as slowly as possible so as to gain more score and more specials (since the power bar is charged by number of hits, not number of enemies killed). This can be done easily (before level 10) by just pressing A.A.A.A etc to jab every enemy to death. After level 10, this is not very useful since most enemies will be dead by the 3rd jab or so. This form of attack is very useful against large groups of enemies since it can hit them all at one time. Pressing A rapidly on a large group of enemies will not be as effective as pressing A slowly on them. Characters with slow attacks (Zhao Yun, Huang Zhong etc) can make do with A.46A.46A.46A if you are playing the Plus version (until level 5 only). ii. For Zhao Yun, always use his 6AAA after he finishes his 4th hit of his normal attack to gain an extra 900 points per soldier. iii. Zhuge Liang's Max special can be used to earn lots of score. Note that this depends on only the number of enemies present and not the HP of the enemy. Regardless of the HP of the enemy, the water will always do 10 hits per enemy (up to 40 hits for an entire attack). The special is twice as damaging if it is executed when the beserk gauge is almost finished. No amount of shaking/rotating of the controller will increase the damage. iv. Use the SUMMON GENERAL only after you get the GENERAL SEAL. Same thing goes for the SLOW SCROLL. v. When playing solo, there is always the problem of space shortage in the inventory. Here is a general list of items that I recommend to take: -All magical items that the character can pick up EXCEPT FAIRY PEN. -All poison items until stage 3 (use them all on Xia Hou Yuan). After that, characters who can take lots of magical items (Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun etc) should only collect poison gas and leave out poison dart. -You should pick up the HOURGLASS at stage 2 to increase the amount of time for one to one combat with Xia Hou Yuan. -The TALISMAN at stage 2 can be ignored since 4 more can be picked up later and you need the space for poison items at stage 2. -If you want to fight Lu Bu, make sure you have enough normal items. You should have lots of BEADS and a few IRON LILLIES. ARROWS should have the last priority to be picked up (although level 3 arrows are quite useful for Zhang Liao). Make sure you have enough space on your 2nd inventory page to pick up the items that Lu Bu drops. vi. Do not be afraid to lose one life if your character is already dying while the boss is still quite healthy. Using up an ARMOR is unlikely to help. Bottomline is, be stingy on the use of magical items. Use them only if you know they are going to be effective and can turn the tide of the battle to your favour. Ya Ya, everything on top won't be applicable if you have no more lives left. vii. In multiplayer games, let the player with the lower score do the finishing on the bosses. The finishings are a big part in the end-of-stage bonuses of every stage. In this way, the levels are more evenly distributed among the characters. viii. Try not to continue the game when you lose all your lives. Replay the entire game to get even more familier with the game so that you can improve further. ================================================================================ ||||||||||||| 9. LAST WORDS ||||||||||||| Just want to thank the following with regards to this game: IGS, for producing this new adventure game since Capcom stopped at their Battle Circuit. My friend, Tin HC for introducing me to this game and showing me the basics of it. All the various sources from the internet for providing me the various information about the game. CJayC for posting this at GameFaqs. The reader, for taking his/her time to read all the crap that I typed. -eof-